Blackmark (The Kingsmen Chronicles #1): An Epic Fantasy Adventure Sword and Highland Magic

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  Brother Temlin den'Ildrian massaged his white beard as he stared down at the Ghenje board, contemplating his dark and light stones. Abbott Lhem den'Ulio had backed him into a corner. The old geezer was grinning now, his dark grey eyes still sharp, though he was easily ten years older than Temlin. The lamps were turned up bright in the Abbott’s high-gabled apartments on the third story of the Annex. The scent of burning lamp-oil wafted about the room, drafted out the open windows and out into the frog-chorused night. It was too horridly muggy for a fire, but both geezers needed the lamps bright so they could squint at the pine board of squares, contemplating their moves. A man of much shrewdness, the First Abbot of the Jenners was infamous for his political maneuvering, and it showed in his Ghenje. Two mugs of pilfered honey-brown with the lhenken-hops sat to the side of the gaming board upon the Abbott’s vine-carven supper table.

  “Get on, then, Temlin! What’re you gonna do now, huh?” Abbott Lhem lifted his mug to his generous white mustachios with a drunken wink, his well-lined cheeks ruddy with ale. His bark was that of a military General, still hale and deep. Temlin wondered again how such a man had ever sought the monastic life. But he kept a tight ship running at the First Abbey, and his agile mind was always something to behold. Temlin twirled his beard again, pondering his move.

  “Keep messing with that beard and you’re gonna lose what’s left of your hair.” Abbott Lhem growled.

  “Keep swigging that honey-brown, and the younger Brothers are going to know their Abbot is drunk as a badger.” Temlin returned smartly.

  “Ah! Fuck the little men. I can drink if I want to.” Lhem swigged his ale again, defiant.

  Temlin chuckled, still considering the board. “The Way is the Life, and the Life is full of mellow wealth. Seek you to calm your passions, neither drink to pass your lips, nor the riots of flesh to grace your skin, and ye shall find the Peace and the Way of Inner Release.”

  “Don’t quote catechism at me, old man!” He leveled a thick finger at Temlin, then swigged his beer. “I could quote you around the Wall and back.”

  “So you could.” They had enjoyed such a battle before, and it had gone on for an entire week before one of the younger Brothers pleaded for a truce between them. “But sometimes I wonder how much the Way really sinks in for you…”

  “For fuck’s sake, Temlin! Get a move on!”

  “In time, in time, my friend… one must not rush the Bliss of the Way…” But he flicked his eyes up over his half-spectacles to Abbot Lhem’s, and grinned. Lhem leveled his meaty finger at Temlin, bouncing it like he was going to explode into a tirade, which he sometimes did to intimidate the younger Brothers. But instead, he simply began to chuckle, then to belly laugh, then finally dissolved his chuckles into his beer.

  “You old possum. Devious as the Ghost of Roushenn! Make your move, go on, then.”

  Brother Temlin finally did, sliding his white polished stone into an unoccupied space in the lower left corner of the board, trying to secure his left flank. He was losing already, he knew it, Lhem knew it. They were just playing it to see how close it would be. Their games were often within three points of each other, and playing to the bitter end pleased them both long into the night.

  Temlin finally permitted himself a sip of his ale, rolling it around his mouth for enjoyment while sitting back into the plush overstuffed chair. He only allowed himself a beer when they gamed, which was less frequently right now during the Dhenra's coronation. Some might have called their Ghenje nights together sacrilege, but Temlin chose to consider them enjoyment. The Jenner Way had no strict tenets against enjoyment, only against distractions and addictions. His love of beer was an addiction, ancient and strong, which was why he allowed himself only one, under the supervision of Lhem’s stern mustachios.

  And then there was that other thing they were supposed to be doing.

  “I had an interesting visit to day,” Temlin began conversationally.

  “Oh?” Abbot Lhem looked up, fingered his ample mustaches, then went back to considering the board. “Continue.”

  “A young man. Perhaps thirty. He was a Kingsman. Inked.”

  Surprise flitted over Lhem’s ruddy features. His grey eyes flicked up, sharp as flaying-knives. “Continue.”

  Temlin took a sip of his beer. “Inked, and marked also in another way. By Alranstone. Inked in gold.”

  Slowly, Abbott Lhem straightened. Grabbing his flagon, he sat his plethoric bulk back into his plush chair, imitating Temlin’s posture. He took another sip, a very small one, sharp hawk-eyes never leaving Temlin’s. “Goldenmarked? Are you certain?”

  Temlin sipped his beer. “So he said. So I believe.”

  “And you’re just telling me this now?!” Abbot Lhem slammed his flagon down so hard upon the table that ale slopped from the rim. “Dammit, Temlin! Does anyone else know about this?!”

  Temlin shook his head, enjoying baiting the Abbott. “I took him to the Far Ponds. To the bench. No one overheard us. The woman he brought with him knew about it. And she could corroborate the event. They weren’t lying. One night, he just wakes up, climbs a damn seven-eye stone, and in the morning he’s Inked in gold and can’t remember a thing but the word rennkavi. And when he climbs down, every eye upon the stone is open, and they blinked at his touch. He described them perfectly. When he traveled, it took the woman through, too.”

  “Sweet Nectar of the Way.” Lhem took an enormous swig of his beer, his attention riveted upon Temlin. He wiped his mouth with his black sleeve. “And you let him leave?!”

  Temlin chuckled. “He was a stubborn young man, he wouldn’t stay. Got squirrely for some reason. I had to let him go. But he’ll be back. He wanted information on his Inkings, on Alranstones, trying to find out what had happened to him. So I may have told him how to get into the Rare Tomes Room to review Mollia’s journals. Unofficially.”

  A slow smile spread across Abbot Lhem’s face, lifting his mustachios at the corners. “You old goat.”

  “Kingsmen have impressive talents.” Temlin swirled his beer in his mug. “I expect him sometime tonight, after midnight bell. After our game, you and I and Abbess Lenuria could be doing some late-night research... and oops! Catch him in the act of stealing rare journals and have a talk with him.”

  Lhem gave a devious chuckle. But suddenly, the mirth dropped from his mustachios and he sat silent, settling back into his high-backed chair with a scowl. Reaching up, he scratched at one ruddy ear, one of his few tells.

  Lhem was worried about Temlin's news. That was interesting. Temlin took a swig of ale, watching his longtime friend and fellow member of the Shemout Alrashemni closely. Lhem sat in silence a long moment, contemplating Temlin’s information. All Jenners knew the common version of the Uniter of the Tribes. A redemption parable about finding unity within oneself, finding peace and acceptance in life. But now there was a flesh-and-blood man who had opened every iris on a seven-eye stone. That a seven-eye stone would open for the Uniter was part of the official parable. But that the Unifier would be Inked by an Alranstone was not. That was a very deep secret. And now, a flesh-and-blood man wore the prophesied Goldenmark of the Uniter.

  The problem was, that the true Prophecy of the Uniter had been laid down by a seer some thousand years ago. And now, the exact tenets of the Prophecy had been fractured so badly that no one really knew the entirety of it. Part myth, part mystery, part hedge-legend, the original Prophecy was such a mess that no one had really ever bothered to track it. But the legend was still passed on among the Shemout Alrashemni, part of a whole mess of ancient oral lore they had to memorize to earn their hidden Bloodmark.

  And two of those were staring at each other now, sipping beer. Temlin rubbed his hidden Inkings beneath his modest black Jenner-robes. He noticed Lhem was absently doing the same, staring off into space. They locked eyes.

  “Have you heard from den’Selthir lately? Or has Lenuria?” The Abbot spoke at last.

  Temlin shook his head. “No… the channels
have been quiet, and we've had no hawks. Den’Selthir is keeping a very low profile since Uhlas' death. I don’t blame him.”

  “So is Mollia.” Lhem murmured. “She hasn’t come through the Abbeystone for two years now.”

  “Lenuria thinks she’s grieving.” Temlin murmured, feeling that old pain, that old sadness lance through his chest. He’d not thought about it for so long, but whenever Molli came up, there it was, agonizing as ever. Love was truly bitter fruit, even for a man past his prime.

  “Maybe she’s dead.” Lhem grumped thoughtfully.

  “Molli’s always been strange.” Temlin countered, his heart gripping him suddenly, thinking that she might be dead. “Perhaps she’s just in seclusion, dreaming. Uhlas kept her a secret from the world for a reason.”

  “Your brother was wise, Temlin. It’s not everyday that a King falls in love with a madwoman.”

  Temlin felt himself go hard as flint. “You take that back. Molli’s not mad.”

  “No, but she’s batty.”

  “You would be, too, if you saw things in your mind that would drive any other person completely insane.” Temlin snapped, the rage of a far younger man surfacing from underneath all his hard-won patience living among the Jenners. “But she saw this day, Lhem. She saw the Man with Goldenmarks coming right to the First Abbey. And she saw that we couldn’t turn him away. You know as well as I what happens if we don’t give him our help.”

  Lhem sighed heavily. “Annihilation of the Alrashemni, right to our very bones.”

  “We've held on this long in secret. Could we survive prophecy, do you think?”

  Abbot Lhem drummed his thick fingers upon the table. “Perhaps. But perhaps the portent of the Man with Goldenmarks coming to us means it's the Khehemni's turn to gut us.”

  “They've had their turn.” Temlin angrily swigged back more beer. “I think they did a fine job gutting us with that fucking Summons of theirs. Speaking of Khehemni.” Brother Temlin drained the last of his beer, then set it on the table with finality. “What are you going to do about the Chancellate and Lhaurent?”

  “The Castellan?” Lhem scowled, and his scowl held all the ferocity of a raging bear. “Fuck them. Evshein and Lhaurent have tried to blackmail the First Abbey into their operations one too many times. But we need to wait. They've yet to show a strong play.”

  “Wait!?” Temlin growled in his throat. “It’s time for the Jhennik to join the war, Lhem! Time for us to wake the sleeping giant of the Abbey and support the Crown! Long past time. It was time when my nephew Alden died! It was time when my brother Uhlas went mad! It's long past due!”

  Abbot Lhem gave Temlin a very stern eyeball. “Temlin. Don't let your family's turmoil and downfall affect your good judgment. We can’t move against the Lothren yet. We still have no idea how they are coordinating much of their dealings. And you've had no contact with Uhlas these past twenty-five years because your father had you removed from the line of succession, and Uhlas was just unbendable enough that he has never spoken to you once in all this time, simply because his father decreed it!”

  “Doesn't mean I don't care for my nephew and niece.”

  “You've never met them.”

  “Still. And now one is dead, Lhem, and the other is all alone! What am I supposed to do?!” Temlin snarled, his old ferociousness raging.

  Lhem leveled his meaty finger at Temlin. “You are a Brother of the Abbey. That is what you are. These past thirty years.”

  “But I'm also Shemout Alrashemni, dammit! So sworn since I was fifteen years old!” Temlin snapped, lurching to standing, pressing his fingertips to the tabletop and leaning in, a snarl rising in his manner. “And I’m still Elyasin's uncle! Don't tell me I can't protect my niece! The rest of her family is all gone, dammit!”

  “We can't simply rope the First Abbey and set them up behind you, Temlin!” Lhem barked, his plethoric face flushed, rising to his own feet to match Temlin, his bear-thick bulk thrice Temlin’s girth. “Nor can we support Elyasin! The First Abbey is an independent organization. A few Shemout Alrashemni hide in our ranks, like you and I, but it is only because of the access it grants us! The rest are just regular men and women here because they believe in the tenets of the Faith. Peace. Calm. Meditation, my friend. Something you would do well to learn.”

  “I meditate just fine.” Temlin grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

  “You cogitate and read, you old goat. Don't think I don't know what you do to pass the time while your insides stew. You've a temper as much as you've always had, Temlin. You need those quiet ponds and soothing platitudes of catechism far more than anyone I've ever met.”

  “Beer will do.”

  Lhem lifted a bushy white eyebrow. “Speaking of. How many have you had tonight?”

  “Just one, dammit! Just this one here.”

  “Good. Once a drunk, always a drunk, Temlin.”

  “Fuck Aeon, I know!” Temlin growled. “You don't need to remind me of my past, nor of how I wound up here. That was a long time ago.”

  Lhem eyeballed him again, his thick mustachios set in a hard frown. “In any case. We can't simply rally the First Abbey behind the throne for Elyasin, nor expose ourselves among them as Alrashemni. Such things must be done cautiously. Most of the Brothers and Sisters here don’t know anything about the Alrashemni’s history. They think the Lost Tribe is a parable of redemption. The Lost Tribe, split from the One and yearning to be Brought Home, to be United at last. They don’t know the truth.”

  Temlin lifted one grey eyebrow. “Do you?”

  Brother Lhem scowled harder. “Not exactly, no. But if this young man is who we think he is, he can find out. We need to find him, bring him here. Hold him. We need to get him to Molli and have her read his mind, figure out what his agenda is. See if he would be useful to us.”

  “If Molli will ever come out. Ever make contact again.” Temlin couldn't stop the sinking feeling in his heart. Despite everything he tried to distract himself with, he still missed Molli.

  A woman who had never really even been his.

  But Abbot Lhem didn't notice Temlin's heavy heart, his gaze far away with his machinations, his thick fingers drumming upon the table. “Right. Come on. You’re losing anyway. Time to send word to Lenuria and get to the Tomes Room.” Lhem lurched out from behind the table, heading to a silk cord bell-pull on the wall. He gave it a yank, summoning one of the runner-lads he kept in the bunks next door for just such occasions. Presently, a sleep-tousled youth knocked upon the door, sticking his head gingerly around the frame, blinking at the brightness of the lamps within.

  “Abbott?” He yawned. “Yes?”

  “Get to the Abbess, lad,” Abbott Lhem grumped sternly, a hard frown upon his ample white mustachios. “Wake her if she’s sleeping. Tell Lenuria she’s to meet us in the Rare Tomes Room with all haste, and that it’s vitally important. Someone’s going to try breaking into the Rare Tomes Room tonight and we have to stop it. Go. Now.”

  The lad blinked, nodded hastily, then disappeared. The heavy door latched shut behind him.

  “Come on.” Abbott Lhem murmured, lifting his flagon to his lips and draining it. “Let’s get a move on with these old joints.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Temlin reached out to the pitcher of ale, refilling his flagon. He tipped it back, swallowing it all down without a single breath in between. Dark thoughts about Molli still swirled, rage still boiled about his niece’s predicament. He filled his flagon again, drained it like a practiced drunk. And then one more time, just for good measure.

  When he turned, Lhem was giving him a disastrously severe eyeball. “Ale won’t help you get young again, Temlin.” He murmured. “And it won’t bring Molli back to you. And it won’t help your niece any. All it does is make you wind up facedown in horseshit.”

  “Fuckitall, I know.” Temlin wiped a hand over his lips, scrubbed his beard. His chin was getting numb. He hated it and loved it all at once. But his joints screamed less after a few pi
nts, and he’d be able to walk faster in Lhem’s prodigious wake. “Let’s go, then.”

  The big man eyed him again, then turned to the door. He had the heavy ironbound cendarie open in a trice and they marched out into the hall. The First Abbey was quiet tonight, most having gone to bed at nightfall, but some still up praying in the cathedral or in their rooms. No one was about in this part of the Annex, though, and as they trod a circular stairwell down to the ground floor and out the doors into the night, Temlin felt himself closing in from the ale, brooding. His stride became clipped, brisk, the pain of his knees and back dulled. His gaze sharpened as he scanned the night, old habits of battle from a youth long gone. They circled around the Annex to the archway that marked the entrance to the vault below, taking up oil-lamps from their pegs upon the wall and kindling them by fire sticks in a brazier that was always lit for Brothers and Sisters to navigate by in the night.

  Temlin’s heart hammered his chest, suddenly, realizing that a figure stood in silent meditation right by the brazier. He’d not seen her at all. Abbess Lenuria den’Brae was already there to meet them, her dark grey eyes glittering and silent, shrouded in her black hood with her hands folded into the sleeves of her robe. Drawing up tall, their lovely Abbess with her striking, silver-streaked black braid stood to her full five-foot-nothing. She gave them her most formidable commander's eye, as if the two old farts had kept their esteemed Abbess waiting hours. Both men instinctively cringed from her set jaw and straight-browed scowl.

  “You two are drunk.” If Lhem's gaze was hawking, Lenuria's was that of an eagle, and missed absolutely nothing, even in the depths of the night. Temlin almost pitied the Sisters of the First Abbey. Lhem could be bought with beer. Lenuria couldn't be bought for all the jade in Perthe.

  “My dear Abbess! Us?” Temlin jested sourly.

  “Temlin, old man, don't make it worse than it already is.” Abbott Lhem swept a low and cordial bow for their Abbess, who was, technically, his superior, both at the Abbey and in the Shemout. The Jenners had been an order founded by women, after all, who’d only let men in later. Whereupon the synergistic gardening skills of the women and the brewing skills of the men had created history. But the men couldn't survive without their hops, and the women were grateful for the beer and the money it brought to finance their solitude.

  Progress, in every way. Temlin's decently drunk mind told him.

  “Brother Temlin. How many times must one cite the catechisms against addictive imbibing to you?” Lenuria’s soft words had a cutting edge, slicing through the night.

  “My dear Abbess. Deal with this old drunk skunk in whatever way you please.” Temlin sank to both knees upon the stone of the underground foyer, dramatic. He was in a mood and he didn’t care, and he didn’t care who knew it.

  “Oh, for Aeon's sake!” Abbess Lenuria huffed. “Get up! I could hardly punish you more than you punish yourself, Temlin.” And here, she gave him the sternest, most knowing eyeball, and Temlin knew she referred to Molli. He rose, with two audible pops in his knees and one from his back, sobering.

  “And you!” Lenuria rounded on Lhem, her teensy frame formidable, a swift raptor to his walrus-like bulk. “Encouraging him! Be an example for your Brothers, Abbott, or I will remove you from your station! Let me remind you that being Abbott is not necessarily a lifetime appointment. It is earned.”

  Lhem gave the proper downcast visage and mutterings of apology, though Temlin could tell the old musk-ox was smiling beneath his ample white mustachios.

  “Now.” Lenuria smoothed one hand over her silver-streaked hair, coaxing the long flyaways back into her braid. “What's this all about? You have news that someone is breaking into the Rare Tomes Room tonight and we are supposed to just sit here and wait for him? Why shouldn’t I simply summon guards?”

  “Well, Leni, if Temlin is right, we're going to have a very interesting visitor. Inked in gold.”

  If Temlin had thought Lhem's reaction to his news was interesting, Lenuria's was positively astounding. Her eyes flew so wide he could see whites all around, and her mouth popped open in a round o. Which she covered hastily with the fingers of one hand. But that hand was trembling, violently.

  Lenuria never trembled. Solid as marble, she'd been a fighter of some kind, long ago in her past, before she came to the Abbey, and she was neither doddering nor infirm. And the long narrow braids running through her silver-streaked larger braid proved she'd adopted the Highlands fighting fashions long ago, of their women who rode to war upon keshari battle-cats. But she was trembling now, so violently that Temlin had a sudden concern for her, and reached out to steady her by the shoulder. Her gaze swung up, and in it was more fear than Temlin had ever seen in her. But also a light, like the most grateful hope.

  “Is it true? Did you see a man with golden Inkings... all over his shoulders, back, and chest?”

  “So I did, Lenuria.” Temlin murmured, shocked entirely sober now by the reaction of his stalwart Abbess. “And his story was stranger still. Said they'd been inked all in one night... after an Alranstone called him to climb it. He slept atop it, in dreams. And woke with the word rennkavi upon his lips, and the Goldenmarks upon his skin.”

  “The Alranstone inked him in gold. And named him as Rennkavi. The Uniter.” Lenuria was pale as fine porcelain by the brazier’s subtle glow.

  “So he said. Is it the Prophecy of the Uniter, Lenuria?”

  She swallowed, hard. Her attention flicked to Lhem a moment, then back to Temlin, almost fearful in the darkness. “Come. Let us go inside. And I will tell you what I know while we wait for the lad.”

  Shrugging off Temlin's gnarled hand, she turned, reaching out to unlock the iron grate that barred the door down to the Tomes room. She gave it to Temlin to haul back, while she unlocked the heavy-bound inner sanctum door. They proceeded forward into thick darkness, lifting up their lanterns as they descended into the stairwell. Around a full corkscrew, the sunken stairs ended in a comfortable waiting-area with a broad madrona desk and a number of chairs. Beyond were the byrunstone stacks of the Tomes Room, rows upon rows of arcane writings and scrolls all carefully catalogued and preserved here in the vaulted crypts beneath the First Dwelling.

  Other religious sects kept their dead sages entombed below their cathedrals, but not the Jenners. Their dead were burned upon pyres, released back to the Way, their ashes scattered upon the gardens so that fruitfulness could come from their passing. Temlin admired the ancient bluestone architecture of the massive underground crypt as they lit lanterns in every arch, to push back the darkness and illumine a potential invader. Brightening it to a warm glow and banishing the shadows, the cathedral-like underground chamber was soon visible down every aisle and up into every dome. And when at last they had selected places upon a pair of red velveteen reading couches next to a group of magnifying reading-lanterns, Lenuria finally spoke.

  “I don't know much beyond the standard catechisms we learned in our Shemout training,” she began, “but I've heard more extensive hedge-tales about the Uniter of the Tribes from my travels when I was young. Word of mouth tales gathered from nomads of different nations, all the way from Ghrec to the tundra above Elsthemen, to Perthe and Jadoun.”

  “I didn't know you had traveled so extensively in your youth.” Lhem boomed, before lowering his voice in the echoing space.

  Lenuria shot him a look. “What you don't know about me could fill volumes, Abbott. I lived a long and complicated life before ever I came here to the Abbey, and sought solace within. But suffice it to say that I heard tales. And wherever I traveled, on campaign or not, I asked about the Uniter, what tales different peoples knew.”

  “And what did you learn?” Temlin was leaning forward upon the edge of his couch.

  “Foremost, I learned that there is a tribe of itinerant caravan people in Cennetia, the Berounhim, similar to the Travelers here in Alrou-Mendera, who worship the Uniter, the Rennkavi. The very same man we describe in our heimkeller parable, as a real per
son yet to come. I suppose this was where our Jenner parable originated. These people view him as a savior, able to right a most horrible wrong of kin turning against kin that happened sometime in the distant past. Apparently, there was once an actual King of the Khehemni, over a thousand years ago. He was vastly wronged by the Alrashemni, his kin and family slaughtered and himself imprisoned for countless years. He sought retribution for their crimes. And so he waged a great war, laying waste to his own nation and all the other nations nearby, to kill the Alrashemni off. He was at last brought low, but the ruin was done. A great migration of people on both sides left their decimated land to seek better fortunes. This Cennetian tribe, the Berounhim, remember that there was a Prophecy at that time. That someday, someone would come, Goldenmarked by one of their Great Teachers, and that this person could repair the grievous damage done so long ago.”

  “An origin story explaining Khehemni and Alrashemni warring,” Lhem was chewing his mustachios, his thick fingers tapping the red velvet couch. “Well, that’s new. So this man is supposed to bring peace to us? How?”

  Temlin lifted his eyebrows expectantly, but Lenuria only shrugged. “No one knows what is actually supposed to happen. Great peace? Or tremendous war? The Berounhim clans I spoke to couldn't say, one way or another. Only that in the end, all would be United. But would that end be bloody? Apparently some of the Berounhim tribes believe it will be a destructive end, where all are United in death. Whereas others disagree, believing the Unity will actually be the ushering in of a Great High Age. In any case, our Jenner parable is a very fluffy and simplistic version of the original tale, apparently.” Lenuria heaved a great sigh, and came to silence.

  “So.” Lhem was chewing his mustachios violently, scowling. “What do we do if this young man comes here tonight?”

  Lenuria shook her head. She glanced at Temlin. “You've already met the lad. Did you feel anything... unusual... about him?”

  Temlin thought back through his beer-fogged mind, and at last sighed. “Other than being a very righteous sort of young Kingsman, and well-hardened by war in the passes... he seemed rather ordinary. Tall, striking in that traditional Alrashemni way, certainly, but ordinary.”

  Abbess Lenuria gave a sad smile. “I suppose we best hope he comes tonight, then.”

  “I suppose.” Temlin murmured.

  The three settled into silence, as the oil-lamps spluttered and hissed in the great stacks of tomes.

  CHAPTER 27 – ELOHL