by Sean Rodden
For against this thing he knew he could not stand.
Rundul raised his eyes to those of his Chieftain.
“There are many definitions of courage, young Warder,” Drogul said. “Is it nobler to die a warrior’s death and keep intact one’s hon-our than it is to sacrifice that honour for the survival of unnumbered thousands at the risk of one’s own lifelong shame? What would I have done in your stead? I cannot say. But the customs of the Daradur are very clear on this matter, and leave me with little to consider.”
Rundul lowered his eyes once more, the shame that seared his soul burning at their corners. Drogul did know. Of this, Rundul was certain. The Mighty One would not have turned from the kuarok.
“I therefore have no choice, Warder Rundul,” the Chieftain continued, his voice completely devoid of emotion, “but to promote you to kor uri Waratur – Captain of the Wandering Guard. When next the kumman ur Korr sit in council, Captain Rundul of Axar will be welcome to sit with them, the first and only Darad not of the Firstmade to hold such honour.”
Rundul stood dumbfounded, his mouth falling agape in astonishment.
The Mighty One’s thick moustaches twitched with the suppression of a smile.
“We are a people made of Earth and Fire, Captain, a people gifted with War and Love, and these latter two need not be mutually exclusive. You have proven this. Your deeds in the Bloodshards define selfless love for kith and kin, and for the Earth herself, and can go neither unacknowledged nor unrewarded. Wear the mark upon your back with pride, Captain. It is the brand of a courage unsurpassed by any Darad that has gone before you.”
Rundul blinked in disbelief.
“And,” Drogul the kirun-tar furthered, “a mission such as the one upon which you embark tonight for New Ungloth must be undertaken by a Darad of no lesser rank than Captain.” A smile finally broke past the Mighty One’s heavy beard. “So you see, Captain, as I have said, I am given no choice in the matter.”
Rundul’s burning ceased, though his eyes yet stung, but of a cause polarly removed from shame.
Absolution.
Rundul managed a mute nod, the sole expression of his acceptance and gratitude.
The Mighty One grasped Rundul’s shoulder strongly, assuringly.
“I will not be with you in Ravenwood this night, Captain,” Drogul rumbled lowly. “I must depart for Raku Ulrun where Dulgar awaits me with some impatience. But I will leave you with this, bold Rundul – the urthvennim must be neutralized. Brulwar will give you the power to do this, though it may seem inconsequential, even impotent, when he does so. Hear and heed the wisdom in his words, Captain, and when the time comes, the way will be made clear.” The sheen of the Mighty One’s black eyes seemed shadowed with something akin to sorrow. “The answer lies in your own self only, my brother. You will not fail.”
Releasing him, and with no more said, the great Chieftain of the Wandering Guard of the Daradur turned from Rundul and moved away into the sculpted stone of the city.
Staring into the stone eyes of long-dead Rokkundar, Rundul of Axar, Captain of the mara Waratur, stayed standing where he was, silent and still, slowly recovering from the stupefying shock of his absolution.
Breath in, breath out. Willing his hammering heart to slow.
I will not fail.
In the blackened murk of Ravenwood, Rundul smiled at the memory. There were no medals, no stripes, no insignia of any sort to mark his rise in rank. The Daradur, regardless of their regiment, wore no uniforms, bore no symbols to signify their individual status or bond of service. Their inherent auras spoke to others of their race of these things for them. Beyond that, no more was necessary.
“Favour, indeed,” echoed Rundul. “But fret not, brother Mundar. The day might come that you surpass me. Ungrgoth, demesne of the dwar-Durka and the demon hordes, remains hidden. Perhaps it is in your destiny to have a hand in the finding of that abominable place, that the besiegers might themselves become the besieged.”
Mundar grinned and an odd light oscillated in his obsidian orbs.
“Ahhh,” mused the blond-bearded Warder of the Wandering Guard. “A fine and fitting fortune, that, and one well worthy of me…….Captain.”
Whether Mundar’s closing word was in recognition of Rundul’s recent rise in rank or for the garrulous Warder’s envisioning of his own possible promotion, Rundul did not – and would never – know.
“The time is upon us, my brothers,” interjected Brulwar, his voice as smooth as polished obsidian. “You must depart now, Captain. The horrors of New Ungloth await you, and the way there is long and hard. Yours is to guide your companions from Coldmire to the cavern of the Blood King, and to render impotent the urthvennim. In the former you must rely upon your own knowledge and experience, but in the latter I give you some little assistance.”
The Earthmaster removed from a fold in his greatcoat the small stone he had retrieved from the grasses of Cedorrin. He held it forth upon his open and heavily calloused palm. There it rested, small and grey, no more spectacular than any other little chunk of rock.
Rundul peered closely and curiously at the stone. He then frowned doubtfully, and raised his gaze to the Earthmaster, an unspoken question in his eyes.
“The urthvennim may be negated only through the spirit and strength of Maiden Earth, Captain,” explained the First Made of the Firstmade. “And Maiden Earth resides in this rock. You need only cast it into the pool of the urthvennim, and Maiden Earth will see the evil destroyed.”
Rundul blinked slowly. Any misgivings he may have had faded, fell away. The word of the uldwan Dor was ever irrefutable, beyond all circumspection.
The Earthmaster took Rundul by one wrist, opened the Captain’s hand and placed the pebble upon his palm. Rundul closed his thick fingers about it. Brulwar then wrapped his own hard hands about the Captain’s fist.
“You will not fail, my brother.” The Earthmaster’s statement was as the seal of his soul, an oath unbreakable. “The power is within you.”
Rundul of Axar, Captain of the Wandering Guard, nodded. He slipped the stone into his inrinil tunic, secreting it close to his heart.
You will not fail.
“As you deem it, uldwan Dor, so it will be done.”
Mundar of Dul-darad veritably beamed with empathetic joy and pride.
The Earthmaster returned the Captain’s nod, then turned to where the Fiannar and the Athair had come together and now awaited the Stone Lords.
“We’re ready,” Brulwar called into the blackness of Ravenwood.
Rundul hefted his ponderous pack, shrugged his massive shoulders into its bindings, took up his great war-axe and, with Mundar at his side, followed Brulwar to the awaiting ennead of Athair and Fiannar.
Lord Alvarion greeted the Daradur with a small nod, weariness evident in the lines about his eyes.
“I am told some congratulations are in order, Captain Rundul,” he smiled dimly. “I can think of none more worthy.”
Rundul nodded, brought his fist to his chest.
Alvarion’s eyes then swept across the gathering of great ones before him. Even he, noble Lord of the Deathward, seemed humbled in that mighty company.
“There is little left to say, my friends. Know only that our gratitude for the friendship of the Stone Lords and for that of the Neverborn knows no bounds. Your aid in this, the great test of my time, will not go unremembered.”
“We shall all be tested, old friend,” responded Evangael. “None more so than those who now embark upon this unenviable journey to New Ungloth.”
“Well said, good Prince,” said the Lady Cerriste. “Though they seek the place of gravest peril, they carry with them our greatest hope.”
“And this hope is ever fragile,” Alvarion added, his fatigued eyes flicking from Rundul to Yllufarr to Eldurion, “and relies upon absolute stealth and secrecy. Suru-luk’s spies are about and abroad, but are likely to avoid the bitter bogland of Coldmire. Once within that morass, assuming the Moor Walkers have no
t allied themselves with the enemy as Master Tulnarron fears, you should be safe from the Blood King’s many eyes. The throkka will patrol the skies above you, and that you go afoot will allow you to avoid the attention that mounts would surely draw. But you must refrain from all use of magic and Maiden Earth, and especially the Blade of Defurien, lest those powers swing the Blood King’s awareness toward you. You must depend upon the mights of mind and muscle alone – and upon one another as surely as those who do not go with you depend on you.”
The grim former Marshal of the Grey Watch stepped forward then, his eyes but points of cold light within the blackness of his cowl. He looked first upon Tulnarron and Sarrane, then upon Cerriste and Alvarion, all of whom he acknowledged with the slightest of nods.
Lastly he looked upon Caelle, his lovely and loving daughter – the greatest joy in the three long centuries of his life. He raised one hand to her cheek, then bent to kiss her beautiful brow, strangely gentle gestures for such a decidedly ungentle man. But he spoke no words, and a moment later he turned his back upon his child, his folk and his friends, and slipped away and eastward through blackbound Ravenwood toward the wet and wintry wastes of Coldmire.
The Shield Maiden’s round blue-flecked eyes grew large as they followed the form of her father vanishing into the firs of the forest, into the Wilderness. Each of the Fiannar there knew, and Caelle better than any, that whether in success or in failure, Eldurion of the House of Defurien, Eldest of his folk, would not be coming again to Druintir of the Deathward. Caelle felt first Cerriste’s then Sarrane’s hand slide into her own. She swallowed against the threat of a swelling tear.
The Fiannar do not mourn.
Alvarion looked away from the place of his uncle’s departure into the trees. His dry grey eyes fell upon Rundul of the Wandering Guard.
“So, Captain,” said he stiffly, “we call upon you to once again save us from certain doom.” He shifted his gaze from the Darad’s broad bearded face to the enormous pack at his back, and managed a wry smile. “Your burden is a weighty one, I see.”
Both Mundar and Brulwar chuckled for the Lord’s humour.
“There’s no burden I wouldn’t willingly bear for a friend, Lord Alvarion,” Rundul gruffly replied.
“This we know, Captain.” Alvarion brought one fist to his rillagh. “Stone and steel, brave Rundul of Axar.”
And the Deathward there echoed, “Stone and steel!”
Rundul turned then to the Sun Lords of the Athair and inclined his head respectfully. The Princes of the Neverborn returned the subtle salutation, accompanied by smiles both bright and beautiful.
Rundul then found himself enveloped in an embrace that would have broken the body of a lesser being.
“Stone and steel, Captain,” rumbled Mundar, releasing him. Then, and with definitively un-Daradun delicacy, “My love goes with you into war, brother.”
“Remind me upon my return,” grumbled Rundul, “to plead with Earth the Mother that she Make for you a woman.”
All there laughed aloud, and Warder Mundar most loudly of all.
Rundul looked to Brulwar then, and the great black-bearded Earthmaster held his eyes as though in a vise of black iron. And somewhere within his soul Rundul heard repeated –
The power is within you.
And then Rundul was freed from the grip of the Earthmaster’s gaze, and he turned upon the heavy heels of his metal-shod boots, and walked in Eldurion’s wake into the enfolding darkness of Ravenwood.
The remaining Daradur and Deathward turned to the Sun Lords then, the three surviving warrior princes of the Seven once sworn in service to Gavrayel and Aeline who ruled in Gith Glennin. Even in the midnight murk of Ravenwood, the Sun Lords shone with an inner light, though Yllufarr’s luminescence was veiled by his black garb, and the cool glow of his pale eyes was the only shining that slid past cloak and cowl. About the noble Neverborn was the song of strings and bells, sweet and soft, laced with a subtle yet profound sorrow. Were tears of both love and loss to come together in a melody, the mystical music that was the Light of the Athair would be the soul within that song.
“Ward them well, brother Yllufarr,” said Evangael, his voice like the flowing of mist on a meadow. “They possess the means to fulfill their missions. You must only ensure them the way. And when the Sun Knights ride, they must ride unseen. Therefore the Blood King must be blinded. That which he does not see will not cause him concern, will not move him to alter his plans. That he acts as we have predicted is essential.”
Prince Yllufarr nodded, his pale eyes flashing. “So it will be done.”
The Sun Lord Thrannien sang a soft sad song of sending, the sound the whisper of a warm summer wind, or the rustling of leaves in the night.
And Prince Yllufarr slid into the benighted forest like one of the black avian creatures after which that ancient wood was named, sailing the darkness on wings of silent speed.
Then, in answer to an unspoken summons, one of the elegant elliamir seemed to materialize from nothingness in the darkness of the trees, her golden mane like fire in the night, her coat as bright and white as a winter sun. The Sun Lord Evangael leapt lightly upon the elliam’s silk-shirted back, his own mane of flaming gold blazing about him like a flag of fierce and unfailing hope.
“Fare free, my friends,” said he, raising one hand to his heart, “and when all farewells are done, remember me as I remember you.”
Alvarion stood to one side of the Sun Lord’s glorious mount, and raised one hand in farewell.
“Make haste, good Prince.”
Evangael reached down and placed one strong hand upon Alvarion’s shoulder.
“Faendomin will not burn, my friend,” he vowed.
“You will come, then?” The deep melodious voice was Tulnarron’s.
The Prince of the Neverborn, mightiest of the warriors of the Athair of Second Earth, moved his golden eyes to the Master of the House of Eccuron. Silence swirled in like fog from the mountains. Then Evangael smiled a most beautiful and beguiling smile.
“Look for me, Master Tulnarron,” said he eerily, as though from a great distance, or from the mists of a dream, “when the sun rises in the west.”
And then the very trees seemed to part to permit the enchanting elliam passage, and the night gathered at the backs of steed and rider, and in an instant both were gone.
Nothing was spoken among those that remained in the eaves of Ravenwood. They had been left to ponder in silence the puzzle of Evangael’s parting words.
When the sun rises in the west.
And all there, all but the Sun Lord Thrannien, shared the same dark, dismal, disturbing thought, a thought that brought them to a conclusion near to doubt and not very distant from despair.
The Athair would not come.
Thunderlight, elliamian steed of the Sun Lord Evangael, flew through Ravenwood like a white wind, and the tangled twisted trees parted for them as they passed. Within minutes, they came to the River Ruil. And without hesitation, Evangael urged his gallant mount out upon the rushing waters, and Thunderlight rode the Ruil as easily as she would a grassy plain or a flowered meadow. Westward against the current she ran, galloping over wave and whitecrest as though the river were elemental earth, and she recked little or naught of the warders in the night that saw her pass.
But two who saw the white flash of Thunderlight on the water marked her going with quiet careful words.
“What in the Teller’s Tale was that?” asked the Iron Captain of his brother as they made their way westward through the storm-shivered night to Druintir.
“I know not,” came Axennus’ reply, following a pensive pause. “But I have a suspicion.”
“Never mind, little brother,” frowned Bronnus, retracting his question. “I am of the considered opinion that I would rather not know.”
Onward, upward, westward raced Thunderlight. And then, beneath the upraised sword of Defurien’s Colossus, she turned north upon the golden grasses of the Miramarch. Evangael dis
cerned the invisible sentries of the Grey Watch, allowed them to witness Thunderlight’s wild
run, but when mount and master passed the northern limits of Fiannian vigilance, the Sun Lord turned Thunderlight westward again, whispering –
“Like the wind, Cel-lumin! As swift as lightning, as silent as sunrise, as sure as death to the deserving! Fly!”
And abandoning the northerly path that would have led to the regal rises of the Vallagard Mountains and mystical Gith Glennin that lay hidden behind them, Thunderlight raced westward, swifter than a windborn storm but as quiet as a mother’s lullaby, and no more visible to the eye than the scent of flowers in summer air.
Westward they went, mount and mounted, bearer and borne, steed and Sun Lord. Westward, ever westward. Away from Gith Glennin where ruled good Gavrayel of the Golden Voice and his Queen Aeline, where the shining Sul Athaifain awaited command. Westward, where the sun died each day and the wind was scented with salt.
Westward, ever westward.
To the sea.
13
SERENDIPITY
“There is the thing we see,
There is the thing we perceive,
There is the thing we believe –
And then there is the thing that is.”
Omereo, Schematas
An involution of consciousness.
Ascending into the astral skies, sailing the soul of the universe. A solitary spark among millions of roaring stars, darting through the darknesses between blue giants and white dwarfs, betwixt pulsars and pulsating cepheids. An etheric vessel possessed of deliberate volition, soaring across the cosmos. This subtle body, alert, self-aware, intent, seeking a darkness among shadows.
Swirling down upon the earth like an angel of death. Arcing through the atmosphere, plying the physical plane. Descending upon the gross world to a place where the earth reflects the sky, where thousands of seeming stars shine on yellow seas. Fires. So many fires. So many thousands of fires. This subtle body, alarmed, apprehensive, resolved, sensing a darkness among shadows.
Tents. Thousands upon thousands of tents. One tent greater, so much vaster than all the others. Floating, fluttering down, finding the flaps. Slipping inside. Into the shadows. Into those shadows. Blind in the black. Feeling about with phantasmal hands. Feeling and finding – one, two. Touching. This subtle body, revolted, recoiling, fleeing, having discovered such terrible darkness among shadows.