Legacy of the Blade: The Complete Trilogy

by Joseph J. Bailey

  I missed interacting with people, the closeness of family and the joy of friendship.

  I missed my teacher, the heights of knowledge, and the untold limits of the imagination.

  I was, however, a bridge to Kun’Daer, a link between past and future.

  I hoped to bring some of home’s light and vitality into this shadowed world.

  If I had my way, the refugees and outcasts from Uërth would one day reseed it.

  There was much to discuss with Mistress Alyendra when next we spoke.

  I could not wait for the evening, for the security of camp and the opportunity to connect with my teacher.

  This incentive, the thought of conversation, novel ideas, and emotional support, helped me surge across the barren land, one wave among many others.

  The Beginnings of a Plan

  “Mistress?”

  I sat sheltered beneath the coruscating shield provided by the stave, what looked to me like a wash of stars from the inside but which, when viewed from the outside, appeared as nothing more than another unremarkable piece of the evening gloaming.

  In front of me, my staff glowed in radiant lambency, providing enough light to read by if I so chose, the gem at its tip a small sun not yet ascended into the heavens.

  “Ilya! My heart skips with joy at the sound of your voice!

  “I cannot wait to hear the music of your words each evening, for, until I do, my heart is filled with a thunderously vexsome mixture of worry about you, concern for your safety, and confidence in your ability to survive and cope with whatever may come.”

  I tried not to let my teacher’s emotions overcome me, for I was already overcome. Seeing her helped me release all the pressures and tensions of the day, for she was the lifeline that helped pull me through.

  Her delightful mixture of sunny disposition, evident concern, and eclectically frazzled demeanor was so unlike her, but also so appreciated, that the smile I felt, the one that suffused me from head to toe upon seeing her, naturally bubbled to the surface despite the intended gravity of my conversation.

  “I feel similarly, Mistress. For I love the freedom and joy of the wide world, but I fear not what I wish to give, but what it has to offer.

  “Worry not, for I am well, unlike the land through which I travel.

  “Uërth has had her heart torn out, for she sings only imperceptibly, if at all.”

  Despite the direness of my comments, my teacher’s face lit up, anticipating what was to come, reading me as easily as the music she taught.

  “And you plan to help restore her voice?”

  If I had not been confined to my tent, I would have jumped to my feet in my effort to express my enthusiasm. “Mistress, I hope to help her sing!

  “I want her voice to be restored and renewed, full of the vibrancy and life she once had! I wish her song to rise to the heavens and lift the spirit higher! I wish for her arias to shake the firmament and soothe the tired soul.

  “I wish for her voice to be made whole.”

  My teacher bowed her glorious head, her shimmering locks shafts of starshine falling about her lithe shoulders. “How may I help make your vision real?”

  I never had any doubt that Mistress Alyendra would endeavor to help, but hearing those words offered an unexpected wash of relief nonetheless. “If I ask it, can you transfer living seeds from the bank to my pack?”

  Mistress Alyendra beamed, her face telling me all I needed to know. Not only would she assist, but she approved. “There is no need, child. I am able to summon the seeds you need without depleting the vaults. You have but to ask, and they will be yours.”

  I smiled. “I will take as many seeds as you offer.”

  “I will make certain that your bag has a ready stock. What you need will come to hand.”

  “Thank you, Mistress. What shall I do to help them be resistant to the demonic blight?

  “How can I make any music I bestow upon them persist?”

  “This, Ilya, is a topic of long study and even longer explanation.

  “We have had much success in this research since we fled Uërth after the Fall, for sidhe magic sustains and protects by its nature. The problem arises when the Alaurana Leyalia are absent and no longer able to support what we once gave.

  “But I think I have found a way.”

  She had.

  And she told me all about it.

  A Lone Voice

  I could Sing.

  My voice could echo among the heavens.

  I could coax the spirit to the highest imaginings.

  My words could quicken the blood and fuel the mind.

  My hymns could weaken and enhance, could bring life and ability to its apex or undermine its essence.

  My lyrics could cast down or raise up.

  My words could be a boon or a bane, depending on how they were tuned and sculpted, contingent upon my intent.

  I could make my friends perform beyond their wildest expectations, and I could make my enemies doubt their most fundamental traits.

  I was a Singer, a djen’caer, a soul singer, and my voice called to the spirit in all its innumerable manifestations, permutations, and expressions.

  Mine was the voice of life and death.

  I was the Word and its realization.

  Almost.

  Or perhaps one day.

  For I was not the voice of Creation.

  Far from it.

  I could not create something from nothing, as could wizards and many other mages gifted in the higher Arts.

  Unlike Mistress Alyendra, my voice was not yet that elevated, might never be that eminent.

  I could take reality as it was and coax it into what it might be.

  But I could not make my own reality.

  Nor could I make reality mine.

  I worked with what I was given.

  But my voice gave me much.

  It gave me the freedom to brave the wilds of a fallen world, to strive after my dreams, and make real my goals and aspirations.

  My voice was my guide, and I followed where it led, letting it show me what was possible while I made the potential real.

  My voice would open the doors, letting others come home.

  One day.

  If my refrain did not falter.

  If my voice did not fade.

  And There Be Demons

  Coming out from the protective cocoon provided by my stave in the morning was harder than I had imagined. Under its aegis, I was safe and shielded from most potential inspections and attacks. Outside, I was exposed and in the open, left to my own devices should I need to protect myself from potential dangers.

  Being self-reliant was a bit of a challenge when I was not sure if I could rely on myself.

  Questioning myself and my abilities was not going to get me to the relative safety of the lands held by dragons and elementals, however. To do that, I had to walk, to move forward, and to risk exposure.

  So I began my chant.

  Magic came alive around me.

  It moved and shifted, merged and drifted in subtle patterns and permutations, constantly in flux.

  My voice coaxed and caressed, urged and prodded, giving cadence and form to its evanescent flow.

  My words, my Song, were the structure and arrangement around which magical expression was created.

  Words flowed, and magic followed.

  Feeling my limbs lighten and my energy build as the magic suffused my body, I started across the windswept peaks that seemed to go on without end.

  The morning air was crisp and uncluttered. I stood looking down upon a glacier-worn valley, the snow and ice gone, but the scars of their passage remaining.

  Sadly, demons were not yet like the glaciers below.

  The monsters remained, along with the scars they left behind.

  The Dragon’s Teeth seemed endless, an unbroken expanse of peaks that refused to yield to the passage of time. Gray and imposing, as far as I could see, row upon row of mountains marched off to the
horizons. Though I would descend to the valley bottom and follow its curves eastward today, I would feel the mountains’ presence all around me nonetheless.

  A rarity, the sky was clear of clouds, though it no longer held the brilliant colors told of old. Instead, the firmament appeared to be an ashy charcoal, as though the air itself could not release the memory of brooding clouds and ominous storms.

  The earth and sky were of one mood—dark and doleful.

  I tried to let the promise of my Choosing, of the beginnings of my plan, buoy my spirits, but it was no use.

  The oppressive mood gradually settled into me, weighing me down with the leavings of centuries of tragedy visited upon a once vibrant world.

  Hitching up my pack, I used my staff as a walking stick, kept at the ready should I need its protections, the soft beat of its taps on the rocks keeping subtle time with my intonations.

  In the distance, great black birds circled high overhead, catching the winds lifting upward from the slopes of the great peaks, their mighty wings defying the forces seeking to drag them back to earth.

  With a few adjustments in tone and timbre, my song changed and my vision sharpened.

  They were not birds.

  They were demons—massive, tattered pools of blackness whose wings moved only to currents of their own.

  The demons looked vaguely humanoid, but finer details were hard to resolve, so dark was their substance. Unreal geometries, mind-numbing symmetries, and repellent abstractions seemed to flit within the dark folds of their essences. The infernals’ silhouettes, the most readily resolved aspect of their presence, resembled a cross between monstrous reptilian hulks and seething ghostly specters.

  Or something far worse.

  The creatures were scouring the landscape like birds, unholy carrion feeders, perhaps.

  I hoped that my refrain would keep me unnoticed.

  I did not want to be the corpse the infernals were feeding upon.

  Only time and the constant chorus of my internal song would tell.

  A Brief Tune

  I only realized how hard my heart had been pounding once the demons had finally vanished from sight behind the intervening mountains.

  The drum beat of my pulse had carried on so long and loudly that its dampening was as unmistakable as a sudden silence inexplicably falling over a crowded room once full of lively conversation.

  I was grateful for this stillness.

  Mostly because of its cause.

  The valley bottom I was jogging through was worn and flat, filled with the dust and detritus of past storms, rock falls, and erosion. Each step forward brought a small plume of dirt, miniature eruptions puffing upward from the parched earth.

  The land was sad, weakened of voice and deprived of promise. Whatever had once made this place home was now long gone.

  Wind whistled through the valley, funneled by the rough walls of the peaks, pulling sand and grit from one spot to the next in meandering clouds. I squinted to prevent any stray particles from getting into my eyes but was less than successful in my attempt.

  As I ran, I began to notice another sound over the synergy of the wind, my breathing, my heartbeat, and my footfalls, one I had dismissed at first but came to realize was not my imagination filling in the promise of sounds I hoped to hear.

  I could hear water.

  The soothing layers of flowing water spoke to me of home, of better times, and promises to keep.

  The trickle of water in the distance called to me, a ghost from the distant past. The soft music was little more than the earth’s exhalation, but its sound pulled me ahead nonetheless.

  I did not want to resist its allure.

  Around a broad sweep of the valley, one rocky turn among many, nestled between two massive cracked boulders, riven perhaps by a great fall, a small rivulet pooled in the shadows. A streak of water, slicked by growing algae beneath its dark path, showed where the spring emerged from the mountainside.

  Along the rocky pool’s edge, in the reluctant sunlight, scraggly plants struggled upward in the half-light before the water disappeared once more into the thirsty earth.

  My eyes and ears alert for subtle dissonance, the land out of tune, I scouted for danger, but none arose.

  Walking forward reverently, I approached the pool.

  The waters were clear, a natural divider between two worlds. On the surface, the sky gazed back at me, clouds drifting across the water unhurriedly. Beneath the surface, time moved languidly as the tracery of living things cradled within shifted gently in tune with the water’s rhythm.

  This pool, so tenuous, was a lifeline for the living things struggling to survive within and around its mutable periphery.

  Could I help make this line more secure?

  Could I help the living things here endure?

  Could I help bring life back to this place after so long an absence?

  There was only one way to find out.

  I had to try.

  Life here flowed linearly.

  Life began in the mountain at the stream’s source and flowed outward, its conduit the water, a resource at once precious and scarce.

  The magic of the living things reliant upon the watercourse, their essences, helped strengthen the strand, allowing it to persevere through time, but the thread was vulnerable nonetheless.

  Demons had cut altogether too many such threads.

  Despite this risk, could this fragile strand be reinforced, turned from a threadbare line into a knot or a loop?

  Could I perhaps turn this stream from a conduit draining outward over time, its riches lost to the thirsty, unforgiving earth and voracious demonic entities, into a pool that would grow, a place where life could thrive and come to flower?

  This, at least, was the barest metaphor for what I would try.

  I matched my voice to the stream—its timbre, the subtle music of its tones. I let the stream’s music fill me with its textures and vitality. Adding in my own voice, I slowly built on what was with what could be.

  I did not create, I accentuated.

  I did not direct, I added.

  I did not change, I encouraged.

  I did not close, I opened.

  I accentuated what was with what could be.

  I added possibility to the richness that was already present.

  I encouraged a future that had been lost to the paucity and dangers of the present.

  I opened up the flow of energy in a system that was lacking, enabling other life to grow and flourish, for the rivulet to move from a line to a circle, tying a knot before it frayed or came undone.

  Opening up my bag as I sang, I added the seeds of plants suitable to the place to the damp soil so that other living things could grow and prosper, so that one day, if I returned, I might walk through an Eden and not a desert.

  Satisfied with what I had done, I stood up, dusted off my hands, and trotted past the fallen boulders and around the valley’s bend, the stream’s humble song adding to my own, its whisper now a chorus that I hoped other living things would hear.

  And So It Begins

  “Help me!”

  The sobbing scream echoed through the xeric valley, bouncing off the sheer walls like lost hope.

  “Please!”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end, a signal of fear and warning.

  Words had meaning, power.

  But words’ intents held more.

  Therein lay the secret to magic: not in the words themselves, but in the meaning and intent behind them.

  Mistress Alyendra had spent a lifetime training me in the intents behind words, the hidden meanings only truly understood by one listening, one trained to listen.

  These meanings could be expressed. This was the voice of creation.

  Or destruction.

  My stomach flipped, sinking as the words washed over me again.

  “Help me!

  “Please!”

  These words said one thing but meant another.
<
br />   What they said was, “Help me! I am scared, alone, and in pain. Lend me your aid before the demons come and claim me!”

  What they meant, the intent behind the words, was something else entirely. The words’ meaning was, “I am hungry! Come to me so that I may feed! Give me your soul that I may grow stronger and reap until the sun grows dim in the accursed sky.”

  Far down the mountain’s sweep, perhaps a quarter league away, crumpled on the bottom slopes of the rocky cliffs, a body lay huddled, only half visible beside a large, misshapen boulder.

  Where nobody should be, especially one calling out stridently for aid in a land overrun by demons.

  This was the siren song urging me to my doom.

  My neck was still tingling in recognition of a threat acknowledged but not yet avoided.

  When there was one, there were many.

  Such were the ways of demons.

  This was a trap meant to draw my attention and lure me near.

  The valley sang this to me, the very air thrumming with this refrain. I heard this warning riding the back of the wind, in the furtive play of the shadows at the valley bottom, and in the oppressive silence ready to swallow me whole.

  Because I listened, I heard.

  Because I heard, I could act.

  With a subvocal hymn, the call of the wind, the openness of the sky, and the quickening of spirit, I ran, quiet as a shadow, fleet as thought.

  The demons knew I was near now, just as they would soon learn that I was gone.

  A Place Unlike Any Other

  I only slowed when I was certain the demons behind me were no longer in pursuit.

  The infernals had dogged me over peak and valley, slowly falling farther and farther behind as I sped ahead, a pack of ravenous interlopers I could sense even without seeing, for their presence was as vile and foreign as the warm sunlight above was welcoming and reassuring.

  My throat was raw from singing, the frothy chorus of my intention flitted around me in manic ebbs and advances, my nerves on edge from maintaining concentration while I sped over the landscape, a flash of scintillating light and sound.