by BJ Hanlon
Edin was almost as awestruck by that as he was by the entrance to their monastery. He held back a chuckle.
A part of him wanted to question how, but he guessed that’d be rude. The men sat silently. Edin wondered if they were communicating on the wave or letting the food coma take over?
Edin glanced at the one who’d brought him down. He hadn’t gotten a name from the man so he waited until he looked up so as to not call out, ‘Hey there, you who woke me.’ The monk finally looked up.
“I’m Edin, this is Berka. What are your names?” he said and slowly looked down the table at the rest of the people who were now looking at him. Edin glanced over toward the abbot who didn’t seem to notice.
The one who brought him down said in a voice much like the one he’d used in Edin’s head, “We leave our names when we join the order.” It was just as calm, just as placid like the motionless waters in the fjords before he and the wyrm fell in.
“Even if we did,” a younger of the men said a few feet down, “I cannot for the life of me remember what mine was.” He looked to be about twenty-five, maybe twenty-six.
Maybe he was brought in as a boy before he even knew it.
“Well then, what do you call each other?”
“Call each other?” The first monk said.
“How do you get someone’s attention?”
“We wave at them of course. What do you outlanders do, bark names until they turn like a dog?”
Apparently Edin wasn’t the only one thinking in canine metaphors. Maybe that was a part of the wave as well.
“Sometimes,” Berka said, “though I’ve been partial to this.” He leaned over and slapped Edin on the top of the head.
A few people chuckled, some got very stiff as if it would start a brawl.
“That’s for touching the abbot and making me wait for food.”
Despite the smack, Edin laughed.
Maybe it was the food, that simple joy of a good meal that brought out the happiness in a person, but he felt good and it was a hearty laugh. One that rang in his previously swollen belly and sunken cheeks. He grinned at the ginger next to Berka and then grabbed the wine to stifle it as he saw nearly the entire room was staring at him. He waived a hand at the men. “It’s alright.”
Many of them were now smiling, more started laughing. Edin glanced again around the room and wondered again where the one that rescued them was?
After it died down a bit Edin drank from his mug. “Where is the one who brought us?” Edin asked.
“Oh, someone is no good with wine,” the man who brought him down from the room said while laughing.
“Not you,” Edin said. “The other, the mage.”
The monks all seemed to grow quiet and then confused. Edin turned to the abbot who was staring down at them. There was concern on his face.
“There are no magi here,” the abbot said. “As for who brought you, I’m certain it was the gods who led you on the pilgrimage. Vestor is the most likely.”
Edin opened his mouth for a moment and then shut it. He pondered the words and remembered the man who’d lifted them like they were pups, damned dog metaphors, he remembered the hermit’s eyes and that he’d thought he looked familiar.
“There was someone,” Berka said. “An old man, wore your same robes, he—”
Edin laid a hand on his friend’s forearm to cut him off and Edin tapped his foot as he tried to draw the connection. It couldn’t be, right?
Edin was a bit woozy. “I believe the wine has gotten to us. I’ll need to lie down.”
“I’ll take you back,” the monk said.
Edin bowed his head. “Thank you.” Then he looked toward the abbot and bowed his head as well. “I apologize that I touched you and if I offended you in any way. It was not my intent. I thank you for your hospitality and graciousness to two weary and wandering strangers.”
The abbot took a breath, stared hard at Edin, and bowed his head in return.
They left, the monk leading him and Berka to their chambers. Edin guessed it was as far from the abbot’s chambers as possible.
Despite him seeing windows from the outside, no room they’d entered or passed had any sort of natural light. Edin questioned it.
“The sun and its brother moon are two opposites of the same cycle. The good and the bad, the light and dark,” the monk said actually speaking. “We, like all of humanity live in between.”
“So, you don’t get any sun? It’s supposed to be good for you,” Berka said.
“We spend much of the day outside. We go to the lake or to the fields. We have cabins below and we rotate in and out of the monastery.”
They were at the end of a corridor with only two doors and nothing else. Edin’s room was directly across from Berka’s and exact copies.
“Your cells,” he said. “When you are rested, feel free to walk the castle and the courtyard, if you wish to partake in the light or dark. You are welcome anywhere on our ground per the abbot. Even down to the water, a place only for those blessed by our patron.” The last he said quietly and Berka raised an eyebrow and looked at Edin. It took him a moment, then he got it. ‘Vestor.’ He mouthed.
Berka mouthed back, ‘you’re kidding?’
“And I would suggest staying out of the caves under the mountain. The water is treacherous and the river connects to a rather terrible web of caverns. And there are things.”
“What do you mean? What type of things?”
The monk looked at him, tilted his head slightly, and in Edin’s mind he said, ‘bad things. It is a place you mustn’t go.’
Edin took a moment, the switch from the two forms of communication was striking. Then he entered his room. He closed the door and sat on the pallet. The room was bare but for the stone walls and the bed. There wasn’t even a washbasin or a place to put his pack which was sitting in the corner like a pile of dirty clothes. He laid and shut his eyes.
He simply focused on his breath, the meditation Dephina had him do so long ago. Edin was supposed to come here, that vision told him this was the right place. But why? Was there something special about this place?
Then he thought of the other vision. The tunnel one. If that vision were true… Edin didn’t want to even think of it. He hoped Grent and Dephina had gotten past the giant and made it to the elves. That was doubtful this quick—
In Edin’s mind’s eye, he saw the beast still climbing. It was like an endless and unceasing river of death bubbling to the surface. Where it reached it would bubble and boil like a pustule. Then it, he, would burst through like a volcano and destroy all that was ever good.
The land will rot and the dematians, wyrms, and demons will rule. If any man survives the initial burst, his life expectancy would be very short. Days rather than months.
Edin got up after about an hour, maybe two. It was a food nap and his stomach settled but he wasn’t tired. He left the room.
Without knowledge of the sun’s schedule or more accurately to the monks’ schedule, Edin didn’t know if he should creep around or stroll casually. The narrow hall in which their rooms sat ended in a solid wall that looked like the actual mountainside. Turning back the way they’d come he went to the stairs and a dim sconce that lit it.
He reached it and looked up and down. Both were spiral and hewn directly from the rock. There were wide stairs and formed for man not dwarf. At least this was always a human citadel, Edin thought. More advanced than the one they’d stayed in a night before. What if this was the evolution of humans? From the caves to the stone castles in valleys before they reached out and expanded?
He went up, circling a few times, more than a few times, and passing few landings. Three at the most. Then the stairs grew narrower and steeper. As the change came slowly, first steeper and barely noticeable until he fell, and then he noticed it was also narrower.
His mind had been blank and on the task of climbing, putting one foot in front of the other.
But now, with the change he wondered wh
y? Edin looked up and still saw nothing. He didn’t even know how high he’d climbed. Did he go on or head back down?
After this climb, his pallet sounded nice, very nice.
He remembered the view from the window of Erastio’s Rise. It was such a beautiful view. The curiosity drove him up.
Finally, the stairs stopped in a flat, squared off room with only one door. He opened it to a dark room with the only light coming from the open-air balcony about twenty feet ahead of him.
Silvery moonlight cast long shadows into the room. The floor was a painted red stone and the walls were black. Edin moved forward toward the balcony until something caught his eye. A dark but shining thing to the right. About twenty yards away, stood a small black altar between two black stone pillars. They were nearly invisible with the walls.
Edin summoned an ethereal light and started that way. As he moved, something tickled his mind in the corner of his brain. Some part of him said he’d overlooked something.
Edin hushed that part away and continued forward. His feet clapped on the floor but he barely heard it. He was fascinated by the altar. He knew the altar.
He felt a tear come to his eyes. It was a replica from the one in the Great Cliffs. Edin remembered his mother’s form, Kes’ form.
“It was a copy,” a voice said from somewhere in the darkness beyond his sight. Edin turned and the ethereal light expanded to show the entire room. It was empty.
The voice moved to his head. “I find you rather interesting, young Edin. A man of contradictions.”
Edin shook his head as if he were trying to get water out of his ear—that annoying bit that seems to somehow stick in there no matter what way you flip your head nor how hard you smack the skull.
“Where are you?” Edin said using his real voice. “Who are you?”
“Where I am does not matter. The wave lets me communicate with you.”
“Are you the elf in the cellar,” Edin said. “That was you.”
“I am not an elf, nor a man really.”
“Then what are you?” Edin said. “You’re not a dematian.”
The voice laughed in his head. “No son, I am not a dematian.”
Edin waited for an explanation. Something more, but there was nothing else. “What do you want from me? Do you know where Arianne is? How I can find her?”
“I do know where, and she does live, only just.”
Edin’s heart thumped in his chest and that dizziness of great heights or too much wine came over him. “What does that mean? Where is she? Show yourself!” He screamed. He was growing scared and angry and he felt like he’d leap up and slam the whole of the earth off its axis and chuck it into the sun. It was as if he were a god.
“She is out of your reach and mine unfortunately. The dematian king holds her.”
“How’d he—? Where?” nothing he thought of, no words seemed to work in his head. Even more the pain and anger roared in him. Edin summoned a great many ethereal knives. He summoned enough to fill his hands.
Edin whipped them at the walls and windows and the altar. He saw chunks of rock crumble. His vision was growing red.
“Calm,” a voice said inside his head and something snapped. “That is how you become mad.”
Edin stumbled and blinked. He saw the room, there were pot marks in the walls, previously unseen curtains were in heaps. The altar was whole and intact.
“What do I do? Where do I go?”
“You were brought here for a reason. You must become him.”
“Brought here?” Edin thought, he flashed to the tall bridge and the stone giant, then the stone elemental. They pushed him south and then north and through a whole host of gulches and ravines. He remembered being chased, though not that fast, and he remembered the form on the mountain.
“You coerced us into coming here?”
“You really, your friend was a side effect.”
Edin swallowed. “My other friends, Grent and Dephina?”
“They made it through the pass, I watched them. They are headed north toward the place you told them to ascend the mountains. Unfortunately, they will most likely fail.”
“They’ll die?” Edin gasped. Arianne was with the dematian king and somewhere he couldn’t reach and now Grent and Dephina are going to die…
“They may die, but the elves are fleeing south. They’re getting ready to flee their valley, their home of thousands of years.”
“Why?”
“The lands are growing rotten. You’ve seen it to the north when you entered the temple of Antulete. You saw the demigod who’d grown to a lunatic.”
“He’s the elven god?”
“God is a strong word, more like protector. But he is no longer protecting, as he lost control of his mind, he lost control over his lands.”
Edin shook his head. “So, what you’re telling me is that the god of,” Edin shook his head, “sorry the protector of the elves went crazy and attacked us?”
“Yes. And now the dematian king holds that land and will use it as a tool to bring forth his master. Then all of the lands will be covered in the yellow swamp.”
“The swamps of old.”
“Forests of old really,” the man said. “That’s why we lived in the mountains.”
Edin felt his head spinning. He needed to sit on something. There were no chairs. Why? Then he asked it.
“Because they do not need chairs except for dining. Eating without a table is for heathens.”
Edin sat anyways, he rested his head on his knees and closed his eyes. His mind was thumping like the beating of giant wings.
There were no words for a long while. He pictured Arianne in some torture chamber, maybe hanging from her wrists or ankles or strapped to a table with dematians hanging over her cutting bits of pieces from her to nibble on. Edin sniffed away tears. “Are you there?”
“Always.”
“Arianne is alive you say?”
“She is.”
“Why do they keep her that way? How do I find her?”
“For both questions, I do not know. I can see her. She is unharmed but it is as if her mind has been either blanked or blocked from my wave.”
Edin swallowed. Did they wipe away her mind, her thoughts… her? He wiped his eyes with just the same ease. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Well, a long time ago, a very long time ago, there was a prophecy about one who could control all the talents.”
“The Ecta Mastrino.”
“Yes.”
“I’m him.”
“Almost,” the voice said and it was now speaking and not just in his head. Edin looked up and saw the monk from before but also the hermit and the professor and the elven, or not elven, warrior. The man was moving toward him with a sort of nimbus aura about him—a glow that didn’t quite meld with the light of the moon or the now green glow of the altar.
“You have spirit, water, lightning, wind, and fire. You but require the talent over the earth, and the one that brings it together so you may save this land.”
“I’m sorry what?” Edin asked.
“You need to become the Ecta Mastrino in practice, not just in theory. You are not a university professor who spouts their knowledge but never puts it to practice.”
“I guess not.”
“No, you are not. My question for you is, are you willing to save the world or let it be destroyed? Because he is on his way and he’s going to try again. If the dematian king gets all of the Ballast Stones, he can release him.”
Edin swallowed. He knew who was on his way. He knew the demon coming up but he would not say it, he would not mention what was coming for them. Edin looked up at the man, a legend and a god.
“How do I become him, Lord Vestor?”
11
A God Blessed It…
How a god was standing before Edin was something that very nearly made him run straight at that open balcony and throw himself over. He’d flap his arms and try to fly like a bird. Maybe reach the moon a
nd poke out the eyes of the face in it, if that were possible.
Though it didn’t seem any less possible than having Vestor in front of him at this moment. Slightly more so actually, Edin thought.
“You need to stop him from acquiring the Birth Stone. As above is below. Do you remember the cave in the Susot Valley? The one the she-elf did not wish you to go into?”
Edin nodded.
“It is part of this lake. Though the beasts in there only stay under the earth.”
“Beasts? What type of beasts?”
“Heavenly guardians.”
“God, my Lord Vestor, why do you not stop this? Why do you not just smack the dematian king off his wyrm?”
“I cannot, the gods cannot interfere even if it is our desire.”
“What of Yio, he’s interfering?”
“Not while he’s still in the Underworld.” Vestor then looked to be trying to decide something. Then the god that looked like a man took a few strides toward Edin causing him to stand. “A gift for you,” he said and Vestor put a hand on his head.
Edin felt something flowing through him. It hit him like he was standing in the surf as a huge wave came at him. Things fluttered through him like he was watching his life float by. Visions, worlds, people, and things. He saw dematians attacking a stout wooden wall. Men on top beating them back with spears and swords and arrows. Merik was there, he and a couple other Por Fen were running to the areas where the demons had overpowered the defenders. There were shouts of ‘help’ and ‘onward you blotards.’
He saw a family, a young girl and terrified parents, huddled in a corner as something banged at their door.
The vision changed to a city. A very familiar one. Coldwater. The city was almost completely gone. All but the keep. And walking down an empty road with a bunch of dogs was a single warrior. A Foci Dun Bornu warrior.
Then he saw the boat. Dorset, Rihkar, and Henny were standing at the bow and whispering in soft tones as the ship sped through the ocean with a speed that didn’t seem natural.
And he saw Grent and Dephina as they rode their horses north. They were out of the mountains now, that was good. On their faces was a look of quiet determination. That and sadness.