“Where are we going?”
“We are going to the Wyllspring Garden,” Thomas said. “We are visiting the prison of Isere the Witch.”
* * * * *
After traversing the ornate hallways of the palace with Thomas in the lead and quickly finding himself outside, Sorin saw it was early morning. Before them, a vibrant green lawn rolled up the contours of the hill Aris Shae sat upon, and a pale marble stairway cut through it, the trimmed blades of grass unable to push the stone from its verdant bed. Hedges of boxwood shrubs and rose bushes contained those who walked the garden to stone walkways intersecting the marble staircase at various junctions. Trees of apple, cherry, and maple were groomed and trimmed to their best effect. The garden there was manicured and well cared for by loving hands; Sorin had never seen such devotion to nature outside of Lockwood.
Thomas’s steps were sure and strong as he ascended the staircase.
“This is truly Isere from the Codex?” Sorin asked.
“It is,” Thomas said. “Steady yourself. She can’t harm you.”
“Where is the High King?” Sorin asked as he followed the old man.
“Busy with preparations. He is going to give the Marcher Lord one last chance to avoid war. Then, as leader of the Kingdom, he must do what must be done.”
“Destroy La Zandia.”
“No,” Thomas said. “It will not come to that. The Kingdom forces are the best trained in all the world, and with Godwyn Keep priests protecting their lines, the pagan rebellion will be easily subdued. Hundreds may die, but it will be an easy victory that will save thousands from the heretical blades of the pagans if they are allowed to leave La Zandia. I trained the wards and their commanders as well as any man could, and I doubt Rowen has allowed the army to become lax in its capability. I can say a lot about my brother that does not ever bear repeating, but the one thing I do know about him: he is as thorough as I or our father was.”
Thick white clouds sailed across the sky, an armada of silent wraiths within a sea of azure. Sorin felt refreshed and alive under such beauty.
“What of my father? How did you know him?”
“That is a long story,” Thomas answered, “but one you should hear before you meet Isere. Arvel was the kind of man most looked to without even knowing why. He was young when I met him, already a Blacksmith Master, possessing wondrous ability to mold steel to his will. Few in the Guild had such innate knowledge, but Arvel possessed an uncanny eye for ores of all kinds, and he quickly came to the attention of Aris Shae’s most influential. He was responsible for a number of different projects Nialls’s father commissioned.
“Soon he met your mother, a merchant’s daughter and as pure as he was good. I was at their union ceremony, and with her father’s wealth and Arvel’s talent, their future looked bright.”
“You knew him well then,” he thought outloud.
“We were very close, Sorin. Brothers, after a fashion.”
“The sword hanging on the Bishop’s wall in A’lum was of my father’s workmanship?”
“Or one of his apprentices,” Thomas said as he sat down on a stone bench. Sorin joined him. “More than likely. He was very skilled, and he crafted for Godwyn Keep, the High King, even wealthy businessmen. I’ve seen some of your own work—your father did a fair job mentoring you in the smithy.”
Thomas paused. “It was about a year after your parents were married that a comet trailed the sky over the city, one flashing gold and crimson. It was a single comet, and it fell on the night you were born. At first, no one thought much of it. After all, one had passed six or seven winters earlier and nothing dire had happened then. Some, however, called it an ill omen. Your parents barely noticed. You were their first-born son, and I doubt two people could ever love their child more.
Sorin thought back to the Dym and the Magna Kell. He had seen a reference in there to the second falling comet and what that would bring the world. Oryn had been sure the second comet was the delivery of Sorin unto the world. At the time, Sorin had thought Lockwood’s leader mistaken; now, he worried Oryn had been right.
“But at this time all the babies in the city were being killed. There was no reason for it that I could discern—but it was gruesome. I searched everywhere for whoever was behind it; Nialls made it my duty for a week with as many men as I needed to ferret out the murderer.”
“Arvel and Catha grew concerned for your safety and decided it best to move beyond Aris Shae, at least until you were older. He was a city man, born and bred, but he was also devoted to you and your mother. They were packing and preparing to leave, when a man descrsibed by your father as having pale eyes and rabid tenacity crashed through the window and tried to kill you. He slashed you before Arvel battered the thing into a bloody mess that was nigh unrecognizable. The attacker, we discovered, was a simple homeless man, destitute. Even after that, the murders continued throughout the city.”
“The jerich,” said Sorin, fighting the urge to touch his scarred shoulders.
Thomas nodded. “We didn’t know at the time. And we still don’t know why the comet began the creature on its rampage.”
“I do,” Sorin cut in. He took a deep breath. “When we were in Lockwood and you were bedridden, Oryn and I traveled out of the city and into the cliffs overlooking the valley. There, within a small forested plateau, was a dome of vines and brambles that was hollow. We entered it, and inside was a book called the Magna Kell.”
Thomas raised a finger. “Are you sure it was that dark book?”
“I only have Oryn’s word to accept, but I believe he spoke truly, and the manner by which they kept it secured suggested to me it was a dangerous item. The book contained a series of prophesies on many things, and the comet you just spoke of was one of them. In it, the jerich was mentioned—not by name but by action—and it was that prophecy that told it to seek out the city of the comet and murder its newly born. The jerich must have a copy of the book.”
“I see,” Thomas said, staring off into the sky. “Or its master does.”
Within Sorin, a flying spark was being blown into a flame. Now that most of the pieces of the puzzle were coming together about his past, the image they created he did not much care for. They were making him out to be more than he was, but if he had just been told much of this before his life had fallen apart, there was a chance he would have been able to digest it better. Now, he was left wondering what else his parents—or anyone else for that matter—had hidden from him.
“You knew I was this imagined son spoken of in the Codex?” Sorin asked pointedly.
“I suspected,” Thomas answered. “After A’lum. I’ve had minor training at Godwyn Keep as part of my former position. When I felt your call for the crows, I knew you were different.”
“Why didn’t you mention any of this earlier? I could have handled it.”
Thomas looked at Sorin with a remote kindness he had not seen before. “I thought it wise to give you time to grieve. I’ve had pain heaped upon me all at once in the past, Sorin. I would never wish that on you. I felt it best for you to deal with your parents’ deaths first rather than have your heritage heaped and added onto it. Despite what Lockwood’s leader believed—or even what you believe—I had your best interests in mind.”
“Thank you,” Sorin said simply and meant it.
“Also,” Dendreth continued. “I did not want you to be viewed as a pawn to be used by Godwyn Keep or the Kingdom. You are your own man and must decide for yourself what your course of action will be. Although I believe Nialls and Dendreth have the best interest of the Kingdom in mind, it is still you taking the risk. After what has happened in my life, I wanted you to have free will to choose.
The two men left the garden’s bench and walked to the top of the staircase. Thomas stopped before taking the final step. “This is as far as I go,” he said. “You alone must approach the Rosemere since you alone are the one seeking her. Isere was a powerful Witch once. She wielded the Hammer that struck down Aero
m, but ever since the first Pontiff caught her and placed her within her prison, madness has overcome her.”
“They chose not to kill her then?” Sorin asked.
“I would imagine for the same reason you could not kill Merril—the Codex says murder is a violation of the worst kind. Instead, Pontiff Jilliam Horaise chose to place her in a void of shadow, unable to be free so long as the All Father’s power held her fast. It must be a terrible existence for her, but one she deserves I think. She rarely comes to anyone, but I believe she will visit with you.”
“If she rarely appears, how do you know she will now?”
“She has come to me several times,” Thomas said. “The Wyllspring Garden around you was always a sanctuary for me—but one with a blight. She will come to you because in all of this, you are the key to the Kingdom’s survival. She is aware of what is happening around her; she just can’t act on anything. She tries to do so through the Rosemere, and your inclusion in these events will make it hard for her to resist, I think.
“The only advice I can give you is be wary of what she says; we can’t know if she will aid us against the Wrathful or desires an end to her woeful existence through the world’s end.”
A prickle of sweat formed on his skin, and the rising sun’s growing heat was only intensifying the feeling. Fear crawled along his spine, but he ignored it. Isere was legend, a being relegated to the pages of the Codex and church stories. For him to confront the one responsible for the death of the Fatherhead was as unbelievable as flying. She had driven the stake through Aerom’s hands and pinioned him to the tree that now rose from the middle of the pool before him, its bark peeled away by age to expose the dead flesh beneath. If he chose the quest the High King proposed, it was the Hammer she had wielded Sorin sought. It was daunting to think of history not as ancient brush strokes of a long-dried painting but still able to infiltrate one’s life in the present and change it forever.
He took the final step and walked toward the pool. A thick, thorny vine grew from the bottom of the pool and twined lovingly around the tree as it branched out. There, giant rose blossoms added splashes of crimson to an otherwise dead trunk. The water of the pool was flat and motionless, no ripples disturbing its placid surface. The pool’s bottom was invisible, and he wondered if it possessed one. Nothing stirred, and he began to believe she would not come.
“Thomas, nothing is happ—”
Sorin caught himself. The old man had vanished. Although the Wyllspring Garden had been full with gardeners, they too were now gone. He was alone.
With the sun arcing overhead, Sorin looked at the water again. A shifting of colors like the flicker of shadow at sunrise moved across the pool, and the water began to stir, sluggish at first but picking up speed as it circled the dead tree at the pool’s center. Sorin stepped away from its wall, unsure of what was happening but knowing to leave would be very dangerous.
Then the world sunk in upon itself, drawing the light of the morning and inversing it until a shape as dark as midnight hovered on the surface of the water. It shrunk as it rose into the air, the definition of a true form coalescing to become an old woman hidden behind folds of a black cloak, floating as though in warm breeze. A cowl tried to hold her wispy white hair from her face but strands of it flitted across her wrinkled mien with wild abandon. Her black eyes peered into Sorin, and the weight of ages pressed cruelly down upon him, unrelenting in their power.
—Child of the World—
The voice was inside his head, spectral and ragged as though from extended screaming. Every part of his being wanted to flee before the chilly dark eyes of the old woman, but he held his ground, firm and resolute in seeing this through.
“I am here, Isere,” he said, leaving the tremors he felt inside at his lips.
—You have the stink of corruption on your flesh and the mark of the dead on you. They have touched you—
Sorin did not know what she meant until he remembered the Grayoin Marshes. The shades there had allowed him to live when so many others who wandered there had vanished.
“Yes, they have.”
—They let you live when you should have died. You live to enact great harm—
Her hoarse, old voice penetrated deep into his head.
“The shade of my father, Arvel Westfall, saved me.” He didn’t know what else to say.
—What would you know of me, Child of the World—
“Where is the jerich now and who controls it?”
—It is in the world, hunting, stirring evil. It does what it has always done. It no longer desires you for its amusements. He has seen to that. It craves far nobler meat for its master—
“Who is its master?”
—The great Slitherer. He moves across the land and will not be stopped this time—
“Where is the Hammer of Aerom? Can it stop the Wrathful?”
The sound of her cackle filled his head.
—The accursed Hammer. My downfall, my stain. It will be beyond your reach until it no longer matters—
“You didn’t answer my second question.”
The water hissed and spat at Sorin. The young man held his ground.
—He is unknowable, unstoppable. What you believe an entity to be destroyed is like the wind. The wind cannot be stopped, only allowed to pass by—
Sorin thought about it for a moment, then asked, “Does Kieren have the Hammer?”
—It is what consumes his thoughts, but he does not have it nor does he need it now—
“So I will have to find him and kill him with it?”
—You won’t kill Kieren the Black. You will kill two Pontiffs—
The young man stopped, watching the shade of Isere. No emotion crossed her lined face; no glimmer of information betrayed her meaning or objective. He looked into her dark eyes and saw feverish madness like a wild dog that had been leashed too long. Sorin knew he could not trust her, but what she said left him agitated.
—Nothing you desire will come to be. Only what you fear will come to pass—
“You are saying I cannot prevent the destruction of the Rune of Aerilonoth?”
—Look here. Death—
In his mind’s eye, he saw a vision. Smoke blew across a battlefield hill littered with bodies of the dead or dying. The scene possessed no sound, but Sorin imagined the wailing that would be on the air, resonant and continuous. Bloodied Giants milled around, the bodies of men and Feyr littered at their feet, the limbs of the dead broken and unnaturally angled by physical brutality and savage intention. The heat of battle still shone in the Giants’ eyes, but their attention was drawn to a tree on the summit with shattered limbs devoid of leaves or color. Against the tree’s trunk, something moved that resembled a man.
—Death—
The vision changed. A man hung upon a tree that overlooked carnage absolute, a single large stake driven through the palms of his hands. Blood trickled down his arms and over his torso, and his chin was a weight on his chest he could not free himself of. Creatures filled with rage and bloodlust at his very existence surrounded him, but he did not know they were there. He gasped for air, every breath he took a fiery agony that held him more firmly than the piece of iron driven through his hands. At his feet lay a bloodied hammer with a heavy head, and near it an aged woman wept into her hands, splattered in blood as well. A Witch. She did not cry because of what she had done; she cried because she realized at the moment the spike entered the man’s hands it had been his intention and plan all along to die there. She had failed to set right what one of her enemies set into motion, condemning her world—her people—to abject misery and defeat. She looked up to watch the man on the tree take his final breath and die. And a roar of defeat so loud it shattered granite echoed on the wind and across the land, punctuated by an ancient loathing more angry than the world had ever known.
—Death—
It changed again. Far away from the grisly scene, a fire on a mountain of ice that never melted wailed at the death in remors
eless sorrow. It was only there a moment and disappeared as quickly as it had come, a sound the world would never hear again.
The vision blackened to nothing. Sorin opened his eyes and looked at the old woman as she peered at him. Her black orbs were mirrors staring back into his soul.
“The All Father couldn’t save Aerom,” Sorin whispered to the apparition. “Even though it angered Him to lose His son.”
—He was not meant to be saved. You serve the same function, Child of the World—
“Where is the Hammer?” Sorin heard the pleading hit the air.
—Tame the beast. No matter your choices, you are dead—
“What beast?” Sorin questioned, nearly stepping into the pool to confront the old hag. “Are you talking about Artiq?”
Instead of answering, the apparition slipped slowly back into the depths, her figure disintegrating like cold grey ash in water. She cackled again suddenly, the sound dying as the water slowed to a halt, and soon the prisoner was nowhere to be seen. The buzzing of bees and the songs of birds in the garden—of life—returned. Everything was as it once had been.
Sorin stood staring where Isere the Witch had vanished.
Not everything was the same.
Chapter 28
When High King Nialls Chagne left the last broad gate of Aris Shae and felt the thick, defensive wall at his back, he had to refrain from sending his horse Swift into a gallop. The flat plains east of the capital city spanned into the distance before they met the green smudge of the Grifforn Forest—the tall blades of grass no longer green as they parted at the horse’s passing but bleached golden from weeks of summer sun. Nialls was reminded his Kingdom was more than mortar and stone, merchants and servants; it was also open expanse and unfettered possibility, with farmers, hunters, and travelers who needed a stable society to survive. The hot noonday sun invigorated him, but thoughts of Kieren and the Marcher Lord kept him rooted and focused.
It was evident from what Dendreth had uncovered that the Wrathful was intent on destroying the Kingdom in its continuing vendetta against the All Father. Evil had converted one of the world’s gifts to wickedness and was now using Kieren for its own devices. No one knew what the ramifications of destroying the Rune of Aerilonoth would be, but Nialls was unwilling to find out.
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