"Greetings," said Milla, bowing in turn. "How do you know our names?"
"The Codex of the Chosen has spoken in my head," said Zicka. "It told me to come here. Soon it will speak through my mouth."
"Do you know how we can get out of here?" asked Milla. "Or does the Codex know?"
Zicka started to speak, then froze. His eyes grew cloudy. Rather like a Crone Mother's, Milla noticed. Then he spoke again, and his voice sounded different, the words coming less fluently.
"I am the Codex. I need your help. Tal alone cannot free me. You must meet him. Zicka will show you where."
"What if we don't want to help?" asked Milla. "I see no reason to help any Chosen, least of all Tal. He has betrayed -"
"I have little time to speak thus," interrupted the Codex. "Tal has done what he had to do. If you agree to help, Zicka will free you from the Dawn House. If not, you will die."
"The Dawn House?" asked Milla. "What is -" Before she could finish the question, Zicka's eyes cleared.
"Well?" he said, his voice normal again. "What is it to be?"
"A Shield Maiden does not barter favors," Milla said angrily. "Free us from this prison. Then I will decide."
"That is not the instruction of the Codex," said Zicka. He looked up at the sky and added, "You had best think quickly. Dawn is not far away."
"What happens at dawn?" asked Odris. "By the way, I'm happy to help anyone who'll help me."
"With the rising of the sun, the Dawn House burns," said Zicka.
"Why?" asked Milla. She shook her head. Nothing in Aenir made sense to her.
"It was not always so," said Zicka. "It is a curse, I suppose. Something left over from the war. Perhaps something hid here, only to be burned out, and the spell continues. The fire only destroys whatever is in the Dawn House. The tower itself is never harmed."
Milla looked at the Sunstone on her finger,
She had to get that back to the clan. And there was much information, too.
But was it more important than the laws of the Shield Maidens?
A Shield Maiden does not barter favors. But that was only the seventh law. It was not the most important.
Besides, it might be in the interest of all Icecarls for Milla to help Tal return the Codex to the Castle.
Even if he was a traitor to her, and had ruined her future, she had to ignore that and think of what was most important to the clans.
The Codex's words also sat in her mind, squatting like unwelcome guests on the deck of an ice-ship.
Tal has done what he had to do…
"The first red glow shows on the horizon," said Zicka calmly. "The house will soon begin to burn."
Milla paced across the room, wrestling with the decision. It felt like surrendering, and she could never surrender. But was it really?
Tiny tendrils of smoke started to rise up around her feet as she walked. Odris floated closer to the doorway, and cleared her throat several times. But she did not speak. The Storm Shepherd could feel the turmoil in Milla, the difficulty of the decision.
Besides, Odris thought she'd probably survive a fire. It would hurt, and she would be spread through every room, but she could probably pull herself back together. Though she would need water immediately afterward. And that would be difficult if she was still trapped…
Odris said anxiously. "We're on fire!"
Tiny flames were licking up the walls and the smoke tendrils were winding together into thicker plumes.
Milla ignored smoke, flame, and Odris. She went to the door. "What is it to be?" asked Zicka quickly.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Hazror fell down the stairs, screaming all the way. A third of the way down he catapulted straight into the path of his three Vengenarls. All four of them got tangled together and fell another thirty steps.
Tal didn't wait to look. He raced back to where he'd come in. A wall of light blocked the steps to the surface, drowned in sand. Tal had already thought of how to deal with that.
He would make a Hand of Light and use it to carry himself up to the surface.
There was only one slight flaw in this plan. Tal had only ever seen a Hand of Light made once, by three Guards who were all much more experienced light mages than he was. But he had found that making the Stairway of Light in the Pit had opened up his mind to all sorts of Light Magic that he couldn't previously do or hadn't ever known about. Tal was pretty certain he knew how to make a Hand.
Actually there were two flaws. The other one was that he had to make the Hand in the few minutes he had before Hazror and the Vengenarls stopped falling down the stairs and came ravening up them instead.
Tal put all those thoughts to the very back of his mind and concentrated on his Sunstone. He had two other stones now, taken from Hazror, but the one in his ring he knew best.
He knew Orange light best, too, so it was with that he decided to weave his hand. First of all he sent out a thin beam. He gradually widened that until it was like a band of cloth, which he wove backward and forward to build up his Hand.
Because time was short he actually made more of a Mitten than a Hand. It had a thumb, but no fingers. It hovered a stretch away from him, as tall as he was and four times as wide.
Tal concentrated on the Hand. Slowly it drifted toward him. For a moment he thought he'd made it too insubstantial, but when it touched him it felt solid.
The Hand closed with Tal inside it and backed away from the wall of light that covered the exit.
Then it rushed forward, knuckles out, Tal braced inside for the shock.
The Hand hit the wall of light and smashed straight through. Orange light flared and sand started geysering in through the V of the thumb, where there was a slight gap.
Up!
thought Tal urgently, his head bent over his Sunstone in intense concentration.
Up!
The Hand pushed its way through the sand. Tal's Sunstone shone so brightly he had to close his eyes as it pumped power into the Hand.
Behind him, sand poured like a tidal wave through the broken wall of light into Hazror's lair. Tal hadn't planned it like that, but the sand was covering his retreat. With his best Sunstones taken, Hazror would be hard put to stem the flow of sand. He would not be able to pursue immediately.
Tal kept urging the Hand up. Even when it burst out on the surface, flinging sand and slabs of stone in all directions, he kept it going.
He was almost two hundred stretches up in the air when Adras caught up with him and said, "Tal! What are you doing?"
Distracted, Tal lost concentration. The Hand rippled from Orange to Yellow and then through the entire spectrum.
"Dark
take it!" cursed Tal.
He lost control completely. His Sunstone went dark. The Hand vanished and Tal started to fall.
He didn't start screaming until he was halfway down, because he'd thought Adras would catch him.
Unfortunately Adras didn't realize he was needed until it was almost too late. He came diving down and snatched at Tal's hands when the boy was certain he was about to die.
Tal kept screaming after Adras saved him, but this time it was because his arms had been almost pulled out of their sockets.
After a moment he recovered and stopped his panicked howling. They were still quite high up, and there was no sign of movement in the sand below.
"Fly east!" Tal croaked. He could stand the pain in his shoulders a bit longer. "Fly as far as you can."
"Sure," said Adras. He craned his head down to look at his companion. "I guess Hazror wasn't so bad after all. He gave you one… two… Sunstones. And what's that other thing?"
"I think it's a key," said Tal. He was shivering now, in delayed shock. "And Hazror didn't give it to me, or the Sunstones. That's why we have to fly as far as we can."
"Why?" asked Adras. Then, in a slightly different tone, he added, "Oh. I see. Hazror will want them back."
Then later still, the Storm Shepherd gingerly asked, "How bad and terrible is he, by the way?"
"Very. Both," said Tal. Worse than he'd imagined, because he was not an Aeniran creature.
How could a Chosen become like Hazror? Why did he live like he did, preying on innocent young Chosen?
Then a much nastier thought came to Tal's mind.
How did the young Chosen find Hazror? Why would they go there in the first place? It wasn't as if his lair was easy to locate, or in any well-known place for finding and binding Spiritshadows.
Had they all been sent by the Codex, like he was? Sacrificed to try and get the bone whistle that now hung around his own neck?
Or had someone else sent them to their deaths?
Lenan had been a very smart boy, Tal recalled. He'd graduated first from the Lectorium last year. Maybe he had discovered some of the things that Tal had been finding out.
Tal had a lot of questions. He hoped he'd find the Codex soon and that it could answer some of them. Even if he was afraid of the answers.