“All right.”
Vurin gestured to the road that led out of Callaecia. They walked for several minutes in silence, the only sound the screeching of gulls from the water and the rustling of the leaves in the breeze.
“You know that Treande led our people to Ea’nu,” Vurin said after a while. “He helped them settle the island colony and build the great temple there.”
“Aye.” Taren knew this much. In fact, when Vurin had offered to teach him about the Ea and their history, Taren had welcomed Vurin’s instruction. Now, however, he feared what Vurin might tell him and feared what the knowledge Vurin imparted might reveal.
“As children, we were taught that when the Ea arrived on the island, the volcano roared to life,” Vurin said as he rubbed his jaw and studied Taren with an unreadable expression. “Some say it was a dragon who coaxed it from its sleep. Legend has it Treande singlehandedly extinguished the flames and smoke.”
Taren laughed and bent down to retrieve a small rock from the road. He rolled it between his fingers, then tossed it onto the grass. “And you believe this? Have you ever seen a dragon?”
Vurin shrugged. “Before you met Ian and the others, had you ever seen merfolk? There are many stories of dragons. I hardly need to have met one to believe they may exist. There are stories of ancient magic far more powerful than what we mages now use. Stories of magic transcending time and death. Stories of flying ships and underground cities. There are also stories of Ea priests who could control the elements.
“So much of our magical skills have been lost with time,” Vurin continued. “The Council systematically killed those Ea with strong abilities, or put them on tight leashes and used them like dogs to help them repress the islanders.”
“You believe I’m a mage?” Taren asked.
“Yes.”
“But my abilities—”
“Are untested and unexplored.” Vurin breathed deeply, then said, “I believe the rune stone is the key.”
“To my abilities? Impossible.” In all of Taren’s dreams, Treande was merely the keeper of the stone, never its wielder, as Owyn had been. “Treande never mastered the stone. If he possessed such power, it was his own.”
“You know this?” Vurin’s eyes widened and he turned to face Taren.
“I….” Taren hesitated. “I hadn’t really thought about it until now. Still, I know it’s true. Treande could not wield it.”
Vurin raised an eyebrow, then motioned Taren onward.
“I suppose I didn’t want to think about it until now,” Taren admitted. He’d dreamed it, as he’d dreamed many things about his past. The dreams—memories—still weighed upon him.
Vurin clasped Taren’s shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. “Sometimes the heart speaks for us.”
“I won’t lose him again, Vurin.” Taren clenched his jaw and tried yet again to banish the memory of Owyn’s death from his thoughts.
“You cannot live your life in fear, Taren. That’s no life at all.”
They walked to the edge of the clearing where the temple had once stood. From here, Taren could see the water shimmer in the harbor below. The Phantom’s masts looked like trees in the dead of winter—bare, yet proud.
“How did Treande die?” Taren asked after a moment. He was tired of fighting his fear. He needed to learn the truth, or as much truth as the stories held.
“We don’t know. There are writings from that time in the ancient tongue. They say only that the goddess led him home.”
“And the stone?”
Vurin raised an eyebrow. “Some say he entrusted it to a keeper. Others say it died with him.”
“What do you believe?”
“I believe the stone still exists. That you have dreamed of it is proof enough for me. Besides, as you’ve said, Treande was not a wielder. The stone may be hidden or lost, but it still exists somewhere. It did not die with him.”
“You believe we’re meant to find it again, don’t you?”
“Aye.” Vurin glanced toward the village, then back at Taren. “I believe you and Ian are meant to find it.”
“You want to use it—whatever power it holds—against the islanders?”
“No. I would never use such a thing against our own people,” Vurin said in a steely voice. “But the last of the ancient priestesses told me about the stone around the time you were born. She dreamed of it. She said it would be our people’s last defense. That it would protect us against powerful forces.”
“The humans?” Taren asked.
“Perhaps.” Vurin shook his head. “She told me little more than that.”
“And what of the Council? What of the rumors that Seria now speaks for them?” The thought of Seria controlling the Council made Taren shiver. He couldn’t escape the memory of his cruelty and of his power any more than he could forget the echo of pain and despair.
“I will not see our brethren harmed. Too many of us died when we fought each other two decades ago. Your parents were among them.”
“My parents.” Why had he hesitated to ask Vurin about them?
“I must admit that there are times I don’t understand you, Taren,” Vurin said with a wry smile. “Some empath I am.”
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” Vurin pointed to a path at the edge of the cliff, and they began to descend. “Of the pain of their loss?”
“Aye.” There was little point in denying it—he knew it to be true.
“There is pain in loss,” Vurin agreed. “But there is joy in understanding, as well.” Taren inhaled deeply in an effort to dispel the grief he felt at never having known his parents. “They were good people. They loved you very much. Enough to want to keep you safe from harm at the cost of their own lives.”
“You were the one who hid my true nature, weren’t you?” Taren asked. He had guessed this long before but had never found an opportunity to ask.
“Aye.”
“Ian told me of the prophecy. That the stone is our people’s salvation.”
Vurin nodded. “The old priestess, Zea, spoke of it often. She told me her mother knew Treande and Owyn. She said you would grow to be a powerful mage. She told me to protect you.”
“Protect me how?”
“She didn’t say.” Vurin studied him as if he knew what Taren might say next.
“You… guessed?” Taren wasn’t sure why this disturbed him. What if there had been another way? What if he’d grown up with others of his kind?
“I could have been wrong,” Vurin admitted, likely sensing Taren’s questions.
“They died protecting me, didn’t they?”
“Best I can tell, yes. After they left Callaecia with you, they were never heard from again. Except for the rumor of a mermaid found dead by the harbor, I know nothing of how they perished.”
Taren rubbed his mouth. Sometimes he wondered whether Ian was right—that the goddess planned something different for him in this life—or whether he and Ian were fated to relive the pain of the past as some sort of penance for failing to protect their people.
They reached the bottom of the cliff a moment later. The sun made the surface of the water glitter, and the sound of the waves crashing over the rocks made Taren long to transform. He closed his eyes and inhaled the salty air. He imagined the wind working its fingers through his hair, brushing his skin, helping him to forget his fear.
“What part of me is Treande?”
“You won’t learn the answer to that question until you understand what part of you is not Treande.” When Taren did not respond, Vurin asked, “Who is Taren?”
More riddles. He hated it when Vurin spoke in riddles.
“What does Taren desire? What does he fear? What drives him?”
Taren drew a long breath but found he still could not speak.
“You love Ian. You want to remain at his side. Keep him safe. What then?”
“Aye.” A simple question, and yet other than loving Ian, he couldn’t answer the rest of Vurin’s question
. “I want to rebuild our home,” he said, finding nothing else he desired except the wish to live out his life at Ian’s side.
Vurin picked up a white stone—the same rock from which the temple had been built—and rolled it between his palms. “Would you wish to rebuild the temple?” He replaced the stone and looked back at Taren.
“I… I don’t know. Perhaps if the goddess demanded it.” Or if Ian asked him to do it.
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“I did,” Taren protested. “I—”
“You said you would rebuild the temple if someone told you to. You didn’t tell me if you wished to rebuild it.”
Taren didn’t meet Vurin’s gaze. He wouldn’t admit Vurin was right, even if he knew he was. He still didn’t see himself as a leader capable of overseeing the temple’s reconstruction.
“There’s nothing wrong with not knowing your will. You’ve lived your life to please others. It will take time for you to find your place.”
“I was a slave.” He’d almost said I am a slave, but he thought better of it. Ian had told him more times than he could remember that he hadn’t fallen in love with a slave, he’d fallen in love with a man. And yet Taren was still a slave, wasn’t he? He still owed Rider a year of his life in service. The thought of returning to his place aboard the Sea Witch comforted him. At least there he knew his place, his purpose.
Vurin put a hand on Taren’s shoulder. “Let me teach you to use your gift. Sometimes the past can illuminate the future. That is the reason for the gift of sight.”
“I’m not sure I want to see more of the past.” Taren saw himself plunging the dagger into Owyn’s chest. He still felt the pain of loss keenly, even though he knew Owyn lived again in Ian’s soul. “Isn’t it enough that I dream of it each night?”
“Perhaps if you learn to use your gift, you will have no need to dream.”
“Don’t you mean that if I appease your goddess, she won’t force me to dream?” Taren clenched his fists at his sides and struggled against his anger.
Vurin chuckled.
“Am I that amusing?” Taren retorted.
“I’m sorry, Taren.” Vurin appeared genuinely contrite. “It’s just that you remind me of myself, years ago. On Ea’nu.”
Taren frowned. The last thing he wanted was yet another of Vurin’s patronizing lectures about his youth and inexperience.
“Fifty years ago, I was much like you. Content to live my life in peace.” Taren saw pain flicker in Vurin’s eyes. Vurin drew a long breath, then said, “Then the Council arrested my only brother.”
“What happened to him?”
Vurin looked briefly away, as if he didn’t want Taren to see the pain flare again. “The Council executed him. Called him a traitor for daring to speak out about the conditions on Ea’nu.”
“Your goddess is cruel.”
“Our goddess is just, Taren. She expects her people to take up her cause. Seek justice. Too many people died because people like me did nothing.” Vurin shook his head.
“How many of our people died in the war?” Taren demanded.
“Too many.” Vurin spoke in an undertone. “But would you have done nothing if you’d been in my place?”
“I don’t know.”
“An honest answer.” Vurin smiled at Taren.
“I need the same from you,” Taren said, emboldened.
Vurin nodded. “What do you need to know?”
“Tell me about the rune stone.” Taren had been afraid to ask this as well. “I want to know.” He folded his arms across his chest. He wouldn’t let Vurin avoid or change the subject, as he often did when Taren asked questions.
Vurin’s expression was unreadable, although Taren sensed Vurin was pleased he had finally asked. He’d expected Vurin to chuckle or offer him a paternal smile, but this time Vurin did neither. “Aye. I daresay you deserve to know what little I’ve learned about it.”
High time, Taren reckoned.
“I’m sure you’ve guessed that the humans attacked Treande’s people because of the stone.” Vurin drew an audible breath.
Taren had known this. Treande had known it, and Taren had remembered.
“Our people trusted the humans too much,” Vurin continued. “Perhaps someone amongst their human friends knew about the stone and spoke of it offhandedly to the rulers of the ancient Kingdom of Derryth. We may never know.
“From the accounts of those who survived the attack that killed Owyn and many more of our people, we know that the humans believed the stone was a powerful weapon.”
“Is it that powerful?” asked Taren.
Vurin shook his head. “I don’t know. What I do know is that it can only be wielded by one of our people. One person, perhaps, given what you’ve told me of Owyn.”
The image of a dying Owyn flashed through Taren’s mind yet again. He willed it away with a shudder. “You believe I’m the wielder.”
Vurin nodded and motioned for Taren to follow him as he moved behind one of the rock formations. Taren noticed an opening in the cliff face. He’d been down here before, but he’d never seen it. Vurin smiled at him, then slipped through the rocks and disappeared on the other side. Taren followed.
“You’ve returned to us for a purpose, Taren.” Vurin’s voice echoed inside the cavern.
Taren’s eyes slowly began to adjust to the darkness. In here, the waves sounded distant. Water dripped from the high ceiling of the cave, landing with an almost musical tone as it hit the rocks underfoot.
Vurin stretched out his hands, then closed his eyes and muttered words in a language Taren did not understand. Taren blinked as two small spheres of blue light appeared, one on each of Vurin’s palms. They floated upward and hovered above, illuminating the cave.
“What…?” Taren gasped.
“This is our past, Taren,” Vurin said as Taren took in the intricate carvings on the cave walls.
Everywhere he looked, Taren saw images of Ea swimming through underwater structures that appeared to be built from stone and coral. Ea children swam alongside their parents, men and women brought offerings to an underwater temple, and Ea swam in and out of an ornate building that looked very much like the drawings of castles Taren remembered from the picture books Borstan had read to him as a child.
“How old…?” Taren asked, overwhelmed with the beauty and the implications of what he saw.
Vurin shook his head. “Far older than the ruins of the temple, at least. Several thousand years old, perhaps more. The ancient texts tell of this place, and how our ancestors came to this land from far away, and of how they built their home here, in Callaecia.
“Few people have ever seen this shrine,” Vurin added. “In the time of Treande and Owyn, only the priests knew of it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Taren said as he walked over to the nearest carving and pressed his hand to the stone.
“I believe this place was meant to remind us of who we once were, and of what we might become if our people can overcome their fear.” Vurin joined Taren at the wall and put his own palm against the surface. “The first step to understanding your future is admitting your fear, Taren.”
“I don’t know if my heart can survive the past.” Taren could barely speak the words.
“It already has.” Vurin smiled. “Now is the time to gather your courage for what is to come.”
TAREN HAD planned on heading back to town to rejoin Ian, who was helping Renda and his wife rethatch the roof of the house they’d built on an ancient crumbling foundation. Instead, he walked the rocky shore and watched as some of the villagers tossed nets into the water. It still seemed strange to him that the Ea fished as humans. Not that there weren’t some in the village who fished in their Ea forms, but as best as Taren could tell, they did so more for the sport of it than to provide food for the village.
He reached the edge of the cove and stepped into the water to avoid the outcropping that blocked the sandy trail. The late-afternoon sun hung low on the horiz
on, and the temperature had begun to drop in its wake. He knew he had walked this trail a hundred—perhaps a thousand—times before as Treande. Each step felt familiar; each sound reminded him of the happiness he’d had here with Owyn and called to mind the promise of his future with Ian.
The sky filled with white clouds that danced about, taking on the shapes of familiar things. A boat, a bird, a dog. Taren watched as the dog seemed to sprout wings like a dragon’s. He thought of what Vurin had said about dragons. A year before, he’d not have believed merfolk were anything but legend. Now, he wondered how much of the world he’d failed to see. Why not dragons? Or sea monsters? Or furies? Or sirens who caused ships to wreck? Why should he doubt the existence of things simply because he’d never seen them for himself?
He walked for nearly an hour, taking comfort in the peace he felt as his bare feet met the familiar path and the breeze off the water caressed his bare shoulders. He glanced at the nearby hill to where he’d seen the ruins of a small house once before. Much like what was left of the house he and Owyn had shared on the cliffs near the village, the vestiges of the white stone foundation were all that was left to memorialize the dwelling.
“You are troubled as always, Treande. Or should I call you Taren?”
Taren spun around at the sound of the familiar voice, sure that he’d imagined it. But the old woman smiled at him from the base of the crooked tree trunk where she sat, cross-legged, her milky eyes unseeing, her white hair so thin he could see her scalp beneath.
“You? But that’s impossible. The last time I saw you—”
Her cackled laughter reminded him of the creaking sound the ropes on the Phantom made when wound tight against the winch. “I’m pleased you remember. I am Aerin,” she added with a slight nod.
He remembered well—he’d seen her before he’d been thrown into the Ea prison. And before that in the marketplace when he’d still been a rigger aboard the Sea Witch. A vision! How had he not realized it before? Of course she wasn’t real.
“Has it taken you this long to understand?” She laughed again. “Then again, you were always a bit naïve.”
Into the Wind Page 4