The Chaos Crystal Read online

'It's in Glaeba somewhere.'

  Declan looked at Kentravyon in astonishment. 'You know where it is?'

  Kentravyon shrugged. 'It was stolen by the Cabal several thousand years ago. Not long before these other ungrateful sods here, ganged up on me and put me on ice.' He glared at Arryl and Taryx for a moment before returning his attention to Declan. 'I'd made a few mortal enemies by then, as well as immortal ones. They mistakenly thought they could use the crystal to destroy me.'

  'The irony, of course,' Taryx added, 'being that far from destroying any immortal, by losing the damned crystal they made certain we could never be gone from their lives.'

  Kentravyon turned to look at the Immortal Prince in the distance with a scowl. 'Not going to be happy if I find he's managed to drown it at the bottom of one of the Great Lakes with his little tantrum over that wretched child.'

  Declan realised the Tide Lord was referring to the legend about the Immortal Prince, and how his tears of grief over the death of his mortal daughter, Fliss, had

  supposedly flooded the massive rift valley separating Caelum and Glaeba, turning it into the Great Lakes. He wondered what they'd do if the talisman they sought was buried at that bottom of the Great Lakes of Glaeba. The waterways were as large as an inland sea.

  'So Maralyce is in on this too?' Declan asked, as it occurred to him why his own great-grandmother had made Glaeba her home. He should have suspected as much. 'That's what Maralyce is looking for, isn't it? She's not mining for gold. She's looking for this wretched crystal of yours. Who else knows about this?'

  'That's everyone,' Kentravyon said. 'Are you done sightseeing?'

  'I've got another question,' Declan said.

  'There's a shock,' Taryx muttered. Declan ignored him.

  'You said "as it always does". You've used this crystal before?'

  Kentravyon hesitated for the barest fraction of a second. 'We've experimented with it in the past, yes.'

  'That's not an answer. I want to know how you know this crystal will even work,' Declan said. 'I mean, you're standing here telling us we have to find some talisman stolen by the Cabal. Well, I'm sorry. I was a member of the Cabal and Lukys was posing as one of the Pentangle. I never heard anything about a magical crystal capable of destroying an immortal.'

  It was Taryx rather than Kentravyon who answered him. 'You heard about it every day, Declan. You just didn't know it, that's all.'

  Declan glared at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

  'The Tarot, you fool,' Taryx told him impatiently. 'It was never about telling fortunes, any more than it was about documenting the story of the immortals. It was, and always has been, the key to the location of the crystal.'

  'You can buy a Tide Lord Tarot in any marketplace on Amyrantha,' Arryl said, sounding almost as puzzled as Declan felt. 'Why haven't you found it before now?'

  'Because the Tarot has changed over time and a different version seems to surface after every Cataclysm,' Taryx explained. 'It's been embellished beyond recognition; endlessly amended to fit the romantic notions of good story telling. Now — if you want the location of the Chaos Crystal — you need to get your hands on an original. Or at least a copy of the original.'

  'How?' Declan asked.

  Kentravyon smiled. 'Ah ... and therein lies our dilemma ...'

  'I have another question,' Declan said. 'Lukys claims the process of focusing the Tide will kill any immortal standing too close to the portal when it opens. But how...' Declan stopped abruptly and turned toward the sea, his skin prickling with the now familiar feel of someone swimming the Tide.

  Kentravyon and the others felt it too. Even Cayal straightened in the distance, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the glare of the sun. He sensed rather than felt another Tide Lord in the vicinity, one not standing with them on the ice.

  Declan's voice faltered as he continued: '... How do you know the Chaos Crystal works?'

  Before anyone could answer his question, the feline standing behind him gasped and turned toward the sea, falling to one knee as a wave rose unnaturally high on the water, racing toward them, gathering momentum as it approached. Declan couldn't see anybody on the wave. The burning sensation against his skin told him it was the magical Tide, rather than the oceanic one, driving the abnormal wall of water. As they watched, the wave quickly built up until it was almost as tall as the ice-cliff of the glacier.

  Declan fought the urge to step back as the huge wave sped toward them. He knew — intellectually, at

  least — that it couldn't harm him, but his instincts had yet to adjust to immortality.

  And then, without warning, the wave stopped — abruptly and unaccountably — at the very edge of the cliff.

  'Maybe you should ask our visitor,' Taryx suggested calmly, as a dripping figure dressed in a thin linen shift emerged from the still water, stepping onto the cliff like a grand lady emerging from a carriage, before the wave let go and tumbled down the ice-cliff with an almighty crash.

  'Ask me what?' the newcomer said calmly, leaning her head sideways as she squeezed the excess water from her hair. She was a mature woman, dark-haired and well built, but Declan had never been able to pin an age on her. He supposed he should be surprised to see her — not to mention impressed by her dramatic arrival on a wave, no less — but Declan's senses were too overloaded, since arriving in Jelidia, to register such an emotion.

  Kentravyon didn't seem surprised to see their visitor either. 'Nice entrance, Maralyce,' he said as she stopped before them. 'Been practising that?'

  'Don't be ridiculous,' she said nodding a greeting to the others before fixing her gaze on Declan as she shook the water from her clothes. It was so cold, icicles were forming on her wet eyelashes as she spoke. 'Hello, lad. See you found your way here. What is Taryx going on about? A question?'

  'Your grandson wants to know how we know what the Chaos Crystal will do,' Taryx said before Declan could utter a sound.

  Maralyce shrugged, as if she wasn't in the least bothered by the question. Or, indeed, that there was anything untoward about her unannounced arrival on the back of a tidal wave. She took off her shift to wring it out, using the Tide to speed the drying process, revealing a fit and surprisingly shapely body.

  Declan blushed and looked away. This woman was his great-grandmother. Immortal or not, she had no right to disrobe so publicly, or to have a body like that at her age.

  'We've done this before, Declan,' Maralyce said, smiling at his discomfort. 'It's how we first came to Amyrantha.'

  Her state of undress forgotten, Declan turned back to stare at his great-grandmother as the implications of her statement sank in and then glanced at the others to gauge their reaction. Taryx didn't seem surprised. Kentravyon was looking a little wild-eyed — which wasn't saying much because he looked like that most of the time — but, like Declan, Arryl seemed quite shocked.

  'I think,' Declan said slowly, his gaze swinging between Maralyce and Kentravyon, 'you have some explaining to do.'

  Maralyce shrugged and then spied the figure standing over on the rise. She squinted a little and then turned to Arryl. 'Is that Cayal over there?'

  'Yes.'

  'What's he doing?' 'Wishing, I think,' Arryl said sadly. 'For what?' Maralyce asked, pulling the now-dry shift back over her head.

  'For death,' Kentravyon replied. 'What else?'

  CHAPTER 3

  The former Duke of Lebec, Stellan Desean, couldn't pinpoint the exact moment it had happened, but somehow, without even trying, he found himself fighting for a crown. He'd never meant to get into such a fight. Quite the opposite, in fact. His life — until recently — was dedicated to preserving the crown for his friend, cousin and king, Enteny Debree, and after his death, his rightful heir, Mathu.

  A year ago, he would have given his life for Glaeba's king. The Tides knew he'd gotten himself into plenty of trouble over the years protecting Glaeba's heir.

  That had all changed now. The life he imagined he'd be spending at the right hand of his yo
ung cousin, Mathu, guiding him as he grew into a worthy ruler, was a distant, almost forgotten dream. Falsely accused by Jaxyn Aranville of Enteny's murder and branded a traitor, escaping from prison during his trial had done little to help his cause. An escaped convict, these days Stellan was actively plotting against Glaeba's young king, an act that might have felt more like treason had he not known Glaeba's king was being manipulated by immortals bent on feathering their own nests. And so, to save his country from the blindness of its pliable young king, he was standing in the council chamber of the Caelish queen's palace. Here, surrounded by thick stone walls and tapestry wall-hangings boasting of long-ago victories over Glaeba he was discussing the most effective way to

  invade his homeland with a foreign army ... a move that was proving to be somewhat problematic, thanks to the weather.

  'Is the lake frozen solid?' the Queen's Consort asked. Lord Tyrone — or Tryan the Devil, for those who knew anything of the immortals — directed the question to nobody in particular. He'd married the Queen of Glaeba while her daughter was still missing, thinking it would gain him a crown, but under the complicated Caelish rules of succession, he had no chance of claiming the title now Princess Nyah had returned. That didn't stop him acting as if he ruled the country, however, Stellan noted with concern.

  'Not quite,' Ricard Li, the Caelish spymaster, informed the meeting, moving to the map on the table to indicate the areas in question. He was wearing a sheepskin-lined jacket, his hands encased in sturdy leather gloves, and his breath frosted as he spoke. 'The ice along the shore here is quite thin and there's still water flowing in a couple of places. We've sent amphibians under the ice-pack to test its thickness. We've lost several of them to hypothermia, and what the survivors report is not encouraging. If this cold snap keeps up, it'll only be a matter of days before you'll be able to walk all the way from Cycrane to Herino.'

  'I wonder if Jaxyn knows that?' Tryan asked, leaning back on the queen's red leather throne as if he owned it. Unlike the spymaster, he was in shirtsleeves, apparently oblivious to the icy air. Queen Jilna of Caelum was nowhere to be seen, confined to her rooms yet again after having sent yet another message to say she was feeling unwell.

  Stellan wondered if her husband was drugging or poisoning her. Not enough to kill her, perhaps, but certainly enough to keep her out of the way of the immortals who had taken over her palace, and were well on the way to taking over her entire nation. With

  the queen's unexplained illness, Tryan was effectively ruling Caelum, with his mother and his sister, stepfather and stepbrothers all lined up behind him. Fortunately, the stepbrothers weren't here for this war council. Krydence and Ranee had gone south to check how far the ice extended down the lake-shore and hopefully wouldn't be back for days.

  'Of course he knows it,' Syrolee said. The Duchess of Torfail slammed her teacup down so hard it almost broke the delicate porcelain saucer.

  Warlock, the Crasii slave sent here by the Cabal of the Tarot to spy on the immortals, hurried forward to mop up the spill before resuming his position by the door. Stellan tried not to pay attention to him. The Cabal of the Tarot had been trying to find a way to rid Amyrantha of immortals almost as long as humans on Amyrantha had been aware of them. Although Stellan wasn't a member of the Cabal, he was sympathetic to their aims and wanted to do nothing to endanger their agent here in the palace.

  'He's probably the one responsible for it.'

  Paying no attention to Warlock or what he was doing, Elyssa, Lord Tyrone's sister, had to lean to her left to see past the big canine wiping the table to make eye contact with her mother. 'I've felt nothing.'

  Stellan assumed she meant she'd not felt Jaxyn working the Tide, which made this unbelievably cold winter a natural phenomenon, rather than the result of immortal interference. He could not admit to knowing that, however, because as far as these immortals were concerned, he was still ignorant of their true identities. And that was a problem, because the solution was obvious to Stellan, but without admitting he knew who and what they were, he couldn't suggest it.

  'King Mathu is massing his forces for invasion as we speak,' Ricard Li said. 'As soon as the ice is solid enough we'll be facing a full-on attack by an

  overwhelming force of Glaeban warriors, many of whom are battle-trained felines.'

  'But how will he get them across the ice?' Elyssa asked. Although she was plain to the point of being unattractive, Stellan had discovered that of all the immortals in Caelum, she seemed the brightest. That made her more dangerous than she looked — something he was only just beginning to appreciate. Her nasty habit of murdering her lovers for causing her pain didn't do much to reassure him, either.

  The Immortal Maiden hadn't earned her title frivolously, Stellan knew. According to Maralyce, her curse came from the fact that she'd still been a virgin when she was made immortal. The relentless and agonising regeneration that enabled these creatures to live forever applied to every part of their bodies. Her pain was never ending. Stellan wasn't surprised that it made her a little bit crazy.

  But her brother, Tryan, was far more dangerous, Stellan thought, because he was so handsome, so agreeable on the outside, it gave no hint to the darkness within. Elyssa's mere presence set Stellan's teeth on edge, so he was usually on his guard when dealing with her. Tryan, on the other hand, was deceptively pleasant. If he took it into his head to be rid of me, I wouldn't even know I'd been murdered until I looked down and saw my blood on his hands and the knife in my chest.

  'I'm sure Jaxyn will manage to come up with something,' Tryan was saying with a dismissive wave of his hand. The how of an attack didn't bother him so much as the when.

  'We can just wipe them out when they get here, can't we?' Engarhod asked. He was slumped at the other end of the table, an almost-empty jug of wine in front of him. His idea of breakfast, probably. Stellan thought that Engarhod didn't often contribute anything useful to the discussions. Mostly he acted as

  if he just didn't care what the others were doing so long as it didn't interfere with his drinking. He was all but finished the second jug Warlock had fetched for him this morning. Stellan had never seen any man down the amount of wine Syrolee's husband could consume, and still remain standing.

  'It's a pity there's no way to melt the ice,' Stellan said with a sigh, wondering if he could prompt one of the others into seeing the solution without him having to spell it out for them. Thinking of Engarhod's breakfast made him realise he'd not eaten yet this morning. Nor would he get to eat until they were done here. If he didn't do something soon to move things along, this could drag on for hours. Immortals might be able to go forever without food, but he couldn't.

  Tryan's lips pursed thoughtfully at Stellan's suggestion. 'If we timed the melting right, we could drown their army, then sail ours across the lake and be in Glaeba before word even reached Herino Palace that their army was defeated.'

  Tides, that was easy.

  Stellan nodded in agreement, hoping he looked encouraging but not too enthusiastic. 'Perhaps if we send amphibians back under the ice to seek out weakness and built large enough fires along the fault lines, we'd be able to break up the ice —'

  'You can't break up the ice with bonfires,' Syrolee cut in. 'That's a stupid idea.'

  'We could melt it, though,' Elyssa said thoughtfully, staring at Stellan. 'In theory.'

  Finally! Stellan thought.

  'How?' Syrolee asked. 'And I know what you're going to say, so don't bother. You do anything catastrophic, Jaxyn will respond in kind, and we won't spend the next High Tide ruling this damned country; we'll be rebuilding it.'

  Elyssa glared at her mother, as if she knew as much and didn't appreciate the reminder. For himself, Stellan

  was appalled to realise that the only thing staying the hand of these magicians was laziness.

  'I meant we'd have to heat the ice; do it slowly.'

  Tryan rolled his eyes. 'And how, exactly, does one melt a sheet of ice roughly the size of the Chelae Is
lands in a couple of weeks? That's about how long we have, I estimate, before Jaxyn gets here.'

  Stellan let out a dramatic sigh, hoping his next words wouldn't sound too contrived. 'The mountains that gird the Great Lakes were volcanoes once. What a pity we can't just make one of them erupt ... I mean, hot lava would do the trick, wouldn't it?'

  Tryan and Elyssa exchanged a glance before answering. 'I imagine it would do the trick very nicely. How do you expect us to accomplish it?'

  The former duke shrugged, looking around the room at the Tide Lords and treated them to an ingenuous smile. 'I was speaking hypothetically, of course. A fortuitous volcanic eruption controlled enough not to destroy us while saving Caelum from invasion, and yet powerful enough to facilitate our own invasion of Glaeba would be so unlikely it would almost make one believe in the Tide Lords.'

  'Be careful what you wish for, your grace,' Elyssa warned with a thin smile as she rose to her feet. 'Are we done here? I have something to take care of.'

  Tryan shrugged. 'Do whatever you want. Desean and I will be going over the Glaeban defences for the rest of the morning. It'll bore you to tears, I'm sure.'

  'Then I'll see you later. Come, Cecil, let's go visit our babies.' Warlock — or Cecil as he was known to the immortals — stepped forward at her command. Stellan marvelled at the big canine's patience, amazed that he'd not given himself away, even for a moment, the whole time he'd been here in Caelum. Elyssa nodded in Syrolee and Engarhod's direction. 'Mother. Engarhod.'

  'Given that we're about to go to war, my dear,' Syrolee said with a displeased frown, 'I'd think you'd

  be able to find more useful ways of spending your time than playing with a litter of wretched Crasii pups.'

  Elyssa ignored the aside, turning on her heel to head for the door with Warlock obediently at heel. Stellan watched them leave, noted the simmering anger brewing in the eyes of the canine slave, and wondered how long it would be before the Cabal's Scard spy posing as a loyal Crasii finally snapped and brought them all undone.