Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  No one walked these ancient halls – and no one had in a very long time.

  Therel growled in his sleep, and Elyasin resumed stroking his hair. He wasn’t the only one having nightmares. Elyasin thought back over her own dark dreams and shivered: she could still feel the mind-warping power of the Kreth-Hakir the night they fled Lhen Fhekran, even though the Hakir had been trapped out of the tunnels. Elyasin and the others had waited two full days with weapons, ready to gut any Hakir who tried coming through the doorway – though no one had.

  Elyasin could still feel her agony in the steam-hall of Fhekran Palace, pacing as sounds of battle drifted down from the hall’s high window-slits. Ghrenna clad in black Kingsmen gear and snowhare furs, facing the portal in a trance with eyelids flickering. Her slender hands playing over rose-crystal and gold sigils, creating haunting music as shards of the doorway began shuffling back. Shouts, the ring of swords at the doors. Lhesher Khoum’s booming roar in the corridor. Elyasin drawing her own sword fast, even lanky Thaddeus holding a blade in trembling hands, his green eyes enormous behind his spectacles. Therel and Luc standing their ground – Therel’s lupine frame wire-tight, his wolf-blue eyes snarling for battle.

  The doors kicking open. High Dremorande Adelaine Visek, Lhesher Khoum, and Jhonen Rebaldi had tumbled in, fighting like dervishes against thirty Menderian soldiers and nine Kreth-Hakir Brethren in herringbone black. Jhonen had fought like a keshar-cat, blood streaking her face as she roared for death. The mighty Lhesher’s red beard and braids flew as he clashed with Kreth-Hakir and Menderian soldiers. Adelaine had fought like a tundra-wraith, her thin mouth set, her pale furs spattered with blood as she cut with sword and longknife – and battled back the minds of the Kreth-Hakir.

  Even through the dampening of Elyasin’s keshar-claw pendant, their golden sigils burning upon her skin during the fighting, Elyasin had felt the tremendous power of Adelaine. Against a raging tide of silver mind-weaves, Adelaine had stood like a beacon inside Elyasin’s head, like a lighthouse in the harshest winter storm. Flooding their allies, protecting them as fighting raged toward Elyasin and the others.

  With a clash of swords, Elyasin had engaged. Her body had fought without her, everything Olea den’Alrahel had ever taught her rushing up as she’d spun in to hammer a Kreth-Hakir with her shoulder and rip her sword up through his armpit. Battle-fury had fired her veins and washed her vision red as she dodged a Menderian soldier and slit his sword-wrist. But the Kreth-Hakir had fought like professional war-makers. Sending waves of Menderian soldiers into the fray before them, the Hakir had hammered their group with a sundering wyrric power that swamped Elyasin’s pendant and made it blister her skin.

  Fall back, curs!

  Elyasin had felt Adelaine’s command rip through the Kreth-Hakir, staggering them. Lhesher had head-butted a Hakir and Therel gutted another. Elyasin had stabbed one in the eye and he fell; Luc sliced the throat of one more, grim.

  But just as Adelaine’s winter-white command rose again, Elyasin had felt the air around her choke. Like a shroud of silver despair, the Kreth-Hakir High Priest had joined the battle. A fist hammering the air, his mind had pummeled straight for Adelaine with the full force of his Brethren behind it. That power had hit Adelaine like a battering ram – slamming her thin frame against the wall, dashing her head against the stone. Furs careened as she’d collapsed in a heap, unmoving. Adelaine’s beacon had failed, and it was only by the grace of Elyasin’s pendant that she didn’t go down writhing as pain assaulted her like a thousand silver lances shoved into her flesh.

  Sagging against the wall, gasping, Elyasin had seen the rose-crystal portal singing with light, fully open at last. Therel had lurched close, the silver claw-pendant upon his breast blazing as he hauled her toward the portal.

  “The Queen and King! Take them!” The High Priest had roared.

  Elyasin’s pendant had burst into white-gold wyrric flames as the High Priest’s mind slammed through her. Lhesher and Jhonen, Thad and Luc, mind-taken by the man’s massive power, had risen like resurrected puppets, lurching toward Elyasin and Therel.

  When Adelaine’s power had suddenly risen like a leviathan of winter. Smashing into the Kreth-Hakir, giving her all to break their hold. Snapping silver mind-weaves in their allies as she took all the Kreth-Hakir’s warping – acting like a lodestone to draw them into herself.

  It was only a moment, but it had been enough. Therel had tossed Elyasin through the dark crevasse, then seized Luc and Thad. As Ghrenna followed into the black, Therel had surged back to seize Lhesher and Jhonen. But the wall had closed before he could. The rose-crystal shards had sluiced back together with uncanny speed, sealing the tunnel and the fate of two nations at war. Cutting off a furious roar from the Kreth-Hakir High Priest – and a tortured scream from the Highlander King.

  Elyasin reached up to massage tension from her brows, where a part of her still shrieked from experiencing even the smallest bit of the Kreth-Hakir’s power. They were lucky Adelaine had sacrificed herself for them. Elyasin had seen the woman’s heart in that moment, and known it was far stronger than anyone had guessed. Because of Adelaine, the Kreth-Hakir Brethren hadn’t been able to follow them. Because of Adelaine, everyone in these tunnels was alive.

  A debt Elyasin might never be able to repay.

  Elyasin glanced at Luc. Retaining eye contact, he rose from his bedroll and padded over in bare feet, leaving dark imprints in the luminous moss. Crouching, he nodded at Therel. “Ghrenna’s still dreaming. She’ll be out for a while yet before we can move on for the day. How’s he?”

  “The same.” Elyasin glanced at her husband. Therel’s breathing was deep, asleep again.

  “How are you?” Luc nodded his chin at her, his green eyes sober in the fey light.

  “As well as can be.” Elyasin gave a stolid smile, though feeling far from it. Her fingers stole out, brushing over corkscrew tendrils of blue moss, feeing its silken texture.

  “Do you need more sleep?”

  “No.” Elyasin’s fingers plucked a glowing white mushroom cap with fuchsia speckles. She’d feared they’d be without food beneath the mountains, but it hadn’t been the case. They’d found flora, listed as edible in the ancient codices Thad had brought, and had it taste-tested by Luc. Other edibles had been discovered when Ghrenna would suddenly stop and nibble an herb, recalling Morvein’s memories. Small luminous creatures they would catch for meat skittered through the grottoes, and a variety of greens were always available at these grottoes to add to their satchels as they walked, though some had slightly mind-altering properties.

  This particular mushroom had stimulant effects, and Elyasin plucked it, breaking it in half and offering a part to Luc. He took it and popped it into his mouth with a nod. Elyasin’s fingers lifted, plaiting her hair for the day. “I need to be up. I have to gather edibles for our next leg, fill everyone’s satchels.”

  “You’re running yourself ragged,” Luc’s green eyes searched Elyasin’s in the wan light. He reached out, brushing his long fingers down Elyasin’s golden braid. “Up before everyone else, last to sleep. Waking every time Ghrenna sings in her dreams or Therel screams in his. Always checking our supplies, foraging.”

  “You wake just as much as I do, Luc,” Elyasin protested mildly, affixing her braid with a leather thong.

  “I know.” Luc murmured, his demeanor quiet. “But we’ve all lost it down here at least once, except you. I keep wondering when—”

  “I can’t afford to break, Luc,” Elyasin admonished gently. “My King and husband needs me. He’s lost everything from Lhaurent den’Karthus’s vile machinations.”

  Elyasin’s heart twisted. Dire memories poured through her, vivid and bleak. From her coronation and stabbing, to fleeing into the Highlands of Elsthemen – to becoming a new wife and a Queen. Only to lead her husband’s soldiers in a war against her own country, and lose it all to flame and chaos. Therel’s scream when the crystal door had closed had been the most wretched sound she had
ever heard. Like the howl of a wolf losing his entire pack, the scream of a tundra-wight, and the roar of a man with nothing left to live for all seared into one.

  “You’ve lost everything, too.” Luc’s green eyes were knowing. “Lhaurent didn’t exactly spare you any courtesy these past months.”

  “I know.” Elyasin spoke, holding his sorrowful gaze. “But I need to be strong like Adelaine was, the day we fled Lhen Fhekran. She proved herself worthy of the title High Dremorande, even though those monsters have probably killed her for it. After I felt what she did for us... I promised myself I’d be like that – for me, for you, for my people, and for Therel’s. That I’d be like the telmen-vines of the Highlands that survive through every snow and season. For all of us.”

  As if responding to the conversation, Therel shifted in his sleep and groaned again, his blonde brows knit as if his soul was being torn out from the inside. Elyasin stroked his hair again and he quieted. Too many nights, he would cry out in dreams – or worse, scream names of his countrymen. Elyasin would hold him, kiss him until he quieted, but there was no banishing Therel’s torment.

  “He’s lost everything,” she spoke, stroking his soft blonde hair. “His city, his people, his kingdom—”

  “Everyone he ever held dear,” Luc concurred.

  An empty silence settled around them. Not wanting to wake her husband, Elyasin motioned to Luc as she slipped out of her bedroll. He caught her meaning and stood, nodding to the other side of the grotto where another cascade collected into a seepage-basin, one of many that punctuated the tunnels. Elyasin stepped over the moss, humming to brighten her singing-stone, and Luc followed.

  A burbling stream flowed down the far wall in a trail of white-blue algae; the water pooled in a basin carved in the rock wall. Trails of wispy moss fine as cobwebs grew from the basin, glowing with phosphorescence. Luc leaned against the wall as Elyasin set her singing-stone in a niche, then tore a patch of draping moss from the basin. Dipping the moss in the water, she washed out her underarms.

  Clad only in her silk battle-halter and underwear, she got an appreciative smile as Luc’s gaze roved her, but he’d seen her nearly naked enough times. Elyasin had given up on privacy or clean garb weeks ago, though she kept up her daily routine of freshening. And it was becoming a pattern, Luc and Elyasin having a few low words before the rest of their party rose for the day. Luc had been a childhood friend, but he was gradually becoming a confidante as they traveled the darkness.

  “Let me in at that?” Stripping off his tan buckled jerkin and white shirt, Luc beckoned for the moss. Finished, Elyasin handed it over. He doused it in the basin, scrubbing himself briskly. “Hand me the soap?”

  “Soap,” Elyasin snorted with a smile. “I’ll hand over the soap if you hand over the boar meat.”

  “Like I’d share.” Luc chuckled, dunking his head into the basin and scratching out his golden mane. He whipped his head back with a curse and a shiver, flicking water out of his hair. “Fuck, that’s cold!” He turned to Elyasin with a roguish grin. “How do I look? Ready for the ladies?”

  Elyasin gave his chest a light slap, though Luc’s cheeky humor was welcome. It kept desolate thoughts at bay, and his healing hands were always there to push back despondency – which he did now, trapping Elyasin’s hand to his chest as she started to pull away. Reaching out, he slid a hand up beneath her hair and pressed his fingers to her nape. Bliss rippled through Elyasin. Tension she’d not even known she’d carried melted away and she sighed, finding herself drawn into Luc’s arms as he touched his healing into her neck.

  “You’re tense,” Luc murmured.

  “It’s just all these memories,” Elyasin frowned, “surfacing in these cursed tunnels.”

  “I know what you mean,” Luc gave a wry, haunted smile. “I feel flooded with remembrances down here, things I haven’t thought about since I was a boy at Roushenn. Very little of it is anything good. And damn if it doesn’t make me want one helluva stiff hopt-ale.”

  “I’ve been dreaming of events that aren’t even mine,” Elyasin breathed, hearing the scream from her nightmare. “Therel and I’s nightmares of the Brother Kings are getting more potent.”

  “Ghrenna’s are, too,” Luc murmured. “She’s hard to wake sometimes, deep as she goes in her dreams of Morvein.”

  “I just wish I could be certain that we’re any closer to our goal, Luc. Before—”

  “Before this place tears us apart.” Luc’s hand slipped from Elyasin’s neck and he glanced back at Therel, his face unreadable.

  “Therel’s changing,” Elyasin spoke softly, following his gaze. “His nightmares are grinding him down.”

  “Like Ghrenna,” Luc agreed, “though her dreams are winding her up. She’s stronger by the day, no matter how much she heaves at night and keeps the rest of us awake. Thad’s fucking blessed that he sleeps as soundly as he does. Though even he’s needing treatments from me now to keep strange thoughts at bay. Like some kind of change inside him is speeding up from being down here.”

  “I feel it inside me, too,” Elyasin spoke quietly, letting herself be held as Luc’s arms slipped around her waist. “I’ve got this heat in my body all the time now. I don’t even wear my jacket or furs anymore. Something inside me is sharper, Luc. Hotter. More... volatile.”

  “From Hahled Ferrian.” Luc searched Elyasin’s eyes. “From your connection to him through your keshar pendant.”

  Elyasin reached up to touch the gilded keshar-claw that hung around her neck upon its fine chain. It was warm from the heat of Elyasin’s body. The scar it had burned into her skin from the Kreth-Hakir battle had been healed by Luc, but her chest still felt tender, as if some things about the wyrric interaction could never be healed.

  “It doesn’t matter if Therel and I wear our pendants or not,” Elyasin spoke. “We feel the Brother Kings all the time now. It’s part of these dreams we’re having – dreams of battle and bloodshed. My nightmares are Hahled’s remembrances, and Therel’s are Delman’s. We’re not having vertigo anymore, as if we’re better able to integrate their minds – but that’s just the problem, Luc. The Brother Kings are integrating into us. And Therel has become moody from Delman. Dark and taciturn in a way I’ve never seen him.”

  Luc was silent, his hands clasped at Elyasin’s waist. “Can you hear Hahled Ferrian’s thoughts?”

  “No.” Elyasin touched her pendant again. “And the memories are nothing I can explicitly recall. I’ve only the sense that Hahled’s welling up inside me, and Delman’s doing the same inside Therel. As if the pendants were only needed to make our connection, and once it was made—”

  “You’ve become a lodestone. A channel for Hahled’s wyrria. And it’s getting stronger.”

  Elyasin nodded; shivered. Glancing to the faceted stones in the fey darkness, she frowned. “These tunnels, I feel like they’re influencing whatever’s happening. Like wyrria’s breathing down our necks at every turn.”

  “I know what you mean,” Luc shivered. “That creeping, vibrant feeling. Fucking maddening. My healing-wyrria’s gotten stronger down here, too. And Ghrenna’s remembering Morvein faster, and her Brother Kings. She cries out in her sleep, saying Hahled and Delman’s names like they’re—”

  Luc cut off, his eyes desolate. His hands fell from Elyasin’s waist and he massaged his knuckles as if they pained him. Elyasin reached out, setting a hand to his chest, feeling the agony that twisted in Luc’s heart. “I know. I see how you love her.”

  “Everyone but me.” Luc’s smile was awful as his green eyes burned with wrath. “Everyone else gets to love Ghrenna but me. She’s changing, Elyasin. Morvein’s taking her over. She’s harder, stranger. As if Ghrenna could have gotten more strange, but there you go.”

  “Is she still dreaming of Elohl?” Elyasin murmured carefully.

  “What do you think?” Luc’s voice was hard. He crossed his arms and set his jaw at the mention of Elohl den’Alrahel, Ghrenna’s first and only true love. “She sighs h
is name at night as much as her Brother Kings.”

  “Elohl’s a good man, Luc,” Elyasin chastised mildly.

  “I know.” Luc gave a sigh, then ran a hand through his unruly golden hair. Then made a fist and punched the mossy wall. “Fuck it, I know! But let me hate the guy. Mean thoughts of sucker-punching him if we ever see each other again make me walk longer hours down here.”

  Luc’s gaze strayed to the grotto wall and Elyasin’s followed. Covered in arcane script and sigildry that peeked through the mosses, the towering walls of the grottoes and tunnels came alive when one stared long enough. This section of wall had sigils and flowing whorls of precious ores inscribed in it. By the shifting incandescence, Elyasin saw writhing images flow across the wall – as if Hahled’s wyrria could form pictures from the inscriptions.

  Sometimes she saw fleets of mythic creatures taking wing. Once she’d thought she’d seen an army of fish-people battling beneath the ocean. This scene before her writhed with darkness, like a hillside city seen through a luminous mist but with an emptiness in the middle, like a night that ate the stars. The gaping hole in that brightness had a terrible feel to it – of battle and death. Elyasin had found the walls of the Heldim Alir to be a gruesome grimoire, telling stories of bloodshed and not much else. She blinked and the scene ceased, nothing but unintelligible whorls of gold, silver, and moonstone once more.

  “Is Ghrenna remembering anything more of these tunnels,” she asked Luc, tearing her eyes away from the tableau, “from Morvein?”

  “Some.” Luc rubbed his eye sockets with the heels of his hands as if he’d stared at the wall too long. “She says the ancient race of giants who built them, the Giannyk, were masters of sigildry and portal-making. They enchanted these images into the rock to remember important historical events. Morvein believed the tunnels were built intentionally, as a labyrinth. A place to walk in solitude and ponder the ancient past, the lessons to be learned from history.”