The Allseer Trilogy

by Kaitlyn Rouhier

  In one horrifying moment, her walls crumbled. In poured power, alive and overwhelming, a terrible flame that devoured and corrupted. It took hold of her, feeding upon her power, changing it, using it. The buzzing dimmed, grew deeper. She felt the power flowing through her surge and the man before her stopped, his arm poised to strike. Slowly, his blue eyes rolled back, leaving behind a milky white surface that made him looked crazed. The knife dropped from his hand and his arms dropped against his sides. The three bandits turned slowly towards the swamp.

  Spooked, the horses fled further into the swamp, allowing Kirheen a clear view of the circle. Tomias lay on the ground, sweat drenched and grimacing, his hand clutching at a gaping wound in his shoulder. Tiny red rivers slid between his fingers and stained his sleeve crimson. The man that had wounded him stood with his back to Tomias, limp arms swaying in lazy circles as he began to walk. The bandits trudged towards the water, step by shambling step.

  As they reached the edge of the swamp, it lapped greedily, pulsating around their boots as it pulled them in. The bandits dragged themselves into the dark water. They did not cry out as it took them, covering their bodies in thick, putrid darkness. Bubbles broke the dark waters, bursting at the surface and sending tiny droplets of black ooze onto the surrounding plants.

  The men did not return. They’d drowned themselves, forced to their deaths by whatever power hummed in that circle.

  Kirheen dropped to her knees, no longer able to support her own weight. Her stomach lurched and she lost the contents of it on the ground in front of her. The buzzing died down, became a gentle lull. A voice reverberated in her mind, thunderous and loud and seething with disappointment.

  “You and yours are weak. You call yourself a child of Riel, a child of light, a banisher of the dark? I say you are fools. Weak of flesh and weaker of mind. How far you have fallen. To be once so mighty. Now you crawl in the dirt. Pathetic.”

  The power fled, sweeping away the noise and light with it. There was only the gentle insect hum of the swamp and tiny glowing bugs that looked like stars in the night sky.

  CHAPTER 8

  Garild looked at the map spread on the table before him, his mind trying to comprehend the sheer size of what his eyes took in. Allseer, it’s huge, he thought fingers tracing an outline of the small piece of the map he resided in. Sanctuary was a smudged dot on the map, a trifle, such a tiny part of something so much bigger.

  To have been so ignorant of the world outside of Sanctuary…

  It had once felt so large, an endless sea of trees, but now there was a whole world staring him in the face. He felt small and unimportant, a mere speck of dust swirled by the wind. His eyes wandered over Taverin, the continent on which he resided, over hills and valleys and great mountains. At the very southern tip, on an island all its own, the great city of Val’shar stood proud, a decorative circle on the map. It was where Kirheen was traveling to.

  Something had changed in him since she’d left. He felt different, her leaving the slap in the face he’d needed to start pulling himself out of the rut he’d gotten stuck in. He was less prone to anger, less apt to lash out at anyone that extended a helping hand his way. He’d been foolish, so hopelessly foolish.

  The loss of his hand had been catastrophic. It still hurt him, knowing it’d never be there. At times he felt that if he just focused hard enough, if he concentrated, he could will it back into existence. Often, he would wake from dreams in which both hands were present only to find the reality of it all, the cold stump where his hand used to be throbbing in the dark.

  It was that feeling of uselessness, of having so little to offer when he’d had so little to begin with, that had tainted his heart and sparked his anger. And so, he’d begun to seek out other ways to be useful. He poured over scrolls and maps and dug through dusty tomes in search of answers.

  Trouble was brewing in the world and it was going to reach a breaking point eventually. There was a rift between those born with powers and those without and he wanted to know why. The world hadn’t always been so divided. His kind hadn’t always been strung up for simply existing.

  He didn’t have the will power or the strength to go rushing headfirst into the fire like Kirheen, but he could learn about the world and perhaps such knowledge could help his people, could help her. If he ever had the chance to see her again, there was so much he wanted to apologize for. She’d been hurt enough without him adding to it. She’d lost a dear friend, a mentor, and nearly lost her own life trying to free everyone from Sanctuary. He’d been so selfish to not see it sooner.

  With a sigh he folded up the map, fumbling with his good hand to do so. It was a struggle most days, but he was learning to cope, to find ways to keep pushing through life, despite losing a vital part of himself. He reached for another scroll, unraveling it and using several stones to hold down the corners.

  He groaned. Another scroll on Zekar. Another dead end. Over the years the royal family had decreed that any material relating to Riel and her cursed children be destroyed, that such knowledge would only seek to push the agendas of the wicked and earn the wrath of Zekar himself.

  Zekar, the soul warden. It was believed that he had been the start of all life. Captivated by the beauty of Riel, stuck on a lonely planet amongst the stars, he had gifted her the energy of the great void. With it she created beings in her image, first creating her children, Ignis and Aeiril, whom shifted the shapeless planet into something beautiful. Humans, simple beings blessed with the powers of the stars, rose from the dust and Zekar was pleased with what they’d created.

  But, according to the teachings of the royal family, Riel had become greedy. She began to snatch the stars from the sky, using the power of them to craft more complicated beings. She tainted them with her own powers, giving them abilities that were unlike the others. They’d quickly rose in power, smashing the humans beneath their heels and forcing them to do their bidding. And thus, the warriors of Zekar waged war against a corrupt goddess and her cursed children. And the battle still raged on.

  It was too simple, too convenient, and a few books hinted at another purpose for the creation of beings like himself. It was a whisper, an underlying current of information he didn’t have enough access to. He wanted to know the truth, but he doubted he’d find it in Taverin.

  When the purging of knowledge had begun, many scholars had fled west across the sea, to Sharmir. They’d taken such knowledge with them, vowing to protect the history of the people, the true history. It had caused quite the rift with Taverin, one that had only grown worse over the years. While Taverin had never openly declared war upon the peaceful lands of Sharmir, trade between them was nonexistent and travel across the sea was severely limited. Anyone caught carrying anything to or from Sharmir risked having their ship burned with them still in it. It was a dangerous business but even so, people took their chances.

  Sharmir was a great jungle and, having been founded to protect and preserve the vast knowledge of the world, it contained thousands of books and scrolls, all bursting with the rich history of the world, untainted and uncorrupted by those that feared the truth.

  Garild wanted nothing more than to cross the sea and see it for himself. What could he do in Taverin when he was barred from the very knowledge he wanted? He needed the truth, but to do so was to put himself in danger, to put others in danger, simply to view a history that shouldn’t have been kept from him to begin with.

  “It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

  Garild gave a start, squinting in the gloom. “Excuse me?”

  Isa stepped into the room, an apologetic smile on her lips. Her raven curls glistened in the light, her pale skin glowing. She was starting to look like herself again. A spark had returned to her blue eyes, one he was happy to see. Her training with Trista had done her some good, giving her a purpose while she sifted through her grief. “May I sit?”

  “Uh, of course,” he said, shuffling papers and books out of the way. “Please.”

  She p
ulled out a chair, seating herself at the table across from him. Her eyes wandered over the various books and she reached out, plucking one off the table and rifling through the pages. “Still no answers?”

  Garild frowned. “No, at least not the ones I hoped to find. Even the stuff that hasn’t been touched says little that I don’t already know. What I do find is vague, small snippets of a bigger picture. Between the scholars running off with most of it and the royal family burning the rest, I’ll have to get myself smuggled to Sharmir to get any real answers.”

  Isa lifted her eyes from the book, her brows raised. “You’re still thinking about going?”

  “What else can I do, Isa? I’ve haggled with every trader that comes through this village trying to find more. Trista has brought back books from her travels, you’ve brought me stuff, and yet I have nothing to show for any of it. It’s all the same. Riel is evil. Zekar is going to obliterate her followers. Those with powers are cursed brutes that deserve to be hanged. It’s…aggravating. There is more to the story and not knowing is driving me insane.”

  “I just - it’s so far away. Not to mention dangerous. You’ve heard what they do to the sailors caught smuggling people. Nobody wants to risk it. We’re pretty much stuck here, whether we like it or not.”

  “Actually,” said Trista, startling them both. “That might have changed.”

  “Trista, you’re back,” said Isa, her voice tinged with surprise. She pushed away from her chair, rising to embrace her mentor. “I thought you were going to be gone longer?” Word of the gifted healer had spread fast to the surrounding villages. It wasn’t long before someone came calling, requesting her help treating a strange illness in a town to the east. She’d been gone for over a week and it was expected she wouldn’t return for almost a month. And yet there she was. Garild was happy to see her.

  “I thought so too,” Trista said, bending down to pluck a pile of books out of one of the chairs. She sat down with a sigh, her fatigue showing. The skin around her eyes was sunken and dark, her clothing spattered with mud. “Corden is safe, thank the Allseer. It wasn’t anything major and it passed quickly. Think I spent more time traveling than actually working.”

  Garild gave her a sympathetic smile. “I bet you’re happy to be back.”

  “You’ve no idea,” she groaned. “I miss my bed. Without worrying about a possible plague, I may just sleep well tonight. At least I would have had a rather interesting and lucrative job not fallen into my lap. You look like you’ve been busy,” she said, nodding her head towards the books on the table.

  “Busy and unsuccessful. There’s nothing here, just crumbs. What’s this job you found?” Garild asked.

  Trista regarded him with tired eyes, the corners of her mouth sagging into a frown. “I’m going to tell you about this job, but I need you to hear me out before you go jumping to conclusions, okay? I need you to understand my concerns.”

  Garild and Isa exchanged a glance. “Of course,” he said. “What is it?”

  Trista pinched the bridge of her nose and took a deep breath. “I’ve been asked to go to Sharmir and deliver something,” she said, each word spoken with care. She raised a hand, cutting off Garild before he could say anything. “Just… listen. You know how I feel about this. Getting to Sharmir is dangerous, no less so than if you were to march into Val’shar with your power on full display. People die trying to make it there and finding anyone to make the journey is almost impossible. If I am to do this, there is risk involved, risk that I’m wary to even face and it certainly isn’t a risk I want to involve you two in.”

  “You can’t even consider going by yourself,” Garild said, crossing his arms over his chest. This could be his chance, the only opportunity he’d have to get to Sharmir. He wasn’t about to be left behind. “You know what Sharmir would mean to me. You know. Don’t consider for a moment that I would just sit by and let you leave without me, that we’d let you go by yourself.”

  Isa nodded her head in agreement. “I’m your apprentice,” she said. “I go where you go.”

  Trista groaned. “Will you two stop? I haven’t even made up my mind yet. I need to think about it and decide if the risk is even worth the effort.”

  “Of course it’s worth the effort. We could learn so much. We could be safe,” Garild said. “This shouldn’t even require thought.”

  “It does require thought, Garild. We could end up dead before we even get there. What knowledge is possibly worth that? What good will it do to have such knowledge when the very people whose thoughts you’d want to change won’t listen? People don’t care about the past. They don’t care about why you have powers or whether your kind are guilty or innocent. They believe what the royal family tells them to believe and nothing is going to change that unless someone takes them down.”

  Garild ground his teeth in frustration. “And if that happens, that knowledge will be more important than ever. Whoever fills that gap in power will need to know the truth, otherwise we’d just be repeating a terrible cycle.”

  “And exactly what truth is that?” Trista asked. “Please, I’d love to hear it.”

  “The royal family is lying about the Allseer, about Riel. I keep finding hints, bits and pieces of old history, and the story of the Allseer is very different from what is told now. The royal family changed history to put themselves in power and keep themselves there. It might not matter to you, but people, my people, are dying because someone woke up one morning and decided that Riel stole the stars from the sky instead of being gifted them. We’re being slaughtered over a technicality. People need to know the truth.”

  “Garild, I don’t disagree with you. I know that what the royal family touts as truth is garbage. I understand wanting to know more about it. This world is at a tipping point and much more of this and it won’t be safe no matter where we are. I just want to make sure we’re all prepared for this, that we understand what we’d be getting ourselves into before I make this decision. I want to know that our hearts are in the right place and that we wouldn’t be making a mistake leaving Taverin behind.”

  “You know where I stand,” Garild said, meeting her gaze.

  “And you, Isa?”

  Isa looked between them. “There is nothing keeping me here. As I said, I’m your apprentice. I’ll follow your lead, even if it takes us across the sea. All I want to know is what this job entails.”

  Trista sighed, her shoulders slumping as she resigned herself to her fate. “I’ve been asked to deliver a letter. I treated a man in Cordel, an old scholar named Brogen. He’s in remarkably poor health and fading fast and, don’t ask me why, he decided I was the right person to ask for a favor. He dedicated his life to research, and he played a big part in smuggling books away to Sharmir when the royal family came into power. He shuffled away something else though - his son. He was born with powers and would have been a target so Brogen sent him away and chose to stay in Taverin with his ailing wife. You can imagine that didn’t sit well with his son.”

  “So, he wants us to take a letter to his son in Sharmir?” Isa asked.

  “Yes. Brogen is dying and he’s beginning to feel the weight of his decisions. He hasn’t heard from his son in years, and while he knows that he is safe and alive, he wants to make things right before he passes, to at least let him know that he cared. So, he wants us to do what he cannot, to travel to Sharmir,” Trista explained. “The good news is the man had two things above all else; connections and wealth. That can get you a lot in this world,” Trista said, standing and reaching for her bag. Out of it, she pulled a plump pouch, the clinking of coins sounding sweetly in the air as she shifted it in her hands. She dropped it on the table and gold coins spilled out of the bag and onto the table, glowing in the light of the candles. There was enough money there to see them to a port, to hire someone to smuggle them across the sea. It was enough to keep them comfortable for a long, long while.

  “Trista…”

  “Normally we’d have to cross the whole of
Taverin to find a port to sail out of and a sailor willing to do so. Lucky for us, Brogen took care of that too. He has a friend, the very one that took his son to Sharmir all those years ago. He sails exclusively from the western ports and now we’ve got enough money to lure him out of hiding. We find him, we get passage across the Vergeran Sea.”

  Isa looked at the gold scattered across the table. “That’s… a lot. We’re going to need to do something eventually. I think it would be foolish to ignore this.”

  “I’m with Isa,” Garild agreed. “There are so many things stacked in our favor. We couldn’t ask for a better opportunity than this. When would we leave?” he asked, feeling excitement blossom in his chest. If she agreed, they’d be leaving Taverin behind and the thought was strangely comforting. He’d be able to distance himself from his past and hopefully find a way to make a brighter future for everyone.

  Trista sighed wearily, shrugging her shoulders. “Whenever we’re ready,” she said. “Let’s just hope we don’t regret this.”

  CHAPTER 9

  When Kirheen opened her eyes, the world was an eerie blanket of stars fading in and out of existence. She felt sick, her head throbbing, her limbs weak and unsteady. What happened?

  She coaxed her body into motion, forcing herself to sit up. The world spun, the stars around her streaking into motion. She blinked once, twice. Her surroundings started to take shape, the shadowy outlines of trees striking through the gloom. What she’d thought were stars were bugs, lighting the world for a brief moment before fading out again. The sounds of the swamp filtered into her ears; the beating of wings, the croaking of frogs, the buzzing of insects near her ears, a foul pocket on the surface of the water bursting. It reminded her of drowning, of…

  Bandits. Things had been a blur. She’d been trying to keep the buzzing at bay, to keep that noise out of her head. It had broken through, hijacked her powers somehow, and then the bandits had turned and drowned themselves in the swamp. They’d shambled towards those murky depths as if drawn by some siren song only they could hear, luring and pulling them under.