by Greg Curtis
“No.”
“Yes!” She sounded so certain. So real. And he had never been able to deny her anything when she’d been alive. Before Y’aris had started filling his head with lies. Speaking poison into his ears. Before he’d started listening. By the Mother he hated himself for that. For all the terrible things he’d done because he had listened. All the crimes he would never be able to atone for.
For the longest time Finell sat there, tears running down his cheeks, trying not to hear Elwene, and yet wishing with all his heart that she was actually there to speak with him. It was a battle raging inside him. The desperate need not to give in to his madness against the absolute longing to have her back with him again. It was a war that had been raging for days. And then suddenly she said the one thing that made sense through all the lunacy.
“Finy, do you truly want to die in this cave, alone?” And she was right. He knew it. Whether she was real or not, he was trapped in this cold underworld. He was going to die. Whether by starvation, cold or being caught by the abominations, he was going to die here. And he didn’t want to die alone.
“What do I have to do?” She laughed then, a happy musical sound that had always filled him with joy. Real or not, it did it again.
“Good. Today I need you to learn how to pray.”
“Pray?” It wasn’t what he’d expected. Though he hadn’t known what to expect to begin with. And what good was it anyway? Even if the Mother existed, she would not listen to him. She had not. “I’ve prayed many times.”
“No you haven’t little Finy. You’ve said the words, and you’ve begged. But prayer is about neither of those things. It’s about belief. It’s about offering yourself. You’ve never believed. And you’ve always asked for things instead of asking what you can give. How you can serve.”
“I have nothing left to give. I have nothing at all.”
“You have your heart and your soul. You can give the gift of your service. That is everything.”
Suddenly she became stern with him. Telling him off as she had when he was a small child. “You have done a great many terrible things. You have believed the most foul of lies. Trusted the most foul of people. And now you dwell in darkness.”
“But the darkness will not be yours alone. The people will suffer and die in their millions. All the people. Young and old. Men and women. Humans and elves. And much of that will be your fault.”
“Do you deny me?”
“No.” She knew he didn’t. He couldn’t. Every word was true.
“Then will you please stop wallowing in self-pity like a sick boar and take the first step in trying to remedy this terrible disease you have helped to unleash.”
“But how -?”
“Do not ask how little brother. That is for later. For now ask only if you can give yourself, everything you have and are, to the one who you know to be true. Let the Mother decide how she may use you. Decide only to let her.” Finell stared into the flames, torn. He had never had time for the Grove. He had never known any desire to serve the Mother. He had never truly believed. That was Elwene’s heart. But still it was Elwene speaking, and he could never deny her. Especially not now when she had been taken from him.
“I …” His voice trailed off as he discovered he didn’t know what to say.
“Your choice is stark Finy. You can ask, or you can sit here in your cave waiting to die, and every day watch as the Reaver grows in strength and more innocents suffer for your failures. Knowing always that every one of those who is brought to this dark place to die, you could have saved.”
In that moment Finell broke. With those few words she had destroyed him. And she had done it with nothing more than the truth. This was his fault. Every day more were brought before the demon, and all of them there because of him. All that shame and guilt, all the weeping of innocent families torn apart. All the blood. All the victims crying out. All because of him.
He couldn’t stand it. It was a weight on him, crushing him into the rock. And he simply could not withstand it any longer. No one could.
Bitter tears flowing freely, he went down on his knees before the fire, unable to stand any longer.
“I give everything I have.”
It was enough. He didn’t understand how it could be. Not for such a wretch as he. But he felt the Mother for the first time and knew she had accepted his prayer. It was like being welcomed home after a long trip, being brought back into the warmth and love of family. It was the opening of his eyes to greet a perfect sunny morning. It was the finding of his place within the world, and the discovery that he actually had a place. And it was so much more. So much that he couldn’t even understand it, much less put it into words.
And with her presence came knowledge. As her presence filled him, a glorious explosion of life that could know no end, he understood that she meant to use him. She had plans to take him, to use all his failures and make them strengths. To shape him into a weapon. To save her children, all of them. And that was his wish too. He could have no desire save hers.
As he knelt there, overwhelmed by her, Finell knew a sense of peace for the first time in so very long. The hatred was gone. The Mother had no use for it. So too was the terrible laughter finally silenced. None of her creatures should know the desire to torture themselves. The shame and guilt were there, they would always be and that was as it should be. But they could be fought. Fought with service to his victims. To the Mother’s children. And that too was as it should be. Redemption was probably never possible for him, but it didn’t matter. It was a journey as well as a destination, and the journey would become his life. He could ask for no greater reward than the chance to make that journey. And he knew he had to start immediately.
“How may I serve?”
Chapter One Hundred and One.
Court was in session when Finell arrived, though at first no one knew he had. Herrick certainly didn’t know. He was simply spending yet another day sitting on his uncomfortable throne, dealing with an endless stream of problems.
Resources for the armies were his greatest problem. There were never enough, and as he recruited more and more men to ride in the dragoons, spent mountains of gold on cannon and armour, he kept wondering when he would finally run short. No matter how large the treasury, it couldn’t keep supplying gold forever. Even so, he had spent as if it could.
Fifty dragoons and five thousand riders, were now patrolling the southern lands, waiting for the attack of whatever it was that would come for Irothia. Be they elves or abominations, his patrols would be ready for them. And when they finally came from the south, two hundred and fifty more dragoons could be quickly dispatched to carry the battle back to the enemy. Another thousand cannon and fifty thousand men at arms, would leave with them, and no enemy could stand against them. In sooth he knew of no power in the world that could resist such might. Cities would fall and even mountains would crumble before such an army.
But it wasn’t just Irothia that was preparing. Solaria had wind riders without number, the dwarves of Ironhold were building their terrifying battle wagons. Even the elves, broken in so many ways, were recruiting for their rangers. Even if this was the Reaver returned - and the abominations steadily pouring out through Elaris, and into western Solaria and southern Irothia, seemed to prove it - they would be ready for him. This time they would be ready.
The first time he had come, a thousand years before, the people had not been ready. He had come in secret, no one had ever seen an abomination before and they’d had no idea where they’d come from. Irothia had been a small collection of warring kingdoms and cannon hadn’t yet been created.
In the wake of the collapse of the age of kings five hundred years before, Solaria and Elaris had broken apart, and neither realm had been a true power in its own right. The rangers at that time had not yet been formed, and no more had the windriders taken to their calling. The dwarves of the Thallion Ranges had retreated to their underground fortresses and cities thinking to wait it out. They
had never considered that the danger could come to them. The trolls had not yet become a nation at all. At that time they had been just a collection of warring tribes. And the gnomes were too weak to even defend their towns and cities. So the abominations had wandered freely through much of the world for a decade, and the cost had been horrific. Not again. Never again. That was Herrick’s vow. Never again.
They had beaten the spider demon the first time, though it had taken a dozen years, and cost millions of lives. This time the war would not last nearly so long and they would win it clearly. He hoped.
Thunder suddenly crashed through the throne room, causing everyone to jump, and some of the women screamed in alarm. It was a huge clap that echoed through the room and down the endless halls of the castle. It shook the floor under their feet. For a single terrifying heartbeat Herrick thought that a cannon had gone off inside the room, and that the entire castle was about to fall. Because there was no way to have thunder strike inside a building, especially when there was no lightning, and not even a storm.
But the noise ebbed as he sat there, the echoes disappearing into the distance, and nothing seemed to be damaged. Nothing was falling. Not so much as a ceiling tile. And when he checked, even the lights hanging in their fittings slung twenty feet below the arched ceilings, weren’t swaying. That seemed odd somehow, but it surely meant that whatever had happened it hadn’t caused any great damage.
He relaxed a little when he realised that, and watched the rest of the court do the same. Some of the women in their panic had fallen over, and they were being helped back up to their feet. Others were looking all around, hunting for the source of the thunder. But sitting on his throne, seeing the complete lack of damage and swinging lights, Herrick knew their search would be in vain. Whatever had happened, it wasn’t normal. It stank of magic, not weather. But not any magic that he knew of.
A gasp came from somewhere at the back of the crowd, causing him to look up in a hurry, just as he’d been thinking of calling the court back to order. Then many more gasps followed and he knew that court for the day was over. But try as he might Herrick couldn’t see anything at all through the crowd. What he could see was the way the people furthest from him started pushing to the sides, separating like water before the bow of a ship, clearing the central aisle, and he realised that someone was heading his way. Probably the person responsible for the thunderclap. But whoever it was, he was completely hidden behind the press of nobles in their finery and Herrick had to wait patiently for his visitor to arrive.
When he did though, he wished he’d go away.
It was an elf. A small, dirt covered elf dressed in rags. A street urchin with pointed ears. That made no sense. But he understood immediately why the people had gasped and stepped aside as he’d approached. The beggar elf was not completely there. He was only half there. Herrick could see him quite clearly, he could make out the soil and dirt smudged all over his face. He could see the dirt under his fingernails. He could see the loose threads hanging from his torn clothing. But he could also see the marble tiles of the floor through him. It was as though he was made of glass.
“And you would be?” It might be blunt, but a man couldn’t reach seventy years of age and not learn a little rudeness. It was a trait that served him well.
“Your majesty.” Luree surprised him as she bowed low and addressed him. “This is the once High Lord Finell of Elaris.” That he guessed might explain the shocked look in her eyes. And the anger that suddenly burst from his heart.
“Finell?” He couldn’t quite believe that this broken wretch could be the former ruler of Elaris, but if he was there were things he wanted done urgently. Even if the man was somehow made of coloured glass.
“King Herrick.” Finell bowed low, catching him by surprise. And then, though it was exactly what he’d demanded of him, he surprised him once more as he prostrated himself on the floor in front of him.
“I regret that it has taken so long for me to do this. But I am here to apologise for my actions. For having started a war with your people. For all the terrible actions that my soldiers have done in my name. For the untruths that were spoken by my lips.”
“I could tell you that I was lied to by my advisor. That he poisoned the watchmen to make them do those terrible things. That he murdered my entire family simply to bend me to his will. But these would just be excuses. I was high lord. It was my responsibility to do what was right for my people, and to obey the ancient codes. And I failed completely.”
“For all of this I am truly sorry.”
For the longest time Herrick sat there staring, wondering what to do. It wasn’t every day after all that a beggar elf and former high lord made out of coloured glass prostrated himself before him and apologised. And the strangest thing was that he believed the elf. There was absolutely nothing in his tone that spoke of cleverness or deception. No hint of anything save remorse. He was speaking straight from the heart.
“Get up.” Herrick snapped at him. What else was there to say? He still wanted to feed him to the rats but he wasn’t sure that he could. He wasn’t sure that Finell was physically there.
He watched as Finell rose, getting first to his hands and knees as would any man, then with an extra push from his hands, finding his feet in front of him. And he watched as his already dirty face when he rose was even more filthy than before, almost as though he’d been lying in dirt on the clean marble floor. And then he watched as Finell brushed himself off a little, wiping some of the dirt away, and yet none of that dirt fell to the tiles.
Illusion. It had to be. But if so what manner of wizard could cast such a spell? Besides the former high lord was no wizard. He had no magic. And by the looks of things he had no gold to purchase the services of a wizard either.
“Thank you your majesty. And though it will surely be of little comfort, you may be assured that I will spend the rest of my life trying to repair some of the hurt I have caused.”
“For the moment though, there is a matter that requires your urgent attention. The reason I have come here today. I need you to start your armies marching south. At least to Greenlands.” Of course he did was Herrick’s thought. Not more than a few heartbeats after apologising for his actions the glass beggar wanted control of his armies. And that was why he’d come. Not to apologise despite his fine words. The magical beggar elf was simply playing with him. Using him for his own reasons. But he could only find out what those reasons were by asking.
“Why?”
“Because the Reaver is gaining in strength faster than he should. My former adviser is transforming his abominations little by little into an army. He must be crushed soon.”
“We have already smashed his outposts in the southern lands.” Herrick was pleased by that. The combination of dragoons and rangers and priests had worked well. Five outposts had been completely destroyed, and the disappearances from West Hold to Torrington had ceased. The sprites he understood were doing the same with the outposts in Solaria. If this was the Reaver then he was far less dangerous than the ancient records had suggested.
“I know, but with Y’aris now leading the Reaver’s armies a new strategy has been formed. They have turned their attention from your realm and the sprite’s realm, to Elaris itself. They have attacked all the major cities as well as the towns. And each attack is other than what it seems.”
“Each attack is a conscription. Not all of those who are attacked are killed. Many, a great many are marched back to the dark temple and transformed into more soulless warriors. And they in turn are sent out to recruit more. By this means his army is growing quickly.”
“At present his army runs to the tens of thousands. But soon, as Elaris is slowly crushed under his feet, it will run to the hundreds of thousands. And when Elaris is finally destroyed, it will be millions.” And millions was an army that they couldn’t fight. Herrick knew that. Every man and woman in the court knew it. But was he right?
“We must prevent that from happening.”
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“We can’t do anything until we find the temple.” And that was the problem. It was all very well to raise an army, but without a target it was useless.
“My sister has already given you the where your majesty.” And there it was Herrick thought, the insanity. As if everything hadn’t been outlandish enough already. Of course he’d received the message from Lord Iros, and he’d done exactly what he should have done with it. Lord Iros was an honest man, and one growing ever more astute. His word, no matter how strange the message, carried weight.
So he’d sent riders to check on it. But he couldn’t commit an army based on the word of an elf who’d apparently been told where the temple was by her dead cousin. Lord Iros might believe his wife, but he had reason to. And the priests might have added their weight to it as well. But he was a king. He didn’t have the luxury of simply believing.
“Your sister is dead.” By the divines he didn’t want to say it. Even though he hated Finell, it felt as though he was plunging a dagger into the old wounds of a cripple. But it had to be said.