by Jordan Baker
THE BOOK OF ONE
A New Age
by
Jordan Baker
COPYRIGHT
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents and events contained herein are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Other than historical characters, any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright 2013 by Electrum Press and the Author.
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PROLOGUE
A gust of cold wind blew through the clearing, rustling the few dry leaves still clutched in the ice-laden fingertips of the surrounding trees. Their heavy wooden limbs moaned gently in the night, their faint protest the only sound under the heavy blanket of winter snow.
At the far end of the clearing, a simple log and stone cottage was the centrepiece of a humble steading nestled deep in the forest. Nearby, a small barn sheltered livestock against the cold winter wind and, next to it, the wooden fence of a corral lay nearly buried under drifts of snow. Just as quickly as it had arisen, the wind again fell silent, leaving only a cold stillness in its place. The only sign of life was the thin trail of smoke curling its way upward from the stone chimney of a small cottage.
In a small bedroom on the second floor, a young man struggled with unpleasant dreams. He dreamed of a place far away, a place where the stars shone brightly overhead, almost blinding against the dark sky, which seemed closer somehow than it should be. He tried to move but he was on his back, chained to a stone block. There were people nearby but he could not see them. He tried to call out but he could not speak. At the edge of his vision, torches burned with an unfamiliar, silver fire that gave no warmth. A man in flowing black robes appeared looming over him and blotting out the sky. Beneath the dark cowl of his robes the man smiled with a cruel sneer to his lip, his teeth shining white against his coarse black beard while his eyes smoldered with feverish ecstasy. He leaned in close, and his voice rasped callous and hard as he spoke.
“And so we are one.”
In his hand, the man raised a knife that shimmered with the same silver light as the nearby fires. He held the blade aloft then plunged it into the chest of his captive, his sacrifice.
Upon the altar, the young man felt a sharpness followed by an icy coldness as the blade drained everything that he was. The man in the black cloak smiled at him as he twisted the blade deeper and then he began to laugh. All was fading, becoming dark and the young man felt only despair. It was as though he did not exist, that all that he had ever been was no longer, or perhaps never was. The knife twisted again and he felt his essence being drained as blood spilled across his chest and onto the altar. His life drained away and within moments he felt his body die as his vision faded and the world became black. Yet, somewhere deep within the void, in the center of his being, the core of all that he was, a tiny flame still burned.
CHAPTER ONE
Aaron sat up in his bed, gasping for breath. His forehead was slick with sweat, hot and feverish against the cold night air. The pounding in his head was deafening. He focused on breathing, using a technique his uncle had taught him that helped control pain. He took slow, deep breaths, focusing on a feeling of calm and letting go of the tension and, before long, the stabbing pain in his skull subsided to a dull throb. He looked around the darkened room. From the light of the fading moon shining in through the bedroom window, he could tell it was still some time before morning. Aaron took a deep breath and felt his body relax a little more and his nerves became calm. He was safe and alone in his room. No dark stranger, no gleaming blade in his chest. It had been nothing more than a nightmare.
As much as he knew it had been a dream, the vision left Aaron feeling unsettled. It was not the first time he felt that cold silver knife plunge into his flesh. He had been visited by the same dream every night for weeks now and Aaron wondered what it could mean. He ran through the already fading images, trying to commit every detail to memory and he realized something. It was different this time. The man had laughed. He had never done that before. Aaron wondered whether there was any significance to it but the more he thought about it, the worse his headache became. He finally gave up and rested the side of his head against the cool wood of the bed frame, looking out the nearby window at the moonlit winter night.
Aaron gazed across the yard of the cottage where he and his uncle lived. It had snowed heavily again that night and he could see that the path to the barn was covered by white drifts, high as his waist. That would mean more shovelling come morning, his least favorite chore. Aaron decided to try to rest a little more before daybreak, promising that if his headache would just go away, he would shovel the entire path without any complaint. He pulled the covers over his head and focused on breathing, wishing for the oblivion that sleep would bring.
*****
Far away, in a room in the royal palace, high above the dark quiet streets of the Crown City of Maramyr, Ariana awoke with a start. She had been dreaming of something, something unpleasant, but she could not remember what it was. Somehow she remembered feeling cold and, despite the warm fire crackling in the hearth, she felt a cold shiver run though her body. She glanced about her room suspiciously, worried that some sort of fell mystery or unseemly magic might be at work, but she could sense nothing.
A loose shutter clattered in the night, swinging on a window somewhere in the city below and Ariana started at the sound of it reverberating loudly in her ears. It was so loud it was as though it was right next to her, but somehow she also knew that it came from far away. As she moved in her silken sheets, she realized she could hear every individual thread of fabric rub against the other. She bolted upright in her bed.
The sound of her skin on silk should not be so loud in her ears, so distinct. She listened again, astonished at the sound as she moved even the slightest bit. Even her hair sounded like dry wheat blowing in a field as it brushed past her cheek. Every creak of her bed, every sound in the castle was somehow intensified. In a room, several floors away, she could hear a scullery maid moaning passionately with a guardsman, his identity apparent from the clanking of his armor and the shifting links of this chainmail shirt. It was as though her hearing had become so much more sensitive, but it felt more the world had been muffled before and now she was truly hearing properly for the first time.
She looked around the room again. From the corner of her eye she thought she saw something move in the shadows. Suddenly flames sparked to life around her room. Every candle, every lamp lit in an instant, burning almost too brightly. She was shocked by the intensity of it and did her best to calm herself. The light chased away whatever shadows had been there. Ariana looked around the room. No one was there. She was alone. She breathed deeply, relaxing her body and the flames dropped to a more natural size, burning normal
ly now, without her tension, without her influence, without her power.
Calthas had warned her it might happen like this, at a moment when she felt threatened, that something dire might trigger her power. The mage had assured her it was already there, waiting for her to reach for it. And she had, over a dream, one she could not even remember at that. Ariana tried to recall what the mage had taught her. She had felt so foolish at the time, as though the exercises he had made her repeat so many times were ridiculous, but now she clearly understood their import.
Taking a deep breath, she looked around the room, deliberately marking every object and particularly every flame, and then she slowly closed her eyes. She could feel each flame flickering in the air of the room, their heat small but searing the surrounding air. She focused her mind on each flame and then, with a thought, she took away that which made them burn, snuffing them one by one.
She opened her eyes again to darkness and the scent of smoke and wax from the extinguished candles. At least she had not burned down her bedroom. She shuddered at the thought of such a fearful thing. It would not have been the first time the palace had caught fire from unbridled magic.
Clearing her mind, and just to be sure this was not a dream, Ariana swung her legs over the edge of the bed, leaving the warm embrace of her thick blankets. She held her bare feet just over the marble floor and then gently touched her toes to the cool hardness of the smooth polished stone. She reached over to the table beside her bed and touched the top of her reading candle that moments ago had burned so brightly. With a yelp, she put her finger in her mouth, tasting the melted wax that quickly hardened against her skin. Her burnt fingertips told her it had not been a dream, at least not all of it.
*****
Droplets of blood fell from the curved dagger into the swirling water of the silver chalice upon the altar. The dark streaks quickly dissolved into the clear liquid and changed from crimson to a shimmering silver color and a faint crackling of energy filled the air. Smoke danced on the surface as the liquid stilled and became clear as the last trails of smoke dissipated.
The man in the black robes stared intently into the chalice, waiting while the blood still dripped from the knife. The waters would show him, the blood would tell. He felt it, the power of the one who would come, the one to whom so much had been sacrificed, the one for whom so many more would give their lives. He felt the presence that he had come to know well and its power filled him with both dread and excitement. The time was drawing near. He would come soon. The one god.
A powerful rumbling that had slowly grown from a low hum to a dull roar was marked by its sudden absence as the visions in the cup faded. The power was gone, the living magic of the blood spent as its life faded away. Nearby, a foot scuffed the stone floor, breaking the unnatural silence. The man in the black robe turned to face the others. Six of them stood before the steps of the dais, each similarly clad in black robes and awaiting his word. He cleared his throat as he regained his composure. The visions always left him a little dazed as though the world before him was somehow less real than it had been.
“Is it true? Is it the awakening?” asked one of them. He shot the man a stern look and he fearfully took a step backwards. The ceremony did not require them to speak, any of them. It was not their place. Still, he had good news to share.
“Yes, it is begun,” he said.
“Then it is time,” said another of the black robed figures.
“You all know what we must do,” he told them, staring intently at each of their faces looking deep into their eyes and searching for the resolve he required. His eyes flickered with a deep blackness with an unnatural silvery sheen as he reached out with his power, testing each member of the group before him. A few feared him, he could tell, but he knew that each was loyal and resolved to follow his lead.
Satisfied, he turned and placed the chalice back on the altar alongside a dark, twisted blade. As he picked up a heavy red cloth, he heard the others leave. He ignored the crackle of energy and the thunderous sound of power being gathered as the mages among the group transported back to their homes. He ignored the blasphemy of their magic, knowing that soon they too would be joined completely with the one. He ceremoniously folded the cloth over the chalice and placed the knife atop it and quietly intoned a sacred incantation in the darkness in reverent ecstasy with the knowledge that soon his time would also come.
*****
Aaron emerged from his room that morning to find his uncle Tarnath, an old battle-scarred warrior, whose grey hair and beard flowed across his shoulders and chest, leaning over a metal skillet frying bacon on top of the iron stove. A soldier for most of his life, Tarnath was retired from his life of battles and adventures when Aaron’s parents had died. Settling in this cottage in the middle of nowhere, he had raised Aaron himself, doing his best, despite being more suited to a military barracks. Life with Tarnath was fairly regimented, but the old man always did his best to offer up a sense of humor in his own gruff fashion.
Aaron took a seat at the wooden table. The warmth of the fire that was already filling the main room of the cottage helped ease the tension in Aaron’s shoulders. His headache had almost cleared, but he was tired from having had such a fitful sleep. He mumbled a greeting and Tarnath looked up with a smile, an expression that seemed out of place yet at the same time perfectly natural on the old warrior’s scarred and wrinkled face.
“Top of the mornin' to ye Aaron!” he exclaimed with a twinkle in his eye. Aaron was not feeling on top of anything, especially not his uncle’s chipper morning spirit. “Ye think you’re ready for a spot of breakfast, young fella?”
Aaron pulled his chair in toward the table and then put his head down on his arm. He was not yet ready for Tarnath’s chipper morning banter. The old man chuckled and gave his scraggly white beard a thoughtful tug.
“I take it that means, aye. Here, my boy, eat something.”
He brought over the pan and with a pair of metal tongs scooped a few of the better-cooked strips of meat onto a plate in front of Aaron. Aaron picked one up and burnt his fingers, dropping the sizzling meat back to the plate. Tarnath looked over and waved his fork at the boy. “I’ll bet you’re awake now, ain’t ye.” Blowing on his burnt fingers, Aaron cast a tired and disapproving eye at Tarnath.
“You think that’s funny don’t you, Tarnath?” Aaron said accusingly. The old man held the tongs to his chest in mock innocence.
“Me, funny? Never,” he said with a smile.
“You could have warned me it was that hot,” Aaron kept blowing on his fingers.
“What? The bacon? Of course it was hot, you ninny. How do you think it got cooked?”
Aaron shoved a piece of the salted meat into his mouth and stared glumly at the table. Tarnath snorted a kind of laugh.
“It’s fixin' to be one of those mornings, ain’t it? Well, ye can just forget about grumping and complaining. We've got lots of work to do today and we’d best be off to an early start.”
“What are we doing today? I finished all the barrel rings last week and the ploughshare can’t be repaired until we get more iron from town,” Aaron protested.
He had worked hard for the long winter months in the small smithy they had built on the farm. Years ago, Tarnath had convinced the smith in the nearby town of Ashford to contract out some of the smaller jobs to them as a way of earning a few coins. The work was mostly odds and ends for the local farmers and townsfolk, repairing farming implements and gate hinges but this winter, a nearby cooperage had asked for enough metal work to keep Aaron busy for most of the winter. Come spring, when they delivered the finished pieces, he would finally have some money of his own and he planned to use it to expand the forge. Tarnath had said he might even talk to the smith about taking Aaron on as an apprentice. He enjoyed working with hot iron, molding it into forms and then pounding them into shape. This winter, he had even tried working with steel, making a new ploughshare for the spring tilling they would do on their own small pro
perty.
“You finished all the barrel rings?” Tarnath hollered over the sounds of the kettle that began to whistle loudly on the stove. “You’re getting quicker. We might make a smith of you yet my boy!”
The whistling kettle drove knives into Aaron’s ears. He felt his headache threaten to return and buried his head in his arms on the table. Tarnath noticed his discomfort and quickly pulled the kettle from the stove.
“Had one of your headaches again, did you?” he asked, speaking more quietly now.
Aaron grasped his head and nodded, then closed his eyes, waiting for the pain to recede.
Tarnath felt badly for the lad but he knew there was nothing to be done about it, at least not until the snows cleared and they could make their way into town. He wondered if it might be wise to seek the help of a healer but he tried to keep his distance from magical types and the last gossip he had heard made him even less inclined to let them poke around at Aaron. Some old fashioned herbs would have to do, he decided, and added a pinch of willow bark powder to Aaron’s cup along with the black tea leaves before pouring in the hot water.
“Well, the good news is you don’t have to do any snow clearing today as I was up early and it’s already done. Hurry up, we’re going out. A bit of fresh air will do you good. Tea?” Tarnath offered.
Aaron nodded and Tarnath put the cup in front of him then disappeared into his own bedroom at the back part of the main floor of the cottage. Aaron could hear him rummaging around in the small room and wondered what the old man was up to. He took a sip of the hot drink and after a few moments he started to feel a little better. Perhaps a hot drink was what he needed and the tea Tarnath made for him usually helped his headaches.
“Where are we going?” Aaron asked, calling into the room where Tarnath continued to move things. He wondered where they could possibly go. “With all that snow on the trails, it would take us all day just to get to the main road. We’d be lucky to get to Jacob’s farm, let alone into town.”