The Banished Lands- The Complete Series

by Benjamin Mester

  “Believe me,” Baron chuckled. “I was just as shocked the first time a solid stone turned to clay in my hands.”

  “Have you always been able to do this?” he asked.

  “No. Only six months ago, I was just a normal Suriyan. My parents live right around the corner there.”

  The young man eyed Baron incredulously. Though he didn't have the look of a Suriyan himself and was most likely one of the refugees from the outlying townships, the young man had met plenty of Suriyans by now, and had yet to meet one with mystic powers from the First Age.

  “Where are you from?” Baron asked.

  “Echlin,” he responded, finding another stone and carrying it to Baron.

  “It was mostly destroyed by the barbarians,” the young man continued. “We fled here. I was part of the battle. The Melanorians rescued us.”

  Baron nodded slowly, recalling what Straiah had told him.

  “Most of the other townships fared better than our two hometowns,” he continued. “The larger cities in the west weren't even touched at all. Arnor and Izben didn't know the invasion had begun until it was already over.”

  Baron smiled and the young man chuckled. He struck Baron as a similar personality to himself. They finished sealing the gap in short order and the pair stood at a distance, admiring their handiwork. Baron had melded the stones into a single flowing unit and the once gaping hole was now the strongest part of the building.

  But as Baron gazed at it, he noticed suddenly how the swirling pattern of the stone was the same as the flowing pattern of the pendant he had made for Ariadra and he turned away from it suddenly, his countenance growing dark.

  “What is it?” the young man asked.

  “I'm just cold, that's all.”

  Just then, the representative from Forthura whom Baron had spoken to the night before appeared on the scene. He walked with intent, clearly having been informed of Baron's activities. But seeing it for himself still gave him a shock and he approached the sealed gap, running his hand along it.

  “I'm Baron, by the way,” Baron said, turning to the young man with hand extended.

  “Jaden,” he replied, shaking Baron's hand.

  The representative now wore a delighted smile on his face.

  “This is the first piece of good news I've had since coming to this frozen town.”

  Baron chuckled.

  “Where do you need us?” Baron asked.

  Jaden tensed a bit at the question and Baron glanced to him, suddenly realizing he had just volunteered his new friend without asking first.

  “I'd love to help,” Jaden offered. “Really, I would. I'm just apprenticing under a glass maker and I'm already probably late.”

  “Of course,” Baron said. “I appreciate your help.”

  Jaden nodded and then departed.

  “How long has Sheabor assigned you here?” the representative asked.

  The question made Baron smile, for the representative clearly believed that someone of Baron's abilities couldn't have been assigned here for long, and he was very eager to use Baron as much as possible.

  “Um. Till the work's done.”

  The representative was surprised.

  “Well that could be quite some time. Surely a man of your talents could be utilized better elsewhere than the frozen tundra.”

  “Sheabor feels it's important we don't abandon those who have sacrificed so much.”

  “I won't argue,” the representative said. “Let's get to it then.”

  The man invited Baron to walk with him.

  “How does your ability work exactly?”

  “Um, well. The harder I concentrate, the softer the stone becomes until I can mold it like clay.”

  Baron's face flushed red, his ability still so new, he himself didn't know exactly how it worked.

  “The north side of the West End took the brunt of the battle. Most of the structures there were completely destroyed. I've neglected even thinking about it because I know how much of a pain it's going to be to rebuild them. If I assigned you to that region...”

  “Absolutely,” Baron said. “Consider it done.”

  The representative was overjoyed, a similar sigh of freedom escaping his lips to the one Baron's father had breathed long ago after awarding his sons their very first client, the farmer Tobin. Baron laughed.

  “How many men do you need?”

  “Half a dozen, probably.”

  “Done.”

  The representative extended his hand. Baron took it and the two shook. Then Baron set off for the north, quite happy with how the morning was turning out. But in everything, his happiness was tempered by the heartache that always greeted him in any moment of solitude. Just around the bend of any happy thought was the remembrance of Ariadra. He could forget it for a time, but it always came rushing back.

  Still, it brought Baron a genuine joy to be of such use to his friends and family. He might even find a sort of peace here. He remembered Ariadra telling him that he would never be happy with a quiet life. It made his eyes blur with tears to recall. But now the prospect seemed more and more inviting. What he wouldn't give to be free of this aching pain, to live in peace and tranquility. Maybe one day, when all this was over, things would still work out between him and Ariadra.

  Baron took the main road north to the edge of town, where the buildings were in shambles. Straiah had knocked some of them down completely, harvesting them for rock for the hasty walls they'd built. Suddenly, his estimation of half a dozen men seemed scant. They would have to clear most of this rubble away and start from scratch.

  As Baron stood there pondering his plan of action, a handful of laborers arrived on the scene, a full dozen of them or more, along with a team of horses which made Baron smile. Though he'd said he would stay till the job was done, important persons can get called away at a moment's notice. The representative from Forthura wasn't going to waste even a second of Baron's skill and had assigned a double portion of laborers to his side. As the laborers assembled around him, Baron was almost reminded of the first days of the alliance city. But he brushed those thoughts aside and addressed his new workforce.

  “Most of these homes need to be rebuilt completely,” Baron declared. “We'll have to clear out the rubble to make room to work. That's the first job.”

  The men dispersed to the nearest building, pulling away the manageable chunks. Two of them tied ropes around one of the larger ones, to pull with the horses but Baron stopped them. Pulling the ropes down from the rock, he felt the surface of the stone briefly, searching for a weakness and then slapped it with his palm, sending a fracture clean through it. The men gazed in wonderment, none of them having yet seen him in action. Baron smiled. They hadn't seen anything yet. After the rubble was cleared from a section, Baron took two men as assistants.

  “I'm going to soften the stone and you two help me mold it.”

  The men glanced a confused look to one another but Baron knew it was easier to just show them. Placing one rock on top of the other, Baron set his hands on the two stones until each began to swirl.

  “Take hold of them and mold them together,” Baron said.

  The men did as bade, though with trepidation, and great surprise entered their eyes as they watched the rock in their hands bend to their will and mold like clay.

  “We'll start each building with the cornerstone,” Baron said. “And can someone get a fire going?”

  Baron blew warm breaths of air into his hands and one of the workers departed to find some logs and kindling. The group went about their work at the furthest northwestern corner of town and an idea came to Baron's mind. Suriya had always been just a backwater fishing village with simple drafty cottages. He would rebuild these structures better than before...give Suriya the chance to become a respectable town. Instead of rock fitted together every which way, he would start with a sleek square corner and run the length of the wall flat and flush as though hewn by a master craftsman.

  The laborers sa
w what he was doing and helped him mold the stones and blend them together into a single sleek column stretching above their heads. They were very pleased with the finished product and continued on down the line. Because of the way he was building, making perfect seams between stones, they used more material than a normal wall but Baron also made the wall thinner, since there wouldn't be any drafts or gaps.

  They finished the forward wall of the first building in only an hour. Baron stepped back and gazed at his accomplishment. He chuckled to himself as he saw a flair of the artistic in his work, doubtless the influence of the architect in the alliance city. The rebuilding of Suriya had begun.

  Sheyla

  A man stood in the corner of a dark room. He had seen this place in Durian's mind – the tomb Euthor had constructed for his beloved Sheyla. In front of him, a shaft of sunlight shone down onto a raised rectangular sarcophagus from a small hole somewhere above.

  The man hesitated for many minutes, unable to bring himself to come any closer. Though he knew what he would find when he spanned the distance to the rectangle of stone, still he couldn't bring himself to look with his own eyes upon the fair form of Sheyla, slain in all her beauty.

  His men had never told him that Sheyla had been killed, struck down in the open plain as she sped away from them. That was wise, for he would have killed them instantly. He had always thought that Euthor and Sheyla had escaped together...lived long and happy lives in the fractured and flooding world. To learn that she had perished during the Great War...it brought both grief and satisfaction.

  He was glad for the knowledge of all he'd deprived Euthor of – her smile, her warmth, her affection. But it was mixed with a stab of sorrow, for never would he have consciously harmed her, even after she'd slighted him, marrying the prince and siding with the corrupt Houses against him. Durian's eyes glowed fiery red with the spirit of Corcoran and his fists shook as he clenched them tightly.

  At length, he stepped slowly forward, closing the distance to her crypt, his heart pounding. For though he had seen her fair form in the recesses of Durian's memory, he needed to see with his own eyes. Coming to stand over her, a wave of emotion hit him. He gazed upon her graceful form, as beautiful now as the day she died. Euthor had preserved her forever.

  In Durian's memory, he had seen a vague image of her form. But Durian of Suriya didn't know Sheyla as Madrigan did. Durian hadn't been able to read in her expression her last and final thoughts. This was the entire reason Madrigan had come to this continent, why he'd risked revealing himself to those he planned to crush beneath his feet. When he first overtook Durian, he had no idea that this miserable creature had actually found the tomb of the woman he loved...had gazed upon her fair form.

  Madrigan needed to see her. It had been a millennia. He needed to know how she died. Had she died instantly as the arrow struck her? Or had she died slowly and alone, abandoned in a field? The latter thought enraged him and he had half a mind to slaughter a hundred of his men for vengeance upon his return.

  But his anger subsided as he slid his fingertips across the clear crystal, reading the expression on her face. She was older now than when he knew her, though time seemed ill able to dim the simple beauty she'd always carried. Her expression wasn't one of desperate surprise at the shock of a mortal wound. She'd had time to think and prepare for the end. Her face showed a trace of deep sorrow, though not for her own fate, but for the ones she would leave behind. And he thought he could see in her expression a forgiveness toward her attackers.

  Madrigan cast his eyes to the ground and hunched over as though in pain. He beat his hand against the translucent stone, then yelled to the ceiling in anger, truly grieved for the pain he had caused her. She was such a simple-hearted girl, always thinking the best of everyone. Why did she ever choose that pig of a prince! If only she'd have come away with him, leaving the cowardly world behind to forge a new destiny of their own, apart from castles and privilege and tiresome wretches!

  For long moments he gazed at her, running his hand along the clear crystal until he couldn't bear to look any longer, then turned his back to the stone sarcophagus, fists shaking. He felt Euthor taunting him somehow from the grave, encasing her in crystal because Euthor knew one day Madrigan would come to see what his men had done to her. The thought enraged him and he spun round again, beating his hand on the hardened crystal.

  “It was your hand that caused her death!” he yelled to the empty room. “You are to blame – you and your corrupt Houses! You poisoned her against me!”

  Then the room fell silent again as he stood there in fury, heaving deep breaths of air. But as the moments dragged on, Madrigan's heart calmed and his mind began to fill with questions. Why had Euthor left her this way, encased and preserved forever? Had he really been able to predict that his nemesis would one day, centuries later, come to stand over her beautiful but lifeless form? Or was there something more?

  Madrigan could see in Durian's memory that he'd had dreams of Sheyla lying slain in a field. Durian believed that King Euthor was somehow helping the Eastern Realm, that Euthor had somehow seen the future and had preserved his own spirit inside the Hammer of Haladrin. Madrigan's heart beat faster. The thought that Euthor somehow still lived...not only lived but was still working against him...it was nearly too much to bear.

  But as he stood there, he noticed the etching of a poem carved into the stone of her tomb and he read it slowly, his heart filling with rage with each passing line:

  Our footsteps amble down the dusty lane.

  Daylight sinks to twilight once again.

  And her, her tender, far-off looking eyes

  Watch the changing colors fill the skies.

  And I, my thoughts are drawn to distant lands,

  Where we could flee beyond the world's demands,

  And live, disburdened from the many pains,

  That ever keep the race of men in chains...

  The final beams of sunlight warm her face.

  I feel pervading goodness in this place.

  A breeze picks up and stirs her silken hair.

  And I catch the scent of goodness everywhere.

  The sentiment infuriated him. A prince wishing to flee away from his comforts! What nonsense! Euthor used the eloquence of poetry only when it suited him. At heart, he was a pampered noble who never knew the toil of hard labor. Madrigan was disgusted and he beat his fist again on the clear crystal, this time gazing directly into her face.

  “How could you?” he asked. “Euthor was a pig! All of this could have been avoided if you'd only just come away with me! How could you have chosen them? How could you have chosen him?”

  Madrigan turned away, stooping down in crippling fury for long moments until exploding back to his feet with a yell of rage to the empty ceiling. At length, he calmed himself, coming at last to a resolution as he walked one last time to the fair form of Sheyla, his gaze defiant.

  “You should be glad that you perished when you did...that you didn't live to see the havoc I will once more wreak upon this realm.”

  Then at last, he departed her sepulcher. The time had come for this realm to pay the ultimate price. Whatever weaknesses it harbored, he would find them all and reduce their cities to rubble. He knew they would come to suspect him in time. Aravas was no one's fool. But what did it matter? He had come to this realm to see Sheyla with his own eyes. Tricking Sheabor and the others had been an unexpected and pleasant surprise. But he knew it wouldn't last.

  It didn't matter how long they believed the lie. This realm was far weaker than he had ever suspected. The Windbearers had given up their powers, and the rest were divided. That's why Malfur had been so eager in his conquest of this realm. Malfur saw quickly how vulnerable it was. Pallin was on a fool's errand to reclaim their powers, but this realm would fall before he ever reached the crypt of Euthor. Madrigan's forces already had a foothold on the western banks of their continent. He had never trusted Malfur to win this continent for him.

  Madriga
n rode through the open lands of the Horctura back to the alliance city, his mind still a jumble. He had almost lost heart for this war. It had been a millennia. But seeing Sheyla once more...knowing that Euthor's spirit somehow still held influence in the Eastern Realm...it blinded him with rage. He didn't care how long it took or how many of his men perished. All would come under his dominion, the dominion of Corcoran.

  But something troubled him greatly. What had Euthor done? What things had he set in motion to stop the downfall of the world? All this planning and scheming to help these underlings. What was it all for?

  Madrigan scanned Durian's memories for information. He was surprised to see how much this hapless vessel had studied the histories and poems of the ancient king, especially those carved into the menacing hammer that he himself had held briefly in his own hands.

  The world and all its light shall fade.

  I'll stay with her beneath the shade,

  and wait until the world's remade...

  Madrigan's eyes narrowed as he considered the words. He himself was remaking the world, bringing the two continents together again. Did Euthor still have some future plan for himself and Sheyla? Another segment of poetry came to mind, this time from the poem that had led Durian to find the island off the coast of Kester:

  The unescaping fate: We too

  Are subjects to decay.

  But Sheyla would never see decay within her tomb of crystal. She would remain unchanged for the rest of time. An impossible thought struck him, one that drove him nearly mad to consider. What if Euthor had somehow found a way to bring her back from the grave, and perhaps even himself? If Sheyla was brought back to life, she would live the rest of her days and then die and finally come to decay at last. Could that really be the plan of Euthor? But how?