The following morning, Isabel woke suddenly. She’d been dreaming of Alexander, except the dream seemed more real than most and he’d been desperate to find her, to warn her.
Hazel was sitting by the fire. She turned and looked at Isabel as if she knew.
“Release your hold over Hector and Horace,” Isabel said. “Return our weapons and let us go, today.”
“You’re hardly in a position to be making demands,” Hazel said.
“I know you’ve been lying to us,” Isabel said. “I know the Sin’Rath have moved on, yet you continue with your lies. What’s your game?”
“I give you shelter in my home and this is how you repay me?” Hazel said. “With baseless accusations and suspicion?”
“My husband came to my dreams last night and warned me about you.”
“Impossible,” Hazel said, though Isabel could sense growing alarm from the old witch. “This place is protected from such magic.”
“Alexander is very persistent and more powerful than you might imagine,” Isabel said. “What’s more, he knows where you live. I’d be very careful if I were you.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Hazel snapped. “Even if I believed you, your husband is a world away. You left him, remember? He can hardly help you and I doubt very much he would long mourn your loss.”
“Don’t count on that,” Alexander said, materializing beside Isabel. “It took me quite a while to figure out your defenses. I have to admit, even I was surprised by what I learned in the process, but that’s beside the point. If you harm Isabel, I will wage total war against you until I have your head. I will set aside my battle with Phane and postpone my war with Zuhl and I will focus all of my efforts on finding you and killing you.”
“How can this be?” Hazel said, standing with a look of shock and dismay. “My defenses have never been breached. They’re impenetrable.”
“Are they now?” Alexander said.
Hazel’s eyes narrowed and a bit of the color drained from her face. “It can’t be … yet how can it be otherwise? You’re like the one who watches.”
Alexander smiled ever so slightly, just to communicate understanding to the old witch without revealing the existence of Siduri to Isabel. He wasn’t ready for her to have that information, not as long as Phane had his hooks in her.
Hazel looked around like a trapped rat.
“There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,” Alexander said. “But I’ll make you a deal-release Isabel and her companions, all of them, and I’ll leave you alone.”
Something within Hazel seemed to snap, as if years of planning and effort was about to be washed away and it was more than she could take.
“Never,” she snarled savagely, tossing a pinch of powder into Isabel’s face. “You can have your wife, she’s more trouble than she’s worth, but the rest are mine.”
Isabel slumped to her knees and fell over. A glance at her colors told Alexander that she was alive but unconscious.
“If you know what I am, then you know there’s nowhere you can hide,” Alexander said. “Especially now that I’ve figured out how to penetrate your warding spells. Release them and I will leave you in peace.”
“I can’t,” Hazel said. “I need them. I’m so close. You don’t understand. I’ve been working for over a century to defeat the Sin’Rath, and now I finally have the means, but I can’t do it without them.” She pointed to Hector, Horace, and Ayela who were standing over their bedrolls, watching the exchange.
“Had you simply asked, I’m sure Isabel would have been willing to help you,” Alexander said.
“I doubt that very much,” Hazel said.
“What have you done to Isabel?” Ayela asked.
“She’s just sleeping, Child,” Hazel said, dismissively. “Pack your things. We’ll be leaving today.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you until I’m sure Isabel is all right,” Ayela said.
“Don’t be a fool,” Hazel snapped. “Do as you’re told.”
“No,” Ayela said, drawing her dagger. “Isabel is my friend.”
“Hector, be a dear and take her weapon,” Hazel said.
Hector grabbed Ayela by the wrist and calmly pried the blade from her hand.
“This is your doing,” Hazel said to Alexander before she stepped up to Ayela and blew a pinch of powder into her face. The Princess of Karth blinked a few times, then her eyes went glassy and her face went slack.
“Pack your things,” Hazel said.
Ayela slowly started gathering her belongings, moving in a methodical, almost shambling sort of way.
“For what it’s worth, I won’t harm Isabel. She may yet prove useful, provided she survives the swamp.”
Alexander faded from sight but remained to watch. He wanted to shout, to rage against the witch, to threaten her, but he was afraid of what she might do to Isabel.
So he simply watched.
Chapter 36
Isabel woke, lying in the mud, shrouded in fog. She sat up sleepily at first before she realized where she was and then she scrambled to her feet, looking around in near panic. She was in the swamp, alone, without her weapons or pack. She focused on breathing, calming her racing heart while she thought about her situation, trying to find a scrap of hope she might leverage into survival.
Alexander appeared a few feet away.
“What happened?” Isabel asked.
“Hazel left you in the swamp without even a knife and took everyone else with her,” Alexander said. “It looks like they’re headed for the mountain.”
“What would she want there?” Isabel asked. “She made the place out to be a death trap.”
“Maybe there’s something there she doesn’t want anyone to know about,” Alexander said. “Her plan seems to hinge on your traveling companions.”
“I really thought Ayela was coming around,” Isabel said, getting to her feet and wiping the mud from her pants.
“Hazel cast some kind of spell over her involving a charm that Ayela is now wearing around her neck,” Alexander said. “She’s just as obedient as Hector and Horace.”
Isabel surveyed the swamp, still and quiet as a tomb. “I’m in trouble here,” she said.
“I know. Let’s start by getting your weapons and equipment back. Maybe we’ll find some answers along the way.”
“I don’t even know which way to go,” Isabel said, feeling helpless.
“I do,” Alexander said, transforming into a ball of light and bobbling away into the mist.
Isabel followed, more afraid of the swamp than ever before. He led her along a path that became familiar when she reached the tree with notches cut into the side like the rungs of a ladder. Once across the rope bridge and down again, she found the place in the stone wall that was a cave entrance when last she came this way.
“It’s right here,” Alexander said, transforming back into an image of himself and pointing. “The wall is about a foot thick. She controls it with a few words in a language I don’t understand, so you’ll have to burn your way through.”
Isabel nodded, reaching for her rage but finding only the numbing sensation of the malaise weed in its place.
“She’s been drugging my food. I’ll have to wait for the effects to wear off before I can cast a spell.”
“How long?”
“Could be hours, could be tomorrow.”
“I want to stay with you but I can’t hold an illusion for that long,” Alexander said.
“I know, just check on me now and then,” Isabel said. “I’ll need your help once I get into her valley.”
“Be strong, we’ll get through this,” he said, fading from sight.
Isabel waited, attempting every hour or so to build her anger into a rage sufficient to cast her light-lance spell. As night fell, her fear grew. It was so dark. She listened to the deathly quiet of the swamp, expecting some horrible monster to come for her in the darkness, but nothing did. She woke the next morning shivering and hungry … but more importantly, she was angry. Her rage bloomed into fury easily, almost too easily, but she fed it as she spoke the words of her spell.
The hole she burned clean through the stone wall revealed the passage beyond. It took her dozens of castings to cut an opening large enough for her to crawl through. By the time she was done, her rage was spent and she was exhausted from the effort.