‘However, the night before the storm I had a dream, and in it, I followed a raven to the ocean. In the turbulent swell, I saw a face. Imagine my shock when I found you washed up upon these shores after the storm, for the face I saw in my dream was yours. I only found you because a raven led me to you, just like it happened in my dream.’
She didn’t want to believe him, had not the strength to believe him. She looked at the raven outside wondering why he was always with her, like some feathered guardian here to protect her.
Freydel spoke quietly. ‘Our very future is in jeopardy. Baelthrom’s unholy magic stretches across the world, tainting everything it touches. One by one the Feylint Halanoi fall to the Maphraxies, and each life lost only increases his army and makes him stronger. Baelthrom will not stop until the Maphraxies dominate all. And after Maioria where next? He will not stop here.’
‘Immortality? Is that not what all living things want anyway?’ she demanded.
‘Look,’ Freydel said holding up his hands for calm, ‘I know it’s a lot to understand. I’m sorry to have distressed you when you are still recovering. We can continue this tomorrow. Let’s get some lunch before Maeve scolds us.’
The air seemed to brighten at his words, much to her relief.
Chapter 24
The Orb Of Death
THE next day, after another big breakfast brought out by a beaming Maeve, Issa panted up the winding stairs of Freydel’s tower. She knocked on his door, but there was no reply. She twisted the knob and peered inside.
Freydel was engrossed in a book so large and thick that she doubted she could have lifted it herself. He had obviously made an effort to tidy up. The chairs were clear of books and the desk had many neat piles of papers and scrolls roughly ordered. He did not hear her come in or when she closed the door behind her.
‘Is that made for giants?’ she asked lightly.
Freydel jumped and looked up at her over his half-moon glasses. ‘Ah-hah. Up earlier today I see. And how do you feel?’
‘Much better,’ she said. ‘I’m sure there’s something special in that pink drink you gave me.’ She had never slept so deeply as she had the past few days.
Freydel nodded and tapped his nose secretly. ‘I have something to show you,’ he indicated to a black velvet pouch on the centre of the desk. ‘Can you sense anything about it?’ he asked.
She looked at it curiously. There was definitely something strange about it. ‘I can feel some kind of power, a sort of fuzzy electrical feeling. Is it magical? It’s definitely old, though I don’t know why. That much I can tell.’
‘Very interesting,’ he nodded. ‘I’m pretty sure you have magical talent that is untapped. You would not be able to feel anything if you did not.’ He picked up the pouch and pulled out a pitch black orb larger than his fist. Her eyes transfixed upon its perfectly smooth dark surface.
‘Yes, it was after Keteth came, I remember now,’ she said. The memories came flooding back to her. ‘Coronos, that was his name. He held a glowing ball and was speaking words I did not understand.’
‘Coronos? A glowing orb?’ Freydel jumped and leant forward. ‘What colour was it? Was it about this size?’
‘Yes, like that but… It was white, though, or maybe grey, I can’t remember. It seemed to change colour and felt different to this one. Lighter, kind of.’ She shook her head, it was hard to explain. The black orb didn’t glow at all but seemed to suck in all the light. It was hard not to look at it and though she tried to look away it kept drawing her gaze back.
‘So, Coronos is alive,’ Freydel murmured as if to himself, then turned his attention back to her. ‘I thought I recognised the man when I was scrying through the orb,’ he laughed in delight.
‘There are six of these orbs, as I have said, but Baelthrom desires them like no other. He is always searching for them, so you must not speak of it. When Coronos disappeared, we thought the orb was lost too, but it seems it is not, and that wily fox is alive.’ Freydel chuckled and looked out of the window, his eyes wistful.
‘By the Great Goddess, I’ll be damned. You survived, you old dog, and what great happenings are you now weaving…’
‘This orb I have here is the Orb of Death, or of Undoing if you prefer. It’s about destruction, or unmaking, and of endings. It is the embodiment of the absence of all that is, the nothingness, the darkness, the absence of light. But it is not purely negative, for it is a great cleansing force.
‘Its sister orb is the Orb of Life, of creation, of light, and they cannot exist alone. Because of this, I know the Orb of Life exists yet is lost to us. Baelthrom took it when he murdered its Keeper, an Ancient.’
‘What of the others?’ she asked.
Freydel told her about the other four orbs of power, and she listened without interrupting, carefully linking together everything the wizard was telling her with everything the witch had said. It all fit together.
‘Tell me of your other companion, the younger one,’ Freydel asked.
‘I don’t know any more than their names and what they look like,’ she said, but as she spoke she felt it was not quite true. Somehow she felt she knew Asaph more deeply than that, though she did not understand how or why.
Freydel nodded. ‘Hmm. Maybe an apprentice to Coronos. Tall, reddish-blonde, you say?’ She nodded. ‘Then I shall not tax you with needless questions. Draxian for sure.’ Freydel sighed and slumped back in his chair as if overcome with weariness.
‘So many years of searching…’ he whispered to himself, and she wondered if he had forgotten she was there. ‘…Intense study, researching endless prophecies, seeing signs… and now we are here. Now I have found that which I have sought for so long, I feel nothing but exhaustion. Not the happy elation I’d hoped for, but instead fear and foreboding. The search is done, finished, but the tide advances and the war that will break us all looms at our doors.’
His words and weary face concerned her.
‘If there is some way I can help, some way I can alleviate your burden, tell me,’ she said. She couldn’t help but feel worried for the man who trusted her enough to share his life’s work and deepest desires in just the few hours she had known him. He said nothing as if he had not heard her, and instead sat rubbing his eyes.
‘Where are the other orbs?’ she said, hoping to perk him up.
Freydel looked up with a start as if remembering that she was there.
‘Forgive me,’ he spoke with a little more energy. ‘Let me show you, it’s easier.’
He placed the orb on a squat metal stand in the centre of the table. With his hand on top of it, he spoke words Issa did not understand mentally, but the feeling of them moved within her. She looked into the orb and saw swirls of tiny gold and silver stars moving in the blackness. Freydel carried on, speaking in a normal tongue, and images showing what he spoke of began to form within the orb.
‘The Orb of Fire was given to the dwarves, the masters of flame and forging, and hopefully, they still safeguard it deep within their molten caves.’
She saw a huge cavern where molten lava ran in gullies through great underground cities, just like rivers ran through forest villages. Short, squat human-type people, with thick muscles and friendly faces sat around a table. At its centre was the Orb of Fire, the same colour as the molten lava. She couldn’t marvel at it for long because Freydel continued and the image changed.
‘The Orb of Water was the first to be lost long ago. It was entrusted to the Wykiry,’ Freydel’s voice dropped. ‘Once they were humankind; sea nymphs, people of the ocean, and they had a wonderful gift. They could transform themselves into beautiful sea creatures.
She looked upon small slender people with shimmering pearl-like skin and huge purple eyes. They moved as gracefully as butterflies and a gentleness hung about their demeanour. In a flash, the Wykiry were swimming and now fish-like in appearance, with long fins for arms and feet. One held the Orb of Water and it was beautiful - a mix of all the blues, from deepest azure to
glistening turquoise and the palest aqua. Freydel’s words drifted down to her.
‘Some say they are related to the evil Histanatarns, yet these wonderful beings were everything they are not: kind, honest, and possessing of a pure magic. In their innocence, Keteth tricked them, tricked us all, and stole from them the Orb of Water.
‘The Ancients were furious and blamed the sea nymphs for their blunder. In their arrogance, the Ancients refused to blame themselves as well, and cursed the sea nymphs, just as Keteth had been cursed when he stole the orb. This terrible curse bound them forever to the ocean and damned them to never again walk the land in human form or speak with the human tongue. Their limbs were turned into fins forever, and they could no longer sing their beautiful songs or play their exquisite instruments again. They were no longer called sea nymphs, but Wykiry. It means “land banished” in the Ancients’ tongue.
‘Over the centuries they became a forgotten people and the land dwellers, in their ignorance, now see them as pretty fish, mere bringers of luck, and toss them from their nets unwanted back into the sea. They were no longer the most majestic and beautiful of the nymphs that they had once been.’
Issa watched the image of the sea nymphs dissipate with a lump in her throat. She wanted to look at them longer as if doing so would somehow revert the curse.
‘The elves, dwellers of the forest, were entrusted with the Orb of Earth, but no one has seen the orb since they withdrew into the Land of Mists, and no elf will speak of its existence. It is my fervent hope that they have it still,’ Freydel added, worrying his beard.
She saw the tall slender elf people gathered in a forest surrounding an orb that was suspended in mid-air. It was a myriad of emerald greens and golden browns, the colours of the trees and the earth.
‘The Orb of Death was given to the humans - masters of war and destruction, but also capable of great spiritual growth. I guess it is most fitting,’ he said wryly.
She looked upon a smaller replica of the black orb within itself. Gathered around it were kings and queens in gleaming golden crowns, wizards in robes holding staves, and women clothed in sky blue robes that she thought to be seers.
‘The Orb of Life was kept by the Ancients, the great creators, the wielders of the most powerful magics, and crafters of the orbs themselves.’
The image changed and the black orb became a sparkling mass of all the colours, mesmerising pastel hues as if a rainbow had been trapped within it. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, but it was not only the orb that made her gasp. The people she saw gathered around it looked familiar. They were like the elves, but taller and, if it was possible, more beautiful. They seemed wise and powerful.
‘Beautiful aren’t they? And the orb too,’ Freydel said, smiling. ‘The Keepers of the Orbs, as we are called, were given the task to be guardians of them, to protect them at all costs, ensuring that they never come within reach of Baelthrom. But no one could have known how powerful he would become. Over millennia many ill-doers driven by greed have tried to find and take the orbs, hoping to take their power for themselves. But all have failed and at their peril, because an orb is bound to its Keeper, and the enchantment is such it will kill any who try to take it.’
They sat silently for a while, and the orb became shining black and empty once more. She considered all that she had heard, it seemed to have little to do with her despite what Freydel said. Still, it was fascinating to learn so much about the world beyond Little Kammy, she found it exciting and mysterious even if it was about war and immortals and powers she could barely imagine.
‘Tell me about the Maphraxies.’ She knew so little about the enemy, though she had to force herself to ask.
With meticulous attention to detail, Freydel told her of the Maphraxies. For a long time he spoke, the orb reflecting his words in the form of images. She listened in silent intrigue, shocked to learn that such hideous creatures were once humans or elves or dwarves.
‘They undergo agonising experiments in the Immortal Lord’s insatiable quest to create those like him, abominations of nature and immortal. He succeeded. Deformed beasts devoid of any mind or soul and enthused with incredible strength and speed, fearless and ferocious fighters, the perfect army,’ Freydel said.
‘I had known of dwarves, though I’ve only ever seen one on a merchant ship coming into Kammam. But where did the dark dwarves come from?’ she said.
‘They were originally a secret society of dwarves,’ Freydel said, leaning back in his chair that creaked noisily. ‘Whence the sect came into being no one knows, such was their secrecy. They dabbled in black magic deep within their caves. They were necromancers, murderers, slavers, involved in blood rites and rituals, and all manner of powerful, but evil things. When their existence was discovered, the light dwarves tried many times to stamp out their creed, but they were too clever, too well hidden, and in the end too powerful.
She saw the dark dwarves within the orb, grey-faced beings with darting yellow eyes that glowed in the dark. She shivered. They bore little resemblance to the rosy-cheeked light dwarves she had seen earlier.
‘In times of persecution, they added to their numbers—not just dwarves, but bringing in other races who sought the evil magics to further their own selfish power. Even elves were not immune to the seduction of that power. After a bitter struggle, the light dwarves drove them out of their homeland, Venosia, into the vast swamplands of western Ostasia. There in the swamps they hid. Unhindered by their cousins their magic grew potent, infecting everything around them like a plague.
‘The Saurians, the lizard people of the swamps, died of pestilence in great numbers. The harpies, however, embraced their twisted magic. Over the years, kept as they were in their dark underground cities, the dark dwarves’ skin turned grey and their minds clever, but bereft of empathy and compassion. The Saurians withdrew far away from the dark dwarves and the rest of Maioria, and now their existence is doubtful.’
She saw upright scaly beings that resembled walking lizards rather than humans. They were taller and stockier than tall men and had thick muscles and long heavy tails. Bright red tongues darted in and out of their mouths. But unlike animals, they spoke to each other in a low hissing language, lived within stone-based structures, and their stepped pyramidal temples were inscribed with elaborate tilted writing.
‘The dark dwarves portended Baelthrom’s coming, and when his abominable presence arrived upon Maioria, it was they who nourished him. They had long awaited a god that would lead them in their evil ways. With their black necromantic art, they created a powerful elixir distilled from the souls of the living. Sirin Derenax, the “Oblivion of Souls.” Freydel spat and explained in detail the black drink to her.
‘It works its evil quickly, nothing can stop it as it kills every cell in the body. Immortality and oblivion come swiftly. The soulless Maphraxies have an insatiable desire to consume life, such is the essence of the things within the Dark Rift, and they are formidable. Baelthrom’s minions don’t all look the same. They take many forms and guises, and his spies are everywhere,’ he squinted at her over his glasses.
She said nothing, letting his words sink in. Thoughts of this “black drink” chilled her to the bone.
‘Now, Hameka was a man who actively sought out the Immortal Lord and begged to be taken in by him. He was a Master Wizard, but his was a magic rooted in hatred; hatred of the goddess, hatred of life, and all the wrongs that had been done to him. He became a brilliant ruthless commander and Baelthrom’s second-in-command.’
The orb swirled and a tall figure began to form, but it did not get any clearer. She strained to make out the image but it remained blurry.
Freydel sighed. ‘That is as good as I ever got. Hameka has cleverly concealed his image from prying eyes, even his past has been shrouded from us.’
‘Baelthrom’s gifts made him immortal, but he looks as human as you or me. A very dangerous man indeed. If you see him, and your heart will know, you must run from him as
fast as you can.’ A chill swept down her spine.
‘It is Hameka who executes all Baelthrom’s orders, and with devastating success. The eastern lands were the first to fall. The elves and dwarves fled, and now their lands are nothing but barren, poisoned wastelands where nothing can grow. Then fell mighty Drax. No one ever thought the great Dragon Kingdom would fall to the Immortal Lord. It terrified us all. Now he eyes the Frayonesse continent.
‘All is slowly being taken, despite our strongest assaults and defences, they are destroying us and there is nothing we can do to stop them.’
He stood up and pulled out a map from under several sheets of paper, it was huge at a quarter the size of the table.
‘Look,’ he pointed to it. She came to stand beside him. The map was labelled “The Known World.” ‘Venosia, Ostasia, Tusarza, Intolana, Munland – now all Maphrax, and all lost.’
She looked at the five countries all shaded over with grey lead, and the letters “MAPHRAX” scrawled over them.
‘The only places left are here; Celene, the Frayon continent - of which Davono and Lans Himay are part - and Atalanph. Maybe the Uncharted Lands to the west are free, though no one has ever returned from there. Perhaps the Known World is all there is anyway. You can forget the wicked sea peoples of Histanatarn. They are barely human as it is and probably already in league with the immortals,’ he pointed to a thick clump of tiny islands west of Drax.
‘The Uncharted Lands,’ she said. ‘Yes, that was it, they said they had come from there, though they were originally from Drax. I remember now.’
‘Impossible,’ he said looking at her. ‘No one has been there, or been there and returned. The seas are treacherous, the domain of Keteth and the Shadowlands. That is why it’s called “The Lost Sea” - lost to all but Keteth of course.’
She shrugged. ‘That’s what they said.’
‘If it is true then I cannot wait to speak to my old friend,’ he said, wonder in his eyes. He turned back to the map. ‘But that can wait. Even as we speak, in the seas between northern Frayon and Drax, the battle against Baelthrom rages. But our resistance is weakening, our soldiers are tired and demoralised, our numbers are dwindling as his army swells.
Night Goddess (The Goddess Prophecies Book 1) Page 25