by JDL Rosell
Erik sat up slowly, every bone, muscle, and bit of his skin on his body groaning their protest. He blinked as he looked around, realizing two places where he might be: the Hid’Sie Bay to the northwest of Erden Isle, or Fek Lake, the name commonly given to the saltwater body in the center of their island. They’d left by the Nord Gate, that much he remembered, which made the bay more likely. But why?
Then there was the matter of how he’d just woken up, when it was two days’ hard ride to Trie’Tuns, the closest place to where they could have gotten such a boat. And who knew how long they’d been sailing.
“Steady,” his father said as he sat up. He’d knelt closer, hands twitching to help, but staying on his thighs. “It would be best to lie back down.”
Erik stayed upright. Working his tongue around his dry mouth, he found too little moisture to work with. “Water,” he croaked.
His father handed him a flask, and he grabbed it, almost knocking it to the ground in his haste. So great was his thirst that he actually drank it, knowing it would just come up again, but the lukewarm liquid felt too good on his throat to pass up.
His stomach immediately rejected it, and he scrambled to lean over the railing.
“Erik?” A hand hesitantly touched his shoulder, and cringed back as he tensed and heaved again. But the touch was comforting all the same, as it was Tara who had said it. Tara sailed with them, which meant Persey did as well.
When his stomach stopped wringing itself, he turned to look at everyone present, wiping an already-dirty sleeve across his mouth. Tara and Persey sat at the prow, his father at the helm, and he had been lying in the middle, sloshing around in some bilge water. No Wil, though. Erik wondered where he’d gone.
He worked his tongue around again, and this time found himself more satisfied, if still dry. “How long?”
His father didn’t answer, but just held up a surinx and the flask of water. Erik sighed and held out his arm, and his father inserted the needle. "With a bit of elixir," his father murmured. "To keep up your strength.”
Tara finally answered his question. “This is the fourth day."
No wonder I’m so thirsty. He rubbed at his protesting eyes with his free hand and hunched over from his still-kicking gut. He tried not to think too hard about what had happened just before he fell unconscious.
“Three days and nights you slept,” his father said, withdrawing as he finished administering the water. “Like you were…”
Like I were dead. Erik smiled bitterly to himself, but he had too many questions to dwell on that now. “The Hid’Sie Bay?” he asked.
“Yes.” Tara barely spoke above a whisper.
“Why?”
No one answered, and Erik looked again at his father. “We are going to the place I should have first taken you,” his father said. “To the source of the elixir.”
His mouth went dry as sand again. Somehow, he felt he’d known it all along. “The Ose.”
His father looked back slowly from the front. “Yes.” The word was barely audible over the susurrus of the waves.
Erik felt the warmth of epiphany spread throughout his chest. “Where is it?” he asked, more eagerness than he liked in his voice. “Is it close?”
The formulaist sighed, his once broad shoulders seeming shrunken, and his face was shadowed by his hair as he bent forward. “Not very. It lies at the tip of the northern peninsula.”
Tara looked over sharply, and Erik’s own stomach knotted up again. “The Drifts?” he muttered, rubbing his gut. “Not much there.” The Drifts were sandy dunes running tens of miles at the northeastern end of the island. No one claimed the land, or even traveled there. All was dead and dust—what profit was there in that?
Apparently, much more profit than anyone had known, except the Rook and his Tower.
“Yes,” his father said softly. “We never would have known but for one of the Seafolk carried astray in a storm. He survived the journey through the Drifts and Grim’s Wood, and wandered to Zauhn, raving of a place where the sun never set. This was before you and I moved here. But Vodrun heard, and he searched and found it after many years. That was when he began to distill the elixir and started his other attempts at Recarnation.”
All through these words, his father avoided his eyes. Erik felt hollow again, but for the faintly remembered last gasps of Vodrun under his hands. He didn’t dare look at Tara or Persey, lest he see fear in their eyes.
“Why go there?” His voice sounded flat in his own ears. “I’m as close to a Recarnate as he came.” And you're a damn sight short of it, the devilish part of him mocked.
“Not quite,” his father said, barely audible over the continual wind at their backs. “The Talstalker, as he has come to be called, was also Vodrun’s work.”
“Of course.” He’d seen the knowing look in his father’s eyes when he’d told him Oslef was coming. But then he remembered how the count's late son had torn at his mind, how Erik had been like a child against him. How could Vodrun have made Oslef so powerful, yet Erik so frail?
His father finally looked back at him, but only for a moment. “How did you know?” he asked quietly.
Erik ignored him. “I bet you two liked that I killed Oslef as well,” he said, anger surprising him. “Two subjects at the same time—how fortunate for you and your fucking Tower.”
“Erik,” his father said sharply, turning back with dancing eyes. “I did not—”
“I saw you!” Erik said it louder than he should have, louder than his throat could really manage, but he couldn’t stop himself. “In a dream, or memory, or whatever it was. I saw you find me and Oslef and start helping him with his bloody work. So don’t act like you weren’t part of it. Don’t pretend one blighted bit of innocence, because you’re not.”
He stopped and tried inhaling, but he couldn’t relax, couldn’t breathe. He saw Tara and Persey staring at him, the girl’s eyes wide and darting from him to his father. And he recognized in their eyes the very thing he’d dreaded seeing.
In an instant, all anger fled, though his wounds throbbed with renewed pain. “Doesn’t matter now,” he muttered. “We got away from him, I suppose.” He looked up. “How did that happen anyway?”
His father spoke in an even tone untouched by anger. “The tanner, Wil, took us to Trie’Tuns as fast as he could—and fortunate we were to have him and his cart, as we could not otherwise have fled while you were unconscious. But he had to go home after, and he carried with him a piece of your tunic to set off the road on his way back, in hopes that it may confuse Oslef and delay him longer.”
It seemed a far-fetched chance, but Erik supposed anything was worth trying at this point. “But why didn’t he catch us? I just… buffeted them back for a bit. They should have hunted…” He trailed off, glancing at the red-haired girl, who stared with vague resentment at his father and him. “They could have caught us anytime.”
His father shook his head. “I do not know. Reason does not drive Oslef now. Perhaps he is more beast than man and simply acts on instinct.”
“Hell of an instinct to keep following me,” Erik muttered.
But, looking at the relict and her orphan, he had another thought. “Why did you two come with? You escaped the Font. You could have gone anywhere now.”
Tara clutched Persey tighter and shook her head. “It’s not just that, Erik. Surely you know that by now.”
Thinking about it, he realized he did. “You’re protecting Persey.”
She nodded, while the girl stared over the water, mouth set in a firm frown. “Yes,” Tara said softly. “I’m worried about her. She grows so fast, and the things she can do… You know the stories of far’egan.”
He did know. They often ended with the far’egan dying in spectacular fashion.
“You two are the best chance she has,” Tara finished.
Erik glanced at his father and caught his gaze for a moment. A fat chance that is. But wasn’t he doing the same, resting in his fate in his father’s hand
s, even though he’d already betrayed him once—no, a thousand times before?
But he didn’t make a fuss. “I think I need to rest,” he said, settling back, and found it suddenly true. “Just a quick rest.”
By the time he awoke, darkness had fallen, and a sea of stars spread above. They were the brightest things in the sky, as the ever-present moon was close to its darkest point—True Dark, said to be the time of A'Qed's greatest power during the moon’s cycle. Erik still didn't know about that, but it was at least damned inconvenient for seeing.
Erik painfully sat up again and shivered as the wind bit deeper through his tattered cloak and tunic. Tara and Persey, near ghosts in the night, were nestled at the front of the sailboat, the girl enveloped in her caretaker’s arms. He smiled with a trace of sadness. Such a moment wouldn’t seem so beautiful were they in better circumstances.
His father stirred at the other end, and Erik realized he’d been asleep. Crawling closer, he said in hushed tones, “Leaving a bit much to fate, wouldn’t you say?”
The meager moonlight couldn’t cast the shadows from the formulaist’s face. He father rose and attended to the sail silently, standing still for a few moments before making small adjustments. “The vortex winds will give us good time,” he finally said as he sat back down. “We should reach the Ose by daybreak.”
“And then what?” He tried to remember what his father had said of the place. “It’s some sort of… oasis? That will magically Recarnate me?”
“Perhaps if you remembered the Amodist stories…”
“Stories?” Erik sneered. Then he remembered all that had happened to him. It seemed he was living one of those stories.
“One story in particular,” his father said. “The story of Er’Lothe staring into the Pool of Remembrance.”
“The Pool of Remembrance?” Tara shifted closer towards them while a groggy Persey struggled in her arms. “That’s what the Ose is?”
“What is that?” Erik demanded. “I don’t remember hearing about any pool like that.”
His father sighed again and shook his head. “Did you never listen, Erik? Tara, would you care to tell us?”
Erik was startled at his use of her name, until he remembered they’d had four days to grow acquainted with one another. Nearly as much time as you’ve known her. A strange thought, that. It seemed much longer when they'd shared as much as they had.
Tara nodded. “It’s near the end of the first part of The Sons Incarnate, when Er’Lothe wallows in the futility of his fight. A’Qed has just killed him in the last of the Fourteen Deaths, and he came back less than before, and barely knowing who he was, or that he was even a god. He flees the Firstborn and goes into the wilderness, through a great swath of forest, and into a desert—”
A clue, though none of us ever saw it, Erik thought.
“There in the desert, he experiences what it is to be a god-made man, and all the thirst, the hunger, the disability that comes with it. In the moment of his greatest infallibility, when he has forgotten so much he believes he will succumb to the final death, he comes upon the only oasis in the desolate land, a rim of green trees and ferns around a small pool. He falls to the water and thrusts his head in it, drinking like a dog. When he slakes himself, he curls up next to its shore and under the bare shade, falls asleep, and dreams.”
“I wish I could be dreaming right now,” grumbled Persey as she shifted in Tara’s arms again, but the relict just hushed her and continued.
“He dreams of his brother’s nautded armies falling to not another army, but a few, unstoppable men cutting through their ranks. He dreams not of gods, but of men become like gods, men who will serve and lead and fight for the righteous cause and the Mother’s good creations. He dreams of a world free from A’Qed’s hand of darkness, of a world of eternal light and benevolence, and of how he, the Lastborn Son, can accomplish it.
“And finally, Er’Lothe remembered himself, and the purpose his Mother set before him, and rose from that pool with all his former strength and resolve and left that place with the secret of men’s Recarnation in his breast.”
All was silent but the sea and its breeze for a moment. Then Persey yawned loud and long, and Erik stifled a smile. Still, his father soberly intoned in his deep voice:
At long last, he rose, the spark of life dancing on his lips
Long had he listened into the Void’s empty expanses
Long had forgetfulness seeped through his ears and into his memories
Long had it been since he remembered who he was meant to be
Er’Lothe had the sliver to ever still his brother’s heart
He had lost to gain, but what were such small sacrifices?
If his heart stilled and his breath slowed, what was it to a god?
A taper’s flame held to the roaring winter-hearth.
A mocking reply pushed behind Erik’s teeth, but he kept it back. Still, he dismissed the stories, even as unimaginable things happened to him, even as they proved such things could very well be true. Could he explain how he pushed back voidic lions with the pulsations of his mind? Could he explain how he was dead and continued on? Explanations were before him in this book, in the religion, and still, he had the gall to smirk like he knew any better.
But it felt wrong, too simple a story. Why would the gods fight? Supposedly over night and day and the fate of the world, but could one god truly be evil, and another truly good? Were they, in this one manner, less complex than even the simplest human? It was one assertion he could not stomach, no matter what other wisdom the stories held.
"A fine enough story,” Erik said, “but it tells me little and less of what to expect.”
His father finally relinquished a smile. “Perhaps you are right. Let me speak more plainly than Eckard. It is a pool, yet not.”
“This is speaking more plainly?”
“Patience, Erik. When you touch its surface, you fall limp and lifeless, as if heavy with dream. Of what you dream, I cannot answer. Of the men who have touched its surface in my presence, only Oslef ever arose again, and he spoke nothing of it but tore his clothes from his body and fled into Grim’s Wood.”
“But supposedly I’ll find… the spark of life?”
His father looked away. “If it is willed,” he said softly.
Could be worse, Erik thought with a sardonic twist of a smile. Could be you didn’t know what to expect at all.
“I suspect,” his father continued, “it is somehow… not of this world. That it is somewhere between the physical world and that of the Void that surrounds us. Like a bubble on the surface of a pond, not quite air, not quite water.”
“A bubble,” Erik murmured. It seemed a lot to think over, and he settled to the boat’s damp deck to set to it. But he had barely lain down before his thoughts evaporated with absentminded sleep.
Twenty-Three
The Shining Mother peered between the tall, gray pines along the shore when Erik arose. He blearily rubbed at his eyes and winced at his ribs, sore muscles, and half-charred skin. I’d better get a new body with this Recarnation, he thought. Otherwise, eternal life might not seem so appealing.
But no, it wasn’t eternal life. Even though The Sons Incarnate treated Recarnates like gods, none of them had lasted long enough to still be around. That was fine by him. Eternal life had always seemed a knife that cut both ways. He was acutely aware of what life felt like when you felt you didn't have a reason to live anymore. When those you cared for died.
He glanced at his father, whose back was turned to him as he meddled with one of the sail’s ropes. Or when those you cared for show another side.
Still, he couldn’t pick at that scab, not when his father was the only one who could lead him to the Ose. Even if he didn’t believe the stories, Oslef was proof enough that there was something to the place. And if Oslef could become Recarnate, why not Erik? Yes—he realized he truly believed it. Even after dying once, he didn’t believe he could die again. Even when you know yo
u’re a fool, he thought, it doesn’t keep you from being a fool. He smiled, finding an odd sort of comfort in it.
The trees veered closer, his father navigating towards them, perhaps correcting their course from the night. Whenever he turned, Erik saw the shadows around his eyes, the gauntness to his figure. He hadn’t eaten or drank that Erik had seen, and thought Erik knew he should mention it, he couldn’t muster up the will to do it.
So he settled back and closed his eyes, shifting against the hard wood, trying to find a soft spot, but there were none to be had. He sighed, settled on a position that still left his neck in a twist and his back aching, and let his thoughts drift.
A mistake. He should have known it. Where else could his mind wander but to all the strange things happening? Oslef, Recarnation, the nekromists he’d met, Persey’s abilities… his own.
He sat up at that but kept his eyes closed and tried to keep his breath even. There was no avoiding thinking about it now. He had something odd about him, and no mistake. If it was anything like what Persey did, he was far’egan. Same as her, he had a certain magic to him.
Magic. That pulsing, thrumming beat that played within him, was that magic? Was it magic to tell a boulder to shake itself loose, magic when it did? Was it magic to turn away mooneyes with his mind? The questions seemed silly now that he thought them straight on. What else could it be but magic?
Still, it felt wrong to label it as such now that he’d felt it. Magic was supposed to be indistinct, unknowable. The power he had used was absurd, but at least it wasn’t completely incomprehensible, not in the midst of it. Could the two things be the same?
He didn’t know the answers, but someone on the boat might. He swallowed, opened his eyes, and looked at his father.
“Father,” he said, then paused. It was the first time he’d called him that since he’d known who he was—who he truly was—and what he’d done. The first time he’d admitted their relationship was the same even as it had so drastically changed. The anger he thought he should feel had never really materialized, nor a desire for some measure of vengeance. Whatever else the man had done, he was still his father, even as he was the Rook. He’d always be his father.