The Shattered Orb (Vagrant Souls Book 1)

by Samuel E. Green

  "A stupid thing to do. It's useless to you without a mage."

  "I came to realize that. I was going to give it back to Edoma when I saw a man outside the gates. The wards lit up beneath his feet, but he didn't look like a skinwalker. He looked like a regular man, except he had tattooed wards on his face."

  Jaruman's eye widened. "Was there anything else?"

  "The wards shimmered in the sun."

  "Peoh," Jaruman said, gripping the bench with his large hands.

  "You know the man?"

  Jaruman nodded. "He was the Archmage of Mundos."

  "So he was a mage," she said under her breath.

  "More than that. He took a vow with Edoma and Saega before leaving Mundos. They were to pay the south back for the destruction of their orb. That vengeance was to shatter a southern orb, thereby bringing the wraiths to that region."

  Fryda gasped. "Does that mean Edoma and Peoh are responsible for what happened to Aern?"

  "They swore never to fulfill that vow."

  Vowing not to fulfill another vow didn't make much sense. Still, Fryda agreed with Jaruman that they both loved Indham's people. And if Jaruman told her that they wouldn't have been capable of killing Aern, she believed him.

  "Peoh's presence here must have something to do with Aern," Jaruman said. "I suspect he came to fulfill the oath where Edoma and Saega didn't."

  "Hiroc said a giant was on Tyme's Hill. The man I saw at the gates wasn't a giant."

  "Not all men are as they appear to be."

  "I was going to ask him if he could ward me with the dragon blood, but Bertram had him imprisoned inside Idmaer's Spire."

  Jaruman squatted behind the bench so that he was hidden from view. The clinking of metal sounded. When he stood, an ax was clipped to his belt. He held a short spear in one hand. It was the spear he had trained Fryda with ever since he'd adopted her.

  He stepped out from the bench and handed her the spear. "Take this to bed with you tonight. In the morning, you will use what I've taught you. Bertram's probably imprisoned Peoh in the same cell as the skinwalkers. He's a resourceful man, though. Let's hope he lasts the night."

  "But you said he shattered the orb. Why would we want to save him?"

  "Because he might be the only man who can save Indham."

  Fryda was surprised Jaruman was going to let her come with him to the spire. He must have known by now that she would have followed him.

  Before she descended into the cellar, Jaruman brushed aside her hair with his calloused fingers. He'd never kissed her as a father did. He'd always said it wasn't right, him not really being her father. But when he touched her hair like that, she knew he loved her like a father.

  "Don't fear tomorrow," he said. "Cut the head off a skinwalker and it stops living well enough."

  Fryda gulped and nodded her head. It was a strange way to bid someone goodnight, but Jaruman had once been a great warrior, and that probably meant he didn't have nightmares. As she entered the cellar, the thought of nightmares brought Alfric to mind.

  Where was he now? Was it true that his soul still existed within his body, sharing it with the wraith that now controlled it?

  She pulled off her robes and fell onto the mattress. When she closed her eyes, she saw the man from Alchemist's Alley. He turned, the hairpin sticking from his eye like a lance, and pointed a finger at her. His face morphed and changed until it became Alfric. He scuttled backward and forward as he'd done in the clearing.

  His mouth moved, and a strange voice came out. "You should have told me not to go on the quest."

  Fryda clenched her fists and felt wood in her left hand. She thrust the spear at Alfric's face. The blade plunged into his left eye socket.

  Alfric faded and became the man in the alley once more. He was lying dead on the cobblestones, the hairpin sticking out from his eye.

  37

  Edoma

  "I'm surprised you came so soon," Edoma said. She'd sent a messenger to Saega's home less than an hour ago. "I visited your house yesterday, but you weren't there."

  "I spent the evening in the Basilica. It was fortuitous that your messenger saw my carriage this morning." He shuffled over to the desk and picked up one of the books. He flicked through the pages, turned up his nose, and placed it back down.

  "What were you doing in the Basilica?"

  "I have an acolyte keeping an eye on things." His face was swollen. Pus dripped from open sores along his cheeks and forehead. Every movement was mechanical, as though he struggled even to breathe.

  She hadn't considered that Saega might be too unwell to come to her. After the way Idmaer's Spire had almost killed her, she wasn't making rational decisions.

  With a groan, Saega placed a vial onto the table.

  "Dragon blood," Edoma whispered, and picked it up. It was much smaller than the one she had lost. She held it up to the morning light coming through the windows. Only enough blood for a single warding.

  "Mildryd told me you were looking for it." He smiled mirthlessly. His gums were a deep purple.

  "Did she tell you what I saw in the scrying crystal?"

  With effort, Saega walked over to her. He placed a bony hand on her shoulder. "You were a good mother to him. What you saw cannot be. He is lost. Don't hold on to false hope."

  Edoma didn't know what to believe. She'd never seen a soul still inhabiting its body after a wraith had taken it.

  "I can help you," Saega said, taking a seat beside her. "Ward me with the dragon blood. I can go to the enclosure and bring a dragon back."

  "Even if I chose to ward you, you'd need a suppression—" She stopped. There had been a suppression stone lying on Saega's table, beneath the black robes and next to his fox-head staff.

  "I'm the only person strong enough to take on a dragon by myself."

  Edoma glanced at his frail body. Maybe he was still strong enough with Sulith's magic, however terrible he might look now. "Even so, a suppression stone can only control one dragon. There could be dozens down there."

  "I'm Indham's only chance."

  He was right. She could have warded more than one person with the vial of dragon blood she'd lost, but that could be anywhere. It could be broken, the blood spilt and unusable.

  Saega's knees cracked loudly as he stood. "Now that that's sorted, you can ward me, and I'll leave for the dragon enclosure."

  "There's something else," she said. She figured that while he was getting a dragon, she could find some other way to get the grimoire from the First Priest's tomb. "I found a statue inside the catacombs with its eyes closed. The riddle on the plinth spoke of a gift. There's a small ridge on the statue's chest. Those three things made me think that the statue is the First Priest and the First Priest's medallion is the gift that fits inside the ridge."

  "That's excellent news. All you need is Idmaer to give you the medallion, then."

  Edoma shook her head and clenched her fists. She fought back the anger.

  "You already asked him," Saega said, reading her thoughts. He shuffled over to the pack he'd carried inside the temple. He removed his black runic robes from it and pulled them over his head. He touched a bleeding sore on his face and whispered an incantation.

  Edoma realized then that his sickness must have been self-induced. He was using his own lifesoul to empower himself. It was like burning a candle at both ends.

  Saega's sickness seemed to have vanished as he flooded his body with Sulith's magic. The sores were still there and his eyes were rheumy, but he had been energized. "Take me down the shaft."

  * * *

  Saega looked like a child during the Summertide Festival as he paced around the catacombs. His robes, much too big for him, trailed along the ground. "These are marvelous." His eyes widened upon seeing the luck charms of the First Priest. He held them against the torchlight. "Do they still work?"

  "Everything in here has lost its magic to time." She took Saega to the room at the end of the corridor.

  Saega passed the sta
tues with his head bowed low. Much could be said about the man's contempt for just about everyone besides himself, but he truly revered the legendary heroes. They were renowned all over the continent, from the north to the south, the men and women who fought against the gods and won.

  Saega strode over to the boy-statue and rested a hand on the stone claymore. "I'm not surprised that this statue is the key. I'm reminded of a certain apocryphal story. It said that the First Priest was not a man but a boy. His mouthpiece was a man of great age and a mighty beard. Everyone assumed the old man was the First Priest. That the First Priest was really the boy was a secret known only to his inner circle. His magic held the secret of youthfulness, but it came at a great price: he remained a boy for a thousand years, until his demise."

  So the old man depicted on the godstone door wasn't the First Priest? She found that hard to believe. But Saega had been a scholar of great knowledge.

  She had always thought the riddle on the plinth was a simple epitaph for the boy-warrior who had given his life to vanquish the water demons. She trusted Saega's words. Unlike her, he had actually been a librarian before Mundos fell. He had been visiting from the Isle of Sulith, lecturing on the ancient histories to the other apprentice mages. That same wealth of information had stopped them from succumbing to the many dangers of the Scorched Lands.

  "The gods granted me this boon." Saega read the riddle aloud. "This refers to the medallion. It makes sense, with the indentation on his chest. Legend has it that the gods provided the First Priest with the spire and the medallion to control it." He raised his eyebrows and grinned. The torchlight cast long shadows over his sunken eyes and gaping forehead, making him look like a goblin who'd discovered a cache of jewels. The effect was only greater as the secretions from his wounds glistened.

  The shame Edoma had felt when Fryda had so easily pointed to the boy-statue came back tenfold. Her stomach fluttered and then clenched in anger. All this time she had overlooked such an easy riddle. It hadn't even been a difficult one. She hadn't thought a boy could be the First Priest. The elaborate tombs elsewhere had drawn her attention. Most of all, the godstone door. She had believed appearances weren't to be judged and to look beneath the surface. That same advice could have helped her years ago.

  "It looks like we won't be needing Idmaer's medallion." Saega ran his fingers over the almost-invisible lines etched into the plinth between the statue and the base. "It seems that someone has already opened the tomb."

  As Edoma gasped, Saega removed a dagger from his robes and slid it across his palms. "Sulith, grant me strength." His form shifted and his robes grew tight around his limbs. He wasn't any taller, but he was much wider. He still looked like an old and sick man, but every muscle on his body now bulged through the black fabric.

  "Whoever entered the tomb last failed to close it properly." His massive hands gripped the statue's edges. Grunting, he heaved with such power that the walls trembled, showering Edoma in dust. The statue screeched as it slowly shifted aside, revealing a marble staircase.

  The grimoire! It was the first thing that came to Edoma's mind. Maybe it would hold information that might save Indham. There was no guarantee, but being so close ignited her hopes.

  She stepped onto the staircase. Saega stood beside her, the magic still coursing through his body. Beneath translucent skin, tiny blue lights swam through his veins. He shrank to normal size as the magic left him, the lights fading. "After you."

  Edoma stepped over the stone lip and descended the stairs. She pricked her finger and drew a ward on her palm. She infused it with a fraction of spiritsoul, and it burned with power. The ward was designed to provide healing, but all wards glowed with a certain light. This one in particular was brighter than any torch, ample light to illuminate the dazzling brilliance that presented itself at the bottom of the stairs.

  Every surface was pure gold, immaculately molded with a precision that took Edoma's breath away. She heard Saega gasp behind her. "Amazing," he said before sitting on the steps, breathing heavily. "I'm afraid I cannot maneuver past the wards."

  Etched into the square stones at Edoma's feet were wards she had never seen before, curving things that depicted a preservation magic that buzzed with power. As far as she knew, there was no creature with blood powerful enough to sustain magic for millennia. But here it was.

  Careful not to penetrate the protection fields on the floor, she stepped on one stone and another. She paused at one brick with wards that no longer glowed. The magic here was too expert to have stopped working. The ward must have been triggered.

  Twenty paces later, she saw three golden pedestals lining the far wall.

  Heart racing, she approached the first pedestal. It housed a scrying crystal made from glass of the deepest black. A gauntlet sat upon the second pedestal, made from a material equally black, but nothing like glass.

  With bated breath, she moved to the third pedestal. A crystal stand that looked like it might have once held a book reflected her ward's light.

  Once held a book. There's no book within the stand.

  "It's not here," Edoma whispered. "Someone has taken it."

  38

  Idmaer

  Idmaer awoke with a gnawing guilt that wouldn't subside. Rather than immediately going to the hidden room the night before, he had drunk firewine. The alcohol had only served to make the spire dangerous to walk in, so he hadn't gone to where he'd hidden the book.

  Now, he oiled and braided his beard, preparing himself for the conversation he would soon have with Edoma. The truth would be easier for her to swallow if he delivered it with the book. The consequences of revealing the truth to her would be great, but a clear conscience was something he had been without for so long that he had almost forgotten what it was like to have one. People tended to think old men were stuck in their ways, but he liked to think he could go against habit. How he handled the business of giving Edoma the book would be evidence of that.

  He breathed a frosted sigh and looked around one of the spire's many halls. He owned one of the only buildings constructed with godstone in the known world, and it was all for nothing. He had lied to Edoma all this time. If he had told her all those years ago that he had found the book, she might have even forgiven him. But it had been too long for forgiveness now. But at least he might absolve a guilty conscience.

  As he walked up the staircase, he heard a warrior bringing in another skinwalker. The sounds had become too frequent of late, and he wanted so desperately to drown them with firewine. But there was a matter to attend to first.

  He made his way up the staircase until he came to the fourth floor. A painting of Aern hung on the hallway wall. The artist had depicted Aern as a giant imp, humanoid, except for the deep purple skin, scales like a serpent, and giant wings. The painting showed Aern beating his wings to generate twin hurricanes. Below him was a decimated city, torn apart by the violent winds. Idmaer had always been amused by the painting—for him, the gods were mere forces rather than personal entities. The Talented thought themselves "called" by the gods. Idmaer had other theories.

  Maybe there were various energies, and some people were granted access to these energies for no other reason than because it was passed down their bloodlines. This passing, he surmised, was akin to the various aptitudes a child might inherit from their parents.

  Those same energies that people called the Guardians were contained in great concentration within the carcaern orbs. The wraiths—and other entities that gained their sustenance from another plane of existence—were kept away by this great energy.

  Of course, this was all conjecture. He could prove none of it. Still, such philosophizing kept his mind busy where it might once have been filled with prayer. He had found that people would worship anything they saw as more powerful than themselves. For most of Indham's existence, that powerful concept had been Aern. Now, Enlil fought for that place within the common mind. Idmaer had once been a staunch supporter of Edoma's reinstitution of the Daughters
of Enlil, but that had been before.

  Edoma's rejection of him and the love they'd shared had made him lose faith in all things he couldn't see. He knew the carcaern orbs kept the wraiths away, but that didn't mean they contained gods. The picture before him now—a fantastical creature that mimicked the reality of an imp—was simply a figment of the artist's imagination.

  Idmaer ran his hands over Aern's wings. The wall rippled. He stepped back. A moment later, the painting opened. He stepped through the revealed doorway.

  The secret room was home to precious items, hidden from prying eyes and thieving hands. The spire could hide almost anything from anyone, but he was particularly cautious about the things within this room. The special nature of it meant the spire didn't have full knowledge, as it did elsewhere. It was useful should the following owner enter the room. He didn't want them to know the things he had hidden there. If there were no gods and no afterlife, then all that would live on after Idmaer's death was his legacy.

  The only other place within the spire where it lacked eyes was beneath the ground. Idmaer was thankful for that. His curiosity often made him do foolish things—and he'd often wondered what the skinwalkers were up to within the dungeons. Better not to know that, he thought. Besides that, the dungeons and the corridors surrounding them were museums of a gruesome history that had once been. The bloodletting devices were just one among many of the terrible things down there.

  Even as a young man, Idmaer had only ventured into the spire's depths to visit Edoma in their special room. Oftentimes, she had entered the tunnel from beneath the candlemaker's shop and met him there. It had been the place where they'd consummated their forbidden marriage. While they lay upon the old rug with nothing but stone beneath it, she'd conceived their sons.