The Stargazer

Stargazer (chapter Twenty-two)

“Wait! You can’t do this!”


Aislinn ignored the men following her through the shale slide. She’d abandoned the safety of the narrow trail altogether in favor of speed. She had to get back to the portal.


“Stop!”


A hand clamped on her arm, tugging at her. She threw it off but the motion twisted her on the unstable footing and she went down on her bottom, setting off a small slide. Riding the wave of stone to the bottom, she jolted back to her feet and headed for the shimmer of light that overlay the wall. She didn’t move fast enough.


The tall soldier grabbed her arm again, this time refusing to let go. She spun around, anger sparking the air around her.


“Let go of me.”


“I can’t let you go in there.”


His nothing expression had vanished and now bordered on desperation. Apparently, Wheezer’s existence was supposed to have scared her for some reason, but when the automaton had woken up and talked, she hadn’t been the one spooked.


“Rowan went through there over a month ago!”


“And that thing has been dormant since then.” The tall man eased his grip a little but didn’t let go. “Rowan went through the portal, yes. He had this crazy idea he might be able to talk to the kobold, to get them to stop the attacks. We haven’t seen or heard from him since.”


“Why didn’t you tell me that when I asked about him?” Aislinn jerked her arm free, in no mood to be placated.


“You can’t go after him.”


“The hell I can’t.” She dodged his grab and backed toward the shimmer of light. Stones rattled as two of the others scrambled down the slope toward them. “If you tell me it has anything to do with the fact that I have a uterus, you’re going to be in serious trouble.”


“You are a woman,” he gritted out.


She’d heard the sound of lost patience from Rowan enough to recognize it now. It made no difference.


“I’m aware of that fact but, I’m not your woman. I’m not even a woman under your care. You have no right to dictate to me where I go and what I do.”


“Females are restricted to the city limits for good reason.”


Aislinn avoided his attempt to latch onto her again. The portal was a pond ripple of light on the edge of her vision. Just a few more steps and she would be through. The scatter of stones became heavy footsteps, rushing her direction. Her time was up.


Without stopping to wonder about what sort of mess she might be getting herself into, she turned and dove into the almost-light. Fingers closed on her upper arm but too late to stop her. A sticky warmth enveloped her, pulling her along through what felt like a narrow passage, but the universe itself sprawled around her in majestic expanse. Magic, dark and unfamiliar, played over her nerves. She heard someone shout and an answer as the world fractured into a reflective progression of images that turned and changed, edges thin enough to cut.


To one side, gray stone lay shattered, gates of raw granite thrusting out of the ground. Black and gray striations ran like bleeding claw marks over the flesh of the earth. She knew this place. The Gates of the Unseelie Court in the Broken Hills. Not her favorite place to visit.


The world shifted, tugged her toward the other side and she caught sight of black stone that glittered unnaturally under a red moon. Aislinn forced herself to a halt within the spinning panorama of choices.


Another living being stood beside her, his grip on her arm the only thing keeping him from catapulting into one of the realities. The tall soldier. A scream echoed oddly within the reflected possibilities of the universe. Another soldier shot past, catapulted into the Broken Hills.


“Catch him!” she shouted, hoping the tall man would hear and understand.


A body slammed into them, hard enough to jar her footing and they slid a little closer to the dark world beyond the portal. The taller man caught a hold on the other man’s armor, reeling him in.


“We go through together,” she shouted. There was too great a risk of them winding up in differing realities if they didn’t.


Go back, the soldier mouthed, his words ripped away by the magic that swirled around them. He said a great deal more than that, but those words she could make out.


She shook her head. Her path lay ahead, where Rowan waited. She hadn’t come this far to turn back now.


Not that they had much choice. Once she turned her gaze away from the familiar sight of the Unseelie court, the magic strengthened, pulling them all willy-nilly toward the world of black stone on a slide of magic that tasted somehow metallic.


They tumbled free of the portal like droplets shaken off a duck’s back. Aislinn rolled, sharp edged stone gouging at her through the hardened leather of her gear. The soldier and his partner landed in a clash of metal and grunts of pain. She regained her feet first, gazing around at the black rock with a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.


“It’s wrong,” she whispered. “Coal without fire. Steel without iron.” Cold. Unnaturally cold and it had nothing to do with the air temperature.


The two men regained their feet, gazing around in growing horror. A flat plateau of black stone spread away from the gilded arch that encompassed the portal on this side.


“A staging area,” one said flatly.


“Staging?” She looked around again seeing nothing but flat, empty stone.


“For assembling an army,” the other explained, looking no happier than his companion. “We need to get back and warn Command about this.”


“Okay.” Aislinn headed for the edge of the plateau and looked down.


“Where are you going?”


“You can go back if you want.” She shrugged, more intent on the valley below than on the men behind her. “I’m going on. Rowan is down there somewhere.”


“You can’t know that. He could be in any one of the other places we saw coming through.”


But he wasn’t. She knew it in her bones. The Stargazer knew his way around the Faery Realms too well to be trapped there and those who inhabited them knew of him. The tales of the changeling would only have grown over the years giving him notoriety that would keep him safe.


She ignored him, slipping over the edge of the stone and feeling with her toes for a foothold below. There was likely a path leading down from the plateau, but paths down were also paths up and she wasn’t sure she wanted to meet the inhabitants of this place quite yet. There was something wrong with this place, something that made her want to turn and run. But she couldn’t turn back. Not yet.


The urge to use her wings and fly down grew with every step she took. The urge only grew stronger when the two soldiers dropped close to flank her, their body weight neatly supported by a thin rope and a belaying clamp built into their armor. Gritting her teeth, she resisted. If they laid hands on her, that would change, but they only kept an eye on her as she made her way to the bottom.


They unhooked the ropes and recoiled them as she took a look around. More stone but now scattered ferny growth sprouted from cracks and occasionally a purple insect the size of her fist would scuttle out from a shadow in a hurry to get to another shadow. As she watched, one hesitated on top of the small boulder it had chosen to scale, its carapace gleaming in the dim light.  A whoosh of air was the only warning as a winged creature with gray fur swooped over the bug and rose again, bug firmly clasped in one clawed foot. A thin scream faded as the creature vanished into the crimson moonlight.


Marching footsteps crunched over gravel. The soldiers herded her closer to the wall, hemming her in with their larger bodies. A shove with an elbow only gained her a bruised elbow and a tighter relationship with the stone that threatened to compromise her ability to breathe. She wanted to swear but didn’t dare as the footsteps came closer and then rose as the marchers took a trail to the plateau. Tiny rocks rustled and plinked down onto their heads, dislodged from the rise above. Voices murmured but she couldn’t make out the words. A quick tug of air and the voices whispered in her ear.


“…same energy as the other one,” a male voice was saying.


“I will tell the princeza of this.” An older male with the tone of command to him. The words were harsh, with sharp edges and guttural pronunciations. “Find them and report to me.”


Them? How did he know there was more than one?


She didn’t get to ponder very long.


A slim figure flashed through the air, landing in a semi-crouch in front of the huddled group. Swarthy skin and gray eyes were framed by hair so white it shone in the moonlight while layered scale armor absorbed the dim glow. A grin showed sharply pointed teeth.


“Down!”


Before the soldiers could react or bring their weapons to bear, more slim, dark figures dropped from the sky to join the first. Long pikes of dark metal thrust toward them, stilling any thought of resistance before it began.


An older man stepped toward them and the two soldiers moved closer together, blocking Aislinn’s view. She fumbled for her crossbow, notched a bolt and waited, heart racing.


“Step out.”


The command gripped her lungs, squeezing hard. She fought the vertigo, spots dancing in front of her eyes. The magic of his voice pulled at her like chains on her sense of self. The men in front of her sagged to their knees, gagging on air.


Moving slowly, steel gray eyes locked on her, the male reached between her companions and plucked the bow from her nerveless hands. She couldn’t move, could do nothing but watch as he removed the bolt and studied it.


With a sudden smile that made her stomach knot in panic, he licked the flint arrowhead, drawing it along his tongue like a rare treat. Sparks danced between sharpened teeth and he laughed, throwing the bow away to clatter among the stones.


“Bring them.”