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eina placed the shining gold lantern upright next to Shadebane. The light from the Lantern illuminated the side of the gully nicely. By now Cici was sitting up and rubbing her face with her hand, only succeeding in adding another layer of dirt.

“I am called Reina. What is your name?”

“I’m Cici. How come you wear so many rings?” Cici asked quietly, pointing at Reina’s hand while still rubbing her nose. Then she sniffled again.

“Because I like to collect beautiful things,” Reina replied, impressed by Cici’s inquisitiveness. “Do you like this ring, Cecilia?” she asked. Cici nodded, eyes wide. Reina indicated a heavy gold ring on her right hand set with a nearly transparent delicately faceted blue stone and decorated with a dozen smaller white gems.

“This ring is called the Soaring Chime. It was given to me long ago by a Scribe named Giho skilled in the arts of gemcutting. He lives on an island in a place called the Princesses Crowns far away in the Eastern Sea. There are men there who dig deep into the mountains to find raw stones such as this one. Giho spends years cutting and shaping them into Chimes. Chime stones can make sounds with magical properties.”

“What’s magical properties?” Cici asked, enthralled.

“It means this stone can ring, and the sound from it can heal your injury,” Reina replied. “Will you help me make the Soaring Chime ring?”

“Can I?” Cici asked.

“Look carefully at the stone,” Reina said, offering her hand so Cici could see. “Do you see the upper edge? Where the tiny symbol is carved into the gold?”

Cici looked carefully and saw that the edge of the setting just above the oval-shaped sky-blue stone had a tiny symbol carved into the polished gold. If Reina hadn’t mentioned it, Cici would never have noticed.

“All you must do is tap that symbol with your finger as if you are trying to make a bell ring,” Reina said. “Then, listen for the sound.”

Cici peered at the stone and the tiny symbol, then reached up with her hand and held her finger over the ring for a moment. Then she flicked her hand, tapping the edge of the ring with her finger as if testing something she had been told was very hot.

A soft and faint glow appeared in the center of the stone and Cici began to hear the sounds of chimes and bells all around her. First one, then a second. They began to play cascades of three tones, then five. Then ten. It sounded like someone drawing a stick along a series of bells, each one larger than the one before it, making a luxurious sound like the playing of all the strings of a harp from smallest to largest.

Cici looked at her foot and was startled by the greenish swirl of energy around her ankle. She saw a pale blue glow along the outer edge of her hand where she had been cut, and a silver shower of sparkling energy around the bruise on her knee. Her ankle felt much better. The music was so beautiful that Cici didn’t want it to end. All of her wounds and bruises were healed, and the music faded peacefully along with the glow of the ring’s power.

“It’s magic just like my Lantern! Are you a magician?” Cici asked.

Reina looked away. The sudden movement frightened Cici, who looked apprehensively into the darkness of the damp forest and saw nothing. Just as suddenly, Reina turned back and spoke in an urgent, whispery tone.

“When I have gone, you and your sisters will have these treasures to protect you. The Amethyst Lens of Time will release the others. Speak the phrase ‘Spectrum Deflect’ to call upon the power of the Chronicler’s Lantern in times of danger.”

Cici’s heart pounded.

“This is a map to the Lockvern. You will find an iron gate in a deserted vale along the road south. The key to the gate is inside. In the Lockvern, you will be tested. Examine all things. Do not be foolishly brave. Trust your knowledge. When you gather again, you will know what you must to defeat evil.”

Reina desperately pulled at her staff, shaking as she attempted to stand. She whimpered as she reacted to what must have been a wracking spasm of pain as she placed one foot flat underneath her. She exhausted herself rising to a point where she could shakily stand on both feet. Cici watched her with a concerned expression.

Her eyes looked so strong. What’s the matter with her?

“Excellency!” a voice called. “Excellency!”

Reina did not look. Cici stood. A moment later a young man appeared at the top edge of the gully carrying his own lantern.

“Do not follow, Enken!” Reina shouted. “Ride for Branven and wait for word!”

“But Vicereine– I..”

“Do as I say!”

The sharpness and authority in Reina’s voice made both Enken and Cici jump in shock. The Vicereine turned away from them both. Her robes billowed as a cool breeze drifted past, carrying tiny ice crystals. Cici shivered. Reina pushed a rolled piece of leathery fine parchment backwards into Cici’s hand as if trying to hide it. It was bound with a gleaming silver circular band emblazoned with the symbol of a fanged skull.

“I suppose you have a melancholy anecdote for us?” Reina asked, appearing to speak into the darkness to no one.

“A caterpillar was crawling through a wood, entertaining thoughts of becoming a butterfly, until a spider blocked her way.” The low velvety sound of a man’s voice floated from the darkness as he stepped out of the shadows.

Cici froze, looking out from behind Reina’s robes. The rattling and galloping sounds of a speeding horse-drawn carriage clattered through the darkness above.

Continue to Chapter Sixteen

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enesh swallowed, desperately trying to keep his teeth from chattering. He watched her breath freeze and float to the ground. The cloth of her cowl resembled a rotted burial shroud: dusty and threadbare. A shadow obscured all but her chin.

“I was inventing poisons four hundred years before your grandfather learned to walk.” Reina spoke as if impatiently lecturing a lesser being. Kenesh didn’t notice the shadowy tendrils seeping into the dock around her feet. The wood planks first lost their color, and then rotted to a scorched, mangled ash.

The Vicereine turned her back on the assassin and dropped the useless pieces of his knife. “Do you know what it feels like to have a part of your body die while still attached to living flesh?” By now Reina was standing in a huge expanding slough of foulness.

Several of the tendrils rose from the swirling edges of the pestilence surrounding Reina’s feet and coiled back, growing eyes and fangs. Kenesh noticed and desperately tried to push his way up the wall with his hands. One by one the viper’s heads struck his left foot. The very real sharpness of otherworldly fangs pierced his boots, skin and leg.

Kenesh felt as if every nerve in his body was being drained through the sole of his left boot. A cold, burrowing agony invaded the entire left side of his body. Pain exploded from every joint as his collapsing weight forced his frozen bones to bend at unnatural angles.

He slammed against the blackened wood of the dock and made an inhuman sound that nearly burst the inside of his throat. Rivulets of icy sweat scraped his face, chest and arms. He banged the back of his head against the corner of the warehose as his body convulsed, leaving the wood smashed and frozen blood caked across the back of his head. Within moments, all that was left of his left foot was a putrified weight attached to a limb so infected that the very thought of moving it made his nerves boil over with pain.

“Now you know.”

Kenesh panted as he failed to regain his balance. He rolled against the door, the cruel cold sweat tormenting his parched tongue with a salty tang.

“Who sent you?” Reina asked. Kenesh did not answer. He could scarcely breathe.

“Answer me, or I will infect every limb of your being with dessication that will see two harvests before death releases you from it.” The Vicereine stood resolute, her staff looming over the platform. No light remained. Kenesh drew a choked breath that covered his teeth with rime.

Reina reached down and picked up a small medallion from the dock.

“The Escator Merchants Guild?” Reina said. Her glowing red eyes narrowed as she examined it. “What plan did you hatch with those overfed hyenas? Did you expect to waylay me with your robber’s club like some sweeper of porches?” Reina turned the medallion over. “Pity. I was in a fine mood before all this, too. I had a nice meal this evening. They served me cornbread.”

She glanced back to Kenesh. “I like cornbread, don’t you?”

Kenesh sputtered and inhaled reflexively.

“Do you wish to be free of this curse?”

Kenesh attempted to nod his head, but instead his shoulders convulsed. His face was frostbitten almost to the point of paralysis.

“You will return to whichever of those fattened vermin drank enough courage to hire you and inform them the Vicereine sends her regards.” Reina turned the medallion over in her hand as she lowered her voice to a menacing tone. “You will also inform them the blood of the next assassin sent after me will be used to boil their skulls.”

Reina turned towards the end of the dock.

“You have one hour.”

Kenesh’s next cough rattled alarmingly and with immense trembling effort he rasped a response.

“But it is two days ride.”

Slithering fingers of black vapor climbed the back of Reina’s robes, crossing over each other and thickening as they crawled upwards. They gathered at her shoulder and formed the shape of a perched black bird. The mangy fowl solidified just before the Vicereine offered a piece of dried plum, which it devoured hungrily before shivering its feathers.

Reina dropped the medallion on the dock.

“You have one hour.”

Continue to Chapter Eleven