Fic: Elemental Magic (Legend of the Seeker, Gen, PG)
Title: Elemental Magic
Author: alyse
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Characters/Pairing: Gen, the team plus original characters
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: Set post Season 2, mild child endangerment
Word Count: ~3,400
Disclaimer: Legend of the Seeker (TV) belongs to ABC Studios/Disney. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Author's Notes: Written for a legendland challenge, which gave lists for things to include in the beginning, middle or end of a story, and required you to pick and include at least one from each list in the relevant place.
So of course, I included all of them.
Summary: There are worlds beyond this one, and not all of them are kind.
-o-
"Beware," boomed Gerian the Gloomy, glaring down on his errant neighbours from his vantage point atop the village fountain. "Beware, for your doom is at hand."
"Oh, leave it out, Gerian," one of those self-same neighbours - a woman by the name of Gertrude, who had a nature just as abrupt and no-nonsense as her name - bellowed back to him. "We've had about enough of your doom and gloom nonsense, thank you very much. The end of the world is not nigh, no matter what you say. Not now the Seeker's defeated the Keeper. And don't you think we have other things to worry about, like what's happened to Miriam's youngest?"
Her companions, all of whom seemed to have expressions bordering on something akin to truculent sheep, nodded in agreement. Perhaps it was Gerian's admittedly wild imagination, but he half-thought that the muttered sounds of agreement they let out simply cemented the similarities to that least noble of creatures.
He took a deep breath, fixing his steely gaze on Gertrude with every intention of ripping the dratted woman's ego apart with a few well chosen words, maybe even something about how Miriam's youngest daughter was simply the first to pay the wages of sin and the rest of them would be with the Keeper soon enough, when something thudded into his chest and drove that selfsame breath right out of him.
He stared down in surprise at the feathered butt of the arrow sticking out through his shirt, but his soft "Oh bugger" - the last words he ever spoke - was drowned out by the sound of screaming as his neighbours and fellow villagers pushed and shoved their way out of the square, scrambling over each other in their panic to escape his unseen attacker.
The screaming also drowned out the soft, silvery laughter that hung in the air. Only Gerian was left to hear it, and he wouldn't be hearing anything ever again.
-o-
The village square was empty when Cara and her companions stalked into it, or rather, Cara stalked and her companions ambled amiably in her wake.
She glared around, daring the silence to break itself, but the village remained as frustratingly empty as it had been when she'd first stalked through its streets.
"Where is everyone?" she asked, turning her head to glare at Richard as though it was his fault. It probably was. Most things were these days, especially since he showed no sign of wanting to return to D'Hara after defeating the Keeper. Instead he seemed to want to continue traipsing around the countryside, rescuing kittens and other assorted farm animals. She half-suspected that that was mostly down to a reluctance to leave Kahlan's side rather than simply a love of endangered animals.
Not that she would ever comment on that. Hint around it, maybe. Possibly even make a pointed remark or two, but not outright comment on it.
Not more than once or twice, anyway.
Richard shot her a jaded look, one that was a little more ragged around the edges than might have been the case a few seven-days ago or so, back when she'd first started dropping the occasional unsubtle hint or two, but he didn't answer her directly. She wasn't sure why she expected him to have an answer, and she resisted the urge to scuff her boot in the dirt.
"This is very peculiar," observed Zedd, staring around him with a bemused expression, and Cara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He did love stating the obvious, but now that he had, she felt contrary.
"Abandoned villages are nothing new," she said impatiently. "Not since the banelings swept through this area."
"This doesn't feel like banelings," Richard said, staring around him and taking in everything. His hand was resting on the hilt of the Sword of Truth, and Cara's own fingers drifted towards the handles of her agiels as she also stared around, unsettled by Richard's focus.
There, in one of the windows, half-hidden by the shutters. Movement.
She drifted in the building's direction, keeping the move casual and catching Kahlan's eyes as she went. Kahlan gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement, something that could pass as a simple twitch of her head to anyone watching.
Zedd raised his voice, rambling nonsensically about the devastation left behind by the Keeper's attempts to take over the surface world, serving as a point of distraction as Cara continued to stalk her prey.
She darted through the doorway, seizing hold of their watcher with a fierce grip and dragging the figure out into the marketplace, agiel firmly pointed at the miscreant's throat.
It was an older woman, someone who'd once been plump, but was thinner now thanks to the banelings' efforts and the poor harvest. The flesh of her face sagged a little, but that might have been down to her terror of Cara rather than simply missing a meal or two.
"Who are you?" Cara demanded, shaking the woman until her teeth chatted with fear. "Why are you watching us instead of greeting us like you should the Seeker?"
She ignored Richard's sudden glance in her direction, pulling a slight face as she realised that once again she'd called him the Seeker rather than the Lord Rahl, but before she could do more than mentally berate herself, the woman's expression changed from one of abject terror something akin to hope.
"The Seeker?" she asked, grabbing hold of Cara's arm and sinking her fingers deep into the leather as she stared hopefully at Richard. "Oh, praise be."
"Yes," Richard confirmed, giving Cara little sidelong look. "I'm Richard Rahl, the Seeker. Do you need our help?"
"Oh yes!" the woman babbled, letting go of Cara's arm long enough to hold her hands out beseechingly towards Richard. "Dreadful things are happening in our village. Dreadful things!"
-o-
The dreadful things, it seemed, involved the disappearance of a child and the death of the village's local prophet.
"It came out of thin air," the woman, Gertrude, explained, her eyes darting between Richard and his companions. "The arrow that killed Gerian. There was no sign of who fired it, and we're a peaceable village. There hasn't been a murder here in nigh on thirty years, and that was Goodwife Mercy, hitting her man with a skillet and it weren't like he hadn't hit her a time or two before that."
Richard nodded seriously, listening intently as he always did, but it was Zedd who was frowning most deeply.
"Tell me about the child," he interrupted. "The one who has gone missing."
"We thought she might have got lost," Gertrude explained. "Or taken by the Mord Sith." She cast a guilty glance in Cara's direction. "But they haven't taken a girl from here in years. And Megan is too young to interest them."
"How old is she?" Kahlan asked gently.
"Four," sniffled Gertrude, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Pretty as a picture, too. And such a sweet little girl. Sweet as honey."
"Could she have wandered off?" Cara asked impatiently, more than half-convinced that that would be the case.
"Oh no," Gertrude moaned. "She's a quiet one, well-behaved. Always away with the fairies, if you know what I mean?"
Zedd stiffened suddenly, giving Gertrude a keen look.
"Does she have imaginary friends?" he asked, although Cara couldn't see what that had to do with the situation. "Maybe ones she talks to when no one else can see them. Maybe ones she talks about, princesses and fantastical creatures, ones with wings, maybe?"
"Yes." Gertrude gave him a puzzled look. "But doesn't every child have her fantasies and her fairytales?"
Zedd ignored the question, at least for the moment. "You said she was sweet as honey?" he asked instead. "Was there any? Some in the house, maybe? Some that nobody remembers collecting? Or a cake sweetened with it that just... appeared, ready baked and delicious?"
Gertrude gave him a blank look, her brows then drawing down into a frown. "What kind of questions are those?" she asked, some fire finally entering her voice.
"Pertinent ones, my dear woman," Zedd replied, switching his attention to Cara. "Perhaps you might like to find out, Cara."
-o-
There had been cake, Megan's mother confirmed to Cara, her face pale and her eyes red with weeping. She seemed less interested than Gertrude in the reasons behind Cara's strange questions, but perhaps she was simply beyond caring or had placed all of her faith in Richard's ability to retrieve her stolen child. And honey, a jar of it left on the kitchen table. She'd barely noticed either, assuming the bounty had been left by her mother-in-law, one of the many gifts her late husband's mother had brought them after her son's death.
She answered Zedd's other questions just as honestly, no confusion clouding her face. If anything, she seemed just as lost as her daughter, just as remote, pushed beyond bearing first by the loss of her husband and now of her child. She rose to her feet obediently when Zedd asked to see Megan's room, and led the way with a steady pace and very little interest.
There was a lump underneath the covers, something too small to be a child, and when Cara pulled back the blanket, Miriam showed the first sign of life, gasping when she caught sight of the doll that stared up expressionlessly at the ceiling.
Cara didn't see why it was so important. If the child had been taken rather than simply wandering off, then it was unlikely that any kidnapper would stop long enough to collect the child's favourite toy.
Miriam let out a moan, her hands flying out to catch hold of the doll and pull it to her. "That's the dress the Megan was wearing when I last saw her," she said, the tears finally rolling down her face. "And the belt she was wearing - she's not grown into the dress yet, not fully. It's too long for her." And, indeed, even the doll's dress seemed to fall down over its feet. Miriam let out another sob, her hand flying up to cover her mouth, and for all that Cara hated women who cried, it was preferable to the blankness Miriam had exhibited until now. "And that's her favourite cape - her grandmother made it for her. Red is her favourite colour. I don't understand."
That last was a plea to Zedd.
"It's a payment," Zedd said grimly, pawing through his rucksack and ignoring the looks that everyone sent him. "For the child. Tell me, did you bathe Megan last night, so that she was all crisp and clean? Her hair soft and her face shining?"
The words didn't sound like Zedd's, not exactly, and Cara stared at him, just as lost as Miriam as he finally produced a book from the depths of his bag. He flicked through it, finding the place he wanted with ease.
Miriam nodded, wordlessly, or close enough. She murmured something that Cara barely caught, something about how much Megan loved bathing, or loved floating in the bathtub.
Zedd looked up, and it was Cara's eyes he met, Cara's eyes he held as he finally explained.
"The Underworld and the Creator's Realm are not the only worlds that mirror ours, or lie alongside and, in a strange way, within. There are other worlds, too, and not all of them are kind. And there are creatures that live in those worlds - terrible, lovely beings that are both cruel and strangely enticing - who covet what we have in our world and would take it when they could."
"Like children," Richard said, finally understanding, and something cold crept up Cara's spine.
Zedd nodded, his expression grim. "Like children," he agreed. "Soft, clean children, with hair like spun silk and laughter like bells. They covet them, steal them with promises of honey, and pay for their theft with the same coin."
"And the man they killed?" Cara asked, drawing her eyebrows down as she puzzled it out.
"If he was ranting as Gertrude said, promising the end of days and that danger was coming, they'd have feared him, feared what he would say about the future, about what they were intending. So they killed him to silence him, even though it was more likely that he was a fool who knew nothing and no more saw the future than I do." Zedd shook himself, a long, slow roll of his spine as though he was readying for battle.
"You'll need iron," he said, looking straight at Richard. "Or well-honed steel. The Sword of Truth should serve you well enough when it comes to a weapon, although with any luck you won't need to fight. But an iron or steel helmet is a must." His lips thinned. "We're not just battling for this child's life," he explained. "We're battling for this child's very soul, and I pray we won't be too late. They're tempting things, these fae, pretty enough to fool a child and they have a lot of practice at it. You'll need to be strong, Miriam." He looked directly at the child's mother, his expression softening slightly. "You need to call her back to you, hold her tight and never let her go, not until I say it's safe. It will be hard -"
"She's my child," Miriam interrupted, and there was fire in her eyes now, a burning that had nothing to do with unshed tears. "Tell me what to do."
-o-
It took magic, of course, which meant that Zedd was in his element. But he didn't seem to take as much joy in the spell as he usually did. His expression was solemn, his eyes just as grim as they had been when he'd first pulled the book of prophecy from his bag. There were spells in it, too, he explained. It covered what might happen when the realms started to open to one another, the fabric of reality weakened by the Keeper's incursions and, perhaps - although he didn't quite come out and say it - by Zedd's own meddling with the past, present and future.
To save Cara. And now a four year old child might be paying the price.
But his book also covered how to stop these fae, how to steal back what was stolen, and that might be their only hope.
They were as ready as they would ever be. Richard now wore a helm made from someone's best pan, hammered out by the village's blacksmith into something hopefully useful. It looked crude, but it was iron and somehow Richard made it look more than it should, nothing like a laughing matter. Richard's face was set, just as grim as Zedd's eyes and the weight in Cara's heart, and Kahlan's expression was also resolute, giving no quarter as she held her own blades out ready. Steel ones. Ones that would hurt even creatures such as these.
Zedd's fingers twirled, carving intricate shapes in the air as he murmured words of power, words that set the hairs at the nape of Cara's neck to prickling, rising until they stood on end.
The sky darkened, something moving to block out the sun. An eclipse, although Cara knew that nothing such was due to happen, not for years yet. Maybe not even in her lifetime.
Magic. It must be.
She tore her eyes away from the sky and focused her attention back on Zedd, but he gave no sign of being disconcerted. His brow furrowed and his fingers twisted harder, almost looking as if he was trying to rip the very air itself apart.
Perhaps he was. The air in front of him shimmered, becoming solid like glass but shifting constantly, rainbows running across its surface like the aftermath of a summer's rain. Cara swallowed, gripping tight hold of her agiels.
The air parted, snowflakes swirling out of it to melt in the heat of the village's air. It was the hottest day of summer so far, but when Cara shifted, moving closer to Zedd protectively, she saw that beyond the veil that Zedd had created into this other realm, it was the depths of winter.
Somehow she knew that this was a place that spring never touched.
"Richard," Zedd ground out, his voice hoarse with effort. But Richard needed no further instruction, gripping his sword tightly as he stepped fearlessly into the unknown.
The swirling snowstorm soon hid him from view, and Cara had to tamp down on the instinctive reaction to rush after her Lord Rahl, to protect him with her life if needs be. She was needed here; Zedd had made that much plain.
The next long moments dragged past until the tension was almost unbearable, sweat slowly rolling down Zedd's face in the summer heat and chills still rolling down Cara's spine. And then there was movement beyond the veil, movement that slowly coalesced into the figure of Richard, carrying something that he gripped tightly as he rushed towards them.
Cara took a step back, giving Richard room as he tumbled out of the hole in the air, gasping as he shivered and shook. There was snow in his hair, frost riming his eyelashes and the laces of his jerkin, and his lips were blue with cold. But the child he held was paler still, a perfect little porcelain doll in a red cape and a dress that was too long for her, held up by a belt.
Miriam let out a wordless cry, seizing her lost child and pulling Megan towards her, cradling her in her arms.
"Hold her tight, Miriam," Zedd gasped. "They're coming."
They boiled out of the opening, barely seen shapes shifting in the air, nothing but fleeting impressions of things that were both beautiful and terrible: long faces; bright, almond-shaped eyes that held no hint of kindness; teeth that were sharp and fierce. Richard raised his sword and Kahlan did likewise, both of them slashing through the air, causing the invaders to scream as cold steel drove them back.
Cara's agiels weren't effective, and she drew the rusty sword that had been Miriam's husband's, cutting through the air and the shapes that swirled around her. Something screamed and clawed at her face, leaving ribbons of pain behind it. She wiped the blood off her face with the red of her leathers and returned to battle.
"Go back," Zedd bellowed, the very earth seeming to tremble with the power of his voice. "Go back. The child is not yours. The child is her mother's, and her mother will hold her."
Miriam was doing just that, Cara saw, her arms wrapped tightly around Megan's small body and her face just as bloodied as Cara's own. Even as Cara watched, something else slashed its mark on Miriam's skin, but still Miriam didn't waver, simply pulling Megan closer to her and holding on as tightly as she could.
It was tight enough. The very air seemed to howl out its fury, snowflakes spiralling round and round in a tempest of temper before everything fell silent and still. Cara straightened, gasping with the sudden shock of that silence as her eyes darted around, searching for the next attack. But there was nothing, nothing to see and nothing to hear but the slow rumble of thunder in the distance. Cara wasn't surprised when then the skies opened, rain washing away the last remnants of snow that lay melting on the ground, washing away the signs of the invasion that had failed as though their world was angry at the sheer effrontery of it, determined to obliterate every trace.
"Did we win?" she asked Zedd, her tone disbelieving.
Zedd straightened up, letting his fingers slowly uncurl from the shapes they'd been forming.
"It seems so," he said, looking over at Miriam and Megan. There was colour back in Megan's cheeks, and she was crying softly, holding as tightly onto her mother as her mother was holding onto her. "But I suspect that this may only be the first of many skirmishes. If the walls between the realms have been weakened, they'll be watching for their next child. Megan might be the first child taken, but somehow I suspect she won't be the last."
Cara was afraid he might be right.
The end
Author: alyse
Fandom: Legend of the Seeker
Characters/Pairing: Gen, the team plus original characters
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Warnings: Set post Season 2, mild child endangerment
Word Count: ~3,400
Disclaimer: Legend of the Seeker (TV) belongs to ABC Studios/Disney. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Author's Notes: Written for a legendland challenge, which gave lists for things to include in the beginning, middle or end of a story, and required you to pick and include at least one from each list in the relevant place.
So of course, I included all of them.
Summary: There are worlds beyond this one, and not all of them are kind.
-o-
"Beware," boomed Gerian the Gloomy, glaring down on his errant neighbours from his vantage point atop the village fountain. "Beware, for your doom is at hand."
"Oh, leave it out, Gerian," one of those self-same neighbours - a woman by the name of Gertrude, who had a nature just as abrupt and no-nonsense as her name - bellowed back to him. "We've had about enough of your doom and gloom nonsense, thank you very much. The end of the world is not nigh, no matter what you say. Not now the Seeker's defeated the Keeper. And don't you think we have other things to worry about, like what's happened to Miriam's youngest?"
Her companions, all of whom seemed to have expressions bordering on something akin to truculent sheep, nodded in agreement. Perhaps it was Gerian's admittedly wild imagination, but he half-thought that the muttered sounds of agreement they let out simply cemented the similarities to that least noble of creatures.
He took a deep breath, fixing his steely gaze on Gertrude with every intention of ripping the dratted woman's ego apart with a few well chosen words, maybe even something about how Miriam's youngest daughter was simply the first to pay the wages of sin and the rest of them would be with the Keeper soon enough, when something thudded into his chest and drove that selfsame breath right out of him.
He stared down in surprise at the feathered butt of the arrow sticking out through his shirt, but his soft "Oh bugger" - the last words he ever spoke - was drowned out by the sound of screaming as his neighbours and fellow villagers pushed and shoved their way out of the square, scrambling over each other in their panic to escape his unseen attacker.
The screaming also drowned out the soft, silvery laughter that hung in the air. Only Gerian was left to hear it, and he wouldn't be hearing anything ever again.
-o-
The village square was empty when Cara and her companions stalked into it, or rather, Cara stalked and her companions ambled amiably in her wake.
She glared around, daring the silence to break itself, but the village remained as frustratingly empty as it had been when she'd first stalked through its streets.
"Where is everyone?" she asked, turning her head to glare at Richard as though it was his fault. It probably was. Most things were these days, especially since he showed no sign of wanting to return to D'Hara after defeating the Keeper. Instead he seemed to want to continue traipsing around the countryside, rescuing kittens and other assorted farm animals. She half-suspected that that was mostly down to a reluctance to leave Kahlan's side rather than simply a love of endangered animals.
Not that she would ever comment on that. Hint around it, maybe. Possibly even make a pointed remark or two, but not outright comment on it.
Not more than once or twice, anyway.
Richard shot her a jaded look, one that was a little more ragged around the edges than might have been the case a few seven-days ago or so, back when she'd first started dropping the occasional unsubtle hint or two, but he didn't answer her directly. She wasn't sure why she expected him to have an answer, and she resisted the urge to scuff her boot in the dirt.
"This is very peculiar," observed Zedd, staring around him with a bemused expression, and Cara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He did love stating the obvious, but now that he had, she felt contrary.
"Abandoned villages are nothing new," she said impatiently. "Not since the banelings swept through this area."
"This doesn't feel like banelings," Richard said, staring around him and taking in everything. His hand was resting on the hilt of the Sword of Truth, and Cara's own fingers drifted towards the handles of her agiels as she also stared around, unsettled by Richard's focus.
There, in one of the windows, half-hidden by the shutters. Movement.
She drifted in the building's direction, keeping the move casual and catching Kahlan's eyes as she went. Kahlan gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement, something that could pass as a simple twitch of her head to anyone watching.
Zedd raised his voice, rambling nonsensically about the devastation left behind by the Keeper's attempts to take over the surface world, serving as a point of distraction as Cara continued to stalk her prey.
She darted through the doorway, seizing hold of their watcher with a fierce grip and dragging the figure out into the marketplace, agiel firmly pointed at the miscreant's throat.
It was an older woman, someone who'd once been plump, but was thinner now thanks to the banelings' efforts and the poor harvest. The flesh of her face sagged a little, but that might have been down to her terror of Cara rather than simply missing a meal or two.
"Who are you?" Cara demanded, shaking the woman until her teeth chatted with fear. "Why are you watching us instead of greeting us like you should the Seeker?"
She ignored Richard's sudden glance in her direction, pulling a slight face as she realised that once again she'd called him the Seeker rather than the Lord Rahl, but before she could do more than mentally berate herself, the woman's expression changed from one of abject terror something akin to hope.
"The Seeker?" she asked, grabbing hold of Cara's arm and sinking her fingers deep into the leather as she stared hopefully at Richard. "Oh, praise be."
"Yes," Richard confirmed, giving Cara little sidelong look. "I'm Richard Rahl, the Seeker. Do you need our help?"
"Oh yes!" the woman babbled, letting go of Cara's arm long enough to hold her hands out beseechingly towards Richard. "Dreadful things are happening in our village. Dreadful things!"
-o-
The dreadful things, it seemed, involved the disappearance of a child and the death of the village's local prophet.
"It came out of thin air," the woman, Gertrude, explained, her eyes darting between Richard and his companions. "The arrow that killed Gerian. There was no sign of who fired it, and we're a peaceable village. There hasn't been a murder here in nigh on thirty years, and that was Goodwife Mercy, hitting her man with a skillet and it weren't like he hadn't hit her a time or two before that."
Richard nodded seriously, listening intently as he always did, but it was Zedd who was frowning most deeply.
"Tell me about the child," he interrupted. "The one who has gone missing."
"We thought she might have got lost," Gertrude explained. "Or taken by the Mord Sith." She cast a guilty glance in Cara's direction. "But they haven't taken a girl from here in years. And Megan is too young to interest them."
"How old is she?" Kahlan asked gently.
"Four," sniffled Gertrude, wiping her nose on her sleeve. "Pretty as a picture, too. And such a sweet little girl. Sweet as honey."
"Could she have wandered off?" Cara asked impatiently, more than half-convinced that that would be the case.
"Oh no," Gertrude moaned. "She's a quiet one, well-behaved. Always away with the fairies, if you know what I mean?"
Zedd stiffened suddenly, giving Gertrude a keen look.
"Does she have imaginary friends?" he asked, although Cara couldn't see what that had to do with the situation. "Maybe ones she talks to when no one else can see them. Maybe ones she talks about, princesses and fantastical creatures, ones with wings, maybe?"
"Yes." Gertrude gave him a puzzled look. "But doesn't every child have her fantasies and her fairytales?"
Zedd ignored the question, at least for the moment. "You said she was sweet as honey?" he asked instead. "Was there any? Some in the house, maybe? Some that nobody remembers collecting? Or a cake sweetened with it that just... appeared, ready baked and delicious?"
Gertrude gave him a blank look, her brows then drawing down into a frown. "What kind of questions are those?" she asked, some fire finally entering her voice.
"Pertinent ones, my dear woman," Zedd replied, switching his attention to Cara. "Perhaps you might like to find out, Cara."
-o-
There had been cake, Megan's mother confirmed to Cara, her face pale and her eyes red with weeping. She seemed less interested than Gertrude in the reasons behind Cara's strange questions, but perhaps she was simply beyond caring or had placed all of her faith in Richard's ability to retrieve her stolen child. And honey, a jar of it left on the kitchen table. She'd barely noticed either, assuming the bounty had been left by her mother-in-law, one of the many gifts her late husband's mother had brought them after her son's death.
She answered Zedd's other questions just as honestly, no confusion clouding her face. If anything, she seemed just as lost as her daughter, just as remote, pushed beyond bearing first by the loss of her husband and now of her child. She rose to her feet obediently when Zedd asked to see Megan's room, and led the way with a steady pace and very little interest.
There was a lump underneath the covers, something too small to be a child, and when Cara pulled back the blanket, Miriam showed the first sign of life, gasping when she caught sight of the doll that stared up expressionlessly at the ceiling.
Cara didn't see why it was so important. If the child had been taken rather than simply wandering off, then it was unlikely that any kidnapper would stop long enough to collect the child's favourite toy.
Miriam let out a moan, her hands flying out to catch hold of the doll and pull it to her. "That's the dress the Megan was wearing when I last saw her," she said, the tears finally rolling down her face. "And the belt she was wearing - she's not grown into the dress yet, not fully. It's too long for her." And, indeed, even the doll's dress seemed to fall down over its feet. Miriam let out another sob, her hand flying up to cover her mouth, and for all that Cara hated women who cried, it was preferable to the blankness Miriam had exhibited until now. "And that's her favourite cape - her grandmother made it for her. Red is her favourite colour. I don't understand."
That last was a plea to Zedd.
"It's a payment," Zedd said grimly, pawing through his rucksack and ignoring the looks that everyone sent him. "For the child. Tell me, did you bathe Megan last night, so that she was all crisp and clean? Her hair soft and her face shining?"
The words didn't sound like Zedd's, not exactly, and Cara stared at him, just as lost as Miriam as he finally produced a book from the depths of his bag. He flicked through it, finding the place he wanted with ease.
Miriam nodded, wordlessly, or close enough. She murmured something that Cara barely caught, something about how much Megan loved bathing, or loved floating in the bathtub.
Zedd looked up, and it was Cara's eyes he met, Cara's eyes he held as he finally explained.
"The Underworld and the Creator's Realm are not the only worlds that mirror ours, or lie alongside and, in a strange way, within. There are other worlds, too, and not all of them are kind. And there are creatures that live in those worlds - terrible, lovely beings that are both cruel and strangely enticing - who covet what we have in our world and would take it when they could."
"Like children," Richard said, finally understanding, and something cold crept up Cara's spine.
Zedd nodded, his expression grim. "Like children," he agreed. "Soft, clean children, with hair like spun silk and laughter like bells. They covet them, steal them with promises of honey, and pay for their theft with the same coin."
"And the man they killed?" Cara asked, drawing her eyebrows down as she puzzled it out.
"If he was ranting as Gertrude said, promising the end of days and that danger was coming, they'd have feared him, feared what he would say about the future, about what they were intending. So they killed him to silence him, even though it was more likely that he was a fool who knew nothing and no more saw the future than I do." Zedd shook himself, a long, slow roll of his spine as though he was readying for battle.
"You'll need iron," he said, looking straight at Richard. "Or well-honed steel. The Sword of Truth should serve you well enough when it comes to a weapon, although with any luck you won't need to fight. But an iron or steel helmet is a must." His lips thinned. "We're not just battling for this child's life," he explained. "We're battling for this child's very soul, and I pray we won't be too late. They're tempting things, these fae, pretty enough to fool a child and they have a lot of practice at it. You'll need to be strong, Miriam." He looked directly at the child's mother, his expression softening slightly. "You need to call her back to you, hold her tight and never let her go, not until I say it's safe. It will be hard -"
"She's my child," Miriam interrupted, and there was fire in her eyes now, a burning that had nothing to do with unshed tears. "Tell me what to do."
-o-
It took magic, of course, which meant that Zedd was in his element. But he didn't seem to take as much joy in the spell as he usually did. His expression was solemn, his eyes just as grim as they had been when he'd first pulled the book of prophecy from his bag. There were spells in it, too, he explained. It covered what might happen when the realms started to open to one another, the fabric of reality weakened by the Keeper's incursions and, perhaps - although he didn't quite come out and say it - by Zedd's own meddling with the past, present and future.
To save Cara. And now a four year old child might be paying the price.
But his book also covered how to stop these fae, how to steal back what was stolen, and that might be their only hope.
They were as ready as they would ever be. Richard now wore a helm made from someone's best pan, hammered out by the village's blacksmith into something hopefully useful. It looked crude, but it was iron and somehow Richard made it look more than it should, nothing like a laughing matter. Richard's face was set, just as grim as Zedd's eyes and the weight in Cara's heart, and Kahlan's expression was also resolute, giving no quarter as she held her own blades out ready. Steel ones. Ones that would hurt even creatures such as these.
Zedd's fingers twirled, carving intricate shapes in the air as he murmured words of power, words that set the hairs at the nape of Cara's neck to prickling, rising until they stood on end.
The sky darkened, something moving to block out the sun. An eclipse, although Cara knew that nothing such was due to happen, not for years yet. Maybe not even in her lifetime.
Magic. It must be.
She tore her eyes away from the sky and focused her attention back on Zedd, but he gave no sign of being disconcerted. His brow furrowed and his fingers twisted harder, almost looking as if he was trying to rip the very air itself apart.
Perhaps he was. The air in front of him shimmered, becoming solid like glass but shifting constantly, rainbows running across its surface like the aftermath of a summer's rain. Cara swallowed, gripping tight hold of her agiels.
The air parted, snowflakes swirling out of it to melt in the heat of the village's air. It was the hottest day of summer so far, but when Cara shifted, moving closer to Zedd protectively, she saw that beyond the veil that Zedd had created into this other realm, it was the depths of winter.
Somehow she knew that this was a place that spring never touched.
"Richard," Zedd ground out, his voice hoarse with effort. But Richard needed no further instruction, gripping his sword tightly as he stepped fearlessly into the unknown.
The swirling snowstorm soon hid him from view, and Cara had to tamp down on the instinctive reaction to rush after her Lord Rahl, to protect him with her life if needs be. She was needed here; Zedd had made that much plain.
The next long moments dragged past until the tension was almost unbearable, sweat slowly rolling down Zedd's face in the summer heat and chills still rolling down Cara's spine. And then there was movement beyond the veil, movement that slowly coalesced into the figure of Richard, carrying something that he gripped tightly as he rushed towards them.
Cara took a step back, giving Richard room as he tumbled out of the hole in the air, gasping as he shivered and shook. There was snow in his hair, frost riming his eyelashes and the laces of his jerkin, and his lips were blue with cold. But the child he held was paler still, a perfect little porcelain doll in a red cape and a dress that was too long for her, held up by a belt.
Miriam let out a wordless cry, seizing her lost child and pulling Megan towards her, cradling her in her arms.
"Hold her tight, Miriam," Zedd gasped. "They're coming."
They boiled out of the opening, barely seen shapes shifting in the air, nothing but fleeting impressions of things that were both beautiful and terrible: long faces; bright, almond-shaped eyes that held no hint of kindness; teeth that were sharp and fierce. Richard raised his sword and Kahlan did likewise, both of them slashing through the air, causing the invaders to scream as cold steel drove them back.
Cara's agiels weren't effective, and she drew the rusty sword that had been Miriam's husband's, cutting through the air and the shapes that swirled around her. Something screamed and clawed at her face, leaving ribbons of pain behind it. She wiped the blood off her face with the red of her leathers and returned to battle.
"Go back," Zedd bellowed, the very earth seeming to tremble with the power of his voice. "Go back. The child is not yours. The child is her mother's, and her mother will hold her."
Miriam was doing just that, Cara saw, her arms wrapped tightly around Megan's small body and her face just as bloodied as Cara's own. Even as Cara watched, something else slashed its mark on Miriam's skin, but still Miriam didn't waver, simply pulling Megan closer to her and holding on as tightly as she could.
It was tight enough. The very air seemed to howl out its fury, snowflakes spiralling round and round in a tempest of temper before everything fell silent and still. Cara straightened, gasping with the sudden shock of that silence as her eyes darted around, searching for the next attack. But there was nothing, nothing to see and nothing to hear but the slow rumble of thunder in the distance. Cara wasn't surprised when then the skies opened, rain washing away the last remnants of snow that lay melting on the ground, washing away the signs of the invasion that had failed as though their world was angry at the sheer effrontery of it, determined to obliterate every trace.
"Did we win?" she asked Zedd, her tone disbelieving.
Zedd straightened up, letting his fingers slowly uncurl from the shapes they'd been forming.
"It seems so," he said, looking over at Miriam and Megan. There was colour back in Megan's cheeks, and she was crying softly, holding as tightly onto her mother as her mother was holding onto her. "But I suspect that this may only be the first of many skirmishes. If the walls between the realms have been weakened, they'll be watching for their next child. Megan might be the first child taken, but somehow I suspect she won't be the last."
Cara was afraid he might be right.
The end