The first dagger.
Her initial hope faded quickly. Shade had frozen her in place, kept her even from speaking. What good would the dagger do? Her elven powers were hardly comparable to- No! She was not an elf! Her father was Cabe Bedlam, her mother the Lady of The Amber! The thoughts were Galani"s, not hers.
She was a Bedlam. This was something well within her abilities.
Valea struggled against Shade"s spell, knowing it had been cast to control the much less powerful elf.
It fragmented easily under her will.
What she intended to do, the sorceress could not say, but she felt certain that seizing the first dagger had to be part of it. She sped across the chamber, diving toward Arak.
Caught up in his own spellcasting, the hooded warlock did not immediately notice her escape. When he did, he shouted something in an unknown language, then turned to deal with her.
Bending down, Valea took the dagger.
In a replay of a few short minutes before, Arak"s hand seized her wrist.
Eyes full of blood, the male elf gasped, "S-sever the tie, c-cousin . . ."
And to Valea"s shock and dismay, her hand twisted of its own accord, freeing the wrist from Arak"s grip, then turning and now plunging the second blade into his chest.
Her rebellious hand removed the dagger as quickly as it had thrust it in. Curiously, instead of dying at last, Arak immediately looked healthier. His breathing normalized and his skin grew less pale. His eyes opened wide and clear-at which point he shouted, "Galani! Look out!"
Valea or Galani-it was now impossible to separate the two souls-spun around to defend the still-recuperating elf.
Shards of pain ripped through her stomach as the warlock"s magical a.s.sault caught her only half-shielded.
"You little wretch! I-" Shade abruptly screamed, his agony echoed throughout the chamber. At the same time, the Wyr Stone transformed, becoming as black as an abyss.
The warlock"s body grew distorted, twisted, as if his bones had jellied.
With another mournful cry, he wrapped his cloak around him and vanished.
Arak tried to rise, but could not yet do so. Even filled with pain, Valea was determined to pursue Shade and so, she felt, was Galani. The sorceress eyed the Wyr Stone, the core of the situation . . .
The teleportation spell she cast moments later did not take her far, yet it nearly sent her blacking out from renewed agony. She put her hand to her waist and found more blood.
As her gaze rose again, she also found Shade.
His own flight had not taken him far. He lay sprawled halfway up the very staircase where Valea had begun her excursion into the Manor"s memories. His body was still stretched slightly long, but reverted more normal with each of his ragged breaths.
"I am r-renewed, Galani. You may call me Erynar . . . th-this time."
"No," she returned grimly, stumbling toward him with the dagger pressed against her side. "You"re not dead . . . not yet."
Pushing himself up, Shade pointed at her. His gloved fingers distorted, becoming black tentacles seeking her throat and chest.
Valea countered, creating a barrier of flame that sent his fingers swiftly withdrawing, the tips aglow. The warlock stumbled up several more steps before managing to recover.
He actually laughed. "Galani! How v-vicious you"ve become-and how p-powerful! The Wyr Stone can be very seductive, can it not?"
"I wouldn"t know."
"But you had better be using the stone, dear Galani," the murky face mocked. "For if not, that large wound will soon be the finish of you."
It was already the finish of Galani, but the elf was as determined as Valea to end this. Both moved in concert in one body and Valea realized that Galani fully understood who and what resided within her.
She stretched out one delicate and quite empty hand-a hand covered in blood-toward the warlock. "Come dance with us one last time, Shade."
"Us? Have you become like me, then?" He laughed again and from the confines of his voluminous cloak a ferocious wind struck at his adversary.
The sorceress dismissed it as readily as the tentacles.
"You do wield the Wyr Stone!"
Valea shook her head. "She does. I don"t." The b.l.o.o.d.y hand opened again. "Come dance with us."
A tremendous force tugged at the warlock, dragging him back down the steps. He struggled, but even his legendary power only slowed his descent.
Two souls inhabited the female elf"s body, but it was Galani who had chosen to bind herself to the Wyr Stone. She lacked the knowledge and practice Valea had, but with the artifact, she had no such worry any more.
Separate, either would have been no match for the hooded madman. Together, he had no hope.
But in his madness, Shade did see that last. With a roar, he took advantage of the force pushing him toward his foe by suddenly leaping at her. Galani momentarily lost her resolve, but Valea strengthened her just as Shade reached them.
By rights, he should have sent all of them flying backward, but the sorceress"s added might made it seem as if the warlock had struck a stone wall instead. Galani"s/Valea"s b.l.o.o.d.y hand gripped his gloved one tight, pulling him close. Momentum made them twirl around and around several times. Finally, the dagger came up, thrust this time in the back so that there would be no hope of Shade reaching it physically.
He screamed, his blurred visage revealing a huge darkness where the mouth had to be. He twisted and turned in their grip but could not free himself. Around and around they spun, the shadowy figure now engulfed by the Wyr Stone"s power fed through by the dagger. Galani it had been who had slumped over the cursed artifact, drenching it with her blood and making the dagger her key to its might. Valea now in a sense stepped back, watching warily from within her host in case something went awry.
But Shade continued to scream and once more his form distorted. His arms, legs, torso-even his head stretched and turned. An aura that constantly shifted color and pattern surrounded him, ate away at his very existence.
And for a brief moment . . . Valea did see the true face of Shade.
It was and was not what she had expected. A young face, not much older than her own, but with hints here and there of so many, many years of torment. It was an aristocratic face and not unhandsome. Dark hair hung over much of the forehead and framed narrow crystalline eyes, a brooding, pained brow, angular cheeks and jaw, and slightly curved nose.
Then the face returned to a blur and, with a last, agonized howl, Shade melted in her grip.
He melted like wax tossed into a hot furnace, literally dripping to the floor. There, what had once been a man quickly dissipated into smoke, spreading randomly throughout the corridors of the Manor and vanishing beyond.
Yet as the last vestiges of Shade dwindled away, Valea could not help immediately thinking somewhere else he is being reborn this very minute.
But she could not concern herself with that, for suddenly she felt herself slipping away. No. Galani was dying. She had bound herself to the Wyr Stone, but not to the extent of her cousin. To use its might even to save herself had seemed an abomination to the elf. The sinister stone had repelled her; she had only sought it to destroy Shade.
"F-fear not. I will not let it happen to you," the lips said to the sorceress.
Vertigo overcame Valea . . . and the next second, she found herself floating like a ghost in front of Galani.
The elf gazed at her, smiled weakly. "You look-you look like me. All those-those times-I wondered if you-if you were a ghost from the past. A lost s-soul." She coughed up blood. "Now I-I know-I w-was the ghost . . . but seeing you-I wonder if I am to be r-reborn just like him," she added, referring to Shade. The smile faltered. "Perhaps he and I-he and you-might meet and become as I once h-hoped . . ."
Valea knew that Galani would hear her if she spoke, but still the crimson-tressed figure said nothing. She did not want to tell the elf that Shade was dead in her time, never to return.
"Galani!"
Arak, completely healed, raced toward the staircase. Such was his concern that he did not really register Valea"s phantasmal figure and so ran right through her to reach his beloved cousin.
"Arak," she gasped. "I had to do it, didn"t I?"
Galani slumped forward, the dagger dropping.
Valea"s world turned black.
VIII.
SHE WOKE IN her bed without any notion as to how she had gotten there. Rising quickly, Valea went to the window to get some idea of how far the day had progressed. By the sun"s position she knew that nearly all of it had been spent.
Setera and the others who attended her again fretted over her peculiar behavior, but Valea shrugged off their concern and a.s.sured them that she would soon be better. Her illness had pa.s.sed. Now that she had witnessed-even taken part in-the climactic moment, Valea felt certain that the dreams would end. Still, it irked her that some questions remained.
And that drew her back to the staircase.
The spot where Galani had died remained burned in her memory, as did the destruction of Shade. Making certain that no one watched, Valea retraced their movements, reliving each moment until the point where Arak had come too late to save his cousin. What she hoped to accomplish, she could not say, but it seemed the only thing to do.
From the library, she heard a peculiar, creaking sound.
Valea rushed to the room, certain that now the way had opened for her. She stepped through the entrance-and saw only the bookcases standing as they had all her life.
Dejected, the weary sorceress touched the one in question, already knowing that it would not move.
Suddenly, the strange groaning started anew. At first Valea thought that the book case did open, but then she saw that it was only a shadow of the case, a ghost. Before her stood not only the physical piece, but also, turned to the side like a door ajar, a phantom image with different books, different tomes, lining each shelf.
Valea reached forward-and her hand sank into the wall.
Without hesitation, she stepped through . . . into solid stone.
She walked through it, retracing the ancient path down. The entire underground system had been filled, leaving not one iota of empty s.p.a.ce. Oddly, Valea had no fear; some inner sense soothed her, a.s.sured her that the way was safe.
At the bottom, in the chamber where Arak had kept the Wyr Stone, she found Galani.
The elf was perfectly preserved. Her arms had been placed over her midsection and her blue gown had been straightened. Care had been taken to clean and dress the area of her terrible wound. She looked calm, almost wistful. Again, the resemblance between them struck Valea.
Galani lay floating in the midst of all the stone, encased forever by Arak, no doubt. There seemed no sign of the male elf and Valea wondered what had happened to both him and the Wyr Stone.
Then the sudden knowledge came to her that she now walked within the latter.
It was and was not as the sorceress had known it. The Wyr Stone had been altered beyond recognition both in appearance and substance, yet still she felt its presence, knew it now for the artifact that had been at the center of the tragedy. More than that now, Valea realized that it was the stone that had led her through all this, was responsible for her particular ghosts.
Perhaps all the ghostly memories of the Manor.
As Valea thought the last, she immediately pictured Arak setting his cousin here. One last time he bound himself to the Wyr Stone in order to create this crypt. Valea could hear the elf as he touched the artifact, hear Arak"s last, single-word command before his permanent departure.
"Remember . . ."
And so the stone . . . and through it, the Manor . . . did. But because of the immense power of the Wyr Stone, not just the memories of Galani were saved, but so many, many others after also. And with the peculiar properties of the artifact, even older memories were suddenly resurrected, adding further to the ancient edifice"s growing legion of ghosts.
Valea blinked, realizing that she had envisioned all this too clearly for it simply to be her imagination. She had just been told what Arak had done . . . and she knew that she had been told by Galani.
Forever bound to the Wyr Stone, forever bound to the Manor because of it, Galani was now a part of each as much as they were a part of her. Her physical sh.e.l.l remained, but she had become, in a sense, much, much more.
Which explained perhaps further why Valea, who had been born in this place, so resembled her.
She felt a sudden urge to depart and wisely followed it. Almost in the blink of an eye the youngest Bedlam stood once again before a very real, very solid bookcase. Recovering her equilibrium, Valea touched the wall, but this time found it as solid as the stone it was. It did not surprise her that she somehow knew that never again would she journey below or that those particular ghosts had vanished forever.
A DAY LATER, Lord Gryphon contacted her through a spell. The proud, avian head peered at her from within her mind.
"I hope I find you well, Valea Bedlam."
"Yes, my lord . . . and you?"
"Good enough. Some matters I won"t trouble you with." He c.o.c.ked his head to the side. "I fear, though, I have only disappointment for you."
She had been at her desk, still writing down all of which she had been a part. The journal was a personal one and would not be seen by her father unless she deemed it necessary. "Disappointment?"
"I find no mention of an Arak, as I suspected. I"m sorry."
"I did not expect you to. My thanks, though."
He was not finished. "Then there is the Wyr Stone."
Her attention was absolute. "Yes?"
"Nothing but a myth. I thought I recalled mention of it. I looked in my old journals from my mercenary years . . ." He shrugged. "We old campaigners like to look back at the wars fondly . . . once they"re long over. Anyway, the subject of the stone came up once, but I had it verified by the best of sources that it was futile to go searching for it since it did not even exist."
Valea barely held back a tired smile. "The best of sources? You"re sure?"
"It was your great-grandfather, Nathan . . . and he had queried Shade himself on the subject."
For a moment, the sorceress was speechless. Quickly recovering, she thanked the lionbird for his diligence, then bid him farewell.
Shade himself.
It had remained a mystery to her why she had been the one who had been able to touch the Manor"s memories after so many attempts by her father and others. Now she thought she knew. Perhaps Galani had reached out to her other self, her reborn self. Perhaps she had been trying to send a message, a warning. Perhaps another stirring presence had awakened her.