by Greg Curtis
Then he took his seat and immediately started screaming. Elodie wasn't surprised. Not everyone screamed as the blessing took them, but a lot did. Especially the first time they tried a new seat. It could be a painful as well as overwhelming experience. It could be deadly too.
He didn't sit for long. Yarin held out for a few minutes, screaming for every second he was on the seat, and then unexpectedly got up and leapt away. He leapt a long way away, ascending surely a dozen yards or more into the air and landing not far from her. All that strength he had been acquiring over the years had clearly had an effect on him.
After that he just lay there, face down on the stone, gasping for breath and sobbing. Clearly the gift had had an effect on him, though she wasn't quite sure what. But she let him lie there and reclaim his self control. Experience had taught her that there was no point in doing anything else for a time. Worshippers simply weren't up to much immediately after receiving their blessing.
Besides, she liked standing at the edge of the chamber. She liked feeling the raw, chaos and unimaginable power of the Heartfire all around her. That was the difference between guardians and worshippers. Guardians never sat on the thrones. They didn't need to. They simply absorbed the magic as it came from the Heartfire itself, and grew in their gift naturally.
In time, and it was a surprising amount of time, the dwarf managed to get to his feet, throw up a couple more times, and then finally start trudging silently out of the chamber. He didn't even look at her as he passed her by.
Nor did she say anything to him. Usually Elodie liked to comment on each blessing. To inform the worshipper of how they were doing. But this had been a poor blessing. Yarin might have sat in the seat, but she doubted he had gained a lot. He shouldn't have come to the Temple drunk. So instead she just followed him out, wondering what he had gained – if anything. Wondering too if he would come back. There was something in the hunch of his shoulders that spoke of defeat.
But in six months, regardless, she would send him another invitation, and then she would know. For the moment the blessing had been given, and he was quiet. That was perhaps as much as she could hope for.
At the entrance to the Temple, he stopped and turned to face her. “You did something!” Yarin accused her.
“I guided you through the temple,” she replied. “All else was between you and the Heartfire.” And he knew that. It was the same every time.
“No!” He shook his head angrily. “You did something! You conniving little strumpet! And I want my opals back!”
“The payment was received and the blessing given,” Elodie replied, starting to worry where this was going. Sometimes the worshippers grew angry after a blessing. But not usually the more experienced of them. They had learned what to expect. It was mostly those who had come for the first time as they discovered they were nowhere near as tough as they thought. But the dwarf was starting to look angry. There was fury growing in his dark eyes and his cheeks were pale as he clenched his jaw. As if he'd somehow been cheated.
“Thief!” The dwarf sudden drew a knife from his belt and leapt at her, screaming with fury.
A heartbeat later he was flying away from her, screaming in pain instead of rage as he bounced off her protections. Then he hit the stone and started bouncing and tumbling out of control, and yelling some more, before he finally stopped just beside his mechanical carriage.
Elodie was shocked. She'd never had a worshipper attack her before, and even though she'd known she was safe, the shock left her reeling. But at least he wasn't going to try again. She knew that when she saw him try to get up and barely manage it. One of his arms hung loose and a leg didn't look any better. There was blood pouring down his head from where he'd apparently smashed it into the stone of the terrace.
“It is a crime to attack a Guardian,” she informed him simply as he finally found his feet, using a little magic to let her voice carry to him. “You have been warned Yarin Coldstream.”
And he had been warned. He had even listened she gathered from the way he didn't try charging her again. But he was still angry. Glaring at her as if he wanted to rip her throat out. Shouting and screaming at her like a child throwing a tantrum.
“Bitch! Stonefire whore!” He threw a few other insults at her. But he didn't try advancing on her again. Instead he eventually hopped the last of the way back to his mechanical coach and grabbed on to it for support before turning back to face her.
“You bony strumpet! As if you could ever satisfy a man! Even those winged twigs would be better!” Then he opened the door, spat on the stone and pulled himself in with his one good arm.
Moments later, with a belch of black smoke from the exhaust on top of it, he took off. The steel wheels, screeching as they skidded and slipped against the stone. He was pushing the machine for all it was worth. But he shouldn't have. Because almost immediately he reached the path leading down from the terrace, he smashed into the stone wall with a thunderous crash and his journey came to a sudden and premature end.
She worried for him then. Thinking that as hard as he had hit that wall, he might have done himself some more injuries. But she did not go to check on him. Not when the wagon's steam engine kept roaring wildly and more black smoke belched from the stack. Instead she simply stood there and watched, and hoped that she didn't have to do anything.
Thankfully she didn't have to. Instead she watched as the great steel wheels of the wagon started running backwards and the iron beast pulled away from the stone. Before they turned a little, and then he bashed forwards into it again, iron crunching and scraping against stone.
That happened a few more times. The wagon backed up maybe a few feet, the wheels turned, and then he crashed into the stone, and she had to wonder why he was doing that. Why didn't he back up a little further? But little by little he was breaking free of whatever seemed to be holding the wagon, and she hoped it would be enough.
Eventually it was, and she watched the wagon suddenly turn far enough that when it finally moved forwards again it didn't smash into the stone face. Instead it ran alongside it, scraping the metal against the rock, and eventually pulling away.
Soon he was out of sight, heading down the trail to the path back to his realm, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
It was over. She worried that it might not be over for anyone on the road travelling to or from the Temple. Clearly Yarin was unable to control his iron beast, and with the machine's size and the speed it could reach, it might be dangerous. But there was nothing she could do about that. Just pray to the goddesses that whoever he ran across was fast enough on their feet to get out of the way.
Why did he have to turn up drunk?
It hadn't been a good blessing. She had been covered with his sick, groped as if she was some sort of harlot and finally attacked. It hadn't been good for Yarin Coldstream either. She doubted he had gained much if anything from his blessing. And the chances were that when he returned to his homeland, he would likely say bad things about them. Things that would no doubt reach the ears of the sprites and be used by them against the guardians. And the way he had thrown them into his verbal attack – they were the winged twigs she assumed – worried her.
Was it just an insult thrown out without any thought? Or was there something more behind it? Dwarves – the men at least – were notorious for trying to bed any female they could find, and not worrying too much about what race they might be. And the sprites weren't that choosy either when it came to partners. If it suited their purposes – mostly their political ambitions or their various machinations – they would lie with a dwarf. That could be trouble.
But the worst thing was that she knew, in six months she would have to send out an invitation for him to return again. It was simply the way.
But worse than that, now she had to begin cleaning up. Preparing the temple for the next worshipper. For Felicia Di Mon, a sylph. But at least Elodie knew the woman wouldn't attack her. She wouldn't be drunk either. Felicia Di Mon was a peaceful a
nd extremely sober woman as were all her people. Arrogant, and she treated the guardians as if they were incompetent servants, but civilised.
Elodie sighed quietly, and then went to get a mops and a bucket of warm soapy water. It had already been a long day, and it was far from over.
Chapter Five
Fylarne watched Elodie head back inside the Temple, no doubt going to her bedchamber to wash and change before she had to deal with the next worshipper and he knew a moment of pride for her. But even as he knew pride for her he knew shame for himself and what he'd said to her. Even though what he'd told her was right, how could it be right for him to tell her about right and wrong when his own transgressions against the Temple were so much greater? She was a good guardian, faithful to her duty, and he was a traitor.
He actually had to wonder at how she'd managed to put up with the dwarf's antics. He would have hit him. Or at least he would have wanted to. Coming to his blessing late. Abusing, molesting and even attacking a guardian. Then complaining that he hadn't received his blessing when the truth was simply that he was too drunk to accept it. Using the wine to cover his fear. It was too much! But she had done the right thing.
The Temple was not in the world to control the doings of other people. It had only one purpose. To grant the gift of magic to those who could accept it. Even drunk, angry dwarves. And for all his failings, Yarin Coldstream was one of those people.
So too were the sprites. And they were far worse than a drunken dwarf.
He hated them. And yet he had to hide his true feelings as he waited for them, even though they surely knew what he thought anyway.
It wasn't easy. Fylarne was good at hiding his emotions. Years of practice had taught him well. But hiding them was not the same as not having them. And he knew all the same feelings the others did. In truth they flowed even more powerfully in his heart. There was not a morning he did not wake up knowing pure hatred for the sprites – and loathing for himself because of what they were forcing him to do.
If only there was a way to fight them. To defeat them. To make them stop and give back what they had taken. Who they had taken. But there was no way. Only the devious deception he had engaged in these past four years. The sprites – the Nabris ne Yall – were simply too strong. They had perhaps the most powerful magic of all the peoples of the worlds. Even more terrible, their natural gifts were weapons of war. They could summon armies of elementals and bind souls to their service. And they were utterly ruthless.
It was shocking. They seemed so harmless. Small and weak. They were even uncommonly fair of face. But somehow they were the most powerful warriors around. The most evil too. They were never an enemy that could be faced head on.
Which was why he stood there calmly, waiting for the winged vermin as Elodie had called them, to arrive. And he even maintained a well practised dispassionate expression on his face the whole time.
For once the sprites were on time, and after only a few hours they appeared in the great portal. Tiny, almost childlike figures with gossamer wings on their backs. Four of them. Smiling as though they were on some sort of grand adventure or playing in the yard.
But whatever else they were, they weren't children. They didn't know the innocence of youth. And their hearts were anything but young. They were old and black and bitter. Filled with jealousy and contempt, and above all else, the desire for power. Save that it wasn't a desire with them. It was an all consuming hunger.
Sweet faces hiding the most wretched evil.
The four of them spotted him standing at the entrance to the Temple immediately and walked over to him. Maybe marched would be a better term he thought. It wasn't an orderly march such as soldiers would do and they weren't armed. But none-the-less it was a walk filled with intention and malice not to mention the promise of death. It looked like a march to him. And yet to anyone else, they would almost have been skipping.
“Relic!” The first of them greeted him with a sneer. “You have done as you were instructed?”
Fylarne bristled at both the insult and the fact that these miserable creatures had the right to command him. Or not the right – because how they did it and what they commanded him to do was very wrong – but the strength. The power was theirs.
Of course it had been theirs for a long time. It was four years since they had abducted those he loved. And while those had been a terrible four years, they had given him one thing – time. Time enough that he had taken steps to wrest a little of that power back.
He had started by doing the one thing that guardians never did. He had sat on the thrones. One anyway. He had known almost from the very instant they had told him that they had his family, that that had to be his path. That he needed one thing above all else, the knowledge to defeat them.
So late at night when the others were asleep, when there had been no one coming for at least a few hours, when no one would know, he had done what he had to. And he had sat on the sphinx throne a great many times since, pushing himself to the limits of his strength. The sprites had power and he had had to match it somehow. Simply absorbing the magic in its normal chaotic form from a distance, hadn't been enough.
Sitting on the throne had been agony for him as it was for all. But harder still was the strength he'd needed to carry on the following day as if nothing had happened. As if he wasn't broken inside. Because he had pushed himself to his very limits.
But he had learned. He could speak and read and write the ancient tongue. Not just the one they all spoke, which was really just an old tongue bastardised a little to match the needs of all. But the first tongue. The one spoken by those who had come before the Temple itself. The first tongue ever known. At least that was his guess. Even the library didn't go that far back. And then he had mastered a thousand other magics to do with knowledge.
It had been frustrating at times. The throne didn't always teach him what he wanted to know. The thrones were not that precise. Or maybe his brain wasn't that precise. Still his efforts had made him the strongest of the guardians as far as he knew. Or the most knowledgeable anyway. And he hoped, more than a match for these four terrible seeming children. Of course their true power didn't lie with their magic. They had another, far more terrible hold over him.
“It's done,” he answered the little man. And he felt ill saying it. But what choice did he have? He'd felt even more ill doing what they demanded. Bringing them the books from the library. And now they wanted him to do something more. Remove the wards on the Temple that prevented harmful magic being used against its guardians.
“No tricks,” the sprite asked him suspiciously.
“None,” Fylarne replied.
“Good. Because you know what will happen if you ever dare to deceive us witling.”
“I know.” And even as he said it his thoughts turned to his family. To his parents. To his brother and sister. His nieces and nephews. And his wife and daughter. Tia and Sylie. And to his mother – horribly mutilated by them. By the Lady of Grace how he hated them!
It wasn't right! How could they have his entire family? Enslaved and helpless. Being used as hostages against him. Maybe he had made a mistake. Many mistakes. He should never have taken a wife and had a family. Not after he'd taken his station as a guardian. It went against all the rules that had been set out for them. He knew that now. He knew why.
But he hadn't intended to do it. He had simply received word one day from his family that his grandmother was ill and gone to visit her. And then he had met Tia from across the road. The girl he had loved as a child, who had moved away. There had been no planning involved. Because the moment she had come back into his life, he had simply not been able to contain his desire. Neither had she. Their hearts would not be ruled. But then after having failed his vows in her arms, he had tried to use distance to shield him from her love. But that hadn't worked either. All he could do was dream of her. And then Sylie had come along. And she was so precious. How could a man ever stay away from his daughter? He couldn't. He could
never stay away from her for too long. Never regret her being born or the difficulties it caused him.
Of course after having failed his duty so badly he should have given up his station and walked away. Become a husband and a father. But he hadn't done that either. It would have been an embarrassment to him and his family. And he loved his duty. So instead he had simply tried to live two lives and hide them from one another. The husband and father in Hellas. And the always proper head guardian in the Temple. And then the sprites had come. Like a vengeful arrow from the gods themselves, striking at his very heart.
The winged vermin had captured the town. Enslaved the people of Hellas, and then started questioning them, searching for anyone who might be of some use to them. It hadn't been long before they'd found his loved ones. And then they'd started using them against him. It was an unconscionable crime. A foulness beyond all understanding or forgiveness. But that didn't change anything. They had his family. They knew he was weak. Vulnerable. And they wanted the Temple.