by Alec Hutson
“The Unblinking Gate,” Vhelan said softly as they neared the arch. “Eyes were a common motif in Kalyuni art and architecture. They represented clarity, knowledge, the piercing of illusion and subterfuge. Those that approached this city would be unmasked if their intentions were not pure.”
A poem leapt unbidden to Keilan’s lips:
“windows to the chambered soul
twinned jewels, their facets gleaming
in lustrous joy they witness my return
such guile she must possess
for her to hide the truth within such beauty.”
As they passed through the shadowed archway Keilan felt the sorcerer and his knife staring at him.
“What was that?” asked Nel.
“That,” Vhelan said slowly, “was, if I’m not mistaken, the poetry of Dzin keth Dzari.”
“Who?”
“A functionary in the court of the padarasha of Kesh. He lived a century ago, during the golden years of that empire. He’s quite fashionable even today, especially among the aristocracy of the Gilded Cities. I, ah,” Vhelan cleared his throat guiltily, “I had a paramour back in Lyr who was fond of him, one of the, um, kept women of a doddering old archon.”
Nel smirked. “I remember that one. Insipid creature.”
“But beautiful,” Vhelan added, “and a romantic. Hence the affection for Dzari’s poetry. The question is, how does a fisherman’s son know such words?”
“My mother taught me to read,” Keilan murmured.
The wizard and his knife shared a quick look. “I would like to hear more about your mother later,” Vhelan said.
The far end of the gateway had partially collapsed, so they slid from their horses and led their mounts around the massive blocks of tumbled stone. When he cleared the debris and emerged again into daylight Keilan had to reflexively steady himself against his horse, overwhelmed by the scale of the ruined city that spread before him.
A few years ago he had accompanied his father north to Chale when rumors had trickled to their village that a famous bard was staying in one of the town’s inns. The bard had moved on before they’d arrived, but Keilan still remembered the awe he had felt standing on the cobbled streets, looking up at houses built of stone stacked upon each other.
It could not compare to what he gazed upon now: a vast, dead city, shattered as if struck by the fist of an angry god. Great square pillars carved with runes flanked a broad avenue now overgrown with milk-pale grass; whatever they had once supported lay scattered about, black stony islands emerging from a shimmering sea of white. To either side of this central road great piles of rock were mounded, the remnants of once-mighty buildings, their former grandeur suggested by the occasional wall or doorway that still stood within the devastation. The forest had not reclaimed the city, but here and there trees had grown up among and even on top of the ruins, long spidery roots threading the stones. Aside from the wind sighing in the highest branches of these trees the city was silent as a tomb.
“What is this place?” Keilan asked quietly.
“Uthmala,” Vhelan replied, “northernmost outpost of the Kalyuni Imperium. The only city of any size to escape the great flood. Not nearly as grand as Mahlbion or Kashkana, so the histories tell us, but impressive enough for those of us who live in this faded age.”
“A piles of stones,” Nel said, shaking her head. “And as you said, picked clean of any treasure by generations of looters. Let’s find a good place to camp, so at least we won’t get wet again.”
They followed the city’s central avenue, the strange, pale grass whispering against the bellies of their horses. Keilan approached one of the pillars, tracing the squirming runes with a finger. There almost seemed to be a faint charring, as if the symbols had been burned into the stone rather than carved. The thought made his skin prickle.
The road finally ended at the broken foundations of a building unlike any other he had seen in the city. It was a great wall, smooth and curved, made not of stone but of some translucent substance. His father’s friend had once shown him an insect locked in a chunk of clouded orange glass he had found in the forest, and Keilan was reminded of this as he gazed upon the wall. Amber, someone in the village had called it.
Vhelan reined his horse beside him. “The only one of the fabled Star Towers not at the bottom of the Broken Sea.”
“What happened to this place?” Keilan asked, sliding from his saddle and crouching down to run his hand along the glass-smooth wall. “If it wasn’t drowned with the rest of the Imperium, how was it destroyed?”
“Menekar,” Vhelan said with more than a trace of bitterness. “After the two great cataclysms overwhelmed Kalyuni and Min-Ceruth, the armies of Ama poured over the Bones of the World, hunting down and slaughtering every remaining sorcerer they could find. This city and its Star Tower contained the last tattered remnants of Kalyuni wizardry, and legions commanded by the Pure destroyed it utterly a thousand years ago. So much was lost in the sacking – the Pure took great pains to make sure none of the knowledge of the Mosaic Cities survived. The paladins of Ama are nothing if not thorough.”
Keilan suppressed a shiver. What would have happened if he had not been rescued from the Pure? Gazing out upon the ruins of this once-great city, he suspected he knew.
“There,” Nel suddenly said, and Keilan turned to see her pointing at a bulge of stone rising above the rubble. “A roof. We’ll stay there tonight.”
Most of a roof, at least. They camped beneath a dome that had been partially staved in; how the rest remained suspended above them Keilan wanted to attribute to sorcery, but when he asked Vhelan about this the sorcerer had chuckled and instead referenced ‘physics, ’ which sounded to Keilan like an equally arcane subject. Above them, a great mosaic spread across the parts of the ceiling that were still intact, the image of a four-armed, black-skinned man brandishing a different weapon in each of his taloned hands: scimitar, ax, mace and serpentine dagger. But it was below the man’s waist that was truly striking – although chunks of the ceiling bearing that part of the mosaic had collapsed, Keilan thought it looked like the man had the hindquarters of a great insect, or perhaps a spider.
Gradually, as night fell, the image on the dome was swallowed by shadow, until it had vanished completely and only a few glimmering stars were visible above them through the gaps in the ceiling. The rangers busied themselves setting up camp: unrolling bedding among the debris, driving torches into the ground to mark the perimeter, and moving several large stones, so that if attacked they could take cover easily.
While they were doing this, Vhelan coaxed a small fire to life using flint and some fallen branches scavenged from outside, then beckoned for Keilan to join him. Nel also sat, perching cross-legged on an inscribed chunk of stone that may once have been an altar. The sorcerer produced three small cups from his travel bags and shared them out, then unstoppered a dusty green-glass bottle.
Nel whistled. “Sharing your Sevinka? You must be in a very good mood – or you think we’ll be able to get to a decent wine merchant before much longer.”
Vhelan chuckled and poured a draught of golden liquid into each of their cups. “Both, dear knife. Here we are, among the detritus of the old world, in a place I’ve dreamed about visiting so many times. We have a new recruit for the kingdom, stolen out from under the Pure, and within a few more days we’ll be sleeping in the finest featherbeds in Theris. And then it’s only a month or so until we return to a hero’s welcome in Herath.”
Keilan sniffed at the drink, his eyes watering at the heady aroma.
“Firewine from Gryx,” Vhelan said, offering a toast to them both before tossing his cup back. He let out a contented sigh and settled himself more comfortably against a chunk of stone carved with intricate friezes. Keilan hesitated a moment longer and then sipped at his wine, surprised at its spicy richness.
“Good, yes?”
said Vhelan with a smile. “Now, fisherman’s son, I have to apologize for the last few days. It’s rude, I know, to drag you at such a pace through such inhospitable wilds, with no explanations given. So here we are, catching our breath and sharing libations: ask your questions. And after, I have a few of my own for you.”
Keilan spent a moment watching ribbons of smoke unwind from the fire and disappear through the rents in the dome above, wondering which question he most wanted answered from the tumult churning inside him.
He supposed he should start at the beginning. “How did you know about me?”
Vhelan nodded, moving to refill his cup. “A fair question. It is certainly true that untrained children with the gift rarely make an impression on the magisters of Dymoria from hundreds of leagues away. Let me ask you: did anything unusual happen a fortnight or so ago?”
Keilan considered for a moment, and then realization struck him like a blow to the stomach. “The Deep One.”
Vhelan’s brow knit together. “The what?”
“The Deep One,” Keilan repeated in wonder. “You’re talking about that. I always helped my father with his fishing, because I could tell where to put the nets if I just slipped my hand into the water. But one time I decided to push my senses as far as I could into the depths – to see what was out there, I guess. And down below and far away in the darkness I brushed against something immense.” Even sitting beside the fire Keilan couldn’t suppress a shiver. “A Deep One. In our village we believe in great gods that lie slumbering under the waves. Ghelu the Toothed, lord of sharks and orcas and wraithfins; Elara, mistress of the great schools we hunted, as generous as any of the Deep Ones could be considered; Many-armed Relav, Shen of the Shoals, the Jatterlings. The thing I felt down there – it must have been a Deep One. It saw me, and I felt like a fish that had just met a scaling knife. Utterly exposed.”
Vhelan was nodding as Keilan spoke. “What you experienced matches with what we expected to find.” He took a hurried sip from his wine, his eyes bright with excitement over the rim. “I will tell you something now, Keilan, that only a few of the most learned scholars and sorcerers know about. Perhaps it was common knowledge in the heyday of mankind, but this far into our twilight whatever was once known has almost totally been forgotten.” Vhelan gestured at the fire, muttering softly, and the flames twisted higher. In their depths a hazy image formed, some great shape writhing within forest-covered hills so small they seemed to be but a cradle for the creature. “We are not the first, nor the greatest beings to inhabit this land. Ages ago this world was ruled by beasts so vast and terrible that they would seem as gods to our terrified ancestors. In Dymoria we call them the Ancients.” The creature in the flames spasmed and stilled, then vanished as the land rushed up to cover it. “For reasons we do not know, these monsters disappeared or perished, though a few instead fell into eternal slumber. Perhaps you have heard of the White Worm of the North? That is the most storied of the Ancients, for travelers passing near its lair find their dreams invaded by thoughts and emotions so alien that they have been known to drive some mad. There are others, as well, though how many we do not know. The truly powerful and sensitive can feel them if they try, impossibly vast presences lurking on the edges of their minds. Our Crimson Queen is one such sorceress. Not long ago she was awoken in the night by one of these Ancients – not some dream tendril, mindlessly extended into our human existence as does sometimes happen, but an actual conscious thought that reverberated from the beast across the world. It stirred! Luckily, it rolled over and soon went back asleep, but not before our queen hurriedly sought out what had disturbed the creature. And she found, deep under the ocean, a filament of sorcery connecting what we call a sending to a small boy sitting in a fishing boat just off the coast of the Broken Sea.”
Vhelan set down his again-empty cup and stared intensely at Keilan. “That is how we knew of you – because you almost woke a sleeping god.”
“Close your mouth, boy,” Nel said, chuckling, “unless you want to catch some flies.”
Keilan blinked and shook his head, trying to shake away the creeping numbness he felt. He had been right! He’d touched a god!
“How could I do that?” he asked quietly.
Vhelan shrugged. “We don’t know. In some of those who could become sorcerers their gift never manifests itself before they receive any instruction. Others experience odd coincidences or other minor happenings that usually could be explained away. To successfully send, without any training, is remarkable. I’ve never heard of such a thing before. Believe me, the queen is very interested to meet you.”
“Who is this queen you keep speaking of? The Queen of Dymoria?”
“She is the beginning,” Vhelan murmured, almost reverentially. “She is the hope of all men. For a thousand years those with our potential for greatness have been hunted down. Now, we have a haven again. A sanctuary. A place where we can work to elevate what it is to be human without fear of angry mobs or warriors cloaked in white.”
“And she will teach me?”
Vhelan dismissed Keilan’s question with a wave of his hand. “No, no, no. Cein d’Kara is far too busy ruling a kingdom and exploring the higher mysteries to instruct apprentices. But there are other teachers, fear not. We have nearly thirty students with the gift studying in Herath now, drawn from many lands.”
The wizard leaned closer to Keilan. “And that leads me to what I wished to ask you. There are many roles for sorcerers in the court of the Crimson Queen. Some of us are teachers, some are researchers, some are historians. I am a hunter. My order is charged with discovering others with the gift, just like yourself. We roam the lands, trying to find the elusive ember of sorcery that with luck can be fanned into a full blaze. Sometimes it is like trying to find a speck of gold on a sandy shore – not everyone who is gifted goes around poking sleeping gods! But there may be a better way to ferret out future sorcerers than chasing down rumors and peasant’s stories. The leader of the hunters believes that the gift, like the color of hair or eyes, can be passed from parent to child. So he is writing a great book about every wizard in Dymoria – as he often says, a family line is much like a great river, with myriad branchings and streams that sometimes rival the original in size and strength. Already we have uncovered a few with the gift by fully mapping the family histories of sorcerers. So I must ask you about your mother and father. What do you know of their pasts?”
Keilan shrugged. “Not much, I’m afraid. My father’s ancestors lived in our village for as far back as anyone could remember. They were all fishermen, and well-respected. I never heard of any with strange abilities.”
“And your mother? You said before she taught you to read?”
Keilan shifted uncomfortably. “My mother . . . she was an outsider. My father fished her from the seas after her ship foundered on the rocks in a storm. They married, and I was born a few years later. I asked her, many times, about her family and the lands she’d sailed from, but she always turned my question away. She had some books that she’d rescued from the wreck, and she taught me to read using them. My mother taught me many things – she knew so much about the world outside our village, and before she died I imagined one day leaving with her to explore together the places she spoke of.”
“Forgive me for asking,” Vhelan said softly, lightly touching Keilan’s arm, “but how did she die?”
“She was murdered,” Keilan whispered, speaking past the sudden tightness in his throat.
Vhelan’s expression suggested that he had expected to hear as much.
“She was different. Not of the village. Her words were flavored with a strange accent, she knew how to mix herbs to make drinks that could ease bone pains and bring down fevers, she sang in the evenings in a language no one else could understand . . . her hair was the color of moonlight on water. By the time I was ten years old or so I started to understand what others in the village were whispering
about. That she was a witch, that she used sorcery to make her vegetable patch grow better than the neighbor’s, or bring the best fish to my father’s boat.” Keilan wiped away a stray tear, surprised at the emotions he felt welling up. “I asked her once, if what the other children said was true, about her being a witch. She laughed and told me that the other villagers simply could not accept anyone who did things differently than how they had been done there for centuries. And then, when they finally came for her . . . it all just happened so fast.”
Keilan paused, probing the memories of that day like it was an open wound. Nel and Vhelan were silent, waiting patiently for him to gather his thoughts. “There was another woman in town, a spinster. She hated my mother. Much later, Mam Ru told me that years ago she had loved my father; many thought they would get married before the stormy night when my mother’s ship sank, and my father returned to shore with her. I remember she had a long thick braid that hadn’t been cut for many years – since the day my father spurned her, Mam Ru said. This woman was always spreading gossip, terrible rumors that in the way of small villages quickly hardened into known truths. Then one day she sickened, an illness for which no cure could be found, and even as she wasted away she accused my mother of murdering her with sorcery. She died terribly, blood boiling out through her eyes and ears, and the death was so horrific and unusual that some in the village became convinced that dark forces actually were at work. So one night they came to our door. Men from the village.”