The Divided Knight - Chapter Twenty-Six

Zoe and Thaddeus had taken refuge in a cave not far from the ruined Eltaran village. A pack of drakes – at least five of the creatures, and probably more – stalked the night outside, their intermittent shrieks and screeches, coupled with the inherent sense of wrongness that emanated from them, making Zoe's skin crawl. She was sure that, if they had to stay in the cave much longer, she'd eventually lose her mind and run, screaming, outside, where one of the drakes would make a meal of her soul – the myths all said they fed on souls instead of flesh, and Zoe, right now, had no reason to discount them. At least it wasn't dark, as Thaddeus had been able to conjure a faint ball of mage light and set it between them without drawing attention from outside. Apparently, the drakes weren't just immune to magic – they couldn't sense it, either.

“What are we going to do, Thaddeus?” Zoe asked, her voice hardly louder than a whisper.

“I don't know,” Thaddeus said. “How many times are you going to ask me that?”

“I'm sorry. Those . . . those things out there are just so wrong. I need to get away from them. I need to!”

“I know. So do I. But the minute we leave this cave, we're dead.” A drake screeched outside, very close to the cave opening, and Thaddeus cast a wary glance in that direction. “If only they weren't immune to magic!”

“Do you remember how they moved when they were chasing us?”

Thaddeus looked at her. “Jerkily, you mean?”

Zoe nodded. “Their motion was blurred, too. It was almost like . . . I don't know . . . like they weren't completely in phase. Like not all of them are in this reality.”

“If they aren't, that would explain why they feel so wrong, too.” Thaddeus's eyes grew glassy they way they did when Aylander was saying something. “Aylander thinks that might also be the source of their immunity.”

“It would make sense if it is. Magic can only have an effect on things with a solid existence in this reality. That's why spirits are immune, too.”

“Do you think there might be a way to draw the drakes fully into our reality?”

“There might be. I don't see how it would be possible to kill them, otherwise. And the myths all agree that they can be killed.”

Thaddeus's eyes glazed over, again, then he frowned.

“What did he say?” Zoe asked.

Instead of answering, Thaddeus spoke the spell – learned from her – that conjured Aylander. The Eltaran appeared at the edge of the mage light, back where the cave started to extend further into the mountain, his spectral form just barely visible.

“Though I am loathe to speak about it,” Aylander said, “the answers to many of our questions may lie deeper within this cave. If memory serves, we are in a shaft that leads down to one of the Vaults.”

“What's a Vault?” Zoe asked.

“It's a prison,” Thaddeus said. “A prison built for Sprites.”

“What?”

“Thaddeus speaks truthfully, if a bit crudely,” Aylander said. “Vaults were large chambers lined with iron where Sprites were kept so they could be studied. My people understood the Sprites no better than your own, and attempting to learn about them outside of a controlled environment proved to be a fruitless endeavor. When it was found that Sprites reacted in very specific ways when exposed to iron, we constructed the Vaults.” He paused. “The Vaults taught us much. They were largely responsible for making us what we were. In the end, however, they failed and, when they did, the Sprites betrayed us.”

“They betrayed you,” Thaddeus said, his tone full of bitter irony. “You built your empire on them. They were your slaves. They owed you nothing!”

Aylander looked at Thaddeus for a long time. “Perhaps you're right,” he said at last. “Perhaps we did misuse them, and, in so doing, brought about our own doom. My people have a long history of arrogance and hubris, and, one way or the other, it caught up to us. Still, the Vault this shaft leads to might provide us with what we need to escape the creatures outside. Is that not worth overlooking the misdeeds of the past?”

“In this case, I'd say it is,” Zoe said before Thaddeus could answer. Then she looked at him. “Isn't it?”

“I suppose,” Thaddeus said. He glared at Aylander. “This won't be the last time we speak about those 'misdeeds', though.”

“Indeed,” Aylander said, voice stiff. “I hardly dared hope it would be.”

Thaddeus rose, summoning the ball of mage light until it floated in the air above his head. Zoe – startled about the revelation concerning the Sprites, but feeling less indignant toward Aylander than it seemed Thaddeus did – came to her feet, as well.

“You know where we need to go,” Thaddeus said to Aylander. “Lead the way.”

They set off deeper into the mountain. Behind them, a drake shrieked.

“How many of these Vaults were there?” Zoe asked, surprised when her voice failed to echo off the massive chamber's iron-lined walls.

“The exact number was never disclosed,” Aylander said. “The only reason I was aware of this one was because it was the closest to my home village, and would have been where I was assigned had I not been made one of Atraxos's tomb guards.”

“Your people were ashamed of these places, weren't they?” Thaddeus asked. “They knew they were wrong, and that was why they didn't want to disclose how many there were.” He sneered. “And I used to think Eltarans were so noble.”

“Thaddeus,” Zoe warned.

“My people were just that, Thaddeus,” Aylander said. “People. We were neither more noble, nor less noble, than your own, though we sometimes tried to convince ourselves otherwise. We made mistakes, and I will freely admit that these Vaults may have been one of the worst. It is beyond my ability, however, to atone for it, and that is not why we are are here. Do you wish to say anything else?”

“No,” Thaddeus said. “Not right now, anyway.”

Zoe suddenly understood why Thaddeus was so angry. He knew – or thought he knew – more about the Sprites than Aylander did, and, for some reason, that knowledge made him feel like he had some kind of moral superiority over the Eltaran. And maybe he did. Zoe remembered the conversation Thaddeus had had with the Sprite back in the Guardian's dwelling. Were the Sprites manifestations of the souls of fallen Eltarans? And, if they were, had the other Eltarans known and carried out their “studies” anyway? It was a sickening thought, but, when she looked at Aylander, when she read the sense her abilities gave her of his soul, she couldn't imagine him being a willing participant in such an atrocity. He has been cleansed by a Scourger, however, she thought. Maybe it scoured that from his soul, too.

Aylander lead them deeper into the Vault. It was unnerving how silent their footfalls were as they walked, and Zoe, despite the room's cavernous nature, began to feel a growing closeness around her, as if, at any moment, something would happen that would leave her trapped here, hundreds of feet beneath the earth, with no hope of ever escaping. A glance at Thaddeus showed her he felt it, too, his eyes and head shifting from side to side, his hands clenching and unclenching as he no doubt itched to draw his sword – which was something that Aylander had warned them would elicit an immediate and fatal response from the wards protecting the Vault. Whatever Aylander hoped to find here, Zoe prayed it wouldn't take him too long – being in this place, she was finding, was worse than being in close proximity to the drakes.

“There,” Aylander said, pointing a finger that, in the sickly green glow that filled this place, Zoe thought looked more solid than it should have at the Vault's far wall. As soon as he did, a light began to flash inside one of the alcoves that had been built into the wall, the flashes alternating rapidly in color from white, to gold, to blue, to red. “How I had hoped, though it would have doomed us, to find them all empty.”

“Gods Above,” Thaddeus said, “there's a Sprite in there!”

“Indeed there is,” Aylander said, the dread in his voice unmistakable. “And, in order for it to help us, we must let it out.”

“How long has it been in there?” Zoe asked.

“At least four centuries.”

“Why is it still here?” Thaddeus asked.

“That is a question I have no answer for.”

“You're afraid of it,” Zoe said. “Why?”

Aylander glanced at her, then looked again at the alcove. The flashes were coming faster, now, and there was a twitchy agitation to them. The Sprite that made them was clearly not happy. “Because, in the time it's been sealed in that alcove, forgotten and alone, there is a high likelihood it has gone mad.”

“That's all right, though, isn't it?” Thaddeus said. “I mean, we've still got all this iron to protect us, don't we? Or doesn't it work on mad Sprites?”

Aylander gave him a flat look. “I don't know,” he said. “And the only people who would are, unfortunately, dead.”

“Pity.”

“Stop it, Thaddeus!” Zoe snapped. “If Aylander's afraid, he has a good reason to be. Of all people, I thought you'd be the one who understood that best. Constantly taunting him won't help any of us. Especially if we release that Sprite and it turns out to be unmanageable.”

“Zoe, why in Hel's name do you keep defending him? His people are the reason that Sprite is in that alcove. If it's gone mad, it's their fault, which makes him guilty by association. If he weren't already dead, I'd give him what he deserves.”

“I see. So, you'd execute him, would you? Kill him for the crimes of his ancestors? What makes you think you have that right?”

“Zoe, don't you see? When they locked the Sprites away in here, the Eltarans took away whatever freedom they had. They used them. They made them into things they weren't ever supposed to be. And then they forgot about them. Someone needs to be made to answer for that! Someone!”

“You mean someone needs to be made to answer for what happened to you,” Aylander said.

“Shut up!” Thaddeus snarled, turning on the Eltaran. “This isn't about me! This is about you! And what you did to your own ancestors!”

“But I did nothing to them. I regret what was done, and sorely wish there was a way I could undo it, but there isn't. Just as there was no way for Lady Zoe to undo all that was done to you. She was able to do more for you than I can for them, however. Did that not make it right, at least in part?”

Thaddeus looked like he wanted to say more – there was even a brief moment when he started to go for his sword – but then he relaxed, his shoulders slumping as he looked down at the floor. Before he could start weeping – which Zoe was sure would be coming next – Zoe reached over and placed her hand on his arm, sending him a small pulse of healing energy. Zoe wasn't surprised Thaddeus still had some resentment about what had happened to him – the Wanderer had been full of it, and that was still a part of him, even if it had been subsumed since he had been made whole – and found she wasn't hurt by it, either. Thaddeus was grateful to be whole, again, and Zoe knew the love he had for her was genuine and unchanged. Any outbursts he might have could be forgiven, provided he didn't take them too far. Which the prophecy states I must not allow.

“Is he all right?” Aylander asked.

“He will be,” Zoe said. She looked at him. “How do we free that Sprite?”

“I will attend to it.” He started to move away, no longer seeming so afraid.

“Aylander,” Thaddeus said, opening his eyes and raising his head.

Aylander paused and looked back.

“You don't deny they're your ancestors anymore, do you?”

“No. There is no point any longer. Why continue to deny something that's been known for thousands of years?”

“I'm sorry, Aylander.”

The Eltaran gave a sad smile. “So am I. For this, and for a great many other things, besides.”

Zoe couldn't help but wonder what else Aylander was apologizing for. Probably best I don't know, she thought. Some people's secrets should remain their own.