The Shattered Orb (Vagrant Souls Book 1)

by Samuel E. Green

  "I want to apologize." While Hiroc was recovering from shock, Ealstan walked over and held out his hand. He suddenly appeared genuine. "Really. It doesn't matter that you are Talented. Not now. The wraiths have come, and we all have to do our best to get along."

  Hiroc had never heard Ealstan apologize before. Not to him. Not to anyone. Sighing, Hiroc took Ealstan's hand and shook it. It seemed that even the worst people could be good during bad times.

  "Can I buy you an ale?" Ealstan asked.

  He was the last person Hiroc wanted to drink with, but it had been a long day, and he had finally found Edoma's book. So he agreed.

  He scrawled a note to Edoma on a piece of parchment and placed it atop the book the old Daughter had given him. He didn't take credit for finding the book. Instead, he wrote that the librarian had found it. He didn't hesitate to add, however, that Fryda had not come to the library that day.

  Hiroc followed Ealstan out from the temple. Like when he had come in, Hiroc avoided looking at the Daughters as they worked the machines. Ealstan stopped a number of times to look with appreciation on the machines. Hiroc kept walking.

  When Ealstan finally got out from the temple, he led Hiroc to the Basilica. Rather than walk into the tavern where all the acolytes drank ale, though, he kept walking.

  "Where are you going?" Hiroc said.

  "I have a surprise for you," Ealstan said, not slowing down.

  They eventually stopped on the far side of the Basilica where there was a small vineyard. A handful of other acolytes were huddled in a circle, Kipp among them. He smiled at Hiroc. "Look what we found."

  As Hiroc got closer, he saw that the group had gathered around a deep pit, laughing. He stepped over to the ledge and peered into the pit. At the bottom, scratching at the dirt walls, was a skinwalker.

  "It turns out that the wards only keep out the wraiths," Ealstan said smugly. "The skinwalkers are unaffected."

  Kipp hurled a fruit at the skinwalker, splattering a rotten mess onto its deformed face.

  Clenching his fists, Hiroc spun to face the group. "Blood and bones, what are you lot doing? Don't you know how dangerous skinwalkers are? I've seen what they can do. This one needs to be killed. Now."

  The others looked at him with skeptical expressions.

  "We know exactly what we're doing," Ealstan said. "We're having a little fun. And it's about to get a whole lot more exciting."

  Ealstan reached and grabbed Hiroc's knife from his belt. He unsheathed the knife and then shoved Hiroc with his other hand. Hiroc waved his arms as if they might somehow cause him to stay upright. But all they found was empty air as he went over the edge. The breath was knocked out of him as his back slammed into the dirt floor of the pit.

  "Now, who wants to place a bet?" Ealstan called from above. "The Talented or the skinwalker?"

  Hiroc groggily stood. The skinwalker snarled at him. It barely looked human anymore. This one had been a host for a long time. It was probably one of the first. A massive mound arched from its neck to the middle of its back. Two appendages stuck out from the mound, as though it were halfway to sprouting wings.

  Again it snarled.

  Cheers erupted from above.

  Hiroc had eaten with many of those acolytes above him. He might've even called some of them friends. Seeing them above him, placing bets on who would win, made him realize just how much the Talented were hated. It was more than any Fatherless. And he was both.

  There was no point holding back. Those spectating what might be his death already knew he was Talented.

  The skinwalker looked up to the people on the edge above and then to Hiroc. It cocked its head and grinned, as though it knew Hiroc had been betrayed. One moment it was looking at him, and another it was in midair, coming toward him. Twisting, Hiroc tried to avoid its attack. He cried as talons raked across his back. Still turning, he rolled along the ground. He scrambled to his feet, breathless. The wounds stung, but they must have only grazed him. Even so, he could feel a stickiness grabbing at his robes.

  Hiroc eyed the skinwalker as it licked the blood from its talons. He squeezed his ring. "Enlil, hear my prayer!"

  My child, a voice spoke in his head. It was the same voice that had spoken to him every time he visited Tyme's Hill. Something stirred inside Hiroc. With certainty, he realized now that it wasn't Aern's voice he had heard at Tyme's Hill. It couldn't have been. It must have been Enlil's.

  He allowed the warm feeling to run through his body. He didn't fight it. It coursed through his limbs, electrifying him with energy. It finished at his fingertips, and small tongues of blue flame came from each of them. Ten ribbons of blue flame shot toward the skinwalker. The skinwalker darted to the other side of the pit. The fire ribbons found nothing except dirt wall, and disintegrated.

  Knowing that death was imminent, Hiroc grabbed his ring again. "Again I request your help, Enlil of the Eternal Flame."

  But there was nothing. Only a void. Where power had once been was now emptiness. Had the runic device run out as Edoma and Mildryd said it would?

  Before Hiroc could consider his next move, the skinwalker rushed him. It landed on top of him as he was driven to the ground. Its long talons punctured the flesh below his shoulders, pinning him. He struggled as the skinwalker opened its mouth. Hot saliva dripped onto his face.

  Hiroc put a hand to either side of him and scrounged for something, anything, that might stop the skinwalker from tearing open his neck and drinking his blood. His left hand found a rock. The rock in hand, he slammed it against the side of the skinwalker's head. The first blow struck the skinwalker stupid. The second cracked open its skull. Brain matter exploded with the third. Again and again, Hiroc drove the rock into the skinwalker until his arm ached and he couldn't lift it anymore.

  Everything was quiet except for Hiroc's labored breathing. Applause and whistling sounded above him.

  A red cloud drifted from the mangled remains of the skinwalker's head. It burst into tiny flecks of crimson.

  Hiroc couldn't get up. Although the skinwalker was dead, its taloned hands were still pinning him down. His vision blurred from blood loss, but he could see shapes moving in the pit around him. The skinwalker was removed from where it had died on top of him. Someone came alongside him and helped him to his feet.

  "You did well," Ealstan said. "I can see why Beorhtel wants Talented in his army. A couple of you Talented and we might not even need wards to stop the wraiths. It was close, though. I almost thought he had you at one point."

  Gasping, Hiroc wavered on his feet as if he were drunk. Managing to stay upright, he grabbed his ring and whispered Enlil's name. Again he was confronted by the void. Perhaps it was a good thing, because, right now, he could've torched Ealstan to a cinder and not felt a sliver of regret.

  "What?" Ealstan asked, his voice nasally. "You're going to burn me? I doubt very much you have the balls for that."

  But it wasn't balls that Hiroc didn't have—it was a working runic device.

  Ealstan's grin wavered. He must not have been sure whether Hiroc was, in fact, going to use the ring. Even though Hiroc felt like he was about to die, he couldn't help being amused at Ealstan's ignorance. Still, it seemed the other man knew that the runic ring had lost its power. How would he know that?

  Pain silenced the question. Hiroc could barely breathe, but he mustered up enough energy to say, "Are you done playing games now?"

  "King Beorhtel's inquisitors won't be coming for you anytime soon." Ealstan's voice was sinister. "I'm only getting started."

  With all the energy he could muster, Hiroc punched Ealstan in the nose. There was a satisfying crunch beneath his fist. Ealstan clutched his nose as blood escaped through his fingers.

  Hiroc laughed dryly and coughed, blood bubbling out from his mouth. The ground shifted beneath his feet, and he felt weightless as he crashed in a heap.

  26

  Edoma

  Edoma ran her fingers over the rune that was causing her difficulty. It look
ed like the number eight. She withdrew a tome from her satchel and tore a page from it. The book wasn't particularly interesting, mostly a taxonomy of plant life in the Southern Isles written by a seer. And that was part of its secret. Supposedly, the seer, rumored to be the same man who had enlisted the builders to fashion this godstone door, hid a code within the book. When the page was placed over runes the seer had written, special ink on the pages would translate the runes into the language of the person holding it. Mildryd had given it to her in the hopes that it might finally open the godstone door.

  Her hand shook as she pressed the paper against the eight on the door. She closed her eyes, hoping for the words to spring to her mind's eye. The only thing she could see was the afterimage of the torch. She concentrated harder, searching for some semblance of meaning in the runes.

  Nothing.

  Yelling, she threw the tome against the wall. It fell to the ground with a meaningless thud as her cry echoed through the hall. But her fury wasn't yet quenched. Storming across the corridor, she stomped on the tome until her feet were shooting with pain.

  Another dead end. Another day wasted. How could she possibly have thought a piece of paper would be capable of translating ancient runes? It was foolish beyond belief. The younger Edoma would have laughed until her sides hurt. Instead, the old and weary woman slumped against a statue.

  She looked up at the statue's indifferent gaze, and cursed the day she had begun this futile endeavor. Her time could have been devoted to more important things. Her sons, for one. But that wasn't her lot. Life had become an endless path of frustration after frustration.

  Fryda appeared in front of Edoma. Dust caked her robes. She had obviously been enjoying this trip to the catacombs. "Is everything okay?" she asked.

  Edoma sighed, and her gaze settled on the statue of a woman clothed in fine robes, her left sleeve drawn down over her shoulder so that a single breast was exposed. The statues within the room were all people who the First Priest believed worthy of veneration. Edoma supposed this woman had been his mother, and the exposed breast symbolized her weaning him. The statue's eyes were open, fixated on the leftmost corner of the room.

  Edoma stood, a possible discovery on the edge of her mind.

  "You haven't gone crazy, have you?" Fryda said. "I heard shouting and—"

  Edoma hushed Fryda with a hand as she followed the gaze of each statue. One led to another until they ended with a small boy clad in ill-fitting armor and a claymore twice his height. A single hand was outstretched in supplication. She had gathered him to be the boy-warrior Gunnar who had banished the sea demons from the Edin River. Unlike the rest of the statues, whose gazes led to another statue, his eyes were closed.

  The First Empire never constructed something haphazardly. There was always meaning behind their handiwork. Why were the boy's eyes shut?

  Edoma turned to Fryda, who had been quietly watching. "Help me onto the plinth."

  Pouting, Fryda got underneath Edoma so that she was able to climb onto the statue.

  "The torch," Edoma said, holding out her hand. Fryda retrieved the torch from the sconce and handed it to Edoma. The torchlight illumined the surface of the statue. There wasn't a hint of a secret lever or magical ward. Nothing about it was out of the ordinary except for the closed eyes.

  Edoma leaped down from the statue and winced as pain shot up through her ankles. She was too old to be doing this.

  She crouched down and read the inscription on the statue's plinth.

  The gift I gave was not my own

  I gave it for my friends alone

  The gods granted me this boon

  I did not take it to the tomb

  Return it to me and you will find

  Your soul at the gates declined

  "Anything?" Fryda asked.

  "I thought maybe there was something to this statue. But there's just this riddle. It's nothing new to me. I've read it and all the others inside the catacombs many times. And like the others, it makes little sense."

  "There's definitely something different about this statue. His eyes are closed, for one." Fryda spoke matter-of-factly, as if it were plain.

  Edoma almost choked. "You noticed that? I've been searching for years and today is the first time I've noticed his eyes were shut."

  Fryda shrugged. "Sometimes you need fresh eyes on an old problem."

  "Is there anything else you've noticed?"

  "Just one thing." She jumped onto the statue's plinth in a single bound. Holding out her arms like an acrobat, she bowed.

  "Get on with it," Edoma said. It was hard to be thankful when Fryda rubbed it in.

  "This here"—she pointed below the boy statue's neck—"is an imprint of a medallion."

  Edoma's eyes widened. How had she not seen that? To her, the imprint had looked like an embroidered sigil on the boy's oversized armor. But now that Fryda had pointed it out, she could see exactly what medallion would fit within the strangely shaped imprint. "Thank you, Fryda. You've been helpful beyond measure."

  "You don't want more of my help?" Fryda asked.

  "There are some books I can consult about the medallion," Edoma lied. It wasn't that she didn't want Fryda's assistance, just that she wouldn't be able to help further. The imprint of the medallion, she now realized, was the mirror image of the medallion Idmaer now wore around his neck.

  "Since I helped you," Fryda said, "I was wondering if you could help me."

  Edoma could have told Fryda that helping the Mother Superior was part of a Daughter's duty. Instead, she decided to hear what Fryda had to say. "Yes?" she asked.

  "Can you tell me what happened to Jaruman's family?" She removed her hairpin and stared at it. "I know they died in Mundos. But I want to know how."

  "Both he and I lost people to the wraiths there, but I was unmarried and had only my father." Edoma remembered how she had been forced to drive a dagger through her father's heart. That day would never leave her memory. At least she'd made peace with it. "Jaruman, however, had a wife and a newborn. The wraiths took them for hosts."

  Fryda gasped. "The baby, too? I always assumed his daughter was older."

  "Jaruman had been mute when I first met him. He found his voice while we were in the Scorched Lands. He told us all about how he'd been forced to kill them."

  "Are the wraiths demons? Surely only demons could be capable of such evil."

  "They are spirits the gods did not allow to pass through the Eternal Tollhouses. Instead, they became trapped within a realm of darkness."

  "How did they get out? I mean, if the gods trapped them, shouldn't they still be there?"

  "That is a good question. One I do not know the answer to. Such wonderings are for philosophers. We must deal with the here and now—finding the grimoire while we wait for the warriors to return."

  At the mention of the warriors, Fryda started brushing down her robes. Sure, there was dust on them, but she never seemed to care about their dirtiness. Not unless she needed something to do with her hands so she didn't chew on her fingernails.

  "Tell me what you know of the warriors," Edoma said, tilting her head. "You saw something of them when you were outside the walls with Jaruman, didn't you?"

  Fryda continued playing with her robes, as though she hadn't heard Edoma. But she didn't need to answer. The truth was evident from her unwillingness to meet Edoma's eyes.

  Edoma folded both arms across her chest. "You will answer me, novice."

  Fryda swallowed and nodded. "I saw him. Well, not exactly him. He was a skinwalker." She broke into tears.

  Edoma's bottom lip trembled. Fryda could only have been speaking about Alfric.

  Swallowing the desire to cry, Edoma said, "I . . . I must go."

  Without another word, Edoma went to the shaft and thrashed the crank until her arms lost all feeling, and then thrashed it some more. She swung violently from the speed before coming to the top.

  Unclipping the harness, Edoma rushed to her private chambers, not stop
ping to answer the Daughters asking what was wrong. She closed the door behind her and swung the lock shut. She fumbled for the key on her belt and unlocked the chest. Taking the scrying crystal in her palm, she rested it on the floor and knelt in front of it. She had refused to use the crystal when Saega had asked her to, because of the other-realm's allure. But she was going to face it now.

  "Enlil, keep me safe," she whispered.

  Calming her mind, she drew her belt dagger and sliced open her palm. Blood dripped as she raised it above the scrying crystal. Droplets hit the surface and power surged through her.

  Instead of using her will to send the power out, she turned it in on herself, rolling it like a baker does dough. Her consciousness compressed until it was a speck of white light. Moments before she would have winked out of existence, she burst, a sun of pure light. The light faded.

  The world was the same, except gray. Gray, and more grays, every shade of gray. There were no senses except for those the mind produced. Something like sight, except not sight. Something like smell, but not quite smell. Each sense produced a feeling like drunkenness, except without sickness. Giving oneself over to the feeling was always a temptation, but one that would turn deadly if she didn't temper it.

  She had used such a crystal as an apprentice mage in Mundos, so she was accustomed to the disembodied feeling. The euphoria washed over her. The kind of pleasure an evil deed begets. Before long, it would become more an assault than a caress.

  Pushing the feeling aside, she shifted through the temple. She kept shifting until she was among the stars, staring at the entire continent from a vantage point few human eyes had seen. So many non-sights, non-scents, non-sounds, non-tastes, and non-touches threatened to overwhelm her. She screamed without sound, cried without tears, until everything faded.

  She focused now on the warriors who had been sent out from Indham's gates.

  The mental images of two men appeared in front of her: Sigebert and Cenred. The two older warriors were devoid of color, like a drawing etched in charcoal. They walked among the great trees of Grimwald Forest. But there was no Alfric.