Chapter 34
The Snare
Birut, Kingdom of Hannibal
"Will, I kin't say we fared too will this time," the captain said as they were pulling into port. "Won't make 'nough off this haul te keep me fam'ly fed. Lucky fer me, I've gots some silver tucked 'way fer jus' sech times. 'Twas 'bout ten years 'go, this queer girl comes te me wantin' te go te Fivers' Island—that's what we calls it 'cause o' them worshippin' the five el'mints. Now, the Mad King put a ban on the island. No man's te set foot on it. What I hears happen was—"
Their secret was probably safe. Even if the old captain recalled what happened the past week, who would listen? It felt a little cruel, but they were able to convince him that Tellus had always been her younger self. None of the crewmen bothered to contradict them either.
Speaking of Tellus, she had become oddly withdrawn ever since her contact with the Orb. After Kartbyrsa, it was more that she was sulking, but this was different. It was more like how she was when Tobias first rescued her, that she had retreated into herself to escape something terrible in the world around her. All she would tell them was that they needed to go back.
The change that had come over Tellus put their companions on edge. Now that she could no longer read Tellus' mind, Shoshanna had become uneasy and hesitant, regarding Tellus with suspicion almost as if she were a total stranger. Tym'r's eyes were almost permanently fixed on her and from time to time you could hear a low growl rumbling in his throat. Shayla said Tellus had become what she was meant to be. Tobias thought that she would have been better off the way she was before.
Because Tellus was now so tight-lipped, it was Shayla who explained the situation to them. Tellus' mother, apparently the same Gaia worshipped by the Greeks of old as the Earth Mother, had been infected—infested?—by something called the Black Root that was draining her power and slowly killing her. Gaia could not be saved, so Tellus was born to replace her as the Heart of the World. Before that could happen, though, the Black Root needed to be purged at its source. With her newly awakened powers, Tellus would have to find and destroy that source. Exactly what the source of the Black Root was and where it could be found, Shayla could not say.
Of course, Tobias did not accept this Gaia as a goddess, but he knew from firsthand experience that she was a being with considerable power. Disturbing that power was certain to have consequences, even if those consequences were not quite so dire as Shayla was saying. Of course, simply saying that someone was suffering cruel torment was reason enough for Tobias to want to help. How much more so because it was Tellus' mother.
Once the boat was moored, Tobias paid the captain the other half of what he was owed and the four companions disembarked.
"I was thinking we could get some food before we set out again," Tobias said. "Tellus, where do we need to go next?"
He had asked the question a couple times before and gotten no answer. Indeed she had barely spoken in all this time, but she could not expect them to go where she needed to go if she did not tell them.
"You don't have to do anything," she said in a low voice. "They'll take us the rest of the way."
"Who—?"
"Tobiyah!"
Tobias turned to see Captain Jibril standing before them. Men of the Black Guard who had blended in with the crowd threw off their cloaks and encircled them. There had to be at least twenty of them—no, forty.
"Lord Commander, so good of you to have kept watch over the Witch all this time," Captain Jibril said. "And you have helped her to fully awaken her powers. For this service, the Queen may only behead you instead of having you drawn and quartered."
Tobias drew his sword and shouted back, "I'll not let you have her!"
"I am not taking her, Lord Commander," Captain Jibril said. "She is going to give herself over to us."
"What!?"
"You won't hurt them," Tellus said. Her tone made it uncertain if she was asking him or telling him.
"That depends on how much they try to resist," Captain Jibril replied. "My orders are to bring in you and the Lord Commander. I am sure that both the Queen and my lord would be interested in these others, but they are not necessary."
"So as long as they don't resist then..."
Tobias realized what Tellus meant a moment too late. Then again, even if he had been a little faster, it likely would not have changed anything. He felt his consciousness flicker like a candle in the wind. He turned to see Tellus with her hand outstretched. Her face showed no emotion. Was she being controlled again, as in Ydom, or...?
Tobias' body felt like a lead weight. No amount of resolve could keep him on his feet. As he felt himself sink, a single word escaped his lips.
"Tellus..."
He could not ask the question he wanted to ask, nor could he hear the answer he needed to hear. This was not how he expected their journey to end.