“You’re managing just fine.” Elohl turned, eyeballing Fenton.
Fenton held his gaze, then raised his wrist. Turning back the sleeve of his shirt, he bared something Elohl had not noticed upon him before. A solid bracer made of dusky white star-metal the same as his pendant and Leith’s ring rode Fenton’s forearm. Studded with rubies, it was positively covered in strange sigils, and polished to a high gloss. Fenton rolled up his other sleeve and Elohl saw a matching bracer upon his other forearm.
“These were Leith’s,” Fenton murmured. “After we brought down Lhaurent, when Khouren died... I went mad for a day or so. I raged through the palace – burning, destroying. I was in a red rage, flooded with terrible power, and grief. I don’t know how many people in Roushenn were killed that day, from me blasting through the halls.”
“Sweet Aeon,” Elohl breathed.
Fenton nodded, his face carefully blank. “But somehow I found myself down here. Here, on this bridge, in the darkness. And when I walked to the center, just as you did now, I came to stillness. I was calmed. Brought to a judicious center-point, a level-headed place where I could feel again, could think again. Roushenn was carven out by Leith because the natural upwelling of wyrria here lends itself to a clear mind, and clear emotions. To centeredness, from which good judgement can flow. And Leith chose this place as his study, to think and record all his experiments and trials, and his notes on the world he was building.”
“His study? How do you know? And where did you find his bracers?” Elohl asked, gazing around. The lights were beautiful, but the cavern, other than the miscellany in the old bar, was empty.
“Come.”
Fenton moved over the arch toward the far wall. His curiosity aroused, Elohl followed. They moved from the lights back to darkness, the portal-chart dimming out behind them. At the rear wall of the cavern, Fenton set his right hand to his left wrist, unfastening the pin that held his left bracer. Collecting the bracer in his right hand, he took a deep breath, and with a horrible shudder, set his bare left hand to the stone.
His eyes flared a twisting red-gold in the darkness. Elohl heard thunder ripple through the cavern, and then vapors of lightning began to curl around Fenton. It was lightning and it wasn’t. Elohl stepped back a careful distance, watching. It seemed a mix of the white wyrric vapors Elohl’s Goldenmarks produced, and also a swirling globe of flickers of lightning. As if Fenton created a galaxy around him in miniature, building its vapors in a lattice. The nodes around him began to brighten, vicious as suns, and with another out-breath, Fenton poured all those nodes through his body and out through his hand, into the wall.
Sigils brightened in a swirling vortex through the stone. It grew like a leviathan, spreading away from Fenton’s hand like a writhing beast of white fire. A low growl ripped from Fenton’s throat and he shuddered, his body shivering with power so thick it seethed over Elohl’s skin like molten rock. He was drowning in the power, choking on it. And when he thought he could take no more, crushed under a weight like Alranstones, the wall beneath Fenton’s hand suddenly rippled away – vaporizing before Elohl’s eyes.
A vaulted hall lay beyond. Lit by golden candelabrum that rose up from the floor, set with curling white fey-globes, the small antechamber had seven arches leading from it into darkness. Elohl could feel the vastness of it, textures of rock and air alternating in his sensate sphere as the labyrinth burrowed deep into the mountain. Shelving lined the recessed alcoves under the buttressed dome – full of books, scrolls, codices, and cubbies of ancient vellum.
Above it all, facing them with snarls so vivid Elohl could almost hear them roar, was the ever-battling tableau of the Wolf and Dragon. Their gazes pierced Elohl, each of their eyes set with an enormous ruby. Moving forward and unpinning his right bracer, Fenton set his left palm to the eye of the Dragon, and his right palm to the eye of the Wolf. A thunderclap flashed from his body and tore a scream from his throat, as a rush of etheric fire went rolling down each of the halls in its wake. Fenton collapsed to his knees and Elohl rushed in fast to catch him from falling to his face upon the polished stone floor.
Fenton breathed hard, his body a rictus of pain, his eyes burning with fire. Trembling like a live wire in Elohl’s grasp, he clipped each bracer back into place and set the pins. Only once they were solidly on did he start to lose that dire shiver. At last, he was able to exhale a shaky breath and sit on his own, though he didn’t yet stand.
“What in Aeon’s name was that?” Elohl breathed, astounded.
“That was the wyrria of Khehem,” Fenton growled. “And this is what it unlocks.”
“What is this place?” Elohl asked as he helped Fenton up to his feet.
“I believe it’s my grandfather’s library,” Fenton said with a wry chuckle. “But every damn book or scroll I pick up I can’t make heads or tales of. I’ve not told anyone else about this place yet, though eventually Elyasin will need to know. I’ve only found one section I can read so far, down that tunnel.” He gestured to the tunnel furthest left. “A section that seems to be planning journals and diagrams for Leith’s palaces, written in Old Khehemni. But if we’re going to find any knowledge about who Leith really was, and what he was up to, making your Goldenmarks to unite the world, with the strange and unsettling effect of turning you into a mythic beast – we’ll find it here.”
Gazing around the vaulted antechamber, Elohl felt a strange uplifting in his heart. It was still cavernous, but standing here, feeling the immensity of Leith Alodwine’s design, he suddenly felt part of something greater – as if all his woe and wrath served a purpose.
“I heard it Fenton,” Elohl spoke as he stared down the leftmost hall, now rippling with etheric flame in candle-sconces all along its shadowed vaults. “When I was about to kill Lhaurent on the White Tower. I heard the Red-Eyed Demon. It spoke to me, inside my mind. It wanted me to finish Lhaurent.”
“I heard it, too,” Fenton breathed beside Elohl. “It came to me when I burned Lhaurent’s eyes out of his smug face in Roushenn’s throne hall. And it stayed all the rest of that day, inside me... until I found my way here. I was called to Leith’s bracers. I clapped them onto my wrists like the manacles they are, and haven’t left them long off my body since. They dampen my urge to use my power – as I’m sure they once must have done for Leith.”
Elohl stood, silent, absorbing that terrible revelation. At last, he turned to Fenton, the both of them sharing a long silence fraught with ancient pain and new fear.
“The Red-Eyed Demon,” Elohl spoke at last. “Why does it want us? And why did Leith Alodwine build all this against its rise?”
“Find out with me, Elohl,” Fenton spoke, reaching out to grip his shoulder. “I inherited my grandfather’s terrible and tremendous wyrria, and you inherited his Goldenmarks, the pinnacle of his magical creations. There are factions of Leith’s out there that I’ve let run riot, that need tending to, like the Kreth-Hakir Brethren. They know things I don’t. Things my grandfather told them that I never learned. With the knowledge in this place, and ferreting out Leith’s lackeys, perhaps we can answer these riddles. And maybe... maybe we can get some peace, when all this is over.”
“Peace.” The word felt foreign to Elohl. “And what about Ghrenna?”
Fenton reached out, gripping Elohl’s shoulders with a kind firmness. “If there’s anyone who could answer Ghrenna’s dilemma, of how or why Morvein was able to take over her body after the Rennkavi’s Ritual, it would be Leith Alodwine.”
Reaching up, Elohl set his hands to Fenton’s bared forearms above his bracers. At their skin contact, Elohl’s Goldenmarks lit with a simmering glow, water-light patterns rippling through the antechamber. Fenton’s eyes sparked with red-gold flames in response, and the two of them shared a breath in the ancient silence.
“We’ll find answers, Elohl,” Fenton murmured, setting his forehead to Elohl’s. “I promise it. Don’t give up. Don’t give in to that darkness I feel inside you – the darkness that the Undoer
wants to manipulate inside both of us. We’re family, and we’ll find what we require, to get the answers we need. Together.”
“Together.” Resting his forehead against Fenton’s, a subtle strength sighed through Elohl. Curling with coils and muscled with fangs, it moved through their embrace with a languid grace. And as the Wolf and Dragon fought in their ever-dance upon the wall beside them, Elohl felt solace ease into his heart at last.
He wasn’t alone. Whatever happened, wherever his journey led – he didn’t have to be a lone wolf any longer.
EPILOGUE – JHERRICK
“Kehefnet! Khehfnet, lethnai!”
Jherrick groaned, waking from a black fugue, back into his wretched body. Wind whipped past his face and he had the sensation of movement, as if he flew through the air upon wings.
But that wasn’t right. He was on his back, bundled in a quilt stuffed with bird down. Tawny feathers escaped the finely-woven red silk and tickled his nose as Jherrick turned his head to escape the small torture. Then wished he hadn’t. A rolling sickness gripped his gut, and he clenched his teeth as his head pounded with a ten-day ache.
“Ah! Soubrithi ahkelnet!”
A man’s voice spoke, and a strong hand cradled Jherrick’s head, helping him lift up enough to drink from a leather flask. Warm water touched his lips, smooth with salts and fats. Jherrick drank and licked his lips, tasting butter of some kind, then drank more. The man cradling his head chuckled, and when Jherrick had taken his fill, the fellow let him rest.
Jherrick’s head fell back into a pile of softness. He rested upon a thick mattress of feathers – he could feel them scratching through the silk upon his naked body. The wind sped by and Jherrick risked opening his eyes again, finding them less parched and gluey than before. Blue sky shone above, a beautiful dawn just ended to the east in pink and rose gold. Pinnacles of rock raced by, and Jherrick realized he was on a sledge of some kind, being whipped through the just-warming desert at a healthy pace. He heard the constant whisper of sand passing beneath the runners of the sledge, and a chorus of honking and hissing, like a flight of geese.
Trying to lift his head, Jherrick sought the origin of the noise. And was pressed back to the mattress by a kind, firm hand.
“You’ll not want to move just yet.” A man spoke to him in an amused baritone, his language a heavily-accented version of Old Khehemni. Jherrick blinked up, and the man shaded Jherrick’s eyes from the sun, so Jherrick could see his face.
And saw someone he never thought he’d see again.
“You!” Jherrick responded, speaking Old Khehemni back.
“You have some strength in you, lethnim.” The Last King of Khehem, Leith Alodwine’s golden eyes sparkled with wit as he pulled down a facewrap of grey silk to show a pleased smile upon his lips. “I thought we were going to lose you. You had traveled so very far out into the Void when my Berounhim found you. They thought you might never come back. And to tell you honestly, ahlanati... I wasn’t sure you’d come back, either.”
“The Blood Plinth.” Jherrick croaked. Leith Alodwine offered him the flask again, and Jherrick drank deep of the refreshing water, feeling his mind clear a bit more.
“Blood Plinth?” Leith cocked his head, humor showing his golden-cinnabar eyes. “I do not know of such a thing, but it takes a strong will to come through a Khehemnat Ithir, a Way of the Ancients, without losing one’s life or one’s mind. I am pleased to see you still have both.”
“Small pleasures.” Jherrick struggled to sit up. Every bone in his body screamed at him. He grit his teeth, feeling like his body was made of glass, grating like the sand that whipped through the air. But he managed it, keeping the blanket wrapped around his nakedness. Leith let him manage his own body, rising to step to the front of the sledge and speak a few words to a man there who handled the reins.
Jherrick blinked, finally realizing what they rode in. It was a sledge, like the infamous dog-sledges of the far north in Elsthemen, but was constructed of some kind of tough, woven reeds. Lightweight, it hummed over the dunes upon wide runners of some thick yet flexible maroon material, and had a high crimson sail tooled with the Wolf and Dragon lofted from a clever series of pulleys to catch the morning wind and push the vehicle along. Six berounhim in dark grey desert silks sat crosslegged in the sledge, polishing weapons and talking amongst themselves. Some glanced at Jherrick with approving smiles. Jherrick caught a glimpse of the front of the sledge beyond the driver as they rounded a turn beside a tall pillar of red rock, and saw a line of two-by-six enormous, flightless birds running the sand with bony webbed feet and necks outstretched, pulling the sledge behind their traces.
The lean man standing at the driver’s platform had their reins firmly in hand and leaned back against their pull like a Ghreccani charioteer. He shouted a few words against the wind to Leith, who nodded, clapped him on the shoulder, and stepped back to Jherrick’s pallet.
“We make good time.” Leith hunkered again by Jherrick, swaying lithely on the balls of his feet to the sledge’s rocking. “We’ll be home within the hour.”
“Home?” Jherrick gazed around, seeing nothing but dunes and the occasional upthrust crag of rock. A swath of cliffs flanked them to the east, blue in the lightening morning – rising like a dragon’s spine and continuing southward behind them.
“Khehem.” Leith eyed him as the sledge bumped over a hard-packed area, then hissed through dunes. “You are from Khehem, are you not? Your wyrria, your accent, your manner – they are strange, but I feel the beat of the Werus et Khehem inside you. All those tales you told me in that strange realm – you had me worried, lethnim! But Khehem was safe upon my return, as you shall also see. Our city stands strong – the fairest jewel of the Tribes! Come. I have attire for you. We did our best to clean the sand off you, but you’ll have a proper bath when we reach the palace. And whatever clothes you desire when we arrive. Whatever a King can do for you for saving his life, he shall. Thouliet dannoua Khehem, yethan chelis. Your heart remembers Khehem, and so my heart remembers you.”
The man offered soft grey silks and a harness of weapons, his eyes honest. Jherrick accepted them, his brows knit in confusion, feeling as if he was still lost out in the Void. He shucked the quilt, not caring that the berounhim caravanserai gave nods of approval at his exposed body. Three of them were women, but they did not linger lecherously as he began to pull on the tight-fitted silk trousers. The shirt went on over his head and he pulled the laces, next donning the stiffer silk of the charcoal-grey jerkin over that, the jerkin’s hood falling down his back behind its high collar. Leith extended a headwrap of a diaphanous grey silk to wind around Jherrick’s neck, and he did. He pulled on knee-high leather boots soft as doeskin, and thrust two daggers into the boot-sheaths. Buckling on the weapons harness and touching cold steel, he finally felt something like himself again.
The King of Khehem nodded, curious approval shining from his eyes.
Though there was also caution. Jherrick regarded the man back as the desert sped by, the rocky ridge ending and a hard, flat plain extending to the northern horizon. They bumped over stone, and Jherrick heard the tone of the runners change as they sped along a wide, flat white promenade of perfectly-fitted and polished flagstones. It went north to the mirage upon the horizon, as the day sizzled to a rising heat.
Jherrick didn’t trust this man who had so blatantly started a war in the Noldarum’s realm. Who claimed to be the long-lost King of a dead city. Jherrick didn’t know if the man was delusional – it certainly was possible given the tremendous wyrria Jherrick had seen extend from him during the battle with Archaeon. But the man gave Jherrick equally careful eyes back. Though he had pledged his support for Jherrick saving his life – and he’d saved Jherrick’s life twice now – he seemed equal parts curious and wary about Jherrick.
They held a tense silence as the sledge pulled by honking birds sped over the causeway. Suddenly, the driver gave a sharp whistle that sliced the morning air. Leith rose to his feet, rai
sing his hood against the sun’s glare and gazing to the north. A broad smile eased across his face, and he gave a throaty laugh of amiable pleasure. Clapping the driver upon the shoulder, he returned to Jherrick and offered a hand. “We’ve arrived.”
“Arrived? You mean in Khehem? What’s to see but blasted stone and ruin?” But Jherrick accepted the man’s hand up, though every bone protested. He found his feet upon the reeds of the sledge, rocking like balancing in a boat at sea.
Leith clapped his shoulder and ushered him to the front of the sledge for a better view. The driver glanced at them as Jherrick stared out over the desert, seeing a city rising in the north like a leviathan from the deep. Two cities, one to the northwest and the other to the northeast. Like twin jewels, they commanded the land, their walls white and pristine in the high morning sun. As Jherrick watched the landmarks grow, he saw a causeway between them, formed of uninterrupted archways stretching all the way from one fair city to the other. The walls of both cities loomed toward the sky, and Jherrick saw greenery flooding over their reaches now, extending in patches of grasslands beyond the walls, where goats and other animals were being grazed.
Flocks of birds soared above, issuing throaty calls like mynahs. More of the flightless birds like the ones that pulled the sledge were kept in pens as the causeway neared a broad intersection with the pillared road. Jherrick saw fountains flanking the road now, where herders ushered their flocks to drink. Caravans of sledges similar to the one Jherrick rode but far more robust and filled with trade goods, stopped at the fountains to water their crew.
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