by T. A. Miles
Master…
Korsten opened his eyes as the word slipped through his mind. He took in glimpses of the derelict front hall, the staircase leading up from it…Analee on the floor…
His eyes fell shut again.
We’re with you, Master.
Again, Korsten dragged his eyelids open. There was the front hall…the gray of winter’s light coming through the fallen doors…a form passing through…
Korsten was too spent to panic, or even to respond. He closed his eyes and opened them again, certain that he was looking upon a white stag. The hart, he recalled.
Blackness returned for several deep, quiet moments. In those moments, he began to feel almost comfortable, as if he could sleep peacefully. He felt as if there were many comforting arms around him...
And then a downpour of light rinsed them and all sensations of sleep away. Korsten sat starkly upright and nearly leapt to his feet, but that a strong arm caught him and held him still.
“You’re all right,” a man’s voice said. He thought it was none that he recognized, but then he looked to the face of the hunter from the north woods. The hart. “We healed you.”
“Who are you?” he asked, in spite of recognizing him. He felt that it was his last words to Renmyr resurfacing.
The hunter answered him regardless. “My name is Laxhymel.”
Korsten nodded, surprised that the motion seemed to not inspire any pain, but then recalled that he had been healed. ‘We’, the hunter had said, presumably of himself and the hart. “I shan’t forget that,” he said of the exotic syllables the hunter had given him. “I’m Korsten.”
“The child of Zerxa,” Laxhymel said, and then rose to his feet.
“How could you know that?” Korsten asked, his gaze following the man up before he also stood.
“He is also one of us,” came another voice.
Laxhymel looked down the stair, and Korsten’s gaze followed, settling upon Xelonwyr.
The Wyrr appeared undamaged, physically, though he must have sustained some form of injury or detriment enough to have given Renmyr the belief that he could step away from their battle in favor of one with Korsten. It was not much of one, Korsten knew. After all this time, he still could not muster the proper strength—perhaps the proper frame of mind—when faced with Renmyr.
“Laxhymel is not one of our family, Korsten,” Xelonwyr continued. “But he is a cousin to it, sharing enough of our elemental blood to be a relation. The hart as well. Their joining was to protect us…to act as a guardian…”
Laxhymel lowered his head while the Wyrr spoke, perhaps in shame.
Korsten recalled a somewhat different telling from Laxhymel, but it scarcely seemed to matter how he had become what he was. “When I found him, a demon had taken the hart.”
“It is what he deserved, perhaps,” Xelonwyr said without pity.
“The Vadryn have turned against us,” Laxhymel said, without specifying whether it was directed at Xelonwyr or at Korsten.
A look of despondent irony twitched across Xelonwyr’s features. Korsten braced himself instinctively for his expression of temper, but none came.
In the silence that settled, Korsten looked to the door Renmyr and Xelonwyr had fought over opening. It was open.
“What came out of there?” he asked Xelonwyr, or Laxhymel. He didn’t care which of them answered.
“A new generation,” Xelonwyr said, coming up the stairs finally, though he kept his arms down and appeared no longer interested in violence. Korsten kept it in mind that Xelonwyr had been subtler about his violent leanings than Renmyr.
“Of what?” Korsten demanded, though he suspected he already knew.
Xelonwyr angled his head to confirm the thought, but answered anyway. “Of Vadryn.”
Korsten was at a loss as to how to respond to that, even having insisted on it being set before him in words.
“They were yours, Korsten, a gift left to you by your mother. Your mother, who was to open those doors and set the children of our suffering onto this world.”
“I don’t understand.”
Xelonwyr arrived at the top of the stair and stood for a moment watching Korsten. Eventually, he swept his arm in gesture toward the open doors.
Korsten hesitated, considering what he’d witnessed of the Wyrr in brutality, a lack of compassion, and dark motivations.
Laxhymel held out a hand to Korsten. “I will accompany you. You will suffer no harm.”
Korsten looked at Laxhymel’s hand, recalling the guardian role Xelonwyr had mentioned and that Korsten had already witnessed. He had seen a gentle side of him and a protector. He took Laxhymel’s hand, and walked with him to the doors.
Xelonwyr watched them to it, slowly lowering his arm and otherwise making no move against either of them. Perhaps he was beyond violence over what was no longer within his control or reach.
At the doors, Korsten stood upon the threshold for a moment, looking in at a many-pillared room draped with long shafts of light, and growth that belonged to another season.
The light was bright enough that it cast shadows into the further reaches of what was evidently a very deep place. The light appeared to be filtering through a dome of colored glass that put a faint blush onto the setting.
Korsten did not feel threatened, in spite of the strong threads of magic which emanated throughout the chamber. Laxhymel ushered him ahead, and their hands separated while they entered.
There were others in the periphery, who ventured gradually forward. Many of them were quite tall, though height varied, as did the inclusion of a crown of antlers. Not as many were so adorned, but something each of them held in common was pale skin and deeply red hair. Korsten didn’t know if they were there in flesh, or if they were specters of the past. Beneath the glow of the dome windows overhead, the eyes of the Wyrr appeared almost golden in color. They seemed alive with power, with magic.
“Korsten.”
He stopped walking upon hearing his name, and looked to the center of the room at his mother. She stood in all the beauty he recalled from his recent dreams and from childhood. She didn’t smile at him, but her warmth was not contingent on her expression. Korsten had always felt that it radiated from her.
“You were given the key,” Zerxa said. “I had wished that you would never receive it.”
Korsten didn’t ask why. He wished also that he had never received it, but when Sethaniel had given it to him… “I didn’t know what it was.”
She nodded from her place several paces distant from her child, doused beneath the spring glow of sunlight the sky outside of the dome was currently without. He caught Laxhymel’s movement in his peripheral view, as the guardian drew to a halt flanking Korsten. He had to look at him again, because within this light Laxhymel’s coloring had changed. His whiteness had shifted to a deep, reddish brown to match the season within the chamber. Korsten imagined that the hart would have also done so, were it to show itself.
“I kept it hidden, Korsten,” Zerxa said, drawing his attention back to her. “After you were born, and I could see that you were truly my child, I knew that it would pass to you. I took it to the sea, in hopes that the spirits there would keep it for us. That they would keep it hidden, forever.”
As her words settled onto Korsten, he felt tears in his eyes at the realization of what she was confessing to. “Mother…”
A deep sadness shifted gradually to anger. Anger at the idea that she had left them…that she had taken her own life and abandoned him and his father to their misery in her absence.
In his silence, Zerxa continued. “I was successful,” she said, and gave no attention to the tears suddenly slipping down Korsten’s face. “For a time.”
He closed his eyes tightly for a moment and put an effort into controlling himself emotionally, for the sake of hearing the truth.
“You found the key,” Zerxa said. “When you found the part of me that had stayed with the spirits of the sea. When you brought Serawe to them.�
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Korsten recalled no such thing. “I found no key,” he said.
“Yes,” Zerxa contradicted. “It washed to shore with you and was brought back to Sethaniel’s house, where he discovered it and kept it, believing that he had misplaced it for years.”
“He gave it to me,” Korsten stated, not because it needed to be said, but in remembering the moment when Sethaniel believed he was passing something purely of sentimental value to him. He looked at his mother. “Why didn’t you stop him?”
“I could not,” Zerxa said. “By then I had already awakened here.”
He wanted to ask what this place was, but it became alarmingly clear that it was the garden of the Wyrr…similar to the garden at the Vassenleigh Citadel. This was where their souls returned to when their bodies died. But was new life born from them? Or was this merely storage? A reliquary.
“You were born from me,” Zerxa said. And in that moment, she nearly smiled.
Korsten could not be uplifted, in spite of the immense love he felt for her. There was too much that he yet didn’t know. “Why…why were there demons here with you?”
Zerxa’s faint smile disappeared. “They were the Vadryn that I wove while my soul was in torment.”
“You…made them?”
“Yes, we all have made them. They were constructed of our depression, and of our resent toward our enemies. We set them onto the world to share our misery. The Vadryn that came before were of my ancestor’s creation, and my father’s. These were mine. They were to grow to maturity within my young lifetime and be released.”
“But you left,” Korsten realized. “You left with Father.”
“In spirit, you had already been conceived, Korsten,” Zerxa said, and she nearly smiled again. Her graceful form moved a few steps closer, but ultimately, she kept her distance. “I delayed your physical birth until your spirit had matured.”
Korsten fell into a mild shock, one that wouldn’t allow him to fully digest her claim.
Xelonwyr spoke from the doorway behind him. “While you were maturing, so too, were your mother’s Vadryn. Their relationship to her became a relationship to you also, which is why this was your rightful inheritance.”
“I would never have claimed it,” Korsten said over his shoulder without looking at Xelonwyr. “Had I known beforehand, I would never have come. I would have returned it to the sea myself.”
“Then you understand why I took the affair into my own hands,” Xelonwyr said.
“No, I don’t,” Korsten returned at once, turning enough to see the elder Wyrr now. “Why would you want to unleash more of the Vadryn when you yourself have expressed their treachery, even to you…their creators?”
“To end things, Korsten,” Xelonwyr answered far too calmly. “I’ve already told you. This world has suffered a near collapse once before. Another blow will be its demise.”
“And then what?” Korsten demanded.
“And then it begins again.”
This was madness. Perhaps that was why Xelonwyr was so calm now; because Korsten’s ‘inheritance’ had already been stolen, by one of the Vadryn, and the Wyrr anticipated this end he so desired would be delivered.
“They are yours, Korsten,” Zerxa said, summoning his attention back to her. She drifted toward him until they were directly before one another. Hands that emanated warmth, yet held no tangible presence touched his face. “You are ours,” she said privately.
Korsten studied her through tears, taking in her gentle features, though they were disappearing into the room’s warm light. The spirits of the others faded as well.
“Leave,” Xelonwyr said in the stillness that followed.
Korsten turned to see him walking away, the silhouette of his mantled form departing into the gloom of the room beyond. After all that had happened and all that Korsten had witnessed, it was easier to pity him than to despise him.
The streets of the derelict city—of a haunted and cursed city—appeared even more dismal after the visit to what Korsten could only consider his mother’s tomb. He walked with a once again winter-colored Laxhymel in search of Onyx. There appeared to be none of the rebels out, but it seemed more than likely that the arrival of a demon of Renmyr’s presence and strength had scared them into their deeper hiding places.
They passed the fallen, mutilated form of the creature that had once chased people through the ruins and Korsten elected not to look upon it long. In his current state, he felt pity for it as well. It was the offspring of fear and hatred, just like the Vadryn…a creation to protect the Wyrr from fear and hatred.
“I must look for Renmyr,” Korsten eventually said to Laxhymel.
The guardian of the Wyrr accepted that with a silent nod.
“You needn’t join me,” Korsten told him.
“I will, however,” he answered.
Korsten was in no spirit to argue. He was half distracted with concern for Onyx, but then the animal appeared, trotting idly toward them. Korsten greeted him with a welcoming smile and took his reins when they were within reach. “You’re far better at avoiding trouble than I am, it would seem,” he said to the horse. “Thank the gods for you.”
As it occurred to him, he looked to Laxhymel and said, “Thank you for what you’ve done for me.”
“Even if it wasn’t my obligation to you, as a guardian of the Wyrr, it was at least in repayment for what you did for me.”
Korsten accepted that. It was fair and disallowed for argument. “Why the story of you and the hart?” he asked, more for curiosity’s sake than for any care he truly had about the lie that had been told to him. He knew well that he had been in no state or position to have heard anything about the Wyrr and made any sense of it. The urgency of the situation at that village also left no opportunity for such a complicated introduction.
“There were truths to it,” Laxhymel answered.
“The truths are all that are important now,” Korsten decided, for both their sakes.
“I agree,” Laxhymel said.
Beyond that, there was the matter of where to begin looking for Renmyr. He would have been lying to himself to ignore the fact that a Reach had occurred to him, but he knew also that it would be foolish. Confronting Renmyr directly, immediately after what had lately happened, would only result in further failure. Apart from that, in spite of the Healing he had received by Laxhymel’s wild magic, he still felt somewhat exhausted by the notion of mustering a spell. He didn’t know that he would be able to cast a far Reach. For the moment, he would begin back toward the Borderlands. The war was happening there. Renmyr would be found wherever the fighting was worst, and based upon his words, he would be pressing hard toward Vassenleigh. He might also have been better armed for it now, having taken what may have been a fresh army of Vadryn with him.
It was still difficult to comprehend that the Wyrr had created them, simply of their emotions. He could only wonder if he hadn’t in some way contributed to the nature or to the amount of them that might have been gestating in Zerxa’s tomb with her. If his connection to his mother, connected him to her Vadryn…it seemed plausible that his own misery over the years might have affected them in some way.
And what of Song? Did the talent solidify or affect this connection with demons? Or was it in some way…
He had to stop. He couldn’t be certain where his thoughts were headed at the moment.
Mounting Onyx, Korsten directed the steed toward the city gates. Along the way, Laxhymel brought out the hart and with the shift in form, Korsten felt free to press Onyx to a faster gait. Renmyr had already gained a good deal of time over them.
At the city gates, Korsten and Laxhymel were encouraged to stop by the formation of a crowd blocking their path. It appeared to be the city’s residents, but this behavior was out of character with the careful mode of fighting they had been putting up before. Their blood suggested they had been removed from the people they had once been.
Korsten came to the realization while he observed the loit
ering mob of unwilling hosts that he could only come to terms with the fact that Renmyr Camirey no longer counted as a man, and it may have been that he barely had. He had been taken as a child, by a beast with no mercy or sympathy.
Korsten summoned his sword. Release would be too great a danger, if he could even manage the spell in his lingering weariness over his brutal loss to the archdemon that was Renmyr. Setting loose one or two demons amid the others would only lead to a frenzy of disaster. Renmyr may have hoped that Korsten’s compassion for the souls of his most recent victims might have further hindered him, if he had even credited Korsten’s survival, but he struggled to have compassion for these people. They had contributed to the creation of the very creatures that currently controlled them. Xelonwyr had been right in saying that they would become his enemies as well. He had already witnessed that, even without hearing his mother’s account of what their civil war had led to, or exacerbated.
“Our aim is to drive through them,” Korsten said, for Laxhymel’s benefit as well as his own.
He urged Onyx forward. Laxhymel followed his lead, lowering his head as he came to the mob. His great form drove through the bodies of several. Onyx was less inclined to run through them, but Korsten assisted in clearing the path for them both, knocking bodies away with careful strikes and less mindful kicks. They were pulling through gradually, as if through a stiff mud. Korsten had taken some abuse to his legs, but the pummeling had not drawn blood and in light of what he had suffered at the hands of Renmyr, he wondered if he would even feel such affliction the same anymore…if he would feel it much at all.
Laxhymel was pushing through, like a bull, though his assailants tried fiercely to bring him down by whatever means possible. The hart was actively throwing them from his back, but it seemed that they would be clear shortly. Clear enough to make a break across the valley.