by E. J. Godwin
“Indeed,” he said. “But it seems I have vastly underestimated Rennor’s talents—and yours, for that matter.”
“Rennor’s talents? I don’t understand.”
He waved a finger to indicate the high chamber above. “I always wondered how he came and went without anyone detecting it.”
The realization slowly dawned on her. “You mean this—”
“—is not a part of your world.”
“Telai, what in Orand is he talking about?”
“It’s what he calls a portal, mother. It’s a kind of doorway to his world—wherever that is.”
“What?” Garda cried. “You’ve been listening in on our councils all these years?”
Ksoreda held out his hands to placate her. “I knew nothing of this place until you summoned me. The lengths to which that man was willing to go continues to amaze me. This is such a direct, blatant violation of our laws.”
“Which man?” asked Garda. “Rennor? He created this—portal, did you call it?”
”Yes,” Ksoreda answered. “Probably long before the Hodyn came here, even.”
“Yet somehow it went unnoticed for all those years,” said Telai. “You had the means, I’m sure—you simply couldn’t see under your own noses. Or wouldn’t. Even now you don’t understand what this place is, or why he created it.”
Ksoreda stared first at her, then at the walls around him. He shook his head reluctantly. Telai felt an unexpected rush of vindication: for once he no longer owned all the secrets, could no longer hide behind his clever excuses.
“Are you allowed to use your powers here?” she asked.
“If necessary. Why?”
“Search the entire chamber. I know what you’ll find. I’d do it myself, but I don’t have the means.”
Ferguen, mesmerized by this exchange, had absentmindedly lowered the knife to his side. Now he growled and slapped the blade into its sheath. “Enough! What does any of this foolishness have to do with him?” he said, pointing at the boy.
Warren, who had kept quiet and practically invisible behind his benefactor, seemed almost as mystified as Ferguen about these proceedings. But Telai knew there was one more part for him to play in Orand’s prophecy.
Ksoreda’s mouth fell open. “She’s here!”
“What in Hendra’s name are you talking about?” Garda blurted.
A shadow of pain darkened Telai’s heart. “You can’t use that name anymore, mother.”
She held a hand to her brow. “Are you saying—”
“Heradnora’s body. It’s here, hidden for ages—ever since Grondolos defeated her. But that’s not her real name.”
Garda stood speechless as the import of her daughter’s words sank in. For centuries the Adaiani had placed their faith in a spirit that had enslaved their ancestors. Telai remembered the words inscribed above Larientur’s doors, and nearly laughed at the irony: Here the truth cannot hide from those who seek it.
Ksoreda turned toward the center of the chamber, his own Lor’yentré suddenly in his hand. Telai almost expected him to utter some profound incantation. But the power of the Lor’yentré was a matter of thought, not command, and he circled the room in silence, the light from the mirror above gleaming off his barren pate. Ferguen shifted restlessly but kept his peace, realization dawning in his eyes that the secret of the Bringer of Strength was at hand.
Grim laughter ended their thoughts. Ksoreda nodded emphatically, as if deciphering a vexing riddle. “I might not like him or what he’s done, but I’ll never call him unimaginative.”
He pointed at the doors. “You’ll need to wait outside. I can’t follow you. Rennor has contrived it so that no one in Ada could ever find his secret, but none of us could have discovered it without violating our laws.”
They glanced first at the entrance, its tall doors flung wide, then at him. “In Wsaytchen?” Telai asked, her faith shaken for a moment.
“No. Everything you see here is a ruse. She’s here, but in your world, not mine. In order for you to find her I must remove this portal for a little while. If you stay you’ll be swept out of Ada altogether.”
Doubt remained in their faces, but they obeyed and headed back outside. Garda hesitated at the threshold, the dead lamp in her hand, then lifted it to the nearest lantern to bring its small flame back to life. At last they all stood waiting anxiously outside, the open arch with its brilliant illumination rising before them.
The guardian of Tnestiri bowed his head and vanished.
As Garda had foreseen, the chamber went dark. The others gasped. Even with the lamp there was nothing to see at first. But their sight soon recovered enough to reveal a wall of polished black stone, spanning the same opening where Larientur’s doors once stood. It revealed no lines or any sign of an entrance—except for a small oval to the right glowing pale, like a firefly frozen in time.
Telai approached, her footsteps cautious. The few days she had spent at Caleb’s ship with all its devices had lessened some of her fear, and before the others could say a word she reached out and pressed the light.
It faded for a second, then turned red. Faint, broken lines appeared across the wall, slowly brightening, until they resolved into several rows of text in the ancient tongue of Urmanaya:
IN THE FIRST YEAR
OF THE MOST HIGH AND NOBLE
REIGN OF GRONDOLOS,
HERADNORA
WAS LAID TO REST
BY HIS TRUSTED FRIEND AND
COMRADE, RENNOR.
HERE HER INCORRUPT FLESH LIES,
FAR FROM LIVING FOLK,
AND LET NO ONE HENCEFORTH
RETURN HER SPIRIT TO THIS PLACE
BEFORE THE PROPER TIME,
LEST THEY DESTROY THEIR LAST HOPE,
AND THE LAST HOPE OF HER PEOPLE.
Garda stepped closer. “What does it mean?”
“I’m not sure,” Telai answered. “Right now I’m only trying to figure out how to get in. I thought the small light I pressed would open a door of some kind.”
“This is insane,” Ferguen muttered. “How can two different places occupy the same spot?”
“I doubt any of us will ever understand it, Ferguen.”
Warren pointed. “Heradnora’s name glows brighter than the rest. Maybe it’s a clue.”
“You can read this?” she asked.
“Well, I can’t,” Ferguen said. “Seems that fool’s laid another puzzle for us.”
“Perhaps one better left unsolved,” said Garda.
Telai shook her head. “Rennor’s gone. We’ve got to discover the truth behind all this.” She placed a hand on Warren’s shoulder. “Why do you think it’s a clue?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Telai smiled. “Of course,” she whispered.
She faced the wall and cried out a single word: “Hendra!”
Nothing happened at first. Then Heradnora’s name shimmered and spread outward, bleeding across the dark stone like oil on water, the light of it flooding the landing on which they stood. Finally the entire inscription and the wall on which it was engraved faded like smoke, and they peered in amazement through the opening.
A chamber stood before them, the same size as Larientur yet flooded in a homogeneous, pearly light. Its circular walls shone like gray satin, plain and unadorned. At the exact center, her feet dangling mere inches above the floor as if she were suspended by invisible threads, hovered the slender body of a young girl.
Her hair was raven black. She looked to be in her early teens; her face, emerging from the comeliness of childhood, had begun to lengthen and take on the beauty of a woman. She was dressed in a close-fitting gray suit with no adornment, save for a pale ruby like a buckle or large brooch shining from her midsection. Her eyes were shut fast, serene like those of a sleeping baby. Yet it was clear that no blood pumped through her veins, no warmth softened her skin. It was as if a consummate artist had created a sculpture of the child as close to lifelike as humanly possible.
Ferguen waited behind the others, knife ready, the sight of such magic, as he no doubt regarded it, rendering him speechless. For Telai, this was only confirmation of what she had suspected. But she would never look upon the night sky the same again. The stars that Orand once wrote about had become agents not of shame but of destruction, careless gods ignorant of the suffering their power had wrought.
The only other person in the room who had been born among those stars stood facing the girl, his blue stare fixed and unblinking. At last he approached. Telai placed a tentative arm around Warren’s shoulders, her powers of clairvoyance engaged like never before. Now the visions in her mind were not of his past but of the present, of a terrifying inferno of grief and rage barely kept in check.
He walked slowly forward, Telai close at his side, until he was within arm’s reach of the youthful image that consumed his every thought. Like Telai had witnessed from so long ago, she was the absolute last thing Warren expected, a picture of beauty, even of innocence. Rennor, the beguiling stranger who had briefly won even Soren’s grudging trust, was here in his daughter plain to see. It completely sabotaged the boy’s desire for revenge.
It was not to be borne. He wanted to flay the thing, tear it to shreds, inflict on it a portion of the terror and hopelessness she had perpetrated on him. But he could not. He could not dole out such punishment without becoming evil himself.
Telai felt his anger building. It so overwhelmed her that her body shivered with it. She tightened her grip, knowing his rage was too powerful and dangerous to suppress.
“It’s all right, Warren,” she whispered. “Let it go.”
Warren dropped to his knees and screamed. Telai fell with him, her arms wrapped tight as he released the anger poisoning his soul—a poison she knew all too well. She felt herself sinking, sinking, immersing herself in Warren’s thoughts. It terrified her, knowing who shared his mind. Yet still she held on, her heart breaking, knowing Warren’s pain was far greater than her own.
The chamber fell silent. All else vanished save the girl. And from somewhere deep inside Warren’s thoughts came a burst of pride and joy, and of unconquerable strength and love.
The prisoner within the eye.
With it he accepted the duty he was meant to fulfill. He gave no word of warning. A shock entered Telai’s arms, severing her connection to Warren, and she released him, crying out.
The device at the girl’s waist flashed from red to amber; then she slumped down into a heap, startling the others. Long they waited in dread anticipation as she lay silent and motionless on the floor.
Garda was the first to recover. She walked over, knelt beside the girl, and after a brief hesitation placed an ear against her chest.
“She’s alive.”
Ferguen wore a puzzled frown. “Asleep?”
Warren stood next to the Overseer, his face calm, his fury spent. “That device on her belt—maybe Rennor put it there to keep her unconscious after I—” he began to explain, then fell silent.
“We need to carry her outside so we can bring her to Ksoreda,” Garda said, rising, “and the sooner, the better.”
Ferguen sheathed his knife and stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”
The Overseer stretched out her hand to bar the way. “Those aren’t mere words, Ferguen—they’re a promise!”
“I make promises to my people, not yours. Do you think I want this evil child in my land any longer? Stand aside!”
She stood glaring at him, then stepped out of the way. Ferguen lifted the girl into his stout arms with ease, and followed Garda back into the passage, Warren and Telai close behind.
Telai pressed the lighted switch near the opening. Darkness fell about them again, relieved only by the wavering lamp in Garda’s hand. Telai faced the blank wall and shouted the old man’s name, burning with wrath at the injustice Warren had suffered.
Larientur’s brilliance flooded their sight once more. Ksoreda stood in the exact same spot, as if they left him only a moment before. His mouth fell open at the young girl draped across Ferguen’s arms. Then he spotted the glowing amber light at her waist, and beckoned them forward.
“Bring her to me.”
They stopped a few paces away. Ferguen grunted in surprise as the girl floated from his arms, her limbs slowly straightening until she hung suspended at Ksoreda’s side. Her snug clothing betrayed the slow rise and fall of her breathing, and her eyes darted beneath their lids as though witnessing a dream—or a nightmare.
“What will you do with her?” Telai asked.
“I don’t know what Rennor’s plans were at this point,” answered Ksoreda as he studied the child. “I had no idea she was this young. She must have used her device to keep herself this way for ages.”
Telai reached inside her coat for the leather bundle Warren gave her. She stepped forward, and without hesitation lifted Ksoreda’s hand and slapped the Lor’yentré into his palm.
“I thought I’d never hear myself say this,” she said, “but I feel sorry for her. Whatever you decide to do with her, remember that she’s not responsible for her father’s crimes—or yours! And make sure you take this with you,” she added, nodding at his hand.
“Mistress Telai,” he said gravely, shaking his head, “you must take it from this world yourself, or you will suffer her fate. I thought you understood that.”
She only returned his gaze unblinking. He undid the bundle, gasped, then snapped his head up, his face red with indignation.
“You never used it? Then how—”
“It’s not mine.”
He paused, his face a struggle of doubt and confusion. “How can that be?”
Before Telai could answer, Warren stepped up and stared Ksoreda in the eye, all trace of childish insecurity gone. He held out his own Lor’yentré, divided it in two, and after a moment’s concentration dropped it into the man’s outstretched palm.
A gasp escaped both Telai and Ksoreda alike. There, indistinguishable from Heradnora’s, rested the two halves of the Lor’yentré Telai had given to Warren—as transparent as the day Ksoreda had given them to her.
The significance of this grew like a storm, until it overwhelmed them. Ksoreda went gray as ash, unable to accept the evidence of his eyes.
“I know I have no right to ask this of you, Warren,” he said, “but you may well be the answer to a curse my people have endured for thousands of years.”
Warren Stenger, mover of spirits, stood in the bright chamber of Larientur stunned by the crushing burden Ksoreda’s plea had placed upon him. If it had gone on much longer he might have fled the room in a panic. But the Overseer approached and confronted the old man, shielding Warren with her arm.
“You disgust me,” she said. “To expect a child who suffered at the hands of your people to shoulder the responsibility for your crimes! If there’s one thing Ferguen and I share, it’s knowing where our greatest enemy lies. If you or any of your people ever set foot in this land again, either in flesh or in spirit, if it is within our power we will destroy you on sight.”
He glanced at Ferguen. The Hodyn leader nodded slowly, his dark stare no less compromising than the Overseer’s. Ksoreda drew a sigh. “So be it.”
“Be sure you understand my meaning,” Garda said. “These portals, or whatever you call them—they’re to be removed as soon as you are gone.”
“Please, Overseer. You don’t know what that means for your people.”
Ferguen lifted his arm to point. “You will swear it, old man!”
“And you’re never to reveal what you know about Warren,” Telai added.
Ksoreda opened his mouth to speak, but could not find the words. “I swear it,” he muttered at last.
A long moment of silence followed, after which Ferguen led Garda and the others to the landing outside. They turned to observe the old man standing all alone by the massive table and its rainbow of chairs; then he was gone.
And with it, and for all time, Larientur.
The light of the
lamp’s small flame revealed the same featureless black wall as before. When the Overseer finally spoke, the passage carried her voice in echoes that seemed to travel the whole of Wsaytchen.
“You have your answer, Ferguen.”
The man nodded, his eyes fixed on the darkened stone where the hallowed chamber once stood. “And I will honor it.”
One by one they descended the stairs, stunned prisoners released from years of ignorance. Telai stood last, in a moment like the passing of a lifetime, seeking forgiveness for what Rennor had done.
“Goodbye … Hendra,” she whispered.
The name flashed for a second, then vanished. The black wall stood fast, unchanged. Telai knew it would never open again. Yet she spared no tears for the tragedy she had witnessed, and left to follow the one child she had saved from it.
19
Ascending Man
I once searched for a cloudless sky
before I learned to love the rain.
– Karla Ataciara Stenger
THE LAST treasure-laden cart had long passed the tower-crowned gate of Spierel. The stone memory of Ada’s heroic sacrifices, transported from Wsaytchen with great labor and cost, now spread its wings in the courtyard beneath the open sky.
Like their treasures, many of Ekendoré’s survivors had reached the safety of the high mountain fortresses; the remainder had gone either to help rebuild cities destroyed in the war, or to seek forgetfulness in the humbler life of Ada’s villages. No enemy invaded south of Eastgate, nor did any citizen or Raén travel the roads of southern Ada in fear. But the knowledge of what they had lost haunted every leaf and blade, voiced itself in every brook. And no clearer did it speak than to one lone soldier riding several miles north of Tnesen.
The majesty of Ada that first enthralled him had returned, and the warmth and life of spring filled the air. Like a soul-stirring requiem, its beauty was not diminished by the sorrow it evoked, but strengthened. The Iéndrai were a blue haze in the north, Illvent was a lonely summit to the west, the rolling hills a chorus of wildflowers beneath—and the memories of Earth a harsh gleam in his eyes.