Unfettered III

by Shawn Speakman (ed)

  “Prepare for the journey, Aderyn Hier,” Richard said, ignoring his guide’s odd behavior. “We leave now.”

  Richard sat upon Lyrian and watched Aderyn Hier ride toward him.

  The Heliwr, his mount, and his guide had been waiting outside the newly built walls of Caer Dathal for less than an hour, the air warm and buzzing with insects and the songs of numerous birds. Snedeker sat upon his shoulder, grumping about the phoenix egg being covered and kept from view. Richard did not care how his fairy guide felt. The egg had become a burden, one that could get them killed. Best that it was hidden, kept away from eyes that almost certainly watched from the shadows. Given the danger their charge would attract, they had remained too long in one place already, and the Heliwr was ready to be on the road. He would not feel comfortable until they were miles from Caer Dathal and well on their way toward the Forest of Rhos.

  When she reined in her mount, the Druid dismounted and came up to the large leather bag that hung from Lyrian’s heavy riding blanket. She ran her hands over the sturdy case that held the egg.

  “We must keep safe what is inside this bag at all costs,” she said.

  “I know,” he agreed. “Which is why we should already be gone.”

  “The road will be dangerous.”

  “My roads are always dangerous.”

  The Druid snorted and undid the top of the bag to view its contents. She ran her fingers over the crystal. There was something in the way she now acted toward the egg that bothered Richard. Before becoming a Knight of the Yn Saith, he had played poker weekly with several associate professors and grad students. He learned then that he had a knack for reading people. The Arch Druid had secrets—every Druid had them—but his secrets were held behind a stoic reserve. Aderyn did not possess that. She could be read. Or perhaps she wanted him to believe she cared. Either way, there were lies to guess at. Richard sensed she had not told him everything.

  Snedeker did not have a poker face either. The fairy gave the Druid a continued dark look even after she had covered the egg again. Richard knew what it meant.

  Jealousy.

  It looked like he had more to worry about than just the ashterbach.

  They rode east out from Caer Dathal the New, the day vibrant with late spring. The Everwinter had retreated, the long winter allowing Annwn to recover from its centuries of false summer, and nature had returned finally with renewed health. Snedeker scouted ahead as he had done a hundred times before on their journeys, ensuring their way was clear and free of danger. He found none. But every time he returned to report, he couldn’t help but check in on the phoenix egg, reaching in through the leather bag’s top flap to touch the warm crystal. They met few travelers on the road, who gave them strange but civil looks, eyeing aspects of the knight’s odd, otherworldly garb.

  Aderyn kept to herself despite Richard’s best efforts to learn more about her. She had steel, he had to give her that. She kept her eyes on the surrounding forests and hills, watching for possible attack. The afternoon waned. As the sun began to set and night with its myriad star shine returned, the companions took refuge in a copse of fir trees well off the road. As the fire cooked their meal, Richard decided it was time to confront his fairy companion.

  “What is your fascination with the egg, Snedeker?”

  The small guide sat upon the unflapped leather bag containing the egg, staring down into its depths, mesmerized by the light that swirled within. The fey creature did not seem to hear the knight. Aderyn turned from watching the darkness, her sharp gaze on the fairy.

  “Snedeker!” Richard shouted.

  “What? What?” the fairy growled, finally looking up. His beady eyes flashed at the knight. “What is wrong with you, Rick?!”

  “Me? What the hell is wrong with you?” the Heliwr shot back, nearly swatting the fairy into the night to return some common sense to him. “You’ve been fixated with that egg ever since we found it. Why? Does it have you under a spell or something?”

  “No fairy can be spell-cast upon,” Snedeker sniffed. “I just . . . like it. It’s nice.”

  “It’s nice?” Richard asked, surprised.

  “Yes,” Snedeker said, looking back down into the egg, its glow suffusing him. “Unlike someone I know.”

  “You speak to it?”

  “I do.”

  Worry crept into Richard. His guide was going crazy.

  “What does it say exactly?”

  “Speak isn’t the right word. It doesn’t talk. Not exactly. I can sense its thoughts, its feelings. And it knows mine. It is alone. It is scared. And it has been waiting a long time. For me.” He darted a look at Richard. “For us, I guess.”

  Richard snorted. “That’s not possible. The phoenix within that egg knows nothing. How could it? It’s not even born again. And if it is capable of sensing us, it’s only done so during the time it has been in our care.”

  “It knows,” the fairy said simply.

  Richard shook his head, adding another thick branch to the fire.

  “The fairy speaks truly, Heliwr,” Aderyn interrupted his thoughts from the other side of the fire, her eyes glittering through the sparks that rose briefly toward the stars. “Your fairy guide can sense what the unborn phoenix is feeling. Even thinking.”

  “And now you finally decide to talk,” Richard said, all the more annoyed.

  “Do not attribute my silence to being a poor travel companion,” the Druid said. “There is much to discuss. And it has taken me this long to find a way to begin it.”

  Richard poked at the fire with a stick, the heat hot on his hand. “I was hoping that Aengus had asked you to his office for a reason beyond being a mute.”

  “Probably several reasons, if truth be known. Ever since I met him several centuries ago, the Arch Druid has been a man possessed of great insight. It suits his role, knowing those of others,” the woman said, ignoring his rebuke. “My role is largely as a historian, documenting the ancient fey of Annwn.” She paused, looking toward the egg. “Even though the phoenix is not part of the fey technically, it had enough interactions with those of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts that their history is well documented—at least for those who care to know about such things.”

  “And you do,” Richard said.

  “I do indeed,” she said, her silver hair made orange-red by the fire. “You see, the phoenix has always been of particular interest to me. It shaped my youth and it continues to direct my life. It is the reason I came to Caer Dathal and took up the mantle of knowledge, although other reasons have taken up my many decades since then.”

  “And now you are going back home. Aengus thought it important that you do.”

  “He and he alone knows my past.”

  “Until you share it with me,” the knight urged.

  “No need to pry. I would have you both know the danger we face.”

  At least she sounded like she was willing to reveal that past. “I’m not real big on secrets,” he admitted.

  “We all have secrets, Heliwr,” the Druid said softly.

  “It has been my experience that secrets kept can kill,” he said. “If it matters in our quest, tell me now. I’ve held long-standing grudges with friends for less.”

  Aderyn looked away, the wrinkles of her face pinched and deep. Richard waited. She would talk. Eventually. The fire snapped, shooting an ember away from their campsite. Minutes passed, the only other sounds the waking night creatures. She joined them finally. “I grew up in the Forest of Rhos, as I said,” the Druid began. “I was born to Mother Ahlena Hier of the Anfarwol Order, a member of an ancient sect devoted to the phoenix. It was founded many centuries before my birth as a way to preserve the knowledge of a creature precious and unique, so that the phoenix may one day return. The phoenixes of old resided and were reborn in the Forest of Rhos, you see, and the founders of the Anfarwol Order gleaned if it was to rise again, it would do so there. I grew up amid a dozen families, each person devoted to learning everything there is to know ab
out the phoenix.

  “I left home—left the only life I had known, really—for several reasons, but highest among them was my mother. She became the head of the Order and, after several years, she had become quite extreme about it.”

  “How so?” Richard asked.

  “She introduced strange rituals, ones not seen before,” Aderyn said, shaking her head. “At the time, I did not know why. I went along with it, but I was too young, too naive, to know better. Now I know she did it to maintain her position. Her power. After several years, I left. I had grown into a woman who questioned everything and eventually that led to questioning my own mother.”

  “You certainly strike me as someone who knows what she wants.” Richard said. He frowned. “What kinds of rituals though?”

  “Deep within the Forest of Rhos, the phoenixes of old rebirthed upon a set of white granite cliffs that oversee the forest and the ocean to the north. There, my mother would hold gatherings. It began as dances. Then the dances became rites under the moon, a sharing of blood from the families so that the phoenix might rise again. Then men and women from different families began coupling upon the very stone beds that had once belonged to the creatures we promised to return. When I left—the reason why I had no choice but to leave—my mother began using the sacred ashes of the fallen phoenixes. In small ways, true, but ways never done by the Order’s original founders.” Aderyn could not hide the anger she still felt after so many years, eyes as hard as agates and lips made severe. “The families of the Anfarwol Order followed her, throughout all of it. Ardently. I could not do it.”

  “You were of the original, purer faith,” Richard said. She nodded. “You kept quiet, knowing the wrong but unable to do anything about it.”

  “She would have killed me if I had. More than likely. In the name of the phoenix. I knew my danger,” she said. “I fled in the night, oh so long ago. I do not regret it.”

  “You wonder what has become of them.”

  Aderyn nodded. “I do. Often.”

  “Worried what you will find there?” Richard asked.

  “I am, although those I knew died long ago.”

  “The Anfarwol Order sounds like a cult, Rick,” Snedeker chimed in, his attention drawn away from the egg for a moment. “I hate cults.”

  “When you discovered this and left, you traveled to Caer Dathal,” Richard said. “You needed to know. To learn. Not only about the world you had been withheld from but also the truth about the phoenix.”

  Aderyn nodded. “I can see why Aengus is fond of you, Heliwr. You have insight like he possesses. For three centuries, I have worked to learn as much as I could about the phoenix, not from the Anfarwol Order but from outside sources. Aengus Doughal knows this. It is why he called me to his office. No one knows the phoenix history like I do. And if someone can aid you, it would be me.” She stoked the fire like Richard had been doing.

  Richard said nothing. He let the information settle, feeling its gravity. He now knew why Aderyn had looked at the egg with reverence when they had left Caer Dathal. She understood its importance in a way that few could. It also opened up another set of problems. The fire snapped anew, pitch exploding like a mini grenade. How ironic they talked about the phoenix in front of a fire.

  “When you saw the egg in the Arch Druid’s chambers, you were afraid,” the knight said finally, trying to get at the root of their danger. “What do you know about this creature that hunts it?”

  “I know it had better not cross your fairy there. He seems quite protective,” Aderyn said as she looked toward Snedeker and the phoenix egg, the first hint of a smile on her weathered lips. It vanished fast. “The creature hunting it—which will try to kill it before it has a chance of hatching—is called the ashterbach.”

  “The ashterbach,” Richard repeated. “What is it?”

  “A very old creature, one created by the Erlking of the Unseelie Court for one purpose. To kill the phoenix,” Aderyn answered. “Phoenix fire has ever had the ability to rend shadows. The dark fey feared it, obviously. Whereas the dragons of Tal Ebolyon were challenged in the sky by the phoenix, the light of the phoenix could penetrate the deepest darkness, even of hearts.” She paused, adding a log to the fire. “Many centuries ago, long before the Arch Druid and I came to Caer Dathal, there was a great war. I have never discovered how it began. But the devastation it wrought is documented. The Forest of Rhos and the Rhyd Wilvre were once one great forest, the Gwynedd Rhyd, spanning much of Annwn and north. The power expended in the war’s battles destroyed much of it, blasting apart and burning great swaths of the ancient wood. You can probably guess the combatants in that war. The phoenix and the dragons of Tal Ebolyon. Two fire entities ruling the skies, and mortal enemies in nature.

  “The Erlking of the Unseelie Court, in a fit of desperation, ventured into the darkest depths of the remaining great forest, the most resilient and powerful part of the wood,” she continued. “In those depths, where not even sunlight ventured, he took the shadows—filled with absolute sorrow from the loss of their home—and melded them into a terrible new form, one capable of quenching the fire that had obliterated so much.

  “When the Erlking named it, the creature gained its intelligence and power. The ashterbach is that name.”

  “The Erlking died. I saw it,” Richard said. “He is unable to call upon it.”

  “And the Erlqueen gained all of his memories and abilities,” the Druid said. “She will not endanger her new Unseelie family.”

  “Sounds worse than the elychher wizard in Paris, Rick,” Snedeker interrupted.

  “It is, fairy,” Aderyn agreed. “It has no known weakness, no known crux. At least not from what I have learned.” She looked deep into the coals. “I am not sure if we can even stop it if it finds us.”

  “Maybe it has no idea the phoenix has returned home,” Richard offered.

  “A creature like the ashterbach knows no maybes.”

  Richard felt the coolness of the night on his back even as the fire warmed his front. He shook his head at the irony. Nature had balancing mechanisms. It made sense that, after the fiery battles between the phoenix and dragons, nature would find a way to right the imbalance. The ashterbach was that mechanism. The problem came when there was an overcorrection. Now the Erlking’s creation could eradicate a species.

  It begged a question though. Which way would that pendulum swing back if Richard helped Aderyn return the phoenix to its rightful place in Anwnn’s hierarchy? What could he accidentally unleash?

  “I will take first watch,” Aderyn said. “Rest. We travel far the next two days.”

  The Heliwr nodded, knowing she needed some time to wind down from the conversation. He opened up his bedroll and realized how relieved he was to lay down. The injuries done him in Paris still lingered, and while he had the ability to heal faster than most, he needed the call of sleep to prepare for what would probably come.

  “Snedeker, do not stay up all night,” Richard said at last.

  The fairy sat hypnotized by the light emitted by the egg. Richard turned away and looked up at the night sky strewn with diamonds. Before the warmth of the fire lulled him to sleep, he heard his fairy guide’s quiet murmuring to the phoenix.

  It sounded like Snedeker was singing a lullaby.

  It felt as if he had only just closed his eyes.

  “Heliwr! It is here!” Aderyn shouted him awake.

  Richard bolted out of his bedroll. The fire had dwindled but had not gone out, its light now barely pushing back the shadows at the fringe of their campsite. The Druid stood by his side, shirtsleeves pushed up to her elbows. She looked toward the south and its darkness. Richard did the same, scanning the wild woods there, gripping the Dark Thorn that had materialized the moment he had been called awake. Adrenaline replaced his aches and pains. The magic of his office bolstered him.

  Snedeker had taken up defense of the egg as well. Just as Richard was about to order him into a shielding position above, the knight’s vision di
mmed, as if fainting but without the faded loss of consciousness.

  Next to him, fire sprang down the length of the Druid’s bare arms.

  “The ashterbach!” she hissed.

  A low moan entered the wood, the sound of an eerie wind at great distance. The shadows of the night coalesced; the darkness deepened about them. Having a hard time even comprehending what he saw at first, the ink slithered through the wood from many different directions, advancing upon their position, the light of the campfire being slowly drained as if a black hole approached. Unsure of what he saw, Richard focused on his own power, ensuring any number of spells were ready, the Dark Thorn anchoring him to the magic in the world as well as his innate own.

  The feathery tendrils of what Aderyn had called the ashterbach paused as if gauging them, their fire, or both.

  Then, like a whip, they lashed out.

  The first attack struck Aderyn. The Druid brought her fire up, warding them all from the living smoke that sought the companions, her fire filling the night’s air with bright orange and yellow. Richard added his while also shielding the Druid, letting her work. Heat seared the campsite, dry hotness that the knight breathed. He could feel Aderyn’s power, magic from the Druid growing in intensity. Pressure in his ears built, muffled like he was underwater, until Richard realized it was the screaming pain of the shadows around the group as the fire fought them off.

  The pressure withdrew, along with the tendrils. Aderyn pulled back her power, arms still ablaze. Richard maintained his shield, the Dark Thorn hot in his hands. Snedeker sat upon the egg, scanning the dark, ready to add his own fey magic if needed.

  Just when Richard wondered if the ashterbach had fled, the fire along Aderyn’s arms flared brighter.

  “It’s back,” she hissed.

  The ashterbach struck faster. Richard almost didn’t respond in time. The shadows coalesced more urgently, more fiercely, fighting the powerful fiery light that the Druid threw at it. The Heliwr kept the Dark Thorn anchored to the ground, drawing on the magic of Annwn, helping Aderyn keep the powerful Unseelie creation at bay, all the while trying to discover its real origin. Looking deeper into the night’s gloom and at the edge of his vision where the forest met their campsite, Richard could just make out more movement, a shimmering void like an oil slick blacker than the night, and within it a large birdlike thing with wings, a sharp eagle beak, and eyes that glimmered cold silver. The shadows attacking them twisted from its dark wings, an extension of its obsidian feathers, infiltrating the campsite.