The Realm Rift Saga Box Set

by James T Kelly

  "You've walked a long road, Tom," Six said. "Sleep. You can take a watch tomorrow."

  "We have both walked long roads."

  Six's nod was slow. "How did you persuade the fay to let us go?"

  Six’s doubt echoed with one inside himself. "I appealed to their love of entertainment," he replied. "I pointed out they could catch and torture us now, or they could wait, and first watch us suffer on this journey."

  "And then catch and torture us."

  Tom shrugged.

  "So you have delayed the execution."

  "Something like that."

  Six peered at Tom. "Anything else?"

  Tom wanted to give the elf an angry denial. But how could he, after everyone had seen Mab embrace him without objection? "I suspect the fay will dog our heels."

  Six just nodded. "Unsurprising."

  Tom nodded too and stared at Katharine’s tent. "We’re all in danger." He’d persuaded Mester Stoorworm. But what was to stop other fay from slaughtering them in the night? Or worse. "She’s in danger." Was she in more danger by his side? Or if he left her somewhere without Caledyr to protect her? But if he didn’t leave her, his foresight would come to pass. "I don’t know what to do," he admitted.

  "Do right by her," Six said. As if it was obvious. As if it was easy.

  "Easier said than done.”

  "No, Tom." Six didn’t snap or raise his voice. Just looked at him like he was weary of having this conversation. "It is easy. You stay by her. You look after her. You be the man she deserves."

  "And what if looking after her means leaving her?"

  "It doesn’t," Six said. "Not ever." He shook his head. "Not ever."

  "Then you tell me how we break the foresight."

  "Was that your plan?" The elf’s eyes grew cold. "Abandon her to save her?"

  "The foresight can’t come to pass if we’re not together."

  "Do you really think she would be so readily abandoned?"

  No. Of course not. But what else could he do?

  Six stood up, blanket slipped from his shoulders and revealing his fancy new clothes beneath it. "You can’t solve every problem by running from it, Tom." He looked down at Tom with his best Western sneer. "I thought you had learnt that by now."

  Tom tried to think of a retort. But he remembered a similar moment in Faerie, when Six had asked him, ‘When was the last time you took the hard road?’ And Tom had lashed out, even though the elf had been right. So instead he took a breath and echoed other words Six had said to him. "What would Oen do?"

  He’d hoped Six would see the effort he was making, smile, soften. But the imperious air wasn’t so easily dismantled. "He’d be loyal, he’d be honest, and he’d save her life." With that, Six stalked away from the fire. "Take the next watch."

  Tom felt like he should be angry to have his peace offering rebuffed. He could even feel Caledyr stirring from where it lay on Six’s lookout point. But the elf was right. Emyr would find a way to do it all.

  But he wasn’t Emyr.

  "Would you protect her?" he asked as Six was about to step into his tent. "If I failed. Would you look after her?"

  The fire wasn’t large and so most of Six’s disappointment was in shadow. "Of course I would," he replied before he disappeared into his tent.

  Tom clambered up onto the rock Six had been sat on. He had no blanket and the fire was too far from his vantage point to provide much warmth, so he hugged himself against the cold. He had a sense he would feel better if he picked up Caledyr, but he left it where it lay. He could feel its suggestion to rest, and he had plans to make.

  He wasn’t Emyr. He couldn’t do it all. But Six would look after Katharine. So he had to think of a way to leave them both behind.

  The night passed without incident, and their safety rose with the sun; a Faerie raid would be far more frightening at night, so the fay would not forgo such entertainment by appearing in daylight hours instead. But the others had been more deeply shaken by the attack. Those who could see the fay had never seen them so violent, so ferocious. Those who couldn’t see them were still coming to terms with being attacked by an invisible enemy. So they rose early and broke camp without breaking fast. But as they began to mount their wiry little horses, Ambrose ushered Tom toward the wagon.

  "We ride with Emyr today," the old man told him.

  Tom looked across the camp and saw Six helping Katharine onto her horse. Rearranging her saddle bags for her. Taking care of her. Tom couldn’t help but feel a pang of guilt, jealousy, and regret.

  "You ride with us," Ambrose repeated. Boxing him in with the things to come. Trapping him with foresight.

  Tom admitted defeat. "Fine." He ceded his mount to Mennvinn, who looked distinctly unhappy at being dismissed.

  "Call me the moment he needs anything," she demanded, and Tom nodded.

  "I won’t hesitate," he promised, then turned to Katharine. "You know our path?"

  Katharine gave him a curt nod. She was visibly uncomfortable. She’d woken tired and sullen and they hadn’t spoken much. "Of course."

  "Would you take the lead? Six, ride with her?" Tom asked, and the pair both gave him a cold look. It felt like a return to an old pattern, the pair of them aligned against him in anger. He sighed as they rode ahead, and then the wagon began to move and he had to climb up into it or be left behind.

  It was cramped inside, filled with trunks and crates and sacks. There was barely room for Emyr to lie flat, cushioned and heavily blanketed. Ambrose sat on a trunk, leaving Tom to sit on a sack of potatoes. He'd had more uncomfortable seats, but not many.

  The first thing Emyr said was, "Get me out of these blankets, son."

  The wagon shook and shuddered as they rode, making every moment on the feet a perilous one, but Tom managed to tug back the layers of blanket without falling. Emyr sighed as the cool air kissed his bare chest. "She keeps me wrapped up like an old man. I can't breathe under it all." He spoke with barely contained frustration, nearly all traces of his drug-induced slur gone. Whatever Mennvinn was giving him, she was clearly giving him less of it.

  "She's looking after you." Tom tried not to make it sound like a reprimand, but Emyr gave him a sharp glance all the same.

  "I know that," he snapped. Then he sighed again and said, "I’m sorry, son. I've been cooped up in here for too long."

  "A day?"

  "Too long," Emyr affirmed.

  The cirgeon's work was still a nasty gash of puckered, stitched skin mottled blue and black.

  "My liege." Ambrose's voice was as warm as Tom had ever heard it. Did the old man looked pained? Sad to see his king so?

  "Ambrose."

  "We were talking about the glarn." As if Tom and Emyr had abandoned a conversation and wandered off on a tangent. Well, perhaps to Ambrose they had; he remembered a conversation they hadn't started yet.

  "Were we?" Emyr asked with a smile. But Ambrose said nothing. Just stared at Tom, waiting for him to speak.

  "Do you know where we’re headed, my king?" Tom asked.

  "Mennvinn told me. Cairnoher. You think Herstenn helped Rimestenn to hide Orlannu."

  "What do you think?" If Emyr had different ideas, now was the time to hear it.

  "It makes sense to me." The wagon jolted and Emyr hissed, everything growing taut for a moment before he relaxed. "Giant’s bones, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t hurt."

  "Shall I fetch Mennvinn?" Tom asked.

  "No." He sighed and relaxed. "She deserves a rest." He looked up at Ambrose and said, "I never was a good patient, was I?"

  But, of course, Ambrose couldn’t remember. So the old man just stared at him, at a loss, and Tom spoke to spare him the discomfort. "So our path takes us to Orlannu. But there are two other glarn."

  Emyr shrugged his eyebrows. "So Ambrose says."

  "Four glarn," Ambrose said. "Four elements."

  "Five elements," Tom corrected.

  "Four." Ambrose shook his head. "I do not hold with this modern thinkin
g."

  Modern. Mennvinn had dismissed the idea of elements altogether.

  "The fifth,” Ambrose continued, “which you call void, is nothing more than the four elements together. Like a prism. You pour in light, and it splits into colours. It is the same, in reverse. You pour in the four elements and it combines into the energies we call magic."

  "So you think we are all made of magic?"

  Ambrose shook his head. "No. But we talk of that another time." And the conversation was dismissed. "Four elements. Four glarn."

  "We know about two," Tom said. "What of the other two?"

  "My knights hunted for them for years," Emyr said. "We never found them. We never even found a hint of them."

  His words were cold and heavy. With all the resources of his kingdom, Emyr had found two. "Have the fay destroyed them?"

  Ambrose shook his head. "No."

  "You know that?"

  "I do."

  "But you don’t know what they are or how to find them?"

  Ambrose just blinked.

  "So we don’t know what we’re looking for or where to find them." Tom shook head. Six was right. This was impossible. "Do we at least know what they do?"

  "Once a person has all four, they need to take them to Cairnauran." Emyr sounded like he was on more certain ground. "We think they’ll complete the network of monoliths and turn the fay out of Tir."

  "Complete them?" It didn’t make sense. Were there half-formed monoliths scattered across Tir? Tom hadn’t felt any when he’d broken the Western magics. Of course, he hadn’t really known what he was doing. "Are you saying they’ll make new monoliths?"

  "No. But there are some missing. Uran didn’t manage to finish them in time."

  "Who’s Uran?"

  "A king before they had kings. He raised the monoliths to force the fay out of Tir. But he died before he could finish them." The wagon jumped and Emyr’s breath caught in his throat. When he next spoke, his voice was tight and his words clipped. "The monoliths were a wall that was missing bricks, and the fay could enter through the gaps."

  "Faerie Circles."

  "Exactly." Emyr closed his eyes for a moment and took some slow, deep breaths.

  "So the glarn will stop the holes. But how?"

  Emyr only shook his head. It was Ambrose who replied. "That is uncertain."

  Too much uncertainty. Too many questions. Tom sighed and put his face in his hands, rubbed his face as if he could rub away his pessimism. "I’m trying, my king. But you’re asking me to balance my daughter’s safety on the slimmest of hopes."

  "I understand," Emyr replied. "All too well. I was a father too."

  To a son who had broken his kingdom. Tom could hear the old king’s pain and disappointment, could understand it. But it couldn’t compare. "They’ll take her," Tom said. "They won’t care how young she is. They’ll take her, hurt her." His breath caught in his throat, unexpected terror forming a lump which words could not pass. He gulped at air and blinked back tears.

  "That is why we must succeed, son." Emyr reached out, took his hand and squeezed with surprising strength, words burning with old anger, pain, regret and resolve. "You will succeed where I failed."

  There was something terrible in Emyr’s eyes that stopped Tom from looking away. "You’re a king. I’m just me."

  Faith. It was faith in Emyr’s eyes. "You will do this. I know it."

  For a moment the spell held Tom and he could feel something rising, brave resolve burning through him, finding an echo in Caledyr, in Emyr. Tom would fight, he would march through pain and cold and hardship, he would upend Tir to find the glarn, stop the fay, save his daughter. He could do this. He could.

  And then the wagon bounced and Emyr let go of his hand, crying out in pain. And, in a moment, he was just a wounded old man again, and Tom was just a liar and a coward once more. He’d only been lying to himself. The truth was that he was afraid. He was terrified.

  Emyr’s breath was quick and shallow, hissing through his teeth. Tom scrambled to the rear of the wagon, called out for Mennvinn, and she came and told him which bottle to administer and how much, and soon Emyr slept, snoring, brow ever so slightly furrowed. Small. Old. Mortal.

  "Do not ask too much of him." Ambrose hunched as if he felt Emyr’s pain too. He had his staff over his knees and held it with both hands as if it were a raft and he was a man overboard. "You were in Faerie a hundred years, were you not? How do you feel, now you have returned?"

  "Old and tired."

  "Think how he must feel after a thousand years."

  Ancient and exhausted. Tom had expected the strong, vital king of legend. But Emyr was old and hurt and wounded. He’d lost a wife, two sons, his kingdom, his knights, his people, his dream of a united Tir. All gone. And through it all, the fay still dogged his steps.

  "I wish I could remember if he always snored." Ambrose's voice sounded tense, as if he was lifting heavy weights above his head. "I wish I had understood the price when I was asked to pay it."

  Tom thought of Elaine and Degor and just nodded. "Sometimes I would sit with him while he slept, when I was in Faerie. Just to be near another person. He snored then, too."

  "You brought him here because you think he’ll save Tir." Ambrose shook his head. He stared blindly through the floor of the wagon. "But you’re wrong. He won’t save them."

  Won't save them. He would fail? Was this all folly? "So the fay will win?"

  "I didn't say that."

  Riddles. Always the man spoke in riddles. "Am I doing the right thing?" He tried not to think of what he planned to do to Katharine.

  "Not yet." Did Ambrose know? If he did, he gave no sign. Or advice. "But you will learn to."

  "How?" But the how wasn't important. "What am I doing wrong?"

  Ambrose’s lips twitched, as if he was trying to remember how to smile. "Emyr spoke of the monoliths as a wall. You are trying to put each brick in the place you think it should be, whether it fits or no."

  More riddles. "So I should stop trying?"

  "No. You should start being the brick you're looking for."

  Be a brick. Is this the kind of wisdom and counsel he’d offered King Emyr? "I don't understand."

  "I know." There was resignation, like they'd had this conversation a dozen times already. Perhaps they would do. Perhaps he remembered a dozen conversations to come. "Here." And he pulled a twig from out of his sleeve, like the tricks of the hedge magicians. Tom took it, stared at it, expecting it to do something.

  But it was just a twig. Hard, rough, uneven.

  "Do you know what magic is Tom?" When Tom shook his head, Ambrose explained, "It’s undoing. When something is pulled apart, the energy of what it was is released. That is what magic is. And that is why the easiest magic to perform is destructive. Magic begets magic."

  "Um." He couldn’t see how this related to what he had to do. "I see."

  "You don’t. But you will need to." Ambrose’s fingers twitched around his staff. "Feel the twig. The four elements are in all things. Fire, water, earth, and air. They are all in that twig. Someone with training can reach in, unbalance them and force one of the others to the fore. Break the twig into earth. Draw out the water. Let the fire run rampant."

  Odd to think there were four elements inside this tiny stick. All rolling around together in harmony. But of course that was true of all things. Even people.

  "Draw out the fire," Ambrose told him. "Come back to me when you have."

  "What?" Him? He was no sorcerer. But the old man was staring at him now. Glaring at him with those dark eyes.

  "Reach into it. As you did with the monolith. Explore it. Find the elements. Unbalance them."

  "I don’t know how."

  "That is why I am teaching you."

  Teaching? This was teaching? "Why?"

  "Because I do." Ambrose didn’t know why. And it was galling not to know. And saddening. He did it only because he had foreseen it. Following a path he didn’t understand without even the
hope that things would turn out well in the end.

  The empathy buried Tom’s confusion and frustration. He just nodded and said, "Is this how I become the brick?" Possibly the strangest question he’d ever asked.

  "It is."

  Tom spent the next few days staring at a maddening twig. About the length of his thumb, not quite straight, bark so dark it was almost black, with tiny light streaks on it. The wood inside was pale, still soft, fragrant.

  And Tom could feel nothing inside it.

  No fire, no water, no earth or air. It was a twig, and Tom couldn’t change that. He wasn’t a sorcerer. By the end of the third day Tom was ready to cast the cursed thing to the wind.

  Katharine led them north along a smooth, meandering route that wound around hillsides and mountains. Everyone had feared another Faerie attack, so only those with the Second Sight took watches each night. But the weather swiftly turned from clear skies and chill winds to thick clouds and driving snow, and Tom watched the others’ concerns turn inwards to their physical discomfort.

  So although they had gone unmolested for three full days, they were miserable when they spotted the lights of a village at the bottom of the hill.

  "Radeliege," Gravinn named it. "It isn't much, but they'll have warm beds, a roof, and a fire."

  "Just one of those things would be divine," Kunnustenn said.

  "I'll quite happily take all three," Six replied. "With a warm meal to boot."

  It sounded perfect. And yet, "We can't," Dank told them.

  "Why not?" Katharine sounded close to tears.

  "Where there are people, there are fay." It sounded like the last thing he wanted to say.

  "Tom?" She looked at him, begging him with her eyes to disagree.

  But the boy was right. "People are their greatest source of entertainment."

  "So it's not safe?" Six asked.

  Safe. He remembered how Mester Stoorworm’s claws had twitched with the urge to hurt him. The baleful hate in Melwas’ eyes. Mab’s promise that she would send more fay after them. Would anywhere ever be safe again? "Probably not."

  "Probably?"

  But Tom refused to be baited. He was just as wet and cold and impatient. "We'll send someone to the village for supplies," he said. "The rest of us will find shelter. A good fire and some dry clothes will make everything seem better."