The Redstar Rising Trilogy: (Buried Goddess Saga Box Set 1: Books 1-3)

by Rhett C. Bruno

“Shog in a barrel,” Whitney whispered.

  “Is that…” Sora could barely get the words out.

  “Yeah, it’s him.”

  Whitney sheathed his daggers and moved in for a closer look, covering his mouth and nose with the collar of his shirt to ward against any potential smell. People about to die tended to make a mess of themselves. Those who did die always did.

  Tayvada’s skin was whiter than snow, the veins on his neck like blue spider webs. He hung upside down from a rope looped around a crossbeam. His body had been drained of blood like butcher’s meat.

  “Watch the door. Whoever did this might still be around.” Whitney closed his eyes before shoving a hand into Tayvada’s doublet.

  “What are you doing?” Sora asked, terse.

  “We came here to find passage. His papers can get us that.”

  “Do you ever steal from anyone who’s still alive? You’re going to get us cursed!”

  Whitney rooted around and found a small envelope in the man’s front pocket. It was exactly what they needed—a temporary trader’s export license issued by Prefect Calhoun of Winde Port.

  “Mumbo jumbo,” he said. “Trust me, if I’m not cursed yet, I never will be.”

  “How did you know that was in there?”

  “At Tum Tum’s, he said it was always on him, remember? Lesson four hundred twelve—always pay attention. Now let’s get out of here.”

  “You’re just going to leave him like that? This is barbaric.”

  “Welcome to Winde Port, home of deals gone sour,” Whitney whispered.

  “Whitney,” Sora said, stern, “we can’t leave him.”

  “Sometimes it’s best to stay out of bad business. Besides, nobody knows we’re here. Nobody saw us.”

  “Oh, but I did,” spoke a voice from within the darkness of the room.

  Whitney spun toward the sound and watched as a man emerged from the shadows. He wore boiled leathers with an absurd number of buckles and clasps over his torso, each of them holding sharp looking knives. Long, white hair fell far below his shoulders, but the man didn’t look anywhere near old enough to be so gray.

  “It is funny how the fish can sense the hook but cannot deny the bait,” he said as he strolled forward. His thick, bold accent informed Whitney that the color of his hair wasn’t due to age but was indicative of the people from the northeastern land of Brekliodad. “Its allure surpasses the wisdom of even the brightest of creatures.”

  “Look fellow, I don’t know who you are or what you’re talking about, but you’d better turn around,” Whitney said. He drew his daggers and took a step back to get his footing before realizing his back was against the rickety wall. Sora was beside him, and the mysterious intruder stood between them and the room’s only window and door.

  “How can you not see how outmatched you are, pathetic little man?” The white-haired devil stopped beside Tayvada’s hanging body, ran a single finger through the man’s bloody neck and marveled at the shiny red liquid, smearing it between his forefinger and thumb.

  “You murdered him!” Sora shouted.

  The mysterious man shrugged. “Bait is bait.”

  “Bait for wha—” Whitney didn’t have time to finish before he heard the familiar wincing sound of Sora cutting her already bleeding hand even deeper, fueled by rage. Ever since they arrived in Winde Port, he could see her affinity with her race growing, and seeing one hanging out to dry had put a look in her eye unlike any he’d seen there before.

  She thrust her hand forward, fire erupting from the tips of her fingers. It struck the white-haired man in the chest and exploded with a blinding flash. It temporarily blinded Whitney, but when he could see again, the man was enveloped by smoke and flurrying embers. The expulsion of such energy left Sora doubled over, panting.

  Whitney saw motion in the cloud and expected to see a body topple over. Instead, when the smoke cleared, the man rose from a crouch and rolled his shoulders like it was nothing. The only visible damage was a small scorch in his armor. The blades of his many daggers glowed red hot, and his dark, thin lips curled into a nightmarish grin.

  “I knew I was right about you,” he said to Sora, who was as shocked as Whitney. “So much untapped potential. So much raw… power.”

  “Sora, run!” Whitney charged at the man, swinging one of his daggers. The man moved so swiftly it was like swiping at air. Whitney staggered, then came whipping around with his second dagger. For a moment it looked like he’d catch the man’s stomach. But again, it was almost as if the man disappeared into nothingness. Whitney tripped over a loose floorboard and scrambled for the door.

  Sora and Whitney reached the door at the same time, but two knives stabbed into it right in front of their faces, the force of the throw causing it to slam shut. They looked back and saw the white-haired man holding more knives, fanned out like cards in a game of gems.

  “Now, now, don’t run,” he said. “Things are just starting to get fun.”

  “Stay away from us!” Sora screamed. She raised her hands and released fire again, only she was so drained from last time, it came out as little more than a sputter. The man spun out of the way, flames catching the end of his cloak, then dropping to the floor. The dry wooden planks beneath him caught fast, but the man removed his cloak and snapped it, extinguished the fire in one smooth motion. He shook it out and calmly placed it back over his shoulders.

  “Our friend here is no good to anyone cooked,” he said, slapping Tayvada’s corpse on the arm. “

  “Whitney…” Sora whispered as if he had any answers.

  He was lucky he could even hold his weapons his hands were so sweaty and shaky. His heart raced so fast he could no longer feel it beating, just a steady rock in his throat. “If you wanted us dead we would be, so j…just tell us what you want,” he managed to say.

  “You small, insignificant fool. You could not comprehend what I want in one hundred lifetimes.”

  “Try me,” Whitney replied, finding his last bit of courage. He found himself thinking the oddest thought, wishing Torsten were there. But the man chuckled and stole Whitney’s focus back to the moment.

  The Breklian darted at them. It all happened so fast, Whitney wasn’t sure whether he actually tried to defend himself or simply closed his eyes. When they opened again, the man was gone. A breeze wafted in through the now-open window, curtains flapping in the wind. All that was left in the room was the lingering sound of the man’s haunting laugh.

  “Who the yig was that?” Whitney asked after a moment. He turned to Sora, only to find that she too was gone.

  Three hard raps on the front door startled him.

  “Whitney Blisslayer, we know you’re in there!” someone called up from the street. “Surrender in the name of the King!”

  “No, no, no,” he said. He peeked out of the window and saw at least a dozen Glass soldiers spread out in front of the home. A crowd of ghetto locals gathered to watch as if they’d never seen soldiers in their district before.

  The townhouse was so narrow, there was no way out through any upstairs window except the one they’d clearly see him leaving. Whitney sheathed his weapons and swept out into the hall and downstairs, searching for a side door, back door, anything—even a basement. Nothing. The Panping Ghetto was contained, its row homes facing straight onto the streets, backs of the homes butting up to the back of others on the adjacent street. His back was literally against the wall.

  He patted his clothes and found Tayvada’s trading papers before also realizing he still had his half of the Glass Crown hidden beneath his cloak. Swearing, he removed both, wrapped the papers around the circlet, and ran to the hearth. The soldiers knocked again as he shoved his hand up the flue. He found a bit of loose stone and hung the Crown from the ledge along with the papers.

  The front door flew open.

  Whitney leaped upright and raised his hands in surrender as the soldiers poured in, spears and swords drawn and aimed at his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he
saw Aquira zipping out the front door behind them.

  Lucky little… he cursed inward. Then he grinned. “Hey fellows,” he said. “I think I saw who you’re looking for upstairs.”

  XI

  THE KNIGHT

  “Iam, hear me,” Torsten whispered. He clutched his holy pendant—the same one given to him by King Liam, nearly lost only weeks ago—against his chest while looking upward. The great Vigilant Eye towered in the apse of the Yarrington Cathedral. The holy symbol was cast in gold with a pupil of glass that, when looked at from the east, framed Mount Lister in all her glory.

  Light poured in through stained-glass windows above and behind it. They depicted the story of the God Feud and Autla Nothhelm, the First King of Glass, the one for whom their currency was named. In the depiction, he was being anointed on the flattened summit of Mount Lister by Iam himself thousands of years ago after the Feud ended, given the task to spread His light to all creatures.

  Torsten imagined that King Liam, young and healthy, once kneeled in this very spot gazing upon the legends of old before deciding to bring an end to the incestuous squabbling that had, for so long, confined the Glass Kingdom to its own little corner of Pantego. Now, their sphere of influence extended from Latiapur in the South to far east Panping, well beyond Yaolin City, and up to Winter’s Thumb at the foot of Drav Cra. Pi had only been king for a month, yet already he was following in his father’s footsteps by bringing Redstar’s people into the fold.

  It just felt so… different this time.

  “A trickster and heathen has been invited within these very walls,” Torsten said to Iam. “Only ruin follows in his wake. Never has Your light led me astray, but please, help me understand why he should be counted amongst Your holy kingdom. Show me, oh, Vigilant Eye, what am I missing?”

  “Something troubling you, Wearer?”

  Torsten turned to see Wren the Holy shuffling toward him. His cane clacked across the marble floor, echoing down the cathedral’s soaring nave as he navigated the room. He looked more weary than usual, even considering his age. Dark rings wrapped his eye-sockets, scorched from taking the vow of sightlessness. Heavy white robes and the clunky necklace of interlocking Eyes of Iam around his neck seemed to weigh him down.

  Pi’s resurrection had left the cathedral inundated with worshippers, come to see the place where he had been reborn and where, long ago, Iam ended the God Feud and took man under His sheltering wing. They came to hear the words of Wren, the mouthpiece of Iam in Pantego. The High Priest’s voice usually carried with vim and vigor, but today, it was raspy from his many sermons.

  Torsten had come at sunrise to try and give the old man time to rest before the doors opened to the public, but Wren was ever vigilant.

  “It’s nothing, Your Holiness,” he said. Torsten went to stand, but Wren lay a hand on his shoulder. His aim was true despite having no use of his eyes.

  “Please. I have been around long enough to know when a man is feeling exceedingly… mortal.” His thin lips creased into a smile. In a kingdom where war had left so many children orphans, perhaps his greatest gift of all was a fatherly smile. Of course, Torsten’s father was a lecherous cur who’d never served, but there was still something about Wren that made him feel at home.

  Torsten sighed and lifted himself onto the front pew before the altar. Wren sat beside him, his old knees popping.

  “We leave to quell the Shesaitju rebellion today,” Torsten said.

  “So I have heard.”

  “Then you also know who the young king has invited to march at our side?”

  Wren nodded.

  “Then please, Your Holiness, tell me how I can march beside a heathen like that?”

  “My son, when Liam sought to bring all of Pantego under a single banner, he knew he could not force the people beyond this realm to see the light of Iam. He could only show them the way; they had to do the rest. Now the world is a brighter place for his many efforts.”

  “I don’t question anything Liam did.”

  “But you fought alongside him for a long, long time. Beside allies old and new, men and dwarves from different corners of our world. Not all of whom believed Iam to be the source of light in their soul. Yet you fought with them nonetheless.”

  “Redstar is different. I know it may be a sin to think, but I don’t believe his soul is redeemable.”

  “Every soul is redeemable.”

  “What about all the fallen gods who have been banished from this realm. What about Nesilia and Bliss?” Wren’s brow furrowed at the name of the latter. “The One Who Remained,” Torsten corrected. That was the name people were familiar with when speaking of her. Torsten realized then that Redstar was the one who claimed Bliss and the One Who remained were one and the same, that Bliss had defeated Nesilia, the Buried Goddess before the feud ended. And that Iam had then punished her by transforming her into a beast and condemning her to that foul place, a vindictive act against the very nature of the God whom Torsten loved.

  Redstar also claimed that Nesilia and Iam had been lovers, not mortal enemies and that everything he knew about the God Feud was a lie.

  More of his lies and games.

  Bliss was likely a demonic creature of Elsewhere, similar to any other. All Redstar’s talk of serving the Buried Goddess by slaying her; in the end, he was clearly just trying to keep Torsten away from Yarrington while Oleander suffered from the wicked curse placed upon Pi. All a part of Redstar’s plot to get Torsten killed so that, in her grief, Oleander would lead the Glass Kingdom, which left him behind and forgot him, into ruin.

  As Torsten’s darkening thoughts twisted his features, Wren’s smile deepened.

  “All mortal souls are redeemable,” he said. “We are all the children of Iam, and His word is mercy. His word is peace. I cannot say why He has brought Redstar to us, just how I cannot say why He saw fit to afflict Liam with so wretched an ailment though his hair had only just begun to gray. But to say it wasn’t his time is folly.”

  “Can His enemies not upset His designs? Redstar poisoned King Pi’s mind and led him to suicide.”

  “Yet, he lives again by the Hand of Iam.” Wren groaned as he used his cane to rise from the pew. “They can certainly try, Sir Unger, but so long as we faithful remain, they cannot shake us.”

  Torsten turned from the High Priest of Iam to regard the massive eye set before him. He ran his fingers around his own eye sockets in prayer, then stood.

  “Thank you, Your Holiness, for helping show me the way.”

  Wren shook his head. “I am only an oracle of Iam. The path of light is always within you.” He tapped Torsten’s chest with his cane.

  “I hope I don’t lose it. You’ll look after King Pi while we’re gone? I worry about him, up in that castle. He barely left his quarters as a boy. Even those few on the Council who remain from serving his father are strangers to him.”

  “Always. In these times of peril, it will help the young king to turn to his holy studies.”

  “Thank you, Great Father.” Torsten bowed and traced his eyes again.

  “Thank Him,” Wren said, gesturing to the gargantuan Eye of Iam. He needed no sight to find it. “I am but a vessel.”

  Torsten turned to leave the cathedral, suddenly feeling lighter. It still didn’t feel right, what he had to do, but Wren and the lofty cathedral had a way of calming him, of making him realize he was but a small part of Iam’s plan.

  He pushed open the massive front doors, two hunks of iron with patterned rifts cut out and filled with frosted glass. Crisp, cold air greeted him, even though the sun shone brightly that morning, making him long for summer.

  A small cohort of King’s Shieldsmen awaited him, though he had come to the cathedral alone. He was about to ask why they weren’t at their posts or with the rest of the army outside the city walls when Oleander hopped down from her beloved white horse and ran to him, wearing tall, spiked heels despite the cobblestone streets of the Royal Avenue.

  “Torsten.” S
he threw her arms around him before he could say a word.

  He got caught halfway between embracing her in return and pushing her away. He wasn’t sure when their relationship had become so informal, and he could see the prying eyes of his men over her shoulder, struggling to stay at attention as they likely thought the same thing.

  “Is everything all right, Your Grace?” Torsten asked. He peeled her off him, and Torsten started walking, so they didn’t linger. The Queen Mother out on the streets was a rare thing indeed. He saw no need to inform the whole city of her presence. She hadn’t made many friends, and he wasn’t sure who might seek retribution.

  “Is everything all right?” Her expression soured. “I had to beg my newly brazen son to let me out of my room. It’s as if he has forgotten who was really in charge after Liam forgot how to speak.”

  “He spent that time in a cloud of horrid visions, Your Grace.”

  “Yes, yes. Put there by that bastard I call ‘Brother.’”

  “I don’t like the way you’re treated any more than you, but Pi is King now. Would you prefer him unconscious and clinging to life again?”

  “Of course not!” Her raised voice brought the attention of a few passersby.

  Any other month, the end of the Royal Avenue, the grand plaza in Old Yarrington within which the Cathedral of Yarrington stood, would be full of flowering trees, but now it was barren. Instead, pilgrims from afar filled it with tents, waiting for their chance to hear a sermon from Wren the Holy.

  A young man, the father of several, pointed back at the Cathedral, his wife and children smiling. Torsten stopped and followed his finger to the snow-covered summit of Mount Lister, visible through Iam’s Eye, standing proudly at the peak of the roof. The pupil was made from glass similar to the one at the altar, but this one was segmented, like a cut diamond. As the sun rose over the mountain, the prism cast a rainbow across the plaza. The pilgrims flocked to the vibrant strips of light, praising Iam, kissing the very street upon which His light touched.

  “It’s been a difficult year, hasn’t it?” Torsten said.