Legacy of the Blade: The Complete Trilogy

by Joseph J. Bailey

  A warm meal and a hot bath would be heavenly.

  The nearest sidhe made a brief gesture, one most likely meant for my observation rather than actual effect, and a heaping plate of steaming food materialized before me as a rush of wind washed over me, cleansing my neglected body from head to foot.

  I needed to ask better questions.

  Especially when the sidhe answered them before I even finished asking.

  Maybe I should ask for a demon-destroying super weapon.

  Or a universal panacea to cure the land and wipe away all the ills associated with the long demonic despoliation.

  Or a bed made of feathers lighter than a sea breeze.

  Or for fresh cookies and milk.

  Or for better questions.

  Time to eat.

  “We will wait for you to renew yourself,” the sidhe said and its patience was the patience of mountains and the rise and fall of tides.

  Being mortal, my patience had nothing to do with mountains or tides.

  Aside from where I sat to eat.

  That mountain was just fine.

  I plopped down right there and devoured my meal on the mountainside unashamedly. Crumbs fell down my chest in small avalanches of comestibles.

  My hunger was the hunger of floods and tempests.

  Luckily my appetite lasted about as long as my patience.

  The sidhe did not move the entire time I was eating.

  Since I had an audience, I made sure to put on a show.

  Although the sidhe would never admit it, I knew they were quite impressed.

  Lucius certainly was.

  I aim to please.

  “What would you do with your time in Il’alen, Saedeus of Silvaeron?” asked Aerilon, my guide into Il’alen, my other companions having left for other duties, perhaps returning once more to guard the outer bounds of Doeren Muer.

  Luminous boles of trees wider than my house in Balde ever dreamed of becoming soared heavenward, their upper branches lost in shimmering light and jewel-toned leaves.

  Although it truly pained me to say this, I replied, “I merely wish to pass through to reach Kerraboer.

  “Perhaps when my quest is done I will have the opportunity to return and explore the wisdom and depths of your people.”

  Aerilon nodded in acknowledgement, the gesture sending a ripple of light between us. “And how will you reach Kerraboer?”

  Kerraboer was roughly the same distance southward from Doeren Muer as I had already traveled from Balde.

  Which, given the monumental success of my past exploits, meant I had quite a bit of suffering ahead of me.

  Unless I found a way to avoid further travails.

  Well, as many travails as could be avoided when crossing a land brimming with fell monstrosities while heading toward a joyful reunion with a ravenous pit torn between dimensions belching forth unending multitudes of demonic entities hellbent on destroying Uërth and everything on it.

  “Can you help me teleport there?”

  As much as I wanted to take in all the wondrous sights on the way to Kerraboer, I would actually prefer to get there alive.

  Although my magical skills were progressing far more rapidly than I had expected, or ever hoped to achieve—due in large part to Alric’s unending well of patience—teleportation was a skill I could not claim to possess.

  My unfailing ability to spontaneously appear in the midst of dire circumstances, however, was without question.

  Aerilon’s gaze clouded, or at least I think it did. Reading features and nuances of body language was especially difficult when the entity in question was utterly alien and surrounded by a nearly impenetrable nimbus of Light.

  “We no longer risk teleportation.

  “The barriers between worlds are too thin.

  “Willingly penetrating the veil only strengthens the Alaurana Nuerda and speeds their incursion.”

  So, teleportation was not an option.

  To say I was disappointed would be a loremaster’s thesis in understatement.

  Thankfully, I was no loremaster, so my disappointment was somewhat less than the absolute.

  And far from being worthy of a dissertation.

  If I ever took the essence of a loremaster within myself, I was sure the issue could be revisited in greater detail.

  “Then I will run.”

  I need not bore Aerilon with details or my petty concerns.

  He, or she, probably knew them all already.

  “You could fly.”

  I arched an eyebrow.

  Flying sounded safer than running.

  Or did it?

  With my luck, one never could tell.

  “You would be willing to cast a spell of flight upon me?”

  Aerilon smiled bewitchingly…I think. “That would be…inefficient. Our Yaera Leyalia travel regularly to Kerraboer.

  “I am certain we could arrange for you to accompany one on her flight.”

  “That would be…most welcome.”

  I hoped.

  Light Rider

  Il’alen truly was like a dream.

  And I do not exactly mean that in a positive way.

  Il’alen was more like the kind of dream that made me feel uneasy, that I could not wake up from, that was beguiling, confusing, and disconcerting.

  Although far from a nightmare, Il’alen was certainly not the type of dream I looked forward to having upon laying down for the evening to rest.

  The sidhe city was offputting, so foreign to my senses and sensibilities that I rebelled against its ethereal nature.

  I was, perhaps, too much of the earth and dirt to feel at home in a city that seemed to bridge the gap between forests and stars.

  If this alone had been my main problem, then I might have overcome and adjusted, perhaps growing to encompass the novelness that I initially found so challenging.

  But this was the least of my concerns.

  I sensed sidhe all around, their radiance full and vibrant, adding to the majesty of the unearthly forest. But I could not see them.

  No sidhe approached.

  No sidhe bustled about on everyday business or casual errands.

  No sidhe gathered to partake in social discourse or enjoyment.

  Although the sidhe were as omnipresent as the air I breathed, they were just as invisible.

  For all intents and purposes, the sidhe in Il’alen existed in some other dimension entirely.

  To my mind, the heart of the place was absent.

  Or mayhap this heart was just so rarified that I could not connect to its beat or hear its pulse.

  Regardless, I felt like I was walking in a bubble, all alone with no one around besides my guide.

  In this regard, too, the city was very much like a dream—a dream where you are looking for someone and cannot find them; a dream where you know whomever you are searching for is near but you cannot manage to lay eyes on them.

  The same sensation held for other races and beings.

  I sensed men, dragons, dryads, and others all around, but somehow we never managed to encounter one another, as if we all existed in separate worlds.

  For all I knew of Il’aen, we might actually have.

  Perhaps I strode in ignorance across gleaming dimensions utterly blind, misinformed, and ill at ease.

  Perhaps in time, this ignorance would become understanding.

  But I did not have the time to resolve Il’alen’s mysteries.

  Nor did I delve into the knowledge of others within me who might have helped resolve these sentiments.

  Sensing my mood, Alric remained silent.

  Regardless, walking through the lambent byways of Il’alen was beyond disconcerting.

  I strolled through one of the largest intact cities on Uërth all alone.

  No matter how grand or enlightening, Il’alen was no place for mortals.

  Or me.

  All this is not to say Il’alen is not an amazing place.

  It was just not for me.
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  I am certain Alric could have brought me around, but I did not let him.

  My mood was as heavy as Il’alen was light.

  Perhaps the city itself forced this dour introspection upon me, a dichotomy intended to firm up my place in the world and my desire to protect it.

  The place certainly had presence.

  Who is to say it did not have sentience?

  I did my best to relax and let the rigors of normalcy not bother me.

  Mayhap I was just ill at ease being in a zone of safety after having been on edge for so long.

  After all this time, being relaxed and taking in Il’alen’s wonders without fear of demonic attack or impending death felt abnormal, and my spirit rebelled against the need to be prepared and on guard.

  I began to breathe deeper and more fully then, settling into the place as much as my self.

  I was here and I would make the most of it.

  So I breathed.

  And gradually returned to normalcy.

  Or at least what passed for it in my skewed inner dimensions.

  I cannot do justice to the byways and paths Aerilon guided me through to reach the Yaera Leyalia.

  Il’alen was as much of the Light as it was made from the Light.

  We crossed shimmering bridges made of dew-spun sunlight spanning gorges separated by the steam of surging waterfalls, the air filled with the breath of respiring trees and the thrum of rushing water. We wove through branches as wide as boulevards shaded by leaves richer and more vibrant than all the gems in a dragon’s horde, the bark of fey Valdueren glowing beneath our feet with the constant, enlivening surety of the moon at its zenith and the sun nourishing the land in the fullness of spring. We passed fountains and gardens spun from the phantasms of angelic visions, my eyes watering and unable to fully take in their glory as my mind filled in what details it could.

  After a time that seemed like lifetimes but that must have been only minutes, we reached the sunlit glade of the Yaera Leyalia.

  The mighty boles of Valdueren threw my sense of scale off immediately.

  The trees were so massive that they made the glade and its occupants appear small.

  Glimmering with myriad hues of reflected light, the trees’ bark scintillated and danced in coruscating patterns of energy. There was life here in such depth and vibrancy that my heart raced in response, quickening in eagerness to share in the woods’ vitality.

  Within the trees’ shade, if shade it could rightly be called when it was actually illumination, a sidhe host drilled and prepared, or at least that was what I guessed they did, for I understood little of their actions.

  As miraculous as the sidhe were, as profoundly immense as the Valdueren were, neither were what drew my gaze as I looked upon the forest clearing.

  If sidhe radiated Light, if the Valdueren caught and refracted Light in all its forms and varieties, the yaera’l within were Light.

  Light danced and frolicked within the glade of a quality and refinement that appeared untouched and unsullied by the vagaries and travails of our universe. Sunlight appeared old, worn, and sullied in comparison to the living luminosity that cavorted through the branches and boles with all the eagerness and excitement of a newborn puppy.

  I was speechless.

  Thankfully, no one was asking me to talk.

  Sidhe took off and landed regularly, swallowed within the heart of these lambent entities.

  One moment a sidhe would be standing in ready expectation on the soft forest loam, gazing intently at some invisible horizon, and the next a swirling halo of Light would engulf her and she would be gone.

  How the sidhe held on, what they held on to, how they stayed inside, I had no idea.

  But they did.

  The yaera’l that came and went were varied in form and aspect.

  Some appeared to be highly ordered geometric expressions of energy, shaped by subtle mathematics and laws far beyond my ken. Others were luminous expressions of joy and ebullience that filled the woods with Light. Still others had no discernible form, existing as mere suggestions, the greater part of their presence elsewhere or unrealized.

  All were beings of true power and majesty.

  And I was supposed to ride on or, more accurately, in one.

  I swallowed deeply and reconsidered walking to Kerraboer.

  Before I could exercise my better judgment, Aerilon’s words filled my mind. “Come. Let us meet the Yaera Leyalia.”

  Having little choice, I followed more than somewhat reluctantly.

  Light rushed and swirled through and around me in a warm haze, a golden glow clouding my vision and overwhelming my senses with mingled feelings of dynamism, power, intelligence, and general positivity. My skin and insides tingled with sensations akin to the charge of static electricity but my hairs did not stand on end and there was no sudden release of charge when I touched an object.

  I had the impression that new dimensions of possibility opened before me, glimpses refracted through lenses of light.

  Whether these visions hinted at origins or potentialities, I could not yet say.

  This was, I supposed, the greeting of a yaera’l.

  I think I much preferred this welcome to the typical greeting of a demon.

  Of course, just about anything was preferable to meeting with a demon, but as far as contacts with the supernatural went, encountering the yaera’l was an unexpected pleasure.

  “Greeting, Saedeus of Silvaeron. I am Ueryan.” The regal sidhe that stepped out confidently from the shade of a nearby Valdueren bowed gracefully as his words coalesced within my mind as gently as dew upon a cool spring morn. Belying his words, he blazed with power and efficacy like the newly risen sun.

  As Ueryan’s words faded, images, sensations, and feelings I could not understand or encompass washed over me.

  I was gazing upon universes of living suns, radiance interpenetrating and interconnecting superimposed yet distinct entities of many luminous hues and aspects.

  If demons emerged from an endless pit of hellish Darkness, perhaps this was the merest glimpse into its opposite.

  The faintest whisper followed these images of realms of Light, one I strained to pick up and decipher but that, for all its subtlety, I knew was real. “…loel…”

  This was the yaera’l.

  Other thought-impressions and emotionscapes followed that were beyond me.

  I appreciated the pauses and spaces incorporated into its name.

  Although I might not fully understand the yaera’l’s naming conventions, I could certainly relate to the vast open expanses, abiding peace, and beauty that gave it birth.

  I bowed respectfully, my mind still and open.

  “Well met, Ueryan and …loel....

  “The pleasure of your meeting is mine.”

  “The pleasure of our journey will be ours.” Ueryan nodded formally in reply.

  Sensing much more to come, I would need to get past Ueryan’s formality if I were to retain my sanity.

  Quickly.

  “I will be your guide to fair Kerraboer.”

  Granted the speed with which the yaera’l and sidhe appeared and disappeared from the clearing, I imagined that I would not be with Ueryan for very long.

  Which meant that I could afford to be patient.

  This once.

  “Thank you, honorable Ueryan and gracious …loel… for offering to aid me on my journey.”

  After pausing for a moment, I added with more confidence than I felt, “How exactly will this work?”

  “You have nothing to fear, Saedeus. You will be enveloped securely within …loel’s… radiance. Before you are aware we have departed, we will be in Kerraboer and our journey will be at an end.”

  That, at least, sounded promising.

  My main concern was, as always, that even the easiest tasks became difficult in my presence.

  “Is there anything I must do in preparation?”

  “You need only tell us when you are ready to depar
t.

  “We will take you whenever you give the word.”

  If only everyone were so accommodating.

  The sidhe were so kind, I almost thought they were trying to get rid of me.

  Given my past experience, this sentiment would not be entirely unexpected.

  However, in the case of the sidhe, I knew the feeling was genuine.

  The sidhe risked themselves the world over fighting demonic incursions. With the help of the yaera’l they made many journeys to Kerraboer and other bastions of resistance, adding their strength and wisdom to the Light’s cause against Darkness.

  I would not belittle their efforts or their offer.

  Much.

  Which, since they occupied my head as readily as Alric, I knew they already knew.

  Remind me never to play cards with the sidhe.

  Or Alric, for that matter.

  Having little need for aught else and mostly because I never managed to think of another question to ask them to materialize, I replied, “I am ready when you are.”

  With a surge of light and the briefest instant of disorientation, I was gone.

  I should have asked to say goodbye to Aerilon.

  To Fair Kerraboer

  I was enclosed in a mantle of living Light.

  The cocoon of vital force cradled me gently, conforming to me like a second skin. A galaxy of layered, swirling lights filled my vision, distracting me from the violent acceleration that I anticipated but never felt.

  I could not see Ueryan although I sensed his presence as another facet of light within the prismatic jewel that was the interior of the yaera’l.

  I could get used to this.

  Until it was gone.

  A cataclysmic wave of mephitic power tore through me, shredding the nacreous glory of …loel… in a writhing mass of raw destruction.

  Falling, I saw a gigantic, tremulous mass of fell demonic energies surging around Ueryan and …loel.... Within this torrent, incandescent power flashed like lightning strikes in a summer storm as the sidhe and yaera’l fought back against the demonic aggressor.

  I quickly lost track of both Ueryan and …loel… as I tumbled head over heels from the sky.

  Leaving the infernal trap for my impending demise.