“The spirits that Keth talked about? They’re here. I can see them. The mountain is cloaked in a shroud of ghosts.” She was looking a little green around the gills. “I’m blocking out their ability to know that I can see them, but they’re calling out for us, trying to lure us off the path. Be cautious if you hear anything. They don’t have our best interests at heart, I can tell you that.”
I shivered. “I can hear them, although I can’t hear what they’re saying. I can just hear the whispering of their voices.”
“I can hear them too,” Shade said, surprising both of us. Ever since he lost his Stradolan powers thanks to an energy-leech that had invaded our house, his abilities to work with spirits had drastically decreased except when he was in his actual dragon form. “Something is happening to me as we climb the mountain. I didn’t want to say so before, because I thought it was my imagination, but there is heavy magic here and it’s affecting me. I’m not sure what’s going on.”
Delilah, looking worried, turned to him. “Honey? Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Yes, but it’s as though…it’s almost like if I just tried hard enough, I could reach out and snatch my powers back. I want to try, but I’m worried that it might be a trick the ghosts are playing on me. That it’s actually something set up to harm me.”
Delilah glanced at me. I shrugged, not sure whether or not his assessment was right. If he had a chance to reclaim his powers, we needed to give him the leeway to do so. But what if he was right and it was a trick? What if the spirits were trying to trick him into doing something that would harm either him or us, or both?
I turned to Bran. “What do you know about this mountain? Anything?”
“All I know is that Pentangle has been spotted around this mountain way too many times. The Mother of Magic doesn’t usually show up unless there’s something incredibly powerful about a place or event.” He frowned, staring up at the peak that was dimly illuminated against the backdrop of the night sky. “I think we have to walk softly and keep our eyes open lest we fall into any number of traps and tricks.”
“Good advice,” I murmured. Turning back to Shade, I asked, “What do you want to do? What’s your gut instinct?”
He frowned, closing his eyes. “Whatever it is, if there is a chance for me to regain my powers, it’s farther up the mountain.”
Smoky nodded, then motioned for us to start in again. “Onward, and ignore the voices around us. We can’t afford to be led on any wild goose chases.”
We climbed through the hours following, one hour, two. When we were—by our reckoning—an hour away from the cave, we paused for a snack. Delilah handed out apples and cookies that the monks had given us, and we ate in silence. I was feeling the power of the mountain pressing down on me. The immensity of the magic here was wearing, and it was giving me a headache because my magic didn’t mesh all that well with the innate magic of the Tygerian monks and their mountains.
When we finished, we took up again and at this point, I kept my attention carefully focused on my feet. We were all carrying flashlights. The light of the crescent moon wasn’t strong enough to illuminate our way.
Another thirty minutes and Smoky held up his hand, slowing. “I think I see it. Up there.” He nodded toward a fork in the path that led to a dark blotch against the mountain. The opening to the cavern.
As I stared at it, something inside resonated deep and loud. There it was. And I knew that the diamond was in there.
“Let’s go,” I said, focused only on the end point now. Every instinct inside was screaming to get there before someone came along to interfere.
We were nearing the turnoff when a deep rumbling like an earthquake raced along below our feet. I threw myself to the side of the hill, trying to keep from slipping off the edge of the trail, which was slanted at a highly uncomfortable angle. The trail flattened out again ten yards ahead, but here, it was more vertical than horizontal.
The others followed my lead, and we clung to the side of the hill as a large mound of dirt began to form ahead of us, pushing up from below the ground from deep inside the mountain. I pressed hard against the hillside, holding on for dear life.
The dirt rose up, clinging together rather than scattering. It formed into a large, hulking creature, its body rounded like a barrel while its arms and legs were trunk-like columns of soil and rock all mixed together. The golem had no eyes, no mouth, but reminded me of an artist’s mannequin created out of dirt rather than wood.
“Elemental!” Smoky pushed me behind him, his hair keeping me steady as it wrapped around my waist. “Earth Elemental.”