Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1)

by Michael Watson

  The crater wasn’t lifeless. A river poured over the rim on the far side, the winds dispersing it into a long trail of white mist. A sapphire lake dominated the east side of the crater floor, its rippling shores reaching the base of the collapsed city. Groves of trees and other greenery fringed the lake and crept around either side of the main ruin, but the growth stopped dead at the Rift, where a narrow river flowed into the crevasse and disappeared into the crackling light.

  On the nearer, west side of the Rift, the crater floor was covered in a forest of massive spines of rock that pointed away from the central ruin of the city and toward the rim. Tyrissa estimated that each spine was dozens of feet tall, and a few appeared to be close to a hundred, like the gargantuan claws of the planet itself. South of that the crater floor was clear, if interwoven with smaller tears and sinkholes. It looked to be the best place to cross the crater to the ruins proper.

  But above and through it all there were the winds. They howled across the Hithian Crater and sang their chorus against the ruins, the spines, the flatlands. For all the life and wonder that may have flown here in the past, it was the winds that remained and they whispered only of loss.

  “Two hundred fifty-eight years, five months, seventeen days,” Hali said after a long while. “The sight of it has never ceased to be breathtaking and horrifying in equal measure. Time’s ability to heal all wounds is chronically overstated.”

  Tyrissa slid off her rocky perch and walked over to Hali.

  “Do you come here often?”

  “Whenever I’m in New Inthai,” Hali replied. She turned away from the crater, and Tyrissa caught a glimpse of Hali’s face in total grief. It was fleeting and soon went back to her neutral beauty. “I seeded this grove eighty years ago. Glad to see it’s still going strong.”

  “I’ve never seen trees like these. Where are they from?”

  “The Plane of Life,” Hali said simply.

  Tyrissa nodded. She figured that was the answer, especially with the life magick coursing through the ground below. It was both disturbing and understandable that Hali would create another piece of land warped by elemental magick as her own personal refuge. An act of defiance perched on the shore of devastation.

  Hali pointed at the center of the crater, at the mountainous pile of rubble that marked the fallen city’s grave. “Tyrissa, you see anything that may be of help to our mission?”

  Tyrissa stared back at the ruins, concentrating on the air, eyes flicking around the bits of stonework sticking out of the rubble. From this distance, those pieces of rubble must be the size of buildings. She sent the ever-rising earthen energy to her feet as an anchor against the winds and to aid her concentration.

  She did indeed see something else.

  “Yes. A column of denser wind magicks where the air is twisting and shivering, emerging from the peak of the ruin.” Once she could see it, feel it, it couldn’t be unseen. The soaring column of elemental magick had a passive but sinister look, like a black thunderhead crossing the sky.

  “Then it is as Kronall said,” Hali said with dismay. “Vralin is really pursuing some fantasy of rebirth.”

  Tyrissa stepped away from the cliff’s edge. Hali had taken a seat on the grass and meditatively stared out across the crater. While she had Hali here, she would get more answers. Vralin’s betrayal of Tsellien weighed heavily on her. Srahoun said they were lovers since they were youths. If that didn’t make a line that couldn’t be crossed, what could? Could anything? She couldn’t let too many unknowns gnaw at her when they resumed the hunt tomorrow.

  “Hali. Tell me what you know about Tsellien and Vralin.” It wasn’t a request. It was a demand.

  The Hithian gave her a brief, hard look that melted into a passing resemblance of sympathy. She patted the ground next to her and said, “Here. Sit.”

  Tyrissa did so and Hali was silent for a minute, gathering her thoughts.

  “I know little more than you do. Truly. They were an odd pair, though that is understandable given their respective natures. I was away when they were children and didn’t visit New Inthai for twenty years. I’ve devoted a significant portion of my unending life to rebuilding the Hithian people. You can imagine my frustration when I returned to learn that two unique Hithian children, two opportunities to push our people’s recovery ahead, had slipped away to engage in some foolish adventure. I eventually caught up with them about twenty years ago, deep in Rhonia. I tried to convince them to help me, but then the Daemonic Incursions happened.”

  “The Cleanse.”

  Hali nodded. “A trial by fire for more than just Morgale. The Rhonian Empire had its own surge of daemonic infestations in their eastern provinces, far from here. Despite the scale of the incursion they managed to keep relatively quiet. The Khalans had no idea how bad it was beyond rumors and a minor drop in trade. Blissful ignorance.”

  That explains why they were in Morgale. They were continuing their old fight against the residual influence of daemons, of infernal magick. Tyrissa kept the conclusion to herself and waited for Hali to continue.

  “Before the ashes had even settled I tried again to convince them to help me in rebuilding our people. Tsellien… she simply didn’t care. The Fall was history to her, a judgment and punishment that had been delivered. Hithia was to be learned from and left in the history books. I named her traitor, among other things. She commanded me to leave her sight, or else.”

  Or else I will destroy you like the dangerous Pactbound you are. The thought came unbidden, like an echo of a nearly forgotten, angry memory. Tyrissa shivered and the feeling was gone.

  “I only met her a few times after that and not at all in the last decade. Suffice to say we didn’t get along.”

  “And Vralin? What did he believe?” Tyrissa asked.

  “He was more sympathetic and I nearly convinced him to my way of thinking. I thought Vralin, far more than Tsellien, was the key to rebuilding our nation. He was a Windmage, just like before the Fall. I thought understood what he was. She was just a…”

  “An unknown.” Tyrissa was starting to believe Hali’s claim that she didn’t know much about Tsellien’s Pact, about what a Valkwitch was. Hali knew just enough to keep her distance.

  “Yes. But in the end Vralin was more loyal to Tsellien than Hithia. With her gone… well, it is clear he is convinced some sort of violent rebirth is now in order.”

  “Convinced or commanded?”

  “It is hard to tell the difference with our kind, yes? He’s certainly acting like a Pactbound being driven by his patron. Enough to conflate long-simmering beliefs with causing another round of elemental destruction. Enough to…”

  “Kill the woman he loved.”

  “Enough for that,” Hali agreed. If Vralin could betray and murder the woman he loved for the sake of his Pact, how could she trust any Pactbound? How could she trust herself?

  “Could his plan work?”

  “Perhaps. According to you something is clearly happening down there. Hithia’s connection to the Plane of Air was the source of our power. The city was part domain and part… something else. The Fall severed that connection and we lost our blessed status in the eyes of Elemental Air. No more Windmages or easy elchemical tech, and far fewer priests like Kronall. Power, technology, soul, and capital city all lost in a single day. Perhaps Vralin truly believes he can reestablish that connection and raise us back to greatness, that what was lost in an instant can be regained in an instant.” Hali shook her head in disbelief. “In the end… Vralin is simply caught up, as we are, in the ceaseless gales of elemental conflict.”

  “Yet you told me to embrace it,” Tyrissa said.

  “I did.”

  “But it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Oh yes. That was a favor, back on the caravan. I didn’t want to weigh you down with too much of my own bitterness. We struck a deal. In exchange for power we agreed to carry out their will or some fragment of whatever designs they have. Sometimes those demands push u
s too hard or force us to turn away or even destroy what we love. So we justify it, rewrite the demands to align with a personal desire. We numb the pain and distract ourselves.”

  “What if that’s just the Pact forcing you in a different way?” Tyrissa asked.

  “Now there’s a scary thought, yes? ‘How do I know what I truly want?’ For example, in Rhonia I am known in the recent histories as ‘Rhalienne, Vines of Vengeance’. An honored Imperial Style for someone who systematically hunted down and took bloody revenge on every single legion general or courtly lady responsible for the military campaign against Hithia that precipitated the Fall. The question becomes this: was my rampage a personal vendetta or an assignment from my Pact? Which version of that horror story do I accept?”

  “I don’t know,” Tyrissa replied. “Regardless of whether the motivation was yours or the Pact’s, if they were responsible wasn’t it a form of justice? How did you feel when it was done?”

  “How did I feel? I felt nothing. Vengeance can fuel a person for many years but even in the name of justice it bears a bitter, meager fruit. My bloody quest did nothing for my fallen people and I realized afterward that so long as I walk this earth, there will be a living legacy of Hithia. Make no mistake, I still hate the Rhonians. They destroyed the most beautiful creation of mankind for the sake of empire, gold, and gods. Words can describe the city and do justice to its beauty, but nothing can mimic being there and beholding it with your own eyes. Nothing can bring back that sense of belonging, the eternal wonder, the communal ownership of it all. Everyone had a right to it, even a high-class whore from the streets of the Kynarral.”

  Hali let out a bitter laugh that drifted out on the shifting winds of the Hithian Crater.

  “And she’s the only one left. How’s that for a legacy? Come, we should go back to the inn. I’m sure Kexal has made himself useful and is waiting on us.”

  A medley of scents filled the air of the cramped, private dining room of the Leaning Tower. Kexal had arranged a feast for their final night in civilization. Hithian cuisine favored spices and fowl, mushrooms and greens. Tyrissa ate sparingly, distracted by the task ahead of them and the history behind it. The depth of Vralin’s betrayal haunted her, and she only half listened to the chatter around the table. Kexal was finishing a story about the first Pactbound they ever hunted, a renegade Rhonian Fireweaver, aided by frequent corrections by Garth, some written, some signed. Eventually Kexal turned to serious matters.

  “Now, are you sure he’s in the crater, Hali? Locals claim they haven’t seen him in years. We’re runnin’ on the word of one priest.”

  “He’s there,” Tyrissa said in Hali’s place. “I’m sure of it.”

  “How?”

  “He already started activating that device, the floatcore. I can see it’s magick in the air above the ruins. Feel it pulling me along.”

  “Alright then. Not meanin’ to doubt you kid. Just want to be sure.”

  “I’ll be the one to ask,” Wolef said, “How is this time going to be different from the caves or the observatory?”

  “Three reasons,” Kexal said. “One: He’s on the run. Less time to prepare tricks like in the caves.”

  “Unless he has a bigger pet to throw at us,” Wolef suggested.

  “Well, if that happens again I figure Ty could wrangle it down.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Tyrissa said as flashbacks of riding the deep wurm ran through her mind. She summoned a faint smile to avoid being a complete grim cloud over the dinner.

  Kexal continued. “Two: Since he’s on the run, he’s frazzled. It’s likely that whatever he’s going to do with that floatcore has been upended by us being on his tail. He has fewer supplies in the middle of a ruin than under Khalanheim.”

  “Unless it’s complete,” Hali said. “We have no idea.”

  “Granted. All the more reason to hustle tomorrow. Thirdly,” Kexal motioned at Garth, “We have an ace in the hole. Garth’s little dust box is good to go this time. It’s good to go, right?”

  Garth nodded smugly.

  “Right. The locals say we can descend to the crater at a spot nearby. It’s called ‘The Spiral’, some kind of wind-carved oddity in the rock. I got a guide lined up to get us there, and he says it’ll take us all the way to the bottom. Then we’ll hug the crater wall to the flatlands past the spines and run like hell to the middle. Get some good sleep tonight folks. Tomorrow’s gonna be a long, wild ride.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  They set out for the Hithian Crater as soon as the pre-dawn sky was bright enough to light the way. Their guide was a ten-year-old boy named Rwalon who possessed the endless enthusiasm of a child proudly showing off his skills. Crowned with a mop of sandy hair, he vaguely reminded Tyrissa of Sven, but he clambered over the rocks at the base of the ruins above New Inthai with an enthusiasm for exploration that her youngest brother never had for the Morgwood. The smile on his face spoke to many days of carefree play atop the corpse of a nation. He spoke in that headache inducing hybrid of Hithian and Common, the elegant dying language making the common tongue sound crass and guttural. Hali handled translating, speaking to him in a slow, pure Hithian like an instructor, which caused the boy to take long pauses and consider his response.

  Rwalon made a hard left into the hills about a mile outside of town where the slopes were clear of larger ruins and boulders. The trail was roughly marked by the paving stones of an ancient road that poked out of the ground like once-forgotten memories. The boy set a brisk pace and they crested the ascent just as golden rays of dawn sliced over the far rim of the crater. Far below, impenetrable mists cloaked the floor of the Hithian Crater in a morning shroud, the unnatural winds creating clockwise and counter-clockwise flows in alternating bands. The central ruin rose from the eye of the slow storm, an ugly, misshapen crown to the graceful interplay of wind and water.

  True to its name, The Spiral was a fifteen-foot-wide bore in the ground that ran straight down to the crater floor with a narrow ledge that spiraled down along the walls of marble-laced limestone. The ledge looked just wide enough for a person to walk down. Sunlight appeared as a minute point of light shining at the bottom of the corkscrew descent. A strong updraft tossed their hair and clothing, the winds promising to make the trip down as unpleasant as possible. Tyrissa felt a flush of air magicks carried upward on the currents, about as strong as the riftwinds. For two of them, the descent will be easy.

  “I do not envy any of you,” Wolef said. “I’ll Slide through and check it out.” He lowered onto the uppermost ledge and merged into the shadows of The Spiral.

  Kexal watched the deeper patch of shadow follow the ledge down, like black dye emptying through a drain. He looked over at Rwalon and asked, “The ledge goes all the way down, boy?”

  His emphatic nod said, ‘I’ve done it. Can you?’

  “The locals said that there are no good ways into the crater,” Kexal said with a grimace. “Only bad ways. I see what they mean.”

  Wolef returned after many minutes.

  “Goes all the way down,” he said. “There are a few thinner places, but it’s navigable. Shall we?”

  Tyrissa blinked against the light as she scanned the eastern rim through the eyeglass, taking in the shaded beauty of the waterfalls and greenery on the far side of the crater. She then lowered her view to the central ruin of the fallen city, the pile of carved stone and rubble appearing close enough to touch. The slopes of the ruin were a jumble of caves and tumbled walls and masonry, ringed by a skirt of piled boulders. Tales from explorers and excavators spoke of the caves leading to a maze of still connected streets and passageways, the city still navigable in a twisted, ruined sort of way. However, from the outside there was no indication of which caves led to the interior and which were dead ends. The same tales that spoke of the interior of the Hithian ruins were mum on exactly where they entered out of fear of others following their route and taking the supposed riches for themselves. Can’t let the competition know
all of your secrets.

  Vralin would be in the center of it all. Tyrissa could feel it, like how she could feel pact magicks being used nearby. Never mind that diaphanous column of shimmering air rising from the peak of the ruin like a beacon, taunting and beckoning her onward. It was stronger today, almost corporal. With the telescope’s aid Tyrissa could barely make out gossamer threads drifting in spiraling patterns up and down the column.

  She dragged her view over the field of spines, their uniform shadows from the morning sun turning them into a legion of jagged sundials. They all pointed away from the city, raised by the impact of The Fall and shaped into cruel points by the winds of the subsequent centuries into an unwelcoming stone forest. Between the spines were countless cracks, crevasses, and sinkholes, the terrain pockmarked and scarred by burrowing wurms and the savage, inconsistent winds. Directly below was the southern end of the spine forest where the land became temptingly clear aside from a few scattered tears in the ground and a single long crevasse that ran from the base of the rim to the central ruin. Wolef was somewhere along that crevasse now, using the shadows within to quickly cross the crater and scout the central ruin for an entrance. The flat areas of the Hithian Crater were said to be deceptive in how safe they appeared, that they were as seismically unstable as everything else. Never mind the local fauna lurking just out of sight to make it all the more dangerous. Beyond the spines, mists billowed out from the point where the Rift burrowed into the mountainous ruin like a parasitic worm. No, she had it backwards: it had burst out from there to rip across a continent.