Soul Magic by Karen Whiddon Page B

son.” 
                 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Shortly before dawn, they arrived at Morfran’s keep. After riding straight through the night exhaustion showed both in the weary men’s faces and the labored breathing of their lathered mounts.
    Reining to a halt, they stared in silence at the stone monstrosity that was Morfran’s keep.  In all her travels in both Rune and earth, Alanna had never seen such a forbidding place.  Morfran’s keep made even Thorncliff look cozy.  It might have been the starkness of the roughly chiseled rock from which it was constructed, or the neglected and dead fields which surrounded the place. 
    She inhaled deeply, wrinkling her nose.  Even the gentle silver light of the moon did not soften the harshness of the place.  Evil radiated from the structure.  Malevolence and foul darkness; the fortress was the embodiment of all that could be corrupted in men.
    She shivered.  She’d always had a fertile imagination.  Striving to remain calm, she pushed away thoughts of her little boy’s certain terror at being held captive in such an unclean place.  Catching her breath, her heart thudding hard in her chest, she studied the keep with as dispassionate an eye as she could manage.
    Wickedness.  Abuse.  She took a shuddering breath.  The sense of evil emanating from mere rock put her so off-balance she swayed on her horse’s back. 
    Magic?  Couldn’t be.  Perhaps the sense of wrongness came from the air of utter decay which permeated the immediate area surrounding this bleak and dark keep.  Twisted trees raised blackened, skeletal limbs skyward, a portrait of haunting supplication.  Around them, the earth bled, ash-filled sores a testament to suffering.  The untended fields had been burnt to mere stubble.   As though someone, trying without success to cleanse this blight from the earth, had used fire and wind and rain as their weapons.
    Again she thought of magic.  Only magic, the kind of sorcery the Fae had been capable in decades past, could have caused such destruction.
    Taking care to hide her apprehension, Alanna glanced at the others.  Darrick studied the fortress, his lips pressed together, his strong brow knitted in a frown.  Noticing her interest, Geoffrey glared at her before riding to Darrick’s side. 
    “No guards are posted at the gates.”
    “Aye.”  Darrick continued to frown.  “Something has gone greatly amiss.”
    Sarina maneuvered her horse closer to Alanna.  She spoke low, so as not to be overheard.  “Foulness travels the air of this place.”
    “Aye.  Though I cannot determine the source.  Lend me your hand.”
    Without hesitation Sarina did as requested.  Then, grasping her cousin’s fingers, Alanna used their combined strength to try and magically probe within the stone walls.  Still feeble, she was unable to penetrate them.
    “The place looks abandoned,” Bart mused, scratching his beard.  “Empty.”
    Sarina and Alanna exchanged a glance. 
    “Caradoc?”  Sarina asked.
    Shaking her head wildly, Alanna felt panic rise like bile in her throat.  “Bart is right.  No one is here.”  She swallowed, gripping her hands together to keep them from trembling.  “My son is not here.  Nor your mother.”
    “Find her.”  Darrick demanded.  “And her tormentor.”
    “I sense no one.”  Alanna shook her head, concentrating on keeping her voice level.  “The keep is abandoned.”
    Even Sarina fell uncharacteristically silent, though her grip on Alanna’s hand tightened.
    The horses pawed the earth and shifted on their tired legs.  Everyone stared at the imposing walls of Morfran’s dark keep.
    Caradoc .  She pictured him crying, his beloved, small, freckled face contorted in terror.
    No.  She would not have it.
    “I’m going in.”  Using her heels, Alanna urged her horse forward. The normally cooperative mare