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rocky hillside. They climbed without speaking, but not in silence. The voices were always
there. Screaming in pain. Warning them to flee. Bearing witness to a suffering more terrible
than anything they had known in their lives. Or so it seemed to Kamala.
Directly ahead.
What exactly are these Spears? she had asked him during the first long day of riding. Why
does so much depend upon them?
We don't really know, he had told her. Tradition says that the gods cast them down from the
heavens in the final days of the Great War, to affix a curse to the land. In the places where
they struck the ground it was split open, and the blood of the Earth Mother spewed upward.
When it cooled, it formed a shell about the Spear itself, protecting it. We keep the shells in
good repair to protect what is inside them, so that the Wrath will remain strong and true, but I
do not know of any man that has seen what is actually inside one, or heard any tale that hints
at what they really are.
Terror.
Dark, cold waves of it. Rushing over her with a roar, filling her lungs, choking off her breath.
Go away! The voices screamed at her. Run! There is still time!
Magisters stirred in the shadows surrounding her, their fingers tracing signs in the air,
weaving spells to entrap her. She refused to look at them. They were not real.The Wrath hud
summoned them once in a nightmare
and now it had done so again in her waking moments, but they were still nothing more than an
illusion that drew its strength from her deepest fears.
You don't understand! the voices screamed. You can't understand! Magic clawed at the inside
of her head like a wild animal in a trap. Flee while you can! To stay here is death!
"Kamala!"
It took her a moment to sort out the one human voice from the cacophony. Rhys. She
struggled to look at him—to focus upon him—and finally managed it. His own face was
ghostly white, all color drained from it by the force of the supernatural assault. Did his lyr
blood make him immune to the voices, did it quiet them enough that he could still think
clearly? Or was he more sensitive to them than she was, more able to make out exact words
and warnings, but somehow granted the spiritual fortitude to stand against them? His
expression was dark and terrible, and for a moment she sensed how hard it was for him to
focus on her when the source of the disturbance was right before them.
Then he took her hand and squeezed it. She shut her eyes and for a moment—a single
moment—managed to focus her mind upon that contact, to draw strength from it.
Ahead of them was a vast plateau, flat and desolate. There were no trees within sight, only an
endless tundra with a thin cover of scraggly grass punctuated by tangles of dry brush. In the
center of it was a single butte, a flat-topped granite island rising up from a black and desolate
sea. One whole side of it had been broken apart, leaving a huge concave gap in its side.
Winter's ice, perhaps, shattering the ancient stone.
Atop it was the Spear.
It stood twice as tall as a man, or perhaps even taller, a monument of mottled stone that
seemed alien to everything around it. Its surface was a malformed, tortured shape, as if a cone
of rock had somehow been stretched and twisted out of all natural proportion. It had probably
been located in the center of the butte at one point, but centuries of erosion had worn the
structure away at its base, and now that one whole side of the butte had broken away, it no
longer had the support required to sustain itself. The lower portion of one side had broken
open, revealing a hollow interior. Some of the rocks that had fallen were suspiciously regular
in form, Kamala noted. Bricks? Whatever lay beyond them, inside the spire, was hidden in
darkness. Maybe that was because the sun was on the wrong side for visibility. Or maybe it
would have been dark inside the thing regardless.
"Broken," Rhys whispered hoarsely. Strangely, the terrible screaming that had been with them
for hours now did not drown out human sound; Kamala could hear the clear note of disbelief
that was in his voice. Whatever sort of damage the Guardians usually repaired, it was clearly
nothing on this scale. "No wonder the Wrath was disrupted."
"You can repair it, yes?" When he said nothing she pressed, "Isn't that what Guardians do?"
He did not answer her, only stared at the thing for a moment longer, and then, with a grim
look upon his face, began to make his way forward, toward the shattered spire. She wanted to
follow him—she tried to follow him—but she could not make her body obey her. Every time
she tried to force one of her legs to move, to take a step forward, the power of the Wrath
would wash over her in a wave, and it took all her courage not to turn around and flee from
the place in mindless terror. If she stood still, if she made no effort to approach, it was
tolerable, albeit by a slim margin. Her whole body shook from the force of it, but at least she
did not run away.
She watched in fascination as Rhys slowly approached the butte. He sounded like he was
muttering prayers under his breath; asking his gods for protection, perhaps? Weren't they
supposedly the ones that had created this thing in the first place? The ghostly voices flowed
over him, screaming their warning, but they could not turn him away, or even slow his steps.
Was his lyr blood shielding him from the worst of their assault, or was his sense of duty
simply stronger than his fear?
She watched as he reached the butte at last and climbed to the top of it, then approached the
Spear itself. Though the damage was on the side of the spire, he approached it from the front;
perhaps that was the path of least magical resistance, she thought. She could see him
trembling as he finally knelt down by the opening to see what was inside, though whether that
was because of fear, or simply the physical strain of the last few days catching up with him,
Kamala could not begin to guess.
And then he drew back suddenly, us if shocked. He wrapped his arms
tightly about himself; his body began to shake violently. It was as if some power had taken
hold of him and he could not break free.
Long minutes passed. Fear whipped around Kamala like a whirlwind. Still Rhys remained as
he was, arms clutched over his midriff as if there were some unbearable pain centered there.
He was no longer moving, but frozen in place. It was an eerie, inhuman stillness. As if he
were carved from the same stone as the monument before him.
Time passed. The sun shifted its position. The voices screamed in Kamala's brain with such
force that it brought tears to her eyes.
Still Rhys did not move.
Something was wrong, Kamala realized. Something all his training had not prepared him for.
She was going to have to go to him.
She tried to take a step forward, but it was like trying to walk in a hurricane. Black emotions
came rushing across the open tundra, howling as they enveloped her. Shutting her eyes, she
used the skills that Ethanus had drilled into her to try to focus her mind inward, to regain
control of her flesh. Go back! the voices screamed at her. Death is here! Turn and run! But
Rhys was not running away, and so she would not either.
Shutting her eyes for a moment, she summoned the memory of his hand holding hers. The
warmth that had flowed through his touch. His protectiveness. The source of that warmth was
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