The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  It was enough for her to know these places existed.

  The longer they went, the more she began to wonder who was responsible for what had happened. At first, she thought he had been showing her because he believed Lareth was to blame for this, but that didn’t seem to be the case as far as she could tell.

  The longer she was here, the more she began to question whether there was some other power at play.

  That was the message that Olandar Fahr was trying to show her. If there was some other power at work, why bring her here? What did he think she would be able to offer by showing her these things?

  Each time they stopped, she focused on everything she could see around them, thinking there had to be something more she was supposed to find. If it was all about understanding the moves, trying to grasp the next, she would look for it.

  “Another?” They stood along the shore once again with the waves washing along her feet. She had taken to standing in the water, enjoying that aspect of the waves. There was something soothing about it, and she felt that she needed the cleansing of the water after each place they visited, almost as if it would help remove what she had seen and experienced.

  “I think we have to.”

  “Why? What haven’t I seen?”

  He glanced over at her, locking eyes with her. Ever since she had committed to traveling with him, she had been with him exclusively. It was strange to her that he would remain with her for so long.

  “It’s not what you haven’t seen, but it’s more about what I haven’t seen.” He turned his attention onto the water. “There have been terrifying reports.”

  “What sort of reports?”

  “Of creatures that can’t be killed.”

  Her breath caught. “How is that possible?”

  “It’s something my ability to see has not revealed to me. Of the possibilities, there is none that matches what is happening now.”

  “Why is that important? I thought your ability to see possibilities was tied to the nature of the games you’ve been playing.”

  “It is tied to that, and yet, the possibilities I can see are different. This is the first time I have ever encountered something happening that I haven’t been able to anticipate. It’s almost as if I am unable to observe this.”

  “Why haven’t we looked into that rather than what you’ve been showing me?”

  “What I’ve been showing you I have known about for years.”

  “Years?”

  Olandar Fahr nodded. “Years. In all that time, I’ve tried to find answers, and have continued to look, searching for the cause of the destruction, and each time I think I’m getting close, I find nothing.”

  Now she was certain she heard the exasperation in his voice. “And that’s why you’re bringing me?”

  “I was hoping maybe you would find something I’ve missed. This is all part of the game. If we can better understand the moves around us, we can better be prepared for what else needs to be done.”

  “What if there is no understanding?”

  “Then I will be beaten.”

  She knew how much that troubled him. The game was important to him.

  Still, it was nothing more than a game.

  “How is Lareth involved in this?”

  “I’m not quite sure. Yet.”

  She gaped at him, but Olandar Fahr ignored her. All of this and he didn’t even know?

  How was it possible that he didn’t know?

  Given everything she’d gone through, she wanted to ensure that Lareth received the punishment he deserved, and more than that, she wanted to ensure she was able to be a part of it. That was the whole point of her participating, and yet, now that she had gotten this far, she was no longer sure Olandar Fahr was going to allow her the vengeance she wanted. If he thought Lareth was going to be important for his game, then he might not allow her what she wanted.

  “Where now?”

  “Now it’s time for us to return.”

  “Return where?”

  “I’ve shown you everything I can in the outer lands.”

  “Outer lands?”

  He nodded. “The lands that you are familiar with, the lands where I found you, are only a part of this world. There are others, and when I was still sailing, it took weeks and months to reach some of these places. Some of them took even longer—years—for me to find. I spent time searching maps, trying to gain as much knowledge and understanding of the various lands as I could. In all that time, I continued searching for answers. When I finally found them, they were like you have seen.”

  “Destroyed,” she said.

  “Destroyed,” he agreed. “I don’t fully understand what happened, and because of that, I need to continue to look for answers.”

  “I thought you said the answers weren’t there.”

  “They aren’t where I’ve been looking, which means the answers are where I’ve not been looking.”

  “I don’t really understand that, either.”

  “Come,” he said.

  He took her arm, and they traveled.

  When they stepped free, they were once more in the small room within the temple.

  After the beach and the brightness of the sun, and after the waves washing over her feet giving her a feeling of relaxation, the return to the temple was jarring. It was almost disappointing to be back here, and yet, Olandar Fahr took a seat at the table, rearranging the pieces on the board. He waited for her to take another seat, and as he did, he looked up at her.

  “Sometimes a move is not the move you think it is.”

  “How so?”

  “Watch as I play this piece,” he said. He slid one of the pieces along the side of the board. “Do you see what that did?”

  “I’m not as skilled a player of this game as you are.”

  “It’s not about how skilled you are but what you observe.”

  “You moved the piece along the outside.”

  “Did you see what else I did?”

  She frowned, staring at the board. He had both hands resting on either side of the table, and one of them was near the piece he had moved. There was another piece that had shifted, but she hadn’t even seen him do it.

  “I do now,” she said.

  “Good. You don’t have to know the rules of the game to recognize when something is done that shouldn’t be. When you were with me before, what happened?”

  “You were taking more turns at one time.”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  Ryn shrugged. “I didn’t really care.”

  He offered a hint of a smile. “Perhaps you didn’t. But then, I suspect that comes from the fact that you have no interest in playing the game.”

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “But if you did care—if you worried about fairness—how do you think that would make you feel?”

  “Upset that I wouldn’t have an opportunity to make a move.”

  “Exactly. One of the earliest lessons I learned while playing Tsatsun is that sometimes the rules aren’t quite what we believe.”

  “You mean that it’s okay for you to make more than one move at a time?”

  “Sometimes the key is making more than one move at a time. Sometimes the key is using one move to distract from another. I begin to wonder if that’s what’s happening even now.”

  “How so?”

  Olandar Fahr shook his head. “That is what I can’t see. I was hoping that perhaps you would be able to observe something.”

  It occurred to Ryn that there was something more to what he was telling her. “I’m not the first person you have brought to those places, am I?”

  He looked up from the board. “Very good.”

  “How many others?”

  “Many.”

  “Why so many?”

  “Because I need to be able to find the answers, and if it’s something I’m unable to observe, another might be able to do so.”

  Ryn held his gaze. “But you have such powerful abil
ities.”

  “I do, but that isn’t the point.”

  “I have no abilities.”

  “Perhaps not.”

  “Who are these others that you brought there?”

  “I take only those I trust the most.”

  Ryn had met some of the people he was closest to. There was one, a man he referred to as the Architect, who had visited with Olandar Fahr many times. He was a stern man, and yet he was also kind to her.

  “The Architect?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “The disciples?” She knew the disciples held a special place within the hierarchy of the Ai’thol. They were men of power and able to serve Olandar Fahr in a way that many others were not.

  “The disciples have many uses, but not all of them are helpful in this manner.”

  Ryn frowned. “You haven’t brought the disciples to these places?”

  “Not all of them,” he said.

  “Why me?”

  “Because I trust what you observed, Ryn Valeron.”

  She stared at the game board, not able to fully grasp what he was telling her. Why would he trust her? Why would he believe what she was able to see?

  Ryn still wasn’t sure that what she was able to see mattered, and she didn’t know whether she was observing the right things, but at the same time, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she wanted to help him.

  “Why would you trust that?”

  “You’ve given me no reason not to. I think that in time, your ability to see will be even more potent.”

  “Is this some possibility you’ve discovered?”

  He gave her a mysterious smile. “Maybe something like that.”

  Olandar Fahr continued to move the pieces around the board, and Ryn watched. He moved all of them, using both sides, and it seemed as if he were playing against himself.

  Ryn sat back, watching. She didn’t know the rules of the game, and the longer she watched, the more she couldn’t help but feel as if she had no interest in learning the rules. It was far too complicated. When he was done, he set the pieces back, leaning against his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Perhaps it’s time for me to help you see better.”

  “How?”

  “Do you fear taking a blessing?”

  She looked up from the board, worry leaving her trembling. “I don’t know what a blessing is.”

  “Come,” he said.

  He stood and held his arm out, and Ryn took it.

  Ryn expected to appear in some mysterious land, or perhaps in some greater part of the temple, but when they stepped free, they were in a darkened room. The air stank of a strange odor that reminded her of what she had encountered in each of the places that Olandar Fahr had brought her. She looked around, searching for any answers, but there was none. A hearth at one end of the room drew her attention. Coals glowed with a bright orange heat, radiating that heat out into the room. A metal stand rested in front of the fire, and a hammer lay against that stand.

  “What is this place?”

  “This is a smith’s forge.”

  “As in a blacksmith?”

  “Very good.”

  “Lareth is a blacksmith.”

  “So I’ve heard.” There was amusement in his voice, and Ryn needed to be more careful when she’d talked about Lareth. He had tolerated it so far, but there might come a time when he grew weary of her comments about Lareth.

  “Why have you brought me here?”

  “Many of my followers have taken a blessing.”

  “The scar,” she said.

  She had enough experience with the Ai’thol to know that many of them had scars, and yet she hadn’t been able to determine the purpose behind them. Partly that was because she had feared asking, not wanting to upset Olandar Fahr.

  “The scar. The blessing we’ve placed has been a traditional practice, and it’s one that we borrowed from others of this land.”

  “What others?”

  “They called themselves the Hjan, but they are gone. We have borrowed much from them, including our very own Forgers. The Hjan had their uses, though. They understood the metal in ways others do not, and because of that, they allowed us an opportunity to study ways metal can grant abilities.”

  “How does it do that?”

  “It is something we don’t fully know.” He smiled. “Even the Hjan and their Forgers didn’t completely understand, but we continue to study.”

  “That’s why some of them have different scars?”

  “Some do. Some want different abilities than others.”

  “How do you determine which ability they take on?”

  “There’s something to the way the Forgers choose the metal, and the way the people are chosen. Not all can accept a blessing, Ryn Valeron. It can be dangerous, and until we attempt to do so, we don’t know if someone would even survive it.”

  She shivered. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it’s time that you decide if you would be willing to take a blessing.”

  She turned to face him, tearing her gaze away from the forge. “I…”

  His face was hard, his eyes intense. “I can’t promise what would change for you, but given your heritage, I anticipate you will be made whole.” Now he did smile. “Your parents left your homeland before you had the opportunity to know it. You missed out on power that was there, and because of that, you are less than what you would have been had you stayed there.”

  Ryn remembered her mother talking about what it had been like, and what her family might have known, and the fact that her abilities were different than what even her mother had possessed.

  “The blessing will augment what you already possess,” Olandar Fahr said.

  Ryn ran her hand along her face. “I don’t know that I’m ready.”

  “The nature of the blessing has changed. We have begun to master parts of it that we weren’t able to before.” He took a step toward her, and she resisted the urge to flinch. “You think of the scars that you’ve seen before, and you fear. If that were the only blessing I had to offer, I would wait. You are too important to me.”

  Ryn watched him, and in the darkened room, she wasn’t sure if she could read his emotions all that well. “Why?”

  Rather than answering, Olandar Fahr took a step toward the darkened forge. “Recently, we have better understood the nature of the blessing, and now I can offer one to you that would change things for you. It would open up possibilities.”

  Her mind was spinning, and Ryn wasn’t even sure whether she wanted to take a blessing. Before doing so, she thought she needed to better understand what it was and what it would do to her, and what obligation she would have once she did.

  “The how doesn’t matter, but as you’ve seen, there is danger in this world. I search for it. I don’t do so alone, and I ask much of those who work with me. In your case, I would ask that you continue to observe and report back to me, knowing that perhaps you might find the answer I’ve been missing. If you accept this blessing, you can become my emissary, my voice. You can truly serve the Ai’thol.”

  The words hung in the air, and she wasn’t sure what to say or do. She didn’t even know if she wanted what he was offering, but she thought of what she had seen. If the blessing would give her strength she didn’t currently possess, how could she choose otherwise?

  It would be her way of being ready for the opportunity to confront Lareth.

  Turning to Olandar Fahr, she saw a mixture of emotions on his face. There was the typical intensity, the strength she attributed to the man. But there was something else, almost hesitation. Could he be worried about her?

  More than anything, that answered it for her. He wasn’t trying to force her into anything. He wanted to protect her.

  And he needed her help.

  With everything that she had been through, everything that she had seen, and all that he had done for her, how could she not help?

  Even if it meant pain. E
ven if it meant danger. She would do this.

  For him.

  “I will.”

  “I knew you would.”

  42

  Daniel

  Daniel looked around the clearing, feeling the weight of the inside of the Aisl forest, recognizing how powerful this place had been. Perhaps if they were successful at returning that strength, if Neran managed to do what he planned, they would restore the power of the forest. They would need to work quickly, but he wasn’t even sure it mattered. They knew what the Ai’thol intended. That was the first step in stopping them.

  He glanced over to Rayen. “How do you feel?”

  “I’m fine, Daniel Elvraeth.”

  “Even after handling one of the—”

  Rayen raised a hand, silencing him. “I’m fine. Nothing changed for me, regardless of what I may or may not have handled.”

  Daniel turned his gaze up to the trees. The strange metal that worked along the trunks seemed a taunt, even more so now that he understood that power was pouring away from the trees, heading through the crystals, through the pedestals, and somewhere else. The problem was that he didn’t know where that somewhere else happened to be. He wasn’t sure that he could know.

  Now that he had been in the crystal room, he could feel the pulling so much more acutely.

  “Do you still feel it?” Rayen asked.

  “I feel the sense of power—and loss. Now that we have stopped them—”

  “We can’t stop them.”

  Daniel turned to the sound of the voice. An old, frail woman hobbled toward him. Her hair was nearly completely silver, and she was dressed in a flowing robe, stripes of color around it. A shawl over her shoulders matched the robe. He had never seen her before but thought he knew immediately who she was. Everyone—even in the palace—knew who she was.

  “You’re Della.”

  “I am.”

  Daniel looked around and saw Jessa standing on the other side of the clearing. She must have known. As far as he knew, Della was dead. Then again, there was value in misdirection, value in allowing others to believe that you were gone.

  “I can see that you are working through what to make of me.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Understand that were it not essential, I would not remain here.”