90
King Barok Vesteal
Battle of Bessradi Day Three
* * *
Barok and Chaukai try to fight Geart and Leger along the river’s edge
* * *
Dia is wounded
* * *
One Chaukai after another falls holding away Geart’s touch
“It is my turn now,” Avin said. “I brought Geart into the embrace of the Shadow. I will remove him”
Barok attacks, Avin mades the attempt, and Geart burns but he is not destroyed. Avin blows away with the wind.
Barok, covered by the last of the Chaukai, fights Geart and Leger with a sword and shield
Leger exhausts himself and fades, his army dropping to the ground
Geart defeats Barok alone upon the ice
and all but kills each other
* * *
Emi is there, walking around behind Geart
* * *
Barok stands one last time to allow her time
91
Goddess Emilia Grano
Alone
Standing behind Geart next to Sikhek, and Dia
“Sikhek, what are you? What are we, that you and I can touch and see the Vastness?”
“I stole my way in with murder.”
His connection with the Vastness trembled, and I was not certain who controlled who.
“You, I cannot judge. You are perfect, perhaps. Dancing with numbers you found your way to the endless sea.”
“I do not want to be a god.”
“I do. Help me. I can stop this and replace them all.”
Geart stops moving looks at her, too much like a man.
He does not kill Emilia
* * *
Sikhek reached toward her, Tells her of the combined song
Nouns and verbs, every word sung together (dia nouns, geart verbs) They spirits are tied together
They have a moment there to sing one song the song of the earth
Geart crosses toward Emi, holding Barok’s unconscious body.
Sikhek looked like he had more to say.
“Your story is over.”
“But not mine,” Dia said, and took hold of my arm and yanked me off my feet.
She sang, and sikhek sang
* * *
But Sikhek cannot do it. He cannot give him of himself to save others, and the song fails Sikhek tries to allow it, but as his body begins to smolder. Sikhek’s nature refuses to allow him to sacrifice himself and he stops their song.
* * *
Emilia, half dead, beside Sikhek
Dead: Sikhek, Leger, Clever, Gern, Fana, Yarik, Rahan
* * *
No one is left standing except Geart.
I sat up into a nightmare.
* * *
Caribous with legs like spider scratched and beat the ground around me. Geart stood nearby, a jet black statue of vibrating magic.
* * *
He took another step toward me, and the air between shifted once as it had done between Soma and myself. Geart seemed not to notice and took another slow step toward me.
He turned a slow circle and hung his head. I got up onto my elbows, flopped myself over and took hold of his leg.
The crackling became a white lightning and a globe of light leapt out around us.
BURN
The air around him exploded, but he seemed not to care. His flesh burned away, only to reform as my magic spent itself and vanished in the breeze. Geart, knelt down, and laid his hand upon my cheek.
The globe bent back toward me, the light faded, and the lightning dwindled to a last crackle of static upon my sleeve. He kept pushing, and I felt my soul leave my body.
* * *
“Did I stop all three?” he asked as I drifted up. “I needed to stop them all. “They would not have listened.”
* * *
I felt different. Numbers rolled by, happy and singing.
“What did you do me?”
“You are beyond now. With them now, but more. You are not alone.”
* * *
Up I drifted, and all the world was till
“Geart?”
“No,” he said and fell.
* * *
She looks at his soul, and sees his last acting was of his own free will. He’d done all if it for a reason.
Emi, Ghemma, holding children
Emi begins to ascends, the Vastness speaks, the author of it ALL
“You will not replace me. You man not assend.”
All the swirling things beat upon me, but were no more than a blizzard of broken bits of dust beating upon a mountain. My body no longer existed.
“You did this. You are the one who hold Sikhek’s strings.”
I took hold of it all. The storm of darkness fought me.
I entwined my soul with the recent dead, Soma, Geart, Barok, and Dia.
Bitter fight
She thinks of Pia and the touch of love lances the old evil
Emi knocks him back and plucks the black threads free of every soul upon the earth.
92
Leger
Moment for Leger and Clever, as the magic swirls to be at peace.
He speaks to Barok as his body starts to burn.
This is where we end
He has saved us all.
93
Geart Goib
The song of hungry singers and the sting dead men faded.
The wailing of gods fell silent.
The Vastness, Earth, and the Shadow’s dominion was no more. Eut each wound tight with those that had given everything.
* * *
Dia appaered above me, two children held her her breast.
“Thank you,” I said to her. “You gave of your daughtere when you did not have to. “
My body began to turn to ash.
The Bergion blew strong that day.
94
King Evand Grano
The Battle of Bessradi
Aftermath of the battle
The 5th, still whole, is able to preserve people in the chaos
Emilia and Dia are found. Everyone else has perished.
his army preserved, arrives to get them off the thawing ice and preserve what they can of those in danger
Their last battle is to save as many as they can
The Warrens gathered up the wounded, and though they have no magic, they are mighty
Evand would be their king, but did not to wear a crown that day
95
Queen Dia Yentif
Seven years later
Emilia and the children upon the steps of the Healer’s college above O’Nropeel Harbor. Damage from earthquakes repaired, a city saved from war shines for all the world to see. A hundred tall ships visible upon the horizon, copies of Dia’s map of the distanct east in every captain’s case.
One thing left to do.
King Evand and his daughter Aris joins her and they journey out to the yew forest and chop down the tree.
(Fana’s punishment would have expired, if she is still alive)
No magic, fear of ghosts or death
Emilia, 3 children plus Evand, Liv, and their child. No singers
New magic - multicolored, does not corrupt, does not spend. Weak, simple.
Men are no longer walking ice machines
They confront the Mother Yew, Evand’s men arrive with axes and magic. They chop her down, dig up her roots, and burn it all.
The children napped in our arms with the last evil born of Sikhek and the Vesteal vanished in the flames.
“Is it done?”
“Yes,” Emilia said. The connection is gone. They are but children now.”
I kissed Cavim’s cheek and he smiled upon a new world.
Also by Blake Hausladen
Ghosts in the Yew - Vesteal Series Volume One
This omnibus volume includes:
Part 1 - Beyond the Edge
Part 2 - Opposing Oaths
Part 3 - Reckles
s Borders
Part 4 - Bayen’s Women
Part 5 - Falling Tides
Native Silver - Vesteal Series Volume Two
This omnibus volume includes:
Part 1 - Sutler’s Road
Part 2 - Forgotten Stairs
Part 3 - Thrall’s Wine
Part 4 - Corsair Princess
Part 5 - Tanayon Born
The Vastness - Vesteal Series Volume Three
This omnibus volume includes:
Part 1 - Silent Rebellion
Part 2 - The River War
Part 3 - The Blinded
Part 4 - Crimson Valley
Part 5 - Singer’s Reward
About the Author
Armed with an English degree from Ripon College and an MBA from Chicago’s Stuart School of Business, Blake has delved for twenty years through the shadowed realms of the financial industry. He currently solves financial crimes during the day and gives life to wild fantasies during the blackest hours of night.
The Vastness Page 71