Birthrights_Revisions to the Truth

by J. Kyle McNeal

  “To deliver the weapons.” Stern produced the toad’s toe from his pocket and spun the string to which it was attached around his finger. “But we’ll go back to Riverbend eventually. When it’s safe.”

  “I’m not going to Colodor,” Whym announced forcefully, drawing Stern’s gaze to him. “As soon as we find the Steward, I’m returning to Riverbend. Salazar said the Council doesn’t know of your ties to the resistance. If they’re willing to do what they did in Endeling just to rid themselves of us, imagine what they’d do should they learn of those ties. Before they discover their trap’s failed, I have to warn my family.” And Kira. He still had every intention of fulfilling his promise to take her away, provided she still wanted to go with him.

  “Wait. Find the Steward?” Kutan asked with a mocking tone. “Did you happen to see where he lives from your visions?”

  Whym pointed north, toward the mountains beyond. “Four days that way.” He’d not only seen the location, he remembered making the trip. The visions and dreams were becoming indistinguishable from his own memories.

  .

  .

  “Fill your water skins and drink your fill,” Whym warned. “This is the last water source until we reach the snow.”

  Stern and Kutan did as instructed, though their expressions conveyed the same unspoken questions each time Whym knew something he shouldn’t. He’d never left Riverbend before the apprenticeship, but now spoke with the knowledge of someone who’d been raised in those distant mountains.

  “How much farther?” Kutan asked, holding his head. Despite being in the best physical shape of the three, the elevation was affecting him. For a day, at least, he’d pushed through dizziness, nausea, and headaches he claimed would have sent weaker men to their knees. “You said three or four days. We’re already five days out.”

  Who do you think’s slowing our pace? Whym looked up at the snow-crusted peak and chewed his lip to prevent from speaking his thoughts. If we don’t move faster, we’ll be forced to climb in the dark. That would be dangerous. “We’ll summit by nightfall,” he answered. Hopefully.

  Just as he turned to continue climbing, though, Kutan dropped to his knees and heaved the contents of his stomach onto the rocky soil. Stern knelt beside him.

  “I’ll be—” Kutan tried to stand, but swayed and fell to the ground. His elbow thumped hard against a rock.

  Whym turned to Stern. “He’s not going to make it. If he doesn’t head back, it’ll get worse. He could die!”

  “I’m fine,” Kutan argued, clutching his elbow.

  Whym squatted beside his friend. “You have to trust me. Go back to where we camped last night. If we haven’t returned by midday tomorrow and you’re still feeling sick, go down farther until you feel better. We’ll catch up.”

  “I can make it,” Kutan insisted, but just rising to his feet was a struggle.

  Whym looked up at Stern. “You should join him. I can relay any message you wish. Or we can both go back and make the climb another day.”

  “Just go. There’s no such thing as Stewards, anyway,” Kutan relented, his tone betraying his uncertainty at the claim.

  “Sure you’ll be all right?” Whym lingered. “We’d only lose two days to take you down.”

  “Don’t dally, or I’ll head back without you.” Kutan winked. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing Kira again, too.” Then he turned and left, his stride steadier, as if the mere prospect of descending were a cure.

  Whym looked at his master once Kutan was gone. “We should pick up the pace. The footing would be treacherous in the dark.” He resumed hiking after a quick glance back at Kutan.

  Above the tree line, the wind whipped, gnashing its razor teeth into their skin. Whym pulled his sleeves down over his hands and held the heavy fur around his shoulders. Even with the furs, by the time he reached the ice-slicked snow cap near the summit, his feet and hands were numb. Fortunately, the snow was crusted over so they could walk on top of it. He remembered sinking to his waist and having to dig himself out with each step. “Don’t stop,” he encouraged Stern, who’d slowed and was laboring to breathe.

  “Almost. There?” Stern gasped between breaths.

  “Almost.” Whym cinched the fur around his shoulders and grabbed Stern’s elbow to support him for the last part of the climb.

  Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe. Step. Breathe.

  Shivering uncontrollably, they summited the false peak where Whym knew waited the entrance to the Steward’s keep. They’d climbed so high a layer of clouds had blown in below them, shrouding the bottom of the mountain in a gray-white nothingness that reminded Whym too much of the Mysts. They plodded, foot after foot, toward the vertical crack in the rock. As they neared, the sight of dancing shadows from a fire quickened their pace. They stumbled inside, frozen and exhausted.

  “You found the way.” A man approached with a spherical rock in each hand. He offered one to each of them. Whym pulled his hands from the fur to accept the rock. A stabbing pain shot from his fingers down the length of his arms as the heat thawed his frozen fingers. “Come. Sit.” The man motioned toward the squared-off rocks around the fire.

  The visions had shown Whym the location, but not the Steward’s appearance. He couldn’t wrest his eyes from what he saw. The Steward, so old his entire race was now considered myth, looked hardly older than Whym. He had clear gray, wolf eyes and straight hair to his shoulders—brown with traces of whitish blond that gave the impression of strands of silver.

  Once they were seated, Whym watched in awe as the man reached his bare hand into the flames to remove a blackened pot. “I’m Laatst,” the wolf-eyed Steward introduced himself. He poured the steaming liquid into two gray rock cups he offered to them. “Drink.”

  “You’re the last Steward?” Stern, still shivering, clutched the warm rock against his chest with one arm and took the cup with his other. He inhaled the steam and drank greedily.

  “In your tongue.” Laatst sat next to the fire on a squared rock across from Stern.

  “You look so much like a man?”

  “Amon and Jah, unlike the other Makers, created in their image, just as their creator formed them in hers.”

  “Then how—” Stern’s speech garbled and he fell from the rock onto the floor, spilling what remained in his cup and sending the rock rolling into the fire.

  Whym tried to go to him, but when he stood, it was like the sensation of hundreds of needles pressed at once into his thawing feet. He dropped back to the rock on which he’d been sitting.

  Laatst was already by Stern’s side. “He’s fine.” He pulled the rock from the fire and curled the seeker’s hands around it. “The powder will just make him sleep.”

  Whym looked at the cup in his own hands and set it on the ground. He could feel the amulet’s heat calling him through his shirt, but ignored it.

  “Don’t worry.” Laatst read his reaction. “Yours has only ginger. You didn’t come with the intent to murder.”

  “Murder?” Whym was aghast. “We’re here to speak as emissaries of the Council of Truth.”

  “Representatives of the council you plot to destroy? This explanation should engender trust?”

  Whym didn’t know how Laatst knew so much, but felt confident truth was on their side. “The post that sent us here called for us to make contact. That’s all. You’re mistaken.”

  “Young Ellenrond, you know far less than you believe.” The Steward left Stern and returned to his seat. “Who led you here? The Council? Zvi, the Mirrored God? The Before? The monster in the Mysts?”

  Whym tensed. He’d told no one of some of those things. “I followed my master, Seeker Sandoval.”

  The Steward smirked. “And who leads him?”

  Whym felt as if he were losing whatever game they were playing, but he’d yet to figure out the rules. “He was given the post. He had no choi
ce but to go, and I no choice but to follow.”

  Laatst laughed out loud. “When the waves lick the sand from the beach, neither the water nor the wind that whipped them have a choice. Men always have a choice.”

  “Then who do you claim is his master?” Whym was worn out from the climb, in no mood for cryptic conversation. “Why don’t you believe we came in peace?”

  “Peace?” Laatst smiled as if he were tasting the claim and found it delicious. “Young Ellenrond, Ender of Ages, Servant of Death, you bring peace like rain brings drought.” He held out his clenched fist toward Whym. “It doesn’t matter who sent you. I allowed you to come. Here.”

  He knows everything. Can he read my mind? Whym waited for Laatst to answer his thoughts. When no response came, he reluctantly held out his hand. A smooth black stone of irregular shape dropped into his palm. He brought the stone close to inspect it.

  “Your birthright,” the Steward said. “An Unum.”

  Unum? That’s what Tedel was seeking. But he said they were of use to only those of Faerie blood. Whym mouthed the words to the children’s song and the names of the nine Faerie families. Not one was even similar to Ellenrond. “Ellenrond is not a Faerie name.”

  “Names are changed more easily than minds,” Laatst responded. “Your ancestors were the only one of the nine Faerie families to choose Jah over Amon—to choose weakness over strength. They returned the Unum to me, claiming it provided access to power that should be entrusted to no man.”

  Whym studied the plain-looking stone. He’d have passed it without a second glance had he seen it while on their trek. The Unum began to warm at his touch like the amulet had before. “Why would you give it to me?”

  Laatst crossed his arms, one corner of his mouth curled and his head half-tilted in amusement. “My brethren made a grave mistake creating the Faerie,” he said. “Your kind have perverted the power of Amon—a power meant to bring harmony, not domination. Your ancestors alone realized this. It’s my hope you’ll reach the same conclusion.” He straightened his head and stared into Whym’s eyes. “Ender of Ages, I task you to end the Age of Magic.”

  Whym looked at him, dismayed. Meeting the last Steward was more than he’d hoped when they began their journey. To discover he was Faerie and be given access to magic was beyond his dreams. To have the fate of magic in the Lost Land thrust upon him, though, was a burden too heavy to bear. “Wait!” he called when Laatst rose to leave. “Please don’t go!”

  The Steward turned, his wolf eyes shining from the darkness. “Beware those who would see the future on your behalf. Prophecies, visions, plans long laid or just conceived—though others may suffer the consequences, you alone are responsible for your actions.”

  “But—” Whym tried to ask a question, but the Steward continued.

  “It matters not whether you’re led by chains or kind words, by need or greed, by conviction or fear, by truth or deceit. Intent is unimportant. Results endure.”

  “But you would try to lead me also?” Whym held up the Unum between his thumb and forefinger. “With this gift.”

  “Already, you’re more clever than when you arrived.” Laatst smiled. “When you’ve caused enough suffering and have suffered enough yourself, return the Unum to me along with the other three that remain.” Then he left, retreating into the darkness at the back of the cave.

  Whym tried to follow, but as he reached the crevice through which the Steward had gone, it closed, leaving only a small crack in the stone. He returned to the fire and added some of the dried branches piled near the opposite wall. “Okay,” he spoke aloud to the voices burning his chest.

  Ender of Ages. Servant of Death. The familiar refrain welcomed him but was soon drowned out by another voice.

  “Whym,” Tedel’s voice called as the vision started. He was watching a ceremony. A boy he knew and disliked, though he couldn’t produce a reason why, was handed a stone much like the Unum the Steward had given to him. He watched as the boy gripped the stone and thrust his hand into the fire, his face contorted by the expectation of pain. The flames parted.

  “Thus bonded,” the man officiating the ceremony announced. Those watching snapped their congratulations.

  Whym cut off the visions and inched his hand toward the flame. The heat was too strong. He yanked it backward.

  .

  .

  “Ewwwoooohhh.” Stern lifted his head, squinting as if the fire’s dim light were too bright for his eyes. “Where is he?”

  “Gone.” Whym was whittling a stick, scraping the shavings into the fire. “He slipped something into your drink.”

  Stern held his hand to his head like he was hungover. “How long was I out?”

  “It’s nigh dawn.”

  The energy drained from the seeker’s face. He shook his head slowly and groaned.

  Whym kept whittling. “Is what he said true?” He’d thought of subtle ways to broach the question, but decided instead to ask directly.

  “Is what true?”

  “Did you come here to kill him?” Whym looked up to see Stern’s reaction.

  The seeker’s face betrayed his surprise—and his guilt. “I—” He looked down at the fire, then out toward the entrance. “I hadn’t decided.”

  Whym’s chest sank with disappointment. “How could you?” He flicked the stick he’d been whittling into the fire. “The post said nothing about harming the Steward.”

  Stern looked up with the desperation of a man waiting to be hanged. “I hadn’t decided.” He looked at Whym with the same cold determination with which he’d braved the climb. “But the augur in Bothera said I must for the resistance to succeed.”

  “And you believe him?”

  “Yes.” Stern exhaled and dropped his shoulders. “But I hadn’t decided.”

  “If you believe him, how could you remain undecided? Fear?”

  Stern suddenly looked his age—older even—and bone-weary. He raised his eyes to meet Whym’s, then looked away. “Because he said I must kill you as well.”

  Whym was incredulous. He stood, holding out the dagger with which he’d been whittling. “This is the same man who had you make me your apprentice? The same man who said I must lead the resistance?” Whym asked with an open-mouthed gape. “Now he’s calling for my death?”

  Stern put his head in his hands. “He foresaw only your apprenticeship. Leading was my plan.”

  Small Dragonborn Village North of Welloch, Chapter 61

  .

  .

  .

  Dead Is Dead Is Dead

  .

  The rich kill with whispers,

  The rulers with laws,

  For power or money,

  And sometimes just because.

  But real men kill with weapons—

  Blades, hammers, pikes—

  With wide sweeping strokes,

  And quick deadly strikes.

  They’s some kill in secret,

  Others brag and boast,

  But them who see their victims’ eyes,

  I respect the most.

  ‘Cause poison is a craven’s choice,

  For yellow-bellied curs,

  The type of weaselly killin’

  That womenfolk prefers.

  But whe’er you stick’em in the gut,

  Or club’em o’er the head,

  Or mix their drink with powder,

  What’s dead is dead is dead.

  .

  —Unknown

  .

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  .

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  Small Dragonborn Village North of Welloch

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  “Does it hurt still?” Quint traced the curved brand of the Tungan symbol for water on Nikla’s forearm. The scabs were gone, but her body was like a scroll
, with symbols inked and burned into her skin.

  “No.” She was seated beside him, staring, without focus, at the wall of her tent. She spent so much of their meetings these days staring at that tent wall, he’d started to wonder what hidden message she was reading. The girl he knew and loved—the girl with fire in her eyes and a promise in her smile—had been buried under this unfamiliar exterior.

  “The other? The cuts inside? Are they healed also?” It was a sensitive subject. The mutilation of her skin was cosmetic. What the Bone Reader had done to her insides had left a void—an emptiness Quint didn’t know how to fill.

  “It can never heal,” she said sharply. “What matters is whether or not there’s pain. Today there’s pain.”

  “I’m sorry.” He placed his temple on her shoulder, mimicking what she’d used to do to him.

  “So you’ve said.” She shifted her body and pushed his head away. “What are his demands today?”

  “I swear to you, I’ve never touched her.” Quint responded to the topic in his own mind, not what she’d asked. Nikla had acknowledged knowing about Arianne’s visits but had never once criticized him. No matter, he believed her every word and action was tainted by suspicion.

  “Quint.” She finally looked at him, but with deadened eyes. “It doesn’t matter. Just tell me why the Bone Reader sent you.”

  Quint wanted to object, to throw her assumption back in her face and declare he’d come of his own volition. He couldn’t. The only time he was allowed to see Nikla was when the Bone Reader allowed it. The guards posted outside the Mother’s tent were there, not to protect, but to isolate. He looked toward the floor. “The same as before. He wants me to persuade you to renounce the dragons—to admit they’ll not return—and to turn the people back to the old gods.”

  Nikla returned her gaze to the tent wall. “You know I won’t.”

  “But you don’t even believe in dragons. You told me once. He said you can be free to visit anyone you choose once you consent.” He knew the words were a mistake as soon as he’d said them.

  “I told you no such thing.” She glared at him, daring him to disagree.