The Gates of Night_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [28]
The staff had fallen silent, but Lei could feel its emotions. There was a certain satisfaction, a sense of victory. But this was overshadowed by deep pain and lingering anger.
“Hello?” Lei whispered. She felt a vague flicker of emotion, the faintest acknowledgment … but no words in response. Could it actually speak? She turned the staff so she could look directly into the eyes of the carved face. Before she could say anything, a hand closed on her arm and spun her around.
“You want to tell me what that was about?” Daine had a gash across his scalp, and blood was streaked across his forehead. “By now, I thought I could rely on you to follow orders.” While he was angry, concern was the stronger emotion.
“I … can’t explain it.”
“Try. Betrothed? Hadrian’s dead.”
“So are we,” Xu’sasar pointed out. The drow woman was helping Pierce recover the arrows scattered across the battlefield. Most were intact, and given the circumstances they couldn’t afford to waste a single one.
Lei shook her head. “I still don’t believe that.”
“But he knew you.”
“I don’t think he did,” Lei said. “I think he knew this.” She pushed the staff between them.
“Go on.”
“Remember my Uncle Jura? Jura … Darkhart?”
Daine nodded slowly. “You said his wife died.”
“And that she was a dryad,” Lei said, turning the face on the staff toward Daine. “I think some part of her still lingers within.”
“So it’s a haunted staff?”
Lei shrugged. “Dryads are bound to trees. If this is from the heart of her tree … I don’t know. But perhaps we should save this discussion for another time.”
“And why’s that?”
“She doesn’t want to talk about it.” Since the Huntsman had fallen, the presence within the staff seemed much stronger—and throughout the conversation, Lei could feel the spirit’s discomfort growing.
Daine shot a glance at Pierce. “Am I the only one without an imaginary friend?”
“Perhaps you should ask Jode.”
“Good point.” Daine sighed. “So now what?”
“Surely we have another battle to fight,” Xu’sasar said, sticking her head into the conversation. “I do not think that we truly defeated the Huntsman, and we must still earn our passage. More blood must be spilled.”
I’ve had quite enough for one day, Lei thought. The gore from the hounds had largely evaporated, but the memory of warm blood flowing across her skin was all too fresh. “No,” she said. “The vision I had said the answers lie in twilight. Beyond the Gates of Night.”
To Lei’s exasperation, Daine glanced over at Xu’sasar.
“She doesn’t know anything about this place—” Lei began, but the drow cut her off.
“The spirits told you this?” Her musical voice was low and serious. Xu’sasar was a head shorter than Lei, and she pushed closer and stared up into Lei’s eyes.
“I suppose you could say that …”
The drow girl reached up and placed her hand on Lei’s forehead. Her skin was smooth and cool to the touch. Lei wondered if the blood of the dark elves was colder than that of humans. Then Xu reached out with her other hand, touching the face of the carved dryad.
“Ask her,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Ask her. This tortured one, whose spirit has been bound in wood. She is of this world. She can show us the path to Dusk.”
Lei frowned. She didn’t like the drow girl. Lei had learned planar theory in the Towers of the Twelve, and she didn’t want to debate with a jungle savage. The problem was, this time Xu was right. Darkheart knows the path.
She looked at the staff. “Can you lead us to the Gates of Night?” she said.
And the spirit showed her the way.
Daine caught the moonlight on the edge of his sword, watching the light shimmer across the steel. In the chaos of recent events he hadn’t had the time to study it, but he knew that something had changed. It wasn’t that he felt a living presence in the weapon, and thank the Sovereigns for that; between Lei’s sobbing