The Legend of Asahiel: Book 02 - The Obsidian Key by Eldon Thompson

Author:Eldon Thompson [Thompson, Eldon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Fantasy, Epic, Fantasy Fiction, Quests (Expeditions), Kings and Rulers, Demonology
ISBN: 9780060741532
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-02-08T06:00:00+00:00

NECANICUM SIGHED AS SHE FIT THE LID to its jar and tied it in place. It had taken her some time to wipe clean each Tongue of the Teldara. So many grooves within their hard-shelled bodies. So many jointed legs. She hadn’t even needed them for the telling, for on this matter, the Teldara spoke willingly. But in order to draw his blood, she’d had to play at performing the ritual of forced communion.

Do not forget the phial, they told her, those who lived within.

She looked at it, the tiny container she had filled with his blood. Preserved by the necessary incantation. Stoppered and secured for the journey that lay ahead. Such a little item, upon which rested the fates of so many.

Hurry, they urged.

“Don’t rush me,” she muttered back. “There is still time.”

But none to waste. The Leviathan stirs. We must act before He does.

They were right, of course. They always were. She had learned that lesson long ago, though not a day went by that they didn’t remind her of it. Still, better to take her time, check her inventories, ensure that nothing that would be needed was forgotten.

If the Immortal One learns what he is up against, he might simply turn away.

“I should think so. But we didn’t tell him now, did we?”

That cannot happen.

“It most certainly can,” she warned, “if what you’ve told me is correct.” And she knew that it was.

That must not happen, they amended.

“I suspect it won’t.”

Did you see the way he looked at her?

“I’m not blind,” she mumbled. “Sometimes I think I see these things more clearly than you.”

She couldn’t remember now how it had happened, whether they had chosen her or she had chosen them. It no longer seemed to matter. Regardless, the time they had long predicted had come, and she would not let it be for naught.

Hurry.

She gritted her teeth, resisting the urge to snap back at them. She almost wished she could leave them behind. It might have made this entire trek more palatable.

Before long, she had gathered up her things. She didn’t require much. A few horns, skins, and pouches. An extra fur. And of course the phial, tied to a string and hung around her neck, so that it lay against her breast. Where she could almost feel his heartbeat against hers.

Are we ready, then?

Necanicum nodded, more to herself than to them, and picked up her light globe. She would refill it on the way out, though even that would not last her long. Once beyond the borders of her woods, these woods to which she had given such magnificent life, she would have to find another source. She had no doubts but that they would help her do so.

When she reached the exit to her home, she stopped to peer up at the dawning sky. The sun had not yet risen, but she could taste its yearning, and smell her destiny in the wind.

You know the way, do you not?

“You’ll not let me forget, I’m sure,” she griped, her chin digging at her shoulder.

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