PAGE 8

When he reached the first step of the dark hard stairs, Onja reacted. Blue and white fire raced up the high walls of the dungeon and drove back the dark as if lightning had struck beneath the Keep.

Pain pierced Shan’s back. With a scream, he crumpled to his knees and the woman slid from his supporting shoulders.

Onja stalked toward them and released another blasting spell of bright energy that clung to the walls and spun around the edges of the ceiling.

The Zenglawa woman did not look back. She clawed up a few more steps and tried to escape with all her strength, but Onja lunged over Shan and grabbed the woman’s ankles. Onja supplemented her angry strength with levitation magic and flung the woman behind her and back toward the cells.

Gasping, Shan rolled over and Onja stood over him like a crane about to strike a fish from the pond. She was fierce and terrible, and until that awful moment, Shan had never truly conceived of the awesome power that Onja commanded.

The rys Queen attacked him with her magic. Super hot blasts of air pummeled him as she cast her attack spells. Pure instinct allowed Shan to survive. He cast shield spells for the first time in his life and insulated himself from her killing magic.

Onja’s spells stormed around him, and in the eerie glow of her magical fire, Shan watched the cuffs of her sleeves begin to smoke. He also felt his shielding magic buckling beneath her mighty onslaught. She was going to kill him. He was certain of it even though the most sacred law to all rys was the law against killing another rys.

Onja was close to Shan and he kicked one of her feet out from under her. She came down hard onto one knee on the stone steps, and her attack faltered.

Shan scrambled backward on the steps and then rolled over and ran up to the guard room. In terror of Onja, he fled and forgot the woman such was his fear for his life. He ran by the two rys in the guard room. They had surely sensed the eruption of magic in the dungeon but neither of them had investigated. All rys knew to stand aside when Onja used her powers.

Shan ran out of the Keep. With barely a conscious thought, he opened the wrought iron gates of the courtyard with his magic. The bird designs in the gates banged open loudly like two crows disturbed from their roosts. Sweat plastered Shan’s hair to his head and his heart hammered like a crew of miners. He ran through Jingten. He saw rys on the streets stop and look at him.  Many stepped out of his path, aghast by the sight of him. They could feel the hot guilt of their Queen’s punishing magic all over him.

Halfway across the city, Shan slowed. There was a wind and it was cold on his sweaty skin. Shan sagged with despair. Placing his hands on his thighs, he leaned over and tried to catch his breath. He had no one to turn to for help. Yes, I know of loneliness, he thought.

When Shan lifted his head, he looked beyond the rooftops of the city. Some of the copper roofs were recently polished and reflected the thickening cloud cover over the valley, but others were tarnished green and complemented the pine forests that pressed close to Jingten. Shan’s eyes latched onto the great mountains that contained the forested valley. The peaks of the Rysamand suddenly beckoned him.

He ran again, out of the city and through the pines. Without pausing, he labored up the increasing inclines toward the mountains. Shan passed the tree line and here snowflakes were driven by a stronger wind. Without seeking any kind of trail, he climbed. He grasped the narrow cracks in the rock and pulled himself up sheer cliffs and across rough icy fields of sharp broken stones.

Shan did not stop until the dusk dimmed the valley and the first stars lit up over the mountains. Pulling himself onto a ledge, he rested and looked back. Jingten was far below him now, nestled against Lake Nin like an egg in a distant basket. He did not dare send his mind back to the city to see what Onja was doing. It sufficed at the moment that she was not clawing her way up the steep rock and snow to attack him.

The air was thin and cold, but the alpine extremes were the natural environment for rys and did not trouble him. Actually, the pure mountain wind refreshed him and began to blow a lifetime of litter from his mind.

He looked higher. The peak of the mountain twisted over him into the starry sky. After getting his bearings, Shan recalled the name of the mountain that he had half climbed in his blind flight. Mount Curlenfindi.

Through the night, Shan climbed for its summit. If he slipped on the ice, he caught himself with his levitation magic and struck his hands into the snowpack as if they were ice axes. He used his magical perception to find a way in the dark, and one hand hold and foot hold at a time, he approached the mountain top.

With the dawn, he mounted the summit and came shakily to his feet. All around him spread the Rysamand Mountains , choked with glaciers except for the green jewel that was the Jingten Valley . The rising sun kissed the snow fields. Snow powder blowing from the peaks cast rainbows down the mountain sides, and Shan saw his world of Rystavalla anew.

He settled onto the summit cross legged and descended into meditation. He focused the forces of nature through his soul and into the majestic pinnacle of Curlenfindi beneath him. Shan tuned his body to the slow colossal breathing of the world.

The elements did not harm his body. Harsh wind drove ice needle snow against him, but his body automatically healed its flesh with his magic. His breathing slowed and he preserved his body against the cold. He did not need to eat or drink. Deep into his semi-hibernation, he began to discover the true potential of his powers. NEXT PAGE >>>