Si’s eyes flickered over the trees, and his whisper was not of the comforting kind. “We are being watched.”
“We were once their friends,” Varlesh said, his voice going into a growl. “The Ahouri, the Form Bards, it didn’t matter what we were called, we always aided them. Now what are they doing?”
The scion of the Ahouri, Woman of Faces, had been the first to reach Conhaero, drawn through the White Void to the call of the Vaerli. When she had led them down onto the Steps of Sacrifice and into the world, it had been a marvelous thing. Later, when the Caisah had destroyed the Vaerli, the Ahouri, as their greatest allies had been his next target. His magic had been attuned to find them when they sang, and the Ahouri had never been able to go long without singing—at least in those original forms.
“Do you remember the last song?” Equo asked of his brothers.
They turned their eyes away from him, but it was Varlesh that spoke out loud their shared anguish. “How could anyone forget it? It was . . . painful and beautiful.”
Equo could recall the agony as it had passed through their bones, the magic tearing them down to nothing. Only the Song had saved them. Unconsciously he rubbed his arms, feeling again the moment when they turned their song on themselves, tearing themselves apart before the Caisah’s power could destroy them completely.
“The weakness of his magic was its specifics,” he murmured. The Ahouri, by breaking themselves apart, had given the magic no focused target, and it had dissipated. It was only later that the three of them, now brothers instead of one being, discovered that they had not been the only Ahouri to think of the solution. Their numbers had been decimated, but some had survived with the Caisah none the wiser.
How they would respond to a call to arms was another matter altogether. It had been nearly a thousand years since they had walked as one rather than as trios.
“This is a good enough spot,” Varlesh said, turning about and facing his brother. “Nice and quiet, distant . . .”
“Yes,” Si confirmed, running his eye over the well-vegetated hollow. “It is already a natural bowl. It will suit our purposes.”
The three of them formed a rough circle, linking hands, closing their eyes. As always the sound was created by Varlesh, passed to Equo who formed it into words, and then it went on to Si who let it loose in the world. It was the music of this world, the place that the Ahouri had found after so long searching. Pilgrims from another world where they were persecuted and feared, they had found this world of chaos. It was in its essence a song of great love.
The song told of their joy of finding Conhaero, and the thanks they had for the Vaerli for leading them to it. Then the song of rejoicing became a song of something else. A plea. A reminder of that special closeness Vaerli and Ahouri shared. How they had stood together, and paid the price for it under the Caisah’s cruelty.
The song was not directed to the Vaerli, who no longer had the ability to hear it. Si, Varlesh, and Equo were singing to quite another audience altogether, one that they knew very well was listening out in the damp forest. The Kindred.
These creatures of chaos, the first creatures, had remained untouched by the Caisah. They endured when all else was so altered. Varlesh’s notes grew deeper, the words Equo formed more melancholy, and the song that exploded from Si’s lips now resonated through the rock to the Kindred directly.
Always Watching. Always present. Give to us what we need.
Bring back what was lost, form again to battle at your side.
The Ahouri sang on even when it appeared no one was listening, and the air began to grow warm around them. A circle of flame sprang up outside the tiny circle formed by the three of them. It was close enough that Equo felt as though they might be engulfed by it, and for a moment it appeared that was what the Kindred meant to do. However, the Form Bards went on without slowing or giving up. Their plea rolled on, even though the flame licked perilously close to their toes. They knew enough about flesh not to care about it.
Then the flame that flickered so close began to move out and away from them—but at no normal rate. It went faster and faster, out in an ever increasing circle of red heat. It consumed the trees near them, burning them to a cinder.
It was no regular fire, lit by a mortal hand. This was the fire that burned deep within Conhaero, the flames of the Kindred. The fires of chaos. Within only a few moments the three of them remained, still singing, in a cleared circle of burnt earth with the taste of charcoal in their mouths. Nothing stood within eyesight but blackened rock and cinder.
The Ahouri sang on; eyes half-shut, the music consuming them.
The time has come. The Ahouri will arise to stand beside you again.
Bring us close, land of sanctuary, help us become what was.
Dark shadows flickered at the edge of Equo’s vision now. He strained his eyes to each side, but all he could discern were shifting patterns of smoke and ash. He was not sure he wanted to see the Kindred—not all of them. He could feel their presence and that was enough.
Beneath his feet, he heard the land shift. Conhaero was always shifting . . . but not at this accelerated rate.
All three of them kept singing—they dared not stop now. It was all they had. A tremor ran through the portion of ground they described with their circle. A fissure snapped and cracked around that circle. The sound of it was disconcerting, but Equo felt his brothers’ hands reach out, one on each side, and grip onto his. They kept singing.
The rock circle that remained firm under their feet began to descend. As they looked up, mouths still full of song, they saw that they were dropping away into the earth. The precarious rock beneath their feet was rapidly becoming part of a bowl in the earth, perhaps more like the pit of a volcano. It was a terrifying thought, but the brothers did not miss a beat in their song.
Equo closed his eyes for a moment, as their rapid descent caused his stomach to lurch painfully, and his ears popped. It was hard to sing under such circumstances, but the song had always described the Ahouri. It would not fail them now.
After a terrifying few moments, their descent slowed and then, thankfully, stopped. The earth around them shifted, even as their song died away on Si’s lips. The dark shadows moving through the earth never formed into recognizable shapes, but they had eyes that alternately glittered like stones or burned with fire.
Ahouri, you call us. One loomed closer, forming a body out of the nearby rock, so it might glare at them with flaming eyes.
You summon us with reminders of ancient, long lost debts. A second emerged from the soil below.
“But you came,” Varlesh growled. “For you those debts are like yesterday, as they are for us. Time is nothing to the Kindred or the Ahouri. We all remember.”
“We need your help,” Equo went on, feeling the heat in the depression grow stronger, as sweat beaded and ran down the back of his neck. “We need you to help us gather the rest of our kind.”
The shadows slowed their circulation, and now the earth seemed alive with eyes; none of them looked happy or welcoming.
The chaos is stirring, Ahouri. Rising up. Conhaero serves a great purpose and that purpose has been denied for too long. We have much to do.
“As do we,” Si said. His voice, so rarely heard, echoed around the earth bowl. “All the races have their part to play in the future. The Ahouri most of all.”
To speak to one of the Kindred—especially in that way—was a dangerous thing to do, but Equo liked that their third was speaking at all. It did flash through his mind that the Kindred could easily collapse the hollow of earth and bury anyone they viewed as an annoyance.
Perhaps you are right. Long have we contemplated the place of the other races in Conhaero’s story. Though we did not call them here, regardless they remain.
A shape formed in the rocks above them, a looming shadow that flickered and burned, standing three times as tall as they. Kindred might not be mortal or human, but they still understood the worth of a little drama.
The earth shifted again, but this time it was not beneath the three men. Around them the walls of the formed amphitheatre cracked and groaned as thousands upon thousands of fissures opened. They were vertical, long, and deep.
Equo knew what was happening. He had seen it before. Many times the Vaerli and the Kindred had allowed the Ahouri magic to pass through their domain.
The Conhaero is listening, and now it is your time to sing, Ahouri.
The Kindred seemed ready to act as their audience.
The brothers looked at each other. It had to be the greatest song that they had ever created. It had to bring together the broken parts of the Form Bards and make them listen. It was a daunting task that should have made all of them terrified to even attempt it.
Equo could feel it from his brothers as easily as he could feel it in himself. This was what they were meant to do. All of their trials and tribulations in this world had brought them to this point. This was the reason for this moment, and it was perfect.
Varlesh created the power, the air that brought it forth. Equo formed it in his throat with muscle and flesh made for solely for this purpose. Then it was Si who let it out. His lips and tongue gave it final form, and let it loose into the world.
It was a calling to flesh, magnified by the powers of the earth. It would break the heart of the lost. It would remind them of times past. Equo hoped it would make them weep—and perhaps dream of better days that might lie ahead.
As the Ahouri call went out from the broken men, it would be heard everywhere on Conhaero. Anywhere a Form Bard stood, they would hear it in their bones.
The call went out, and it only remained to be seen how many of them would answer it.
The darkness suddenly gave way to light, and Pelanor and Byre staggered out onto the rough ground like children who had just learned to walk. Like children that had been beaten, that was.
The Vaerli wrapped his hands around his head, for a moment letting his own sensations come back to him as best they could. When he finally felt capable, he lifted his eyes to his companion. The Blood Witch was on her knees with her hands pressed to her face, and long shudders were running through her body as if she were freezing cold. It gave him some measure of satisfaction that the powerful Phaerkorn was worse off than he.
Looking about through his dissipating confusion, Byre at first could not believe what he was seeing. To his left the rocky ground dropped away down to a wide plain, a place he somehow assumed would have been a river. Up to his right was a place he could immediately identify, even though it did not look as he remembered.
Peripherally, he heard Pelanor walk to his side. Her voice was shaky and raw when it finally left her body. “Is that . . . No, I recognize it—that is Perilous and Fair.” Her fine face was folded into a deep frown.
“No,” Byre whispered, “you are mistaken. It is V’nae Rae.” The hill that rose before them was heavily wooded but also heaving with activity. The walls of the city were just as he remembered at the pinnacle of the hill, but further down they were still under construction. The running of the many waterfalls throughout the city made the air full of a kind of delightful music. The Phoenix Gates carved in lapis lazuli were up, but the surrounding walls of white stone were only half done, and their marvelous mosaics not yet in place.
All of this was wonderful and beautiful, but not as shocking as what Byre saw. All over the city, even from this distance, he could see Vaerli; his own people walking, talking and working on building the city as if it were an everyday thing. Laughter mingled with the sound of the waterfalls.
Byre’s throat went dry while tears welled in his eyes. He had not seen so many of his own kind since he was a small child. That was not all; he could feel them. In his own time, the empathic feeling had been dulled by the Harrowing, reduced to only a vague awareness. Now Byre was flooded with connections, much as he had been in the Caisah’s torture chamber.
He choked and gasped, struggling to hold the feeling of his own self together under so much information. Thousands of emotions, both complex and very basic, flooded him.
Also, the Vaerli were aware of him. Their examination of him, this new thing in their consciousness, felt like thousands of hands on his skin. Up on the hill some of them stopped and turned to look toward the two newcomers. He could feel their eyes on him as if they were handshakes or even joyful slaps on his back. It was overwhelming.
“Byre? Byre!” Pelanor wrapped her small hands around his shoulders and gave him a little hard shake.
Slowly Byre’s Vaerli instincts kicked in, the fog cleared and he smiled. He knew his grin made him look drunk.
If this was the test, then it was one he thoroughly approved of. “Come on,” he said, grabbing her hand, and tugging her after him. He didn’t need to touch any of these Vaerli; he already had a far more intimate meeting with them. However, there was one person he really wanted to see.
He and the Blood Witch walked up the hill, bare of the Caisah’s Road. All the way, Byre found that he was only just managing to control himself from breaking into a run. It was a homecoming as he had never imagined having.
Pelanor did not seem quite as enthralled. Her sharp eyes darted over the Vaerli, hard at work. “So we’re somehow travelled backwards, and these are really your people. If so, what are they to make of me?”
Byre stopped and with real surprise realized the Blood Witch was nervous. Even though he hadn’t known Pelanor for long, and had never been that good at judging people, he understood this was not her normal manner. She was young—something he barely remembered being—and despite her great strength, she was uncertain. This world that the Kindred had flung them into was one in which no Phaerkorn, or any other latecomer, had yet to arrive in.
“You’re with me,” he murmured and touched her smooth dark cheek. Despite Byre’s awareness of his kin around him, it did not get past him how smooth and delicious that skin was. Beneath it, he could feel his own blood pulsing in her. It felt like an age ago that she had drunk from him, and the memory made him start with a little shock. For if he was aware of his own blood coursing in her, then so too would his people be. What would be their reaction to that?
The corner of her mouth twitched. “My protector now . . . is that how it is? How gallant.” Yet she did not flick away his touch on her cheek. Instead, she clasped her hand in his, and together they walked hand in hand up the slope to the nearly complete city.
Vaerli were walking down to meet them, and Byre nearly choked on his own emotions.
They were a short race, but in this time, with no one else to compare to, it didn’t matter too much. Byre ate up the details of their forms and faces as they came close enough for him to make out. Even while part of him clenched with the vague fear that the burning death of the Harrowing had not been left behind.
The women came forward first, expressions open and curious, pushing back their long dark hair from their faces to regard these new arrivals. Byre swallowed a laugh of delight; there were stars in those great black eyes, and no trace of the deep despair he had always known to reside there. The image of his broken sister yearning for death in his arms was burned into his memory, though that had not occurred here . . . not in this time.
This, then, was the Vaerli as they were meant to be: confident, powerful, and utterly at home in their world. Now he could feel their minds lightly reaching out to his, questioning but not invading.
Pelanor tugged on his arm twice, drawing his attention to the rear. There, standing among the crowd of Vaerli, were five Kindred. They wore bodies of rock and earth rather than the more terrifying fire form, but Byre knew they were no safer. From where they stood it appeared that the Kindred had actually been helping the Vaerli construct this portion of the white stone wall. None of the Kindred made a move toward Byre and Pelanor.
> Only the Vaerli did. A bearded man with strands of gray in his long hair greeted them. “Welcome to V’nae Rae, young one.” His brow furrowed when his gaze alighted on Pelanor, but he said nothing nor made a move to confront her. “I am Yafet. I sense you have come far to join us.”
It was not a question; what need was there for questions when all that Byre was lay open to every Vaerli. He felt almost tongue tied, unable to decide what was an appropriate greeting.
He was saved from embarrassment by a sudden darkness that fell over them all. Everyone looked up, but Pelanor alone was the one that swore. “By the Goddess’ Twelfth Mouth!”
The sunlight gleamed off a long silver belly and outspread wings while a carved, intelligent head turned downwards. It was a dragon and Byre knew her name, a name that every Vaerli infant knew: Morleth the First. Stories whispered in the night were not enough to prepare for the sheer grandeur of her. Larger than the complete section of wall and blocking out the sky, she still did not instill fear in him. Instead there was an absurd joy in laying eyes on the dragon.
Barely disturbing the rock, Morleth landed as lightly as a cat, and turned her huge frilled head to examine Byre. “You are damaged, little brother.”
Her eyes, bright blue eyes with flecks of gold in them, narrowed, and he felt as though she were looking into his head, though there was no sensation. Folding her wings tightly against her body, Morleth wrapped her tail over her front paws.
“But you are expected.” Her voice was sharp like crystal in his ears, but hearing it made tight tears form in the corners of his eyes.
He was hearing and seeing and feeling the legendary dragon. The Kindred’s idea of testing had not been this in his imagining, and part of Byre wondered when he was going to be snatched away from it all.
His other problem was that he had absolutely no idea how to address a dragon properly. He paused for a moment, feeling all the eyes of his people on him, and then awkwardly sketched what he hoped was an elegant bow for her. At his side Pelanor followed suit, and he was surprised and pleased. The Phaerkorn were not known to be overly fond of abasing themselves before others. He imagined that dragons made as much of an impression on Blood Witches as they did on all the other races.
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