CHAPTER 1
Visions and Voices
Year 326 of the Third Era
“GRANNY JORNA?”
“Is that my Bael?”
The crone giggled like a girl of fifteen summers. Bael found it charming. Magical. A haven from the hell of his own life.
“You sent for me?” Bael asked, carefully closing the tent flap to guard her near-blind eyes from the sunlight. He reached to the roof and untied the hide, venting the heavy pinion smoke.
Jorna had sat in her hide tent as long as Bael could recall, always shrouded in her smoke; always knowing exactly where he was, or where he ought to be. She had never been endeared to his siblings, but Bael was different. Bael was her entire world.
And she was his ray of sunlight, despite the gloom that surrounded her.
“Know what I just saw?” she asked, staring into empty space as she adjusted the coals, “Oh, it was the most wonderful thing, dearie! You! I saw you!”
Bael hid a smile at her over-exaggeration. She always spoke to him as though he were the most important person in the room. It made him feel special.
Magical.
But he wasn’t special, nor particularly magical. Not like his siblings. Nothing like Azarael or Darielle, though to Bael that was a blessing.
His sister had her own sort of madness, and no one dared go near her unless they wished to share in it. She was beautiful, there was no doubt. But violent and volcanic with molten copper hair and a penchant for telling the darkest truths about one’s own soul. And she was always right.
He hadn’t seen his sister in a year, and for that he was profoundly grateful. When Darielle deigned to appear again, he would do anything to stay out of her way. It was usually safe enough by the toad pond; even safer in the Seil Wood.
But not in Granny Jorna’s tent. Never in her tent. His haven was the one place Darielle was sure to visit.
Darielle did not adore Jorna, but they had a powerful relationship. The two women shared a variety of talents, and thus from a young age Darielle had frequented Jorna’s tent nearly as often as Bael.
“And what did I do in this vision?” he asked, pushing the specter of his sister away. “Something heroic, I hope?”
Jorna offered a toothless grin, “Tut-tut, dearie. I can’t spoil the secret. You know better than that.” She gazed sightlessly around the room, then leaned in close, “But it will change everything!”
Bael sat back on his heels, maintaining a smile he knew she couldn’t see, feeling the familiar clutch at his heart.
Prophecy wove every living being into its weft and weave, and when the vision was of significant importance the key players were kept in the dark to avoid corruption. Corruption could render the prophecy invalid, and an unscrupulous prophet could wreck havoc of untold magnitude.
While his grandmother’s vision might contain untold good for him, he knew that couldn’t be the case.
Good things simply didn’t happen to him.
“Oh, what’s that?” Jorna crowed suddenly, cupping a wrinkled hand to her ear.
“I don’t hear anything, Granny.” Bael sighed, glancing over his shoulder.
“Oh, Bael,” Jorna whispered, leaning close again, “I do believe your sister has just arrived.”
As though summoned.
Bael shuddered.
Two unspeakably bad things in one day.
He politely excused himself from the tent before Darielle could arrive to reveal another.
It was better to be the toad boy, to hop about and fetch this and that while the learned men considered the mysteries of the Dark God. Anything to avoid drawing attention to himself.
Bael’s usual defense was hiding from it all; from Darielle and her imperious appearances; from his father and his faith; from his brother Azarael and his obsession with twisting the living form. But he could always seek out his mother.
He found her in the tent of his Lord Father and Master Rafael. She was besieged by another one of her crippling headaches, but Bael climbed onto the narrow cot with her and placed his hand on her forehead.
“Don’t worry, Mama.” he whispered. He needed her, her guidance and her grace, and when her headaches took over he had no one else to defend him from his father’s rages.
Bael placed his hand on his mother’s face and opened himself to his faith. He prayed as hard as he dared, beseeching the Dark God to grant him rare but sometimes-permissible mercy. His mother cried out all the more and began sobbing.
“Sorry! Sorry, Mama!” Bael whimpered. “I was trying to heal! I swear on the Book of Volos!”
His mother gave an uncharacteristic chuckle, though he could hear her pain through it all, “Bael, dear, you know I love your father, but you needn’t prattle on with that dreck while he isn’t here.”
Bael opened his mouth, shocked. The pain made her mad at times, but he’d never heard such blasphemy from her lips. Mother was always at devotional to the Dark God alongside Father and himself. With Azarael and Darielle both having abandoned the Commune in the past year, he was left alone to perform the sacraments and prove his devotion to his father’s god.
Azarael had been lucky to escape with his life, but his abomination hadn’t lived through the night. Bael hadn’t seen his brother since. Darielle had been far more subtle in her escape, vanishing into thin air during devotional a month later.
Bael’s mother had been in a constant state of concern ever since. Darielle and Marra had never seen eye-to-eye, and Darielle’s arrival today spelled greater trouble to come. She would be seeking counsel with Jorna; only then come to rub salt in her mother’s emotional wounds.
His sister was, after all, a proper prophet. An impossible prophet, in his mind. Such people were supposed to be blind old crones with a sight of the futures to come. Prophets were supposed to be like Jorna.
Yet Darielle’s beauty didn’t make her any less a prophet, or any less dangerous. Bael recalled eavesdropping on her when Jorna predicted a cataclysmic war that would eradicate the Cult of Volos. The blow delivered by an angry and ancient god possessed by demons. He had been less than four summers at the time and the thought gave him night terrors still. At a mere five summers, Darielle had just seemed bored.
She never seemed interested in what should happen, occupied instead by events she felt she ought to have a hand in. She obviously wanted to control certain matters, while others couldn’t possibly interest her.
His sister was largely a mystery to him. Sometimes sweeter than even Jorna, other times inexplicably cruel, often in the same conversation. And if someone else meddled with her prophecies, she became violent.
Deadly.
So what was she doing here now?
Bael weighed the options, but given what Jorna had told him that morning, he knew he couldn’t risk letting Darielle speak with her, especially since her vision was about him. Jorna couldn’t tell him what the prophecy contained, but Darielle was another matter entirely.
His mother was snoring softly as he stepped out of her tent. He tried not to make his urgency too obvious to others in the Commune, and by the time he reached Jorna’s tent, the front flap was already knotted tight. He bit back a curse, offering an immediate plea for forgiveness instead.
He circled back through the village to an old gable that rested on Jorna’s tent. He used his usual grips and climbed the gable, allowing the nearby mulberry tree to support his weight over the hide vent. He knew it was a risk to spy on the two women, but the more he thought about it, the greater his determination grew.
Darielle wasn’t here to really confer with Granny Jorna and have a chat with their mother. She was after something far larger. She always was. And he couldn’t believe there was a coincidence between Jorna having a vision about him and Darielle’s sudden return.
No one had visions about toad boy. Ever.
“Did you see it?” Darielle asked calmly, handing Jorna a cup of tea. Bael could barely make out her thin
, fragile shape through the smoky haze.
“Child,” Granny Jorna prattled, “I see a great many things—”
Crack. Granny Jorna crumpled to the floor with a shriek. Bael could just see the blood pouring from her right leg.
Darielle rose smoothly and sniffed her tea cup. “Mint? Are we peasants now? How sad.” The cup shattered in the embers of the fire.
Darielle stepped towards the old blind woman and gripped her hair with such force that Bael gasped in shock. He immediately winced at his mistake. He was doomed.
She glanced up, her eyes piercing into his own. She crooked a finger and he could feel himself falling into the tent, his body halting just above the hissing flames of the fire.
Whenever she ushered him forth it was always massively uncomfortable, but unerringly effective.
“Hello, Toady. So nice of you to drop by.” Darielle cooed, pulling his face close to her own. His clothes were beginning to smoke, but the flames refused to set him alight.
The Dark God be praised, did his sister command the very fire itself? Such a revelation would hardly have shocked him just then, as his tattered jerkin began to singe and spark.
“What are you doing here?” Bael screamed back. “Why’d you hurt Granny?”
Darielle shoved her finger against his chest. He could feel his heart, feel the blood pumping up his neck and through his temples. The constant lub-dub of his pulse.
For the first time in his life, Bael conjured the Archanium against his sister. He willed the darkest things he could imagine into being.
And then he felt his prayer somehow twisted. He could feel the energy he’d summoned pouring into Darielle’s spell, enhancing her power, and that power flowing back into him ten-fold.
He flung himself at her, abandoning the magic for the fury of his fists. His bastard father always said he was the progeny of some various royal bloodlines, that he might prove useful someday. It was a warning, to stay out of trouble. To stay alive.
Bael no longer cared. He hated how she effortlessly made all of his horrors real. Just like Father. He had to stop her.
It took him several seconds to realize that he was still frozen in the same position, still hovering before his sister, her finger now pressed deeply into his chest, his heart hammering painfully in his ears, his jerkin now flaming around his thin, pasty torso, yet failing to burn his flesh.
“So violent.” she chortled. It was gratingly similar to the sound Granny had made earlier. Now the old woman was sobbing instead.
“I like that.” Darielle breathed, drawing her mouth next to his ear and speaking in a whisper so soft he could hardly perceive it himself. “It shows potential.”
Bael tried to snarl, but his mouth wouldn’t move.
Darielle stepped back and considered Bael the way a spider might contemplate a fly. She tapped her chin thoughtfully, “I think you might just be ready. But you’re far too ignorant.”
“I’m not stupid.” Bael spat, surprised by how hoarse he’d become. The heat of the fire was suffocating. His jerkin had long since burned to cinders, as had his breeches. He hung above the flame naked, white and sickly, like the toad he was. And yet his flesh refused to burn.
Darielle turned away, leaving him suspended, “I didn’t say ‘stupid’, Toady. I said ‘ignorant’. You haven’t seen what I have.”
She gave a contemptuous glance to her sobbing grandmother before setting her emerald eyes back on him, “Let’s change that, shall we?”
As her finger bored into his temple and images exploded across his vision, he could hear Granny pleading, begging Darielle to stop, to release him.
He was only dimly aware of the begging when it ended abruptly. And then her hell consumed him.
The Southern Plain
Swing. Aleksei ignored the protest from his muscles. Cut. He lost himself in the rhythm. Swing. His body twisted to the right. Cut. He pulled the blade back, dropping a thousand defiant stalks.
Aleksei.
He nearly dropped his scythe. A moment later, Aleksei Drago stood straight and planted the butt of the snath in the red soil. He looked up and caught sight of his father working only ten paces away.
“Did you say something, Da?”
Henry Drago stopped his cutting and frowned, “Can’t say I did. You aren’t getting too hot, are you, Son?”
Aleksei shook his head, returning to his work rather than attempt to explain. It was unlikely he could have explained it at any rate.
“Just the wind playing tricks.” he muttered as he stepped forward and dropped another wave of wheat to the side.
They had been cutting the south field for the better part of the day. Aleksei was pleased with his progress, but he couldn’t help wish he was at Redman’s Pub, rather than cutting wheat in the blazing Harvest sun.
The sun bit deeper into the horizon and Aleksei felt the sweat dribbling down his back begin to cool. He paused to wipe the wet and grit from his face. After hours in the field, the dust had a habit of turning sweat to mud.
“Ten more paces and we’ll quit for the day.” Henry called.
Aleksei gave a gruff nod, hefting his scythe and falling back into the rhythmic swing of Harvest. His hands burned from grasping the rough wood of the snath and grip for so many hours. He could already feel the blisters bubbling up under his roughly callused palms.
Still, when Aleksei turned to regard his progress he felt the familiar surge of pride that came with a solid day’s work at its end. The fruits of his labor lay behind him in neat rows, waiting to be bundled and stored. Once they were sorted and tied, he could eat and collapse into bed for a decent rest.
Of course the next day would bring more of the same. There were six more acres of wheat to cut and then the west field besides before he could hang up his scythe for the season.
As he cut, Aleksei stared tomorrow cautiously in the face. The second day of cutting was always worse than the first, the third worse than the second. Aleksei imagined his hands would be bleeding by the end of the third day, calluses or no.
As Aleksei emerged from his thoughts he realized that he was standing at the field’s edge, his scythe hanging impotently from his hand. He shook himself out of his musings and followed his father back toward the barn. The faster he got the grain bundled the faster he could wash up in the pond and get something to eat. And then sweet, merciful sleep.
He might get to bed before the moon rose, but dawn would still break too early.
Aleksei.
He jumped, turning quickly to identify the source of the voice.
The south field was empty. His father was already in the barn. Aleksei spared a few more moments to search the farmstead, then jogged back to the barn. It was childish to be frightened of shades and spirits, but Aleksei decided it was better not to take any chances.
He found his father cleaning his scythe. Aleksei grabbed an oiled rag and followed suit, all the while pretending he’d walked in casually from the field. He’d consistently earned his reputation as a competent and trustworthy son. He wasn’t about to let a simple flight of fancy put that into jeopardy.
Aleksei hung his scythe against the barn wall and snatched up a ball of twine. He set back for the field, drawing his knife and preparing for the monotonous work of bundling.
I have need of you, Aleksei.
He dropped his knife.
With a whispered curse, Aleksei bent to fetch the blade. When he straightened he found his father regarding him curiously.
“Are you sure you’re alright, Son?”
Aleksei nodded forcefully, “Sure thing, Da. Why?”
Henry shrugged, “I don’t know. You just seem a little out of sorts, that’s all.” He considered a moment longer before adding, “Why don’t you get cleaned up? We can clear the rest of this tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.” Aleksei said readily, sheathing his knife and grabbing a length of gray toweling off the barn door. He was at once relieved and s
urprised by his father’s easy dismissal. He couldn’t remember the last time either of them had called an early night, much less his father volunteering the idea.
As he walked towards the small pond that punctured the otherwise flat land behind the farmhouse, Aleksei searched through the events of that afternoon in his head. Had he been acting all that strangely? Was it that obvious he was unsettled?
Perhaps that’s it. He thought to himself. Perhaps he was just tired. A little food and some sleep would set him right and then he could tackle the next day’s work with the fearsome abandon he’d mustered during the long summer.
Aleksei stripped out of his breeches and sank into the cool, forgiving water of the pond, resolving to put the strangeness from his mind. The deeper he sank the more confident he became in the restorative power of rest. His hands might even heal enough during the night that they wouldn’t start bleeding till next week.
“Keep dreaming.” he grunted to himself, resting his back against the warm rocks bordering the pond.
This far into Harvest the water was still cool enough to provide hot, tired muscles a welcome respite to the brutal ravages of the sun.
Aleksei relished the comfort of the water as long as he dared, but mere moments later he struggled out into the tepid air and dried off. It wouldn’t do to dawdle when he was supposed to be getting to bed.
Dinner amounted to two apples and a slice of hard bread. Aleksei knew he should eat more than that, but somehow he hadn’t worked up much of an appetite.
And then he was mounting the stairs and falling into his narrow bed. Despite the thin comfort afforded by his threadbare straw mattress, his exhaustion was more than sufficient to drag him down into sleep before he’d even registered the pillow beneath his face.
A heartbeat later Aleksei opened his eyes, and found himself surrounded in a faint golden fog. There was no movement in the air, no scent, nothing.
North, Aleksei.
He started at the sudden intrusion of a man’s voice.
“What?”
I have need of you.
The Hunter's Gambit Page 3