The Realm Rift Saga Box Set

by James T Kelly

  She choked, and her gaze drifted from his face to the Isles of the Dead, beyond mortal sight. Her last breath bubbled red on her lips.

  He could hear voices but they were indistinct. They didn’t matter. He climbed to his feet, staggered across the room towards the Pathfinder, and slit his throat. Stood, swaying, staring at the shock and fear on the dead elf’s face. Wiped Caledyr on his sleeve and slid it back into the sheath.

  The moment he released the sword his thoughts jumbled. He dropped to one knee and then onto his rear. He reached back and felt matted hair. Hands touched him, voices spoke to him, but he couldn’t make sense of them. A hand took hold of his face and eyes stared into his.

  “Rymour?”

  He blinked. “Yes.”

  “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who am I?”

  He squinted and blinked and said, “Brega. I don’t know your last name.”

  “What’s your name?”

  It was an effort to answer, as if his thoughts were a field left to fallow. “Tom.”

  “Watch my finger, Rymour.” She moved it around in front of him.

  He felt a pressure on his stomach and looked down to see his seated position was forcing Caledyr’s pommel into his gut. He fumbled with the scabbard.

  “Leave that, Rymour. Follow my finger.”

  He ignored her, pulling the scabbard free of his belt and placing it on the floor beside it. He rested his hand on the hilt and his thoughts cleared. “I’m fine,” he said.

  No enemies. Rest.

  “I need to rest.”

  “Don’t fall asleep, Rymour.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s hurt his head.”

  “Let him sleep.”

  “He might not wake up again.”

  “Brega is well-versed in medicinal arts. We should heed her cautions.”

  “Medicine? What do the Angles know of medicine?”

  “Have a care, master dwarf.”

  Rest.

  Tom pulled the sword to him and fell asleep.

  He dreamt of the inbetween again, neither hot nor cold, light nor dark. He was alone because there was nothing else.

  Not nothing. Him alone, and one thought in the nothingness that surrounded him.

  Rest.

  Chapter 9

  It was dark when Tom woke and his head was pounding. He was on his side, curled around the sword, his back and his arms and his legs cramping. Each movement of his head was painful. But he felt better. His thoughts were clearer, his mind more centred. He sat up and reached back, feeling a painful bump and hair matted with dried blood. His forehead throbbed and he felt a painful bruise there too.

  “Oen’s grace.” It was Six’s voice, but when Tom looked up but all he could see were shadows. “He’s awake.”

  “How do you feel?” Brega was next to him. She pressed a hand to his forehead. A bare hand.

  “That hurts,” he said.

  “I told you not to sleep.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ve seen elfs never wake from an injury like that.”

  “Sorry.”

  “We couldn’t wake you,” Six said. He was closer, leaning over him. “We couldn’t move you. We couldn’t get the sword away from you.”

  The sword. Tom touched the pommel with a hand but there was nothing. The sword was quiet.

  “Can you travel?” Neirin’s voice, from further away.

  “Yes.” He didn’t want to. But he could.

  “Then we should go.”

  “We’ve waited too long,” Storrstenn’s voice, angry, frustrated. “We don’t have enough time.”

  “Would you counsel staying another day?” Neirin asked.

  A moment. Then, “No,” he said.

  “Then we leave now.”

  There was no packing, no arrangement. They were ready to leave. Brega helped Tom to his feet.

  “Thanks.”

  She must have heard the surprise in his voice because she said, “I thought you weak. Indecisive. But you do what has to be done. I respect that.” She didn’t wait for a response, walking away to her lord’s side.

  “Six, look after Tom,” Neirin said.

  “No,” Storrstenn said. “A Western scholar tending to a human will draw suspicion should we be seen.”

  “Very well. Katharine, the task falls to you.”

  Katharine said nothing as she appeared at Tom’s side, draping his arm over her shoulders. At first he was going to protest but, as they began to walk, he realized how unsteady he was and leaned gratefully on her.

  There was a short walk through the city to fetch their horses, though there was none of the furtive sneaking they had used to reach the watch house. Instead, Six strode ahead, with Storrstenn alongside, the rest following behind. There were few elfs on the streets and those few paid them no mind. Tom noticed that Neirin had reversed his cloak to hide the Eastern patterns but no-one else was making an effort to hide. In fact, Tom noticed that Six jingled as he walked and Tom saw a number of tiny bells tied to his wrist.

  Their horses were stabled at an inn and a young elf, no more than a girl, helped them mount. Six thanked her in his fine new accent and tipped her with coin, and then they rode out of the city, even more brazen than before. It was strange how new clothes and a new attitude could make them invisible.

  Once they were out of the city, Storrstenn set a brisk pace. Although the road was smooth, the canter was murder on Tom’s head. But there was little that could be done. He tried to enjoy the countryside but it soon turned to hills and the road cut an elf-made valley through them, leaving tall grassy walls on either side.

  They had been riding for some time when Katharine said, “You killed the Pathfinder.”

  “I did.” Thinking of it was like remembering a dream.

  “Why?”

  He didn’t want to talk about this, not now. His head was pounding, his neck throbbed at the base of his skull, and he was tired. He touched the sword and felt better, like it lent him vigour. “I was protecting us.”

  “His hands were bound.”

  “So were hers.”

  They rode in silence for a while. In truth he couldn’t remember why he’d killed the Pathfinder. It had been the most reasonable thing, at the time. One enemy was dead. He had to kill the other one. The sword seemed to agree. Tom looked down at it, at his hand resting on the pommel. Emyr had borne the blade. Had it been like this for him? And, if it had, why hadn’t Emyr warned him?

  “He didn’t have to die,” Katharine said.

  Hadn’t he? “I didn’t want to kill him.”

  “But you did.”

  “He’d seen us. He would have told others and we’d have the whole of the Kingdom chasing us.”

  She said nothing. Trees, bare of any leaves, grew overhead, their branches clawing at the dark sky above them. Sparse, lonely drops of rain began to fall. Katharine looked up, closed her eyes for a moment. It reminded Tom of the ferry trip to Cairnalyr, how she had enjoyed the sea spray. Now she didn’t smile, her lips pressed thin instead. She seemed to have aged years in the months that had passed, though her face seemed somehow fuller.

  “I’m sorry about your maps,” he said and she opened her eyes.

  “I won’t take his.” Her eyes dared him to argue.

  “No,” he said, and she relaxed.

  “It feels like we killed him for them,” she said, watching the darkness around them. Dank rode ahead with the new dwarf. They were talking, Dank leaning down in the saddle to better hear her. “Like we robbed him and murdered him.”

  Perhaps they did. Tom touched the sword again for reassurance. “Could you use them as a reference? For,” he searched for the word, “inspiration?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t stand on the shoulders of another Pathfinder.”

  “Isn’t that how you begin?”

  “No.” It was almost a snap, almost a barb. But it was too tinged with sadness to strik
e true. “We apprentice, for a time. But we don’t copy their maps. We make our own, as we travel. We learn the skills, not the paper.”

  He’d seen those skills first-hand, worth much more than pieces of paper. “Will you make new maps?”

  “I’ll have to,” she said. “What else can I do? If I’m not a Pathfinder, I’m nothing.” Then her face set like stone. “But then, I’m the only person who worries about that.”

  He felt small under that gaze and the shame he felt made him want to ride away and never be seen by anyone again. He opened his mouth to apologise but thought better of it. Thought of contradicting himself but thought no. Thought of saying nothing and felt safe.

  She rode behind him then, despite his efforts to fall in beside her, and ignored any attempts at conversation. So he rode with only his throbbing head for company. By the time they arrived, he was in a foul mood.

  The sun was threatening the sky with fiery rays and the road beneath them was rising to meet it, winding east and up an incline. The hills continued below them, grassy and beautiful, undulating into evergreen forest to the west and into farmland to the north. But Tom’s attention was caught by the building ahead of them. It was huge, bigger than the watch house, not tall but sprawling over the hilltop. The walls bore mosaics that whirled in patterns or depicted scenes of crowds looking up at a single elf. The predominant colour was pale blue and images of birds were everywhere. The entrance was a great porch, the roof held aloft by two great pillars on which were carved the most intricate designs. There was an enormous brass bell hanging over that roof and there was a dwarf standing next to it, watching them. He raised a hand in greeting.

  “Hurry,” Storrstenn told them and they galloped over the grass beside the road to muffle the hooves. Another dwarf met them at the door and led them around the building. The mosaics were interrupted by tall, peaked windows, each one stained a different colour. They rounded the corner to a small stable.

  “Quickly.” Storrstenn rushed and shooed them towards the back of the house, leaving their host to tend to the horses.

  The rear was as impressive as the front, another great door facing out towards the sea, which glittered under the sunrise. Storrstenn was almost running, leading them down a path that wound down the other side of the hill, the grass becoming scrub as the dirt became sand, the path becoming stoney and rocky. It wound back and forth as the incline grew steeper, the ground rushing down to the sea, scratchy trees growing out at odd angles. Below there was a golden beach, but they didn’t make it that far; instead they stopped at a shallow cave, halfway down the cliff. Only a dozen steps deep, it was home to three chairs and a lounge, all facing the sea. This was a place to enjoy the view, Tom realised, shielded from the wind and, if so desired, the sun; there were awnings that could be erected to provide shade.

  The cave was small for nine and, once they were all inside, they stood and watched Storrstenn sit on the lounge. “What now?” Tom asked.

  Storrstenn lay down and closed his eyes. “We wait,” he said, his sense of urgency vanished in a moment.

  “For what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Tom’s pain and discomfort and frustration boiled into a sharp, “I don’t want to see. Just tell us.”

  The dwarf opened his eyes and looked at Tom like he was a loyal dog that had just bitten. “Patience causes no harm to the body.”

  “It might.”

  “Tom’s right,” Six said. “We have been following you without question, Storrstenn, but we deserve to know what’s going on.”

  “Deserve, master elf?”

  “Deserve.” In his new clothes, Six looked every inch the lord as he peered down at the dwarf. Even his voice was different, a little deeper, a little colder. Not, Tom realised, unlike Neirin’s. “We are helping you as much as you are helping us.”

  The two stared at each other. Someone shuffled. The new dwarf, the Pathfinder’s thrall, was pressed against Tom’s leg. He tried to shift away but Brega stood on his other side. Despite her surprising kindness earlier, Tom didn’t want to intrude on her space.

  Storrstenn looked like he’d swallowed something unpleasant. “The dwarfs here are allies,” he said. “They will fetch us to the villa once it’s safe.”

  “Why are we here?” Six asked.

  “It’s a place to stay,” Storrstenn replied. “The master is away, so we can make use of it.”

  “Use?” Neirin asked. He spoke in a softer voice than usual. Perhaps he had noticed Six’s intonation too.

  “For shelter.” When Neirin didn’t respond, Storrstenn said, “And for supplies. We can take some seals, some paper. Write a few letters, a few notes of credit.”

  “Stealing,” Six said.

  “Yes.” Storrstenn grinned at the elf. “Your search for shame in me will be fruitless. A little theft is nothing for a cause such as mine.”

  A great peal rang through the crisp morning air, once, twice, three times. Tom looked up and down the beach, but saw no-one.

  “The bell,” Six told him. “A call to the elfs who owe patronage to this master. The families nearby will send elfs to receive the morning gift.”

  “Yes.” Storrstenn seemed mollified, as if Six’s words were a validation. “Once they have been tended to, the villa will be empty save our friends. This master is a small one; he has few elfs to attend him and they all went with him when he left.”

  “Where has he gone?” Six asked.

  “Anwyred,” Storrstenn replied with a smug smile. “Some eighty miles away. He has received news his uncle is dying.”

  “But he isn’t.”

  “The very picture of health.”

  Tom had expected Six to be angry but the elf was fighting a smile. “Very good.”

  Storrstenn told them that, while the master held few clients, the daily ritual of patronage could take a while. The cave was empty of any amusement and so all they could do was sit or lie where they could, all except the Easterners, who took up too much floor by lying down and praying. Their orientation had changed, Tom realised. When he had first seen them pray, their feet had pointed west. Now they pointed east, across the sea. He wondered if that meant anything. It wasn’t convenience; they’d had to move chairs to lie that way.

  With Brega in prayer, there was no-one keeping watch, so Tom stood in the entrance. He felt self-conscious for doing so, as if he was adopting a position he hadn’t earnt. But no-one else seemed to give thought to it. Dank and Six sat in chairs, eyes closed, possibly sleeping. Katharine stood, listening to the dwarfs, who were sat on the ground by Storrstenn’s feet. He spoke in his own tongue, relaxed and even smiling, like they were all idling away a lazy morning with not a care.

  It seemed everyone was taking their lead from Storrstenn. He knew many things. He had helped them. But Tom had a feeling that trusting him wasn’t warranted, not yet. There was something about Storrstenn that challenged trust.

  The dwarf caught him watching and smiled

  The elfs finished their prayer and Brega curled into a ball and fell asleep. Neirin, though, rose to his feet and stood on the other side of the entrance, facing away. But Tom could still see him pull Siomi’s mask from his bag and stare at it. Was he going to break it? No. He was only looking at it again, as if waiting for it to speak. Neirin’s face was hidden by his loose hair, but everything about his posture was small, uncertain, lost.

  Tom stepped closer. “I miss her too,” he murmured.

  “You did not know her,” he said.

  Didn’t know her? Because he hadn’t known her as long? But before Tom could get too angry, Neirin said, “I do not say that you were not friends. I saw that she showed her face to you. But you did not have the opportunity to know her as well as I did.” He met Tom’s eye, and he looked the most naked Tom had ever seen him. All pretense, all attempt at acting the great lord, was gone. Tom found himself looking at a young elf uncertain of his place, uncertain of his way, mourning his lost friend.

  “No,” Tom
agreed. “I can only imagine how you feel.”

  “Be grateful that imagination is all you have.”

  Tom nodded. To have grown up with someone since a child, to have spent decades, even centuries with them, and then to no longer have them in your life.

  “When I came back from Faerie, the world was changed,” Tom said. “Not the people. They fight and love, work and eat and drink just as they always did. But the backdrop is all wrong. The dukes are different, the borders are different, the towns and cities have changed. Katharine can’t see why any of that matters. She thinks I became a recluse because I was scared. But she doesn’t see how important the backdrop is. You rely on it. It helps you make sense of what people do and say, and make sense of who and what you are. That backdrop is like the landmarks on a map. Take them away and the map doesn’t make sense anymore. You don’t know where to go.”

  Neirin cleared his throat and looked out at the water. “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

  Cloud passed over the sun, turning the early morning dim and gloomy, as if sensing the mood. Tom closed his eyes against a gust of wind, but felt grains of sand between his teeth. A tiny hard irritant. His head and neck began to throb and he felt thirsty. One of the dwarfs laughed inside the cave.

  “You said that Siomi did it.” Neirin faltered, hesitated. “You said it wasn’t the Westerner.”

  Was Neirin going to argue? Was he going to call him a liar or somehow claim it wasn’t true? Tom took a deep breath through his nose. Swallow the irritation. The elf was grieving. “I did.”

  “I know what it means for you to say it.”

  So Neirin was going to accept the truth.

  But he held up her mask and said, “Do you know why we wear these?”

  Was he changing the subject? “No.”

  Neirin nodded. “Some people think they’re fake. That we make them.”

  “I thought they were real.”

  “They are. We take them from the bones of our ancestors.” Neirin’s gaze demanded Tom understand. “Every new city has a great elf, man or dwarf buried beneath it, so the dead can imbue it with their strength.”