Valley of Embers (The Landkist Saga Book 1)

by Steven Kelliher

  Sage.

  The pungent odor ripped her back to the stuffy room that was her teacher’s attic. She felt the floorboards groan beneath her as the tower leaned in the billowing winds of storm. She heard singing, and her eyes snapped open, the low light of the fire in the grate burning like a thousand suns for the briefest of moments.

  Rusul, her raven hair ragged and disheveled, eyes sunken, looked positively thrilled to see Iyana staring back at her. She had not been here when Iyana had departed, but Ninyeva said that time was a fluid thing in the Between, its meaning dubious and its hold tenuous.

  Ninyeva seemed in a trance a hair above sleep. She was humming a tune that Iyana now recognized as a song from her childhood. She felt a pang in her heart when she heard the ‘Melody of Wind and Willow.’ It was a song passed from mother to daughter and from daughter to sister.

  Together, Iyana and Rusul waited for Ninyeva to return. Iyana was not entirely comfortable with the Seer, but Ninyeva seemed to trust her of late.

  Ninyeva opened the only eyes in the Valley greener than Iyana’s own. She wore a pleasant smile when she noted her pupil staring back at her.

  “He caught you prowling, yes?” Ninyeva asked, astounding Iyana yet again with her powers of observation.

  “How?” was all Iyana had the wherewithal to ask.

  “You are blessed with abilities far beyond what I had at your age,” Ninyeva said. Rusul watched the exchange with something between respect and envy. “But I have healed thousands. Emotions tell their own stories. I merely tagged along with yours. They told me enough.”

  Iyana nodded slowly.

  “Caught?” Rusul asked, concerned. “Caught by whom?”

  “Someone old,” Ninyeva said. “Someone wise.”

  Iyana nodded again, steeling herself for a verbal lashing, but Ninyeva turned those grandmotherly eyes on her, her smile soft.

  “You must take care in the Between,” she said. “It may seem like a dream, but it is all too real. A Faeykin is not the same as a firefly.”

  “It wasn’t one of the Faeykin,” Iyana said, shaking her head.

  “No?” Ninyeva sat back, surprised. That was a rare enough thing.

  “He was a Riverman, I think,” Iyana said.

  “A Riverman?” Rusul asked in disbelief. She raised her brows appraisingly, looking between student and teacher.

  “Braden Taldis,” Ninyeva said. “Rockbled. The oldest among his kind.”

  “He is to be trusted?” Rusul asked.

  “Given that our girl is safely returned to us, I would assume so,” Ninyeva said. She reached for a bowl set on the edge of the grate and handed it to Iyana. It smelled of lemon and lavender.

  Iyana took a drink. The hot liquid shocked her throat, but after the initial burn, she felt better than she had in some time. How strange, that a journey outside of the physical could take such a toll on the body. It was no wonder Mother Ninyeva did not attempt the search on her own. Something had happened on her last trek, and Iyana still did not know what.

  “Braden,” Iyana said, seeing the shadowed face of the Riverman. “I saw Kole and another Ember in his mind. He knew they were approaching.”

  “Approaching where?” Rusul asked.

  “Not the Fork. Somewhere farther. Somewhere beneath the peaks.”

  “It is a good thing that Braden escaped,” Ninyeva said. “Wherever he is, I hope most of his people made it there with him.”

  “He will help Kole,” Iyana said.

  “What have the Rivermen to offer an Ember possessed of such power?” Rusul asked. “What can they do in the face of a Sage?”

  “How do you think they warred with us in the early years of the Valley?” Ninyeva asked. “They are unyielding as enemies. That will hold true as allies.”

  “There was an anger in him when I mentioned the Sages,” Iyana said, remembering. “It was seething just below the surface.”

  “The Rivermen have no love for magic or its consequences,” Ninyeva said.

  “None do,” Rusul scoffed. “They appreciate having their Rockbled. No small magic in them.”

  The Seer switched her charcoal eyes to Iyana, her stare intense and penetrating.

  “I want to know how you did what you did,” she said, taking Iyana aback. It felt like an accusation. “Ninyeva has been around a long time. How did you go from mixing poultices to walking the Between in a span of weeks?”

  Iyana made a move to respond, but Ninyeva cut her off.

  “We are Landkist,” Ninyeva said. “Our gifts are bestowed. The Emberfolk have put such a strong emphasis on bloodlines that we sometimes forget that.”

  Rusul turned to regard Ninyeva, her expression shifting strangely. It was a look that said more than she was willing to reveal in present company.

  “Given recent events,” Rusul said, “it is strange to hear you decry the import of blood or its effect on the World.”

  Ninyeva held her palms up.

  “Blood has memories,” she allowed. “But even blood comes from the land itself. My own powers did not awaken until my thirteenth year. That was a time of great turmoil in this land, before the Dark Kind followed us in. Before the White Crest fell. I think now would qualify as another such time.”

  Rusul looked about to argue, but seeing the strain on Iyana’s face, she relented, her face coloring in shame.

  “Apologies,” she said, stilting. “It is sometimes difficult being a witness. Always a witness.”

  Iyana nodded and swallowed.

  A creak in the floorboards alerted Iyana to another presence. She twisted, yelping like a pup when the knots in her back protested. She saw that Tu’Ren was standing at the back rail, his form outlined in gray through the thin screen.

  “He’s tense,” Iyana said, turning back to the other women.

  “He was tense in here,” Rusul said, rolling her eyes, “so we told him to take it outside.”

  The screen was thrown open with unnecessary force and Tu’Ren stole in with a strained, tired look that softened a bit when he noted Iyana staring back at him from her place on the carpet.

  “Well?” Rusul asked, impatient. “What news?”

  Tu’Ren grimaced at the Seer’s impropriety, but he stifled a biting retort.

  “The hounds are restless. The wind’s picked up.”

  “Those beasts are always restless,” Rusul said, but Tu’Ren shook his head.

  “Not these beasts. We cannot see the Dark Kind, but they’re out there, hiding beneath the canopy. They’ve choked the trails. We’ve had one Runner back of the four we sent with Karin a week ago.”

  “And the Corrupted?” Ninyeva asked.

  “No sign,” Tu’Ren said, the admission seemingly more disconcerting to him than an open siege might be. The First Keeper of Last Lake was a man of action, Iyana knew. Waiting idle did not sit well with him, especially when their cousins in Hearth bled.

  “I know it is diffic—

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Tu’Ren said, interrupting Ninyeva. He was nearly shouting as he stomped around the small chamber. “Why do they assail Hearth and leave us alone?”

  “Magic takes energy,” Ninyeva replied calmly. “The legions of the World Apart are not easily guided. Our time, I am sorry to say, will come soon enough.”

  “But why?” Tu’Ren asked, exasperated. It made Iyana distinctly uncomfortable to see one so strong reduced to childish questions. “Why would the Eastern Dark come for us now, after all this time?”

  “We don’t know how their war is going,” Ninyeva said. “We don’t know who is winning. He has long coveted the power our people possess. The power you possess.”

  “Some power,” Tu’Ren said softly, examining his hands in the dim light.

  “None can be sent to Hearth, Tu’Ren,” Ninyeva said, her voice hardening. “Not now.”

  Tu’Ren looked about to argue, but he never got the chance. In hindsight, Iyana wished that he had.

  It started as a keen whistling that t
hreaded between the storm winds, prickling at Iyana’s ears. Soon enough, the whistle became a drone, like wind through a tunnel, strong enough to chip stones. As it grew, the sound morphed into something like madness.

  Rusul looked up from her bones, glancing around the chamber worriedly. Ninyeva’s brow crinkled, and even Tu’Ren, red-faced and hot, went ghost pale to match his tied hair.

  “What is it?” Rusul was shouting.

  Iyana went to stand, but Tu’Ren stopped her, casting about for his Everwood blade. It made her feel no better when he held it in hands more scarred than the blade itself. What use was a blade against the storm?

  Ninyeva had her eyes closed, humming something that was like an anchor of calm amidst the chaos.

  The noise was now a hurricane, rattling the windows in their panes and sending chips of spray from the lake below lancing through the canvas door to the balcony like shards. Of a sudden, the whole of it went quiet and deadly still. Ninyeva opened her eyes and they sparkled with something Iyana could only later recall as terror.

  Shadows speared across the skylight, black comets in the shapes of crows. Tu’Ren set his blade alight, and the shadows it cast joined the maelstrom playing out along the leaning walls. There were no birdcalls, only the flapping of a thousand airy winds slicing the atmosphere with dark intent.

  A horn went up in the distance—a signal to man the walls—and Tu’Ren cursed, making for the torn balcony. Iyana looked up through the shattered skylight, into the cyclone of shadow birds that rose like a chimney of thick, billowing smoke. In the center was an eye, glowing blue-white. In a horrifying instant, Iyana knew it was looking at her, and she knew their doom was at hand.

  “Tu’Ren! No!”

  Ninyeva was shouting above the wind, but the Ember could not hear her.

  The First Keeper whipped open the tattered canvas screen and it broke apart like a puzzle, splinters slicing through the bottles along Ninyeva’s many shelves. Iyana shielded her eyes and felt the skin on her forearms tear, but the Ember stood in the midst of the storm and cried his challenge to the heavens, flaming sword held aloft.

  The heavens answered.

  Iyana only remembered bits and pieces of the destruction. She remembered the blue-white eye lancing down toward the Ember like a bolt that became lightning. It struck him and sent him tumbling along with the remainder of the timber frame, half the chamber breaking and falling with him. She remembered clawing her way to the space where the floorboards broke and fell away, Rusul dragging at her heels as she screamed down to the wreckage on the street below.

  She saw Tu’Ren’s hand sticking out from the debris, blood trailing. Tears stung her eyes as much as the spray from the salt lake to the south as Rusul dragged her from the precipice.

  There was a sound lighter than thunder but as percussive, and it took Iyana a few moments to discern the words swimming in its fury.

  “You sent the Runner to me!” it bellowed, and the paper tore from the walls of the chamber, which had broken like an eggshell. “You sent the Runner whom I slew. You flew in dreams of my dreaming, a lamb in the dreams of a wolf.”

  Iyana’s head began to clear as she focused on words that held no meaning to her. She screamed for Tu’Ren and made for the broken floor again, but Rusul pulled her back.

  “Faey Mother!” Rusul yelled.

  Iyana turned to see Ninyeva, her face cut by a hundred tiny splinters of wood and rain sitting with her back against the far wall. Ash from the grate coated her gown. She looked sodden and frail, eyes wild as she stared slack-jawed at the maelstrom beating around them.

  “The stairs!” Rusul shouted at Iyana, who nodded. Together, they seized Ninyeva by each arm and hoisted her toward the door. The tower swayed precariously and Iyana feared it would collapse at any moment.

  Rusul shouldered the door open and the three of them affected something of a controlled fall to the landing below. Ninyeva was trying to say something, but Iyana could not hear her. Downstairs, the windows had all been blown out and the breams were cracking like the glass underfoot. Looking up, Iyana saw the ceiling swaying like the bough of a tree.

  Another crack sounded that was almost too loud to hear, the impact ejecting them through the splintered web that had been the front wall. They landed in the street, mud pooling around them, hands and knees scraping on rock and debris.

  Iyana could feel warm blood coursing down her bangs. People ran to or from the destruction of which they were the center, screaming and crying. A pair of lads—smiths, she thought—dug desperately at the wreckage of Tu’Ren’s balcony, heedless of the danger swirling above.

  The horn sounded again and the baying of the hounds was drowned out in the voice of the White Crest. How could they ever have thought to question such a force—to challenge it or its ilk? How could they ever have been so arrogant to call it ally, protector?

  Iyana felt then that the Landkist were merely ripples along the waves of the Sages.

  A streak of green and brown passed by Iyana as she groveled in the dirt. She looked up to see Ninyeva, standing straight as an arrow, walking toward the mouth of the storm. The White Crest resolved itself into a cyclone of blue and white, something like a hawk’s face coalescing in the chaos, lightning orbs for eyes crackling as it tracked the old woman’s approach.

  “Ninyeva! Faey Mother!” Rusul, her red robe clinging to her in a manner that made it impossible to judge her wounds, reached toward the old woman.

  Iyana’s heart leapt when she saw Tu’Ren, white hair coated with red, gaining his feet and casting about dizzily for his blade, whish still burned brightly in the wreckage on which he stood.

  “Why have you come against us?” Ninyeva railed against the storm, her voice carrying impossibly well on the air of the Sage’s making. The great head swung and pivoted, a mix between serpent and bird.

  “I was to be a tool,” the beast boomed, each syllable sending rain from the ground to challenge that falling from the sky. “I was to be his tool, used to cull the chaff from the wheat, to separate blessed from doomed. You were the crop and I the scythe.”

  Ninyeva moved closer, standing just below the creature’s shimmering beak. Her robe swung and danced violently in the storm, but her face had dried in the wind, hair unbound and flowing in an approximation of what she must have looked like in youth. She was strong and noble—dauntless. Behind and around her, Iyana could see archers gaining precarious perches, lighting arrows on ungainly roofs and pillars.

  “Who?” Ninyeva asked. “Who guides the strings of one so strong as you?”

  This sent the beast into another undulating fit, but Iyana thought the storm had lost some of its fury.

  “None control me,” it hissed, those crackling eyes drawing closer to Ninyeva’s face. “He sent his Night Lords and I took their hearts. I wield the darkness of the World Apart now. I own this realm and all in it.”

  “The dark has made a blade of you,” Ninyeva said. “You, who we counted as ally.”

  “The King of Ember was my ally,” it said. “My weapon. He failed to kill the Eastern Dark. You Embers were my charge—fireflies lost at sea with no reed on which to land. I was to cultivate you. That was my charge. But I am awake, now. I am myself. I am, and I will cull his fields to draw him out. I will turn his darkness upon him. You sent your Embers to me and I have turned them or thrown them from the cliffs.”

  And suddenly Iyana knew that Linn had failed. She felt cold hands interlaced with her own and turned to see Rusul kneeling beside her, staring ahead with the rapt attention of one kneeling at the foot of some terrible god.

  Perhaps they were.

  “There is another you have sent,” it said, head menacing. “One whose power I have felt from a long way off. A power I have not felt in a long time. He will be my sword remade against the darkness. My Ember blade. I have seen him in her mind. He will not come against me while I have her.”

  Ninyeva stood even taller than before. Blood leaked down her cheeks like the paint of
the Faey tribes.

  “I had hoped against hope that we might find you dead or gone,” Ninyeva said, spitting with disdain. “And here you are, a thing used. A thing corrupted.”

  The beast’s form grew indistinct—all wind, rain and lancing light. The bright orbs dimmed under Ninyeva’s scrutiny and Iyana felt something like shame emanating from it in waves that made her nauseous.

  It remembered itself and the orbs brightened once more, the dam breaking. The wind picked up and the water, charged as it was, transformed into tiny arrows. Iyana scanned the rooftops, where the scattered archers were prepared to loose. But what could they do?

  An orange blur lit her periphery, and Iyana swiveled toward the wreckage of the Faey Mother’s tower. Tu’Ren stood, his skin set to a pulsing glow, sword held alight before him.

  “You know nothing,” the beast said, but its roar turned from fury to pain, and Iyana saw the atmosphere around Ninyeva warp like heat in a clear sky. The Faey Mother’s eyes took on a glow so bright that Iyana could see it even from behind, and the Sage twisted and writhed.

  “What is she doing?” Rusul asked in a horrified whisper.

  “She found an opening,” Iyana said. She could not explain the battle that raged before them, but she knew of the Faeykin’s darker gifts. It was said they could turn their empathy to whips and lashes, as Ninyeva did now. She remembered the twisted corpse of the hunter from Tu’Ren’s memory.

  Ninyeva’s knees began to shake. Lightning split the sky, arcing down and sending the roof of the smithy up in cinders. The archers loosed their burning shafts, which were blown away like matches. The Faey Mother screamed like Iyana would not have thought possible. She collapsed as the White Crest roared.

  Iyana broke free from the hands that tried to hold her back and ran. The hounds howled in the darkness, driving her onward, and the air grew thick with water, wind and flame as she waded through the maelstrom, eyes focused on the pile of green and brown crumpled at the foot of the storm.

  When she reached her, she was shocked to see that her teacher’s emerald eyes had lost their sheen. They had faded to white, and though Ninyeva still breathed, it was labored, her chest wracking.