by Hal Emerson
The first thing they noticed was that this room only had three walls – the fourth, the wall at the far end of the room, was one solid sheet of glass, through which almost the entire city was visible. They were located a goodly distance up one of the mountainous sides of the valley, and this window gave them a full few of everything down below; it was a gorgeous sight, particularly in the dawning light of day.
What is this glass working skill they have? Raven wondered idly. First Goldwyn’s home, and now here. He’d never seen anything like it. How did they produce such huge, clear panes that didn’t cave in under their own weight?
This room had no ornamentation either. In fact, the only thing there was a large chair with a high back and sides. It faced the glass, situated between the door and the window, allowing whoever sat in it a perfect view of Vale.
Tomaz nudged him with an elbow and motioned him on. The big man seemed more than nervous – he was actually sweating, and he looked slightly green. With no small amount of trepidation, Raven moved slowly forward. There was a strange, stale feel to the air, as if from an age-old tomb beneath the earth, and the deadly quiet was nerve-wracking. The tension in room seemed to build with each step he took, and Raven felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He came even with the chair, and then rounded it, finally getting a look at its inhabitant.
Sitting in the chair was an old man – so old that Raven couldn’t begin to guess his age. He looked shrunken in on himself, as if the weight of his mind had shriveled his body. He was covered in layer upon layer of blankets, putting Raven in mind of swaddling clothes used to protect an infant from the cold. His skin was so thin it was nearly transparent, and every inch of it was wrinkled and worn; his whole appearance exuded an air of effervescence, making him look and feel disturbingly frail, almost insubstantial, as though a strong breeze might blow him away like morning mist.
In contrast to the shrunken body, his head was enormous, and it seemed to be this that weighted him down and kept him from simply fading away. Staring out of the head were two vibrant blue eyes, sunk deep like gemstones in an ancient statue that had rotted away under the cruel march of time.
It was these eyes that drew Raven in. They were huge and bright, and they did not blink. They simply stared off into the distance, looking over Vale, their color evoking thoughts of a warm summer sky, though Raven was certain that a harsh, searing frigidity lay beneath.
He stood there, staring into those eyes, waiting for the man to notice him. But as the minutes passed, the man paid him no mind, and simply continued to stare off into the distance, looking out over the city.
“Elder Iliad?” He asked, stepping a little bit further into the man’s line of sight, thinking maybe in his old age his vision was dying. But neither the movement nor the words produced a response.
“Raven!” Leah said, making a quick motion.
Both she and Tomaz were on the very fringe of the room, only barely inside the door. Leah had spoken in a hushed voice – only just above a whisper.
“Did I do something wrong? What do I need to do?”
“You need to identify yourself and speak your question,” a voice boomed out around them, making Raven jump. He spun around and saw that the man in the chair was speaking, though his face was still blank, still staring out the window.
“My – my name is Raven,” he said.
The man’s mouth was slack, open as if swinging from a broken hinge, leaving it to hang there, unsupported. The wrinkles in his face were so heavy that the skin of his neck and cheeks seemed to run together, making his mouth appear to be just a single black hole in the center of his face.
“No,” he said, the voice both a whisper and a boom, shaking the room, yet only just audible. It was a voice that seemed to speak with a multitude of tongues, and yet sounded like no more than the mumblings of an old man. It made Raven’s skin crawl.
“I see all that is, and you are not called Raven. You are called –”
And then Elder Iliad spoke Raven’s name, his true name, the name that had been stripped from him by the Empress. The name he hadn’t been able to say, even able to think, since the day she had Unnamed him.
And even as Iliad said the name, Raven’s mind rejected it, even as his soul cried out for it, he couldn’t hear the words, couldn’t register them. The Empress had spoken, and such thoughts were forbidden.
The booming sound of Iliad’s voice quieted, and he continued staring off into the distance.
“How did you know that name?” Raven asked in awe. “How do you know who I am?”
“I know because your father came to see me before he left, and asked me about his past. He left with me that name, the name he said he would give his son if ever he had one.”
“My father chose my name?” He asked in shock. He’d always thought it had been the Empress who’d given it to him.
“Yes,” was the only reply to this question, and then the man was silent once more, as he stared blankly into the distance.
“I have questions about the Talismans,” Raven said quickly, stepping around the chair and kneeling down in front of the man, resting himself on his heels. At this height they were almost level with one another.
The man said nothing in response, and Raven looked questioningly back at Leah and Tomaz. The big man was watching the proceedings with wide eyes, and he had to swallow and clear his throat before he could speak.
“He can only answer questions,” he rumbled, though not nearly as loud as the booming whisper of Iliad. “And only questions about the past.”
Raven nodded and turned eagerly back to Iliad.
“Can you tell me about the Talismans?”
“Yes.”
“No I mean – never mind. What is the origin of the Talismans?”
“There are many myths on this subject,” whispered the man, even as the sound boomed through the room, shaking them. “But the origin of the Talismans is unknown.”
“Where did they come from though?”
“Across the Sea, with the Empress, the heir of Theron Isdiel.”
“Who made the Talismans?”
“That is unknown.”
“What was the purpose they were made for?”
“That is unknown.”
“Do you know anything about them that isn’t common knowledge?” Raven asked, exasperated.
“Possibly.”
Raven sighed and let it go. This wasn’t getting them anywhere.
What was it Crane had said? This man had information about the Talismans … information about the Raven Talisman, and about Aemon’s Heir.
“Do you know anything about the Raven Talisman?” He asked.
“I know many things about the Raven Talisman.”
“What is the Raven Talisman?”
“The Raven Talisman is the seventh and final Talisman. It is the Death Talisman, and gives the bearer the power to harvest the souls of the living. All that they are is given unto him.”
“What is its history?” He asked, only half-heartedly, expecting the answer to be the same.
“The origin of the Talisman is unclear,” said Iliad, “but there have been three known bearers, the most current of which is – ”
“Wait!” Raven cried, stopping Iliad. “Three? What do you mean three? There have been two – my Mother and me.”
Iliad didn’t respond to this. Raven sprang to his feet and roared into Iliad’s face.
“Who was the first bearer of the Raven Talisman?!”
“The first bearer of the Raven Talisman,” Iliad said, completely unperturbed by this outburst, “was Aemon, the first of the Kindred.”
Raven felt his hands go numb as he stumbled backward, unable to comprehend what he had just heard.
“That – that can’t be right.”
Leah and Tomaz came forward from the edges of the room, also looking completely shocked. Leah came and stood in front of Raven, speaking directly to Iliad.
“Why haven’t you ever told a
nyone about this before?”
“I swore, when I became an Elder, to only reveal that information to the man who returned, carrying the Talisman upon his shoulders. The information can only help him – it can only hurt the rest of us.”
“Only help me?” Raven asked, slowly coming out of his shock. “What does that mean? How can this knowledge help me? Why did you swear that oath?”
“When Aemon died, the first Elder of History sacrificed his life and made of it a sambolin, into which he poured his memories of the event. Those memories have been passed down for over a thousand years, from that man’s son, to his granddaughter, and so on. A prophecy was taken by the Prophet, the bearer of the Aspect of Knowledge, and told to Aemon, who gasped it in his final breath to Herodotus, the first Elder of History.”
“What was the prophecy?”
“The prophecy’s direct wording has been lost.”
“Sum it up for me!”
“In summary, the prophecy said that the Talismans would only be redeemed and turned from their black purpose through the use of the Raven Talisman.”
“Black purpose? What does that mean?”
“It is a poetic description of the transition that the Aspects of Man, also known as the Seven Virtues, underwent when they were exposed to the branch of Bloodmagic known as Dark Bloodmagic, which involves the sacrifices of others.”
Everything was silent in the room for a long moment as the trio took this in.
“Legend says,” Leah began, “that Aemon stole a secret from the Empress, and that he brought it here. The legend says that the secret was the power of healing.”
“Crane said that power was passed into Aemon’s Blade,” Raven said, remembering what the Elder had told him after the battle at the Stand.
“But when the Empress killed Aemon,” Leah said, holding up a hand to forestall him, “she took the Raven Talisman from him. By force. By black Bloodmagic, she bound it to her. And that’s when it became the Raven Talisman – that’s when it was turned into the Raven Talisman!”
“Iliad,” Raven said, spinning back to the old man, “tell me about how the Talismans are turned from Aspects into Talismans. And tell me about what the Aspects were.”
Silence. The man just stared into space. Raven turned to Leah.
“Is he a bit defective sometimes?”
“Have some respect for the man!” Tomaz rumbled, his face drawn into a look of painful grief as he gazed on Iliad. “He gave up his entire life, his entire mind, to hold the history of the Kindred and keep safe secrets like the one you just heard.”
“Then why won’t he talk?” Raven asked, frustrated.
“You have to ask very specific questions,” Leah said, “and most of the time you can’t phrase them as statements. Small talk only confuses him, explanations, or anything along that line, are detrimental. Just ask your questions – it may seem offensive, but it’s the only way to get a direct answer.”
“Okay,” said Raven, annoyed and tired, “then you do it.”
Leah stepped up and took his place on the well-worn section of floor.
“What are the Seven Talismans, and how do they pertain to the Seven Aspects?”
“The Seven Talismans are the corrupted forms of the Sevens Aspects.”
“What are the Seven Aspects?”
“Also known as the Seven Virtues, the Aspects are the pure form of the Seven Talismans, used by the Empress of Lucia to rule over the Empire of – ”
“Stop,” she said, holding up a hand, and the Elder fell silent, still staring sightlessly off into space.
“What do the legends say that the Seven Aspects were?”
Raven watched her carefully – would slightly rephrasing the question really give them a better answer?
“The legends say that the Seven Aspects were borne by the Seven Blessed Ones who traveled to this land from across the Sea,” Iliad said, and Raven felt a small thrill go through him. “Each of the Blessed Ones bore one of the Aspects, that which they most exemplified. It is unclear who had which, expect for Aemon, who told the first Elder of History, Elder Herodotus, that the Aspect he wore would become corrupted, and that the only way to turn it and the other Aspects back to their pure purpose was to use what would become the Raven Talisman.”
Iliad lapsed into silence, and they all thought for a moment.
“Did the Aspects do what the Talismans do now?” Tomaz rumbled, watching Iliad carefully, as if afraid of putting too much strain on the man.
“The Talismans’ powers have been inverted by the dark Bloodmagic that touched them,” boomed Iliad before falling silent again.
“What were the original gifts the Aspects gave?” Tomaz asked, stroking his beard absent-mindedly.
“It is unclear from both legend and history what the Aspects’ original purpose was,” he said, and they all let out a small sigh of disappointment.
“Well, so much for trying to figure out why the Ox Talisman isn’t working right,” Raven muttered. Leah grimaced back at him, equally annoyed.
“Can you tell us more about the rumors surrounding the Raven Talisman?” Rumbled Tomaz.
“Yes,” Iliad said blankly, and then lapsed into silence.
“Ah – right,” Tomaz said and cleared his throat. “Elder Iliad, tell me everything about the Raven Talisman, starting with the earliest rumors of its powers.”
“The Raven Talisman first came into existence as the Aspect of Life,” said Iliad. “Based on knowledge of Aemon, it can be concluded that its intension is to heal, to give life, and amplify the well-being of those around it.”
Again, Leah held up a hand and told the Elder to stop.
“So the Raven Talisman was originally meant to save life, not take it,” said Leah addressing Raven now, “which must be why when you’re holding Aemon’s Blade, you can heal people, like what you did with Tomaz.”
“It wasn’t like that though,” Raven said, thinking back. “It felt exactly the same as any other time I’ve used the Talisman. I didn’t do anything special, I just tried harder to hang onto the memories. I don’t understand why it happened the way it did – I know Crane says Aemon’s Blade enabled it, but that doesn’t make any sense. I haven’t been able to heal anyone since then, even though I’ve tried.”
“But you did heal me,” Tomaz rumbled, “which means that at least once the Raven Talisman reverted back to the Aspect, right?”
“I suppose,” Raven said, still unsure.
“So if the Raven Talisman is the key to turning the Talismans back into Aspects,” Leah said, her brow furrowed in thought, “then shouldn’t the Ox Talisman be the … what … Aspect of Strength?”
“What would the reverse of strength be though?” Tomaz asked. “I mean, it just gives strength doesn’t it?”
Raven shrugged. “Actually, as far as I know, yes. I know a lot about how the Raven works because Geofred explained it to me in detail, but the others guarded their secrets … there are many things none of us knew about each other.”
“Well,” Leah said, “let’s assume it gives strength. The opposite would be it giving weakness? Maybe it makes your opponents weaker?”
“Those Death Watchmen didn’t seem any weaker when they were fighting us,” Raven said grimly, and Tomaz growled his agreement.
“And none of the men we found in the mountains seemed easier to dispatch than normal,” the big man continued.
“There is something that’s bothering me,” Raven said to them. “The fact that Aemon bore the Raven Talisman, or maybe the Aspect of Life, is very much a shock, but the information just doesn’t seem dangerous. I understand it not being a great thing for morale, but dangerous?”
“You think there’s something else,” Leah said, watching him. “You think when Crane said Iliad had knowledge only you could have, he meant something deeper.”
He nodded.
Simultaneously they turned to Iliad, who still showed no sign he knew they were present. Raven looked once more into the old man�
��s eyes and felt, again, his skin begin to crawl. Was this the fate that awaited him if he pushed the limits of the Raven Talisman? Was this his fate if he ever had to give it up?
He pushed those thoughts away and forced himself back to the present.
“What else does he know?” Raven asked, almost to himself. “He knows all of the history of the Kindred – is there anything else?”
“Prophecies,” Tomaz rumbled, the word sounding like thunder, distant and ominous. Raven felt a chill go down his back – prophecy was what had led his Mother to try to kill him.