From the shadows, Dierá looked urgently at Rastín. Time was short. Rastín turned back to Alborn and said, “Twice you spoke of my return as if I were away and you knew I was coming back.”
“Did you think it was by chance that you came to be among the Wërg or that by chance the Wërg queen chose you? Nothing happens to the son of the High King by chance. Not in this place or any other. Nothing.”
“I did not think. I did not understand. Was Akharran their queen?”
“You do not know kings from shieldmaidens when they stand before you. I warned your father about keeping so much from you.”
Rastín grew quiet as he reflected on all Alborn had said. “If only there was time for you to teach me all that must be taught.”
Further talk was cut short when Dierá stepped from the shadows. “We must go now,” she said. “Eldri and Síari will follow.”
Returning to the corridor and seeing the thinning traffic, Rastín knew at once why Dierá had urged him to continue on. Certainly, passing tardily through the gates would make them stand out more than if they were part of the main flow.
Rastín drummed his fingers against the walking stick he carried for Alborn, glancing back over his shoulder to Eldri and Síari. The two were even younger than Dierá, who could not be more than sixty winters old. For elf kind, it meant they were little more than children as he himself was little more than an adolescent with thirty cycles to go before his centennial and adulthood. And yet his burden was their burden.
He searched his soul, but he did not know with a certainty what he should do. Alborn’s plan had been so simple: Leave the tent, follow the outer path out of the camp, take the northernmost corridor to the gate, go through the gate and into the highlands. But then what? If the work in the dark land did not kill Alborn by midday, they still would not be able to work within half of chain of each other, and with that much separation there was no way the shieldmaidens could protect him.
At the gate, Rastín meant to push the walking stick into Alborn’s hands and turn him back toward the camp. He knew it was a foolish thought. The old guard did have the mark of right, and the chances were good the guardians would let Alborn return without question. Rastín never got the chance, however, as one of the gate’s guardians snatched the walking stick out of his hands before he could pass it to Alborn. He heard Dierá take the whips meant for him, but Alborn edged him into the gate behind Eldri and Síari.
In the bitter cold, in the place between places, Rastín tasted something he had never tasted before. He tasted cynicism and found doubt, but not his own. Then he saw Akharran as clearly as he had ever seen her, yet this was not the Akharran he had known. This was an Akharran that moved with the skill of a hunter, and she hunted him.
When he emerged into the dark land, he saw Eldri and Síari ahead of him on the platform. Mere steps later he felt Alborn by his side. As he glanced over to regard Alborn, he saw Dierá, her fixed eyes spoke to him. Inside she was full of anger, and that anger was directed at him, but outside she was composed and focused.
Rastín joined the right flank of the lines moving to the excavation site with Eldri positioned in front of him, Síari to his left, Dierá behind him, and Alborn to his right. The jagged mountains where they would dig were a league or more distant. During the long march, the lines always broke up, but for now the overlords kept them in tight formation.
Away from the thousand-fold gates, he began to see formations with overlords, enforcers, and serpent magi. Alborn became agitated whenever the magi were close, and it was so uncharacteristic that Rastín finally said, “You know why they are here, don’t you?”
“I told your father the Wërg were a poor choice. He believed their promises, yet I thought otherwise.”
Rastín grew quiet as he reflected on all that Alborn had told him since his return. “I must be a great disappointment to you, but I will make you a promise. While I live, I will carry the burdens and hopes of our people. Though our paths surely must part soon, I will strive to my last breath to become for all our people the king that you so wished to see in me.”
Alborn stopped walking abruptly, breaking formation. They were far enough away from both the gates and the dig site that the closest overlord would dismiss it—or at least Rastín hoped that would be the case.
“In your heart, Rastín, I know you believe this. As I promised your father, I have done what I could. I could not save Djerg, but I believe in my heart that I can save our people if I can save you.”
At the approach of an overlord, Rastín helped Alborn start walking. Dierá, Eldri, and Síari joined step with them. Rastín waited for the overlord to pass by, and then said, “You tell me nothing happens to the son of the High King by chance. You tell me I do not see, that I would not know a king from a shieldmaiden. You tell me that I am your king, and yet what is a king to a king.”
“Rastín, now is not the time for this discussion. You will see when you remember. Despite your fears to the contrary, I will make it through this day’s labor—it is the night I worry about.”
“The night?” Rastín cast his eyes to the distance. He saw only the jagged mountains and the places where the night criers lived.
“We’ve long known this place is habitable. There is water and game and life beyond—”
“—nothing lives beyond.”
“A careful balance exists between predator and prey, as in all things. You can’t know this, as you were not among the first workers; but the night criers nearly outnumbered us before the ageless culled them, turning beasts of prey into beasts of burden.”
Several chains ahead, Rastín saw workers lining up in formations thousands across. High overhead, the overlords formed their own lines. These things in and of themselves were odd, but when the overlords’ staffs of office began transforming into fiery whips and those whips began lashing out at the masses, panic spread throughout the lines.
Workers scattered, running in every direction. Those who did not move quickly enough were being trampled. Dierá, Eldri, and Síari formed a protective circle around Rastín and Alborn. Then the sky cracked and lightning fell through, carrying with it black smoke and ash.
Alborn was the most calm. He drew himself up, releasing his grip on Rastín’s arm. His steady gaze led Rastín’s eyes beyond the overlords to the magi who were calling forth the lightning. Alborn spoke then, quietly yet urgent. “Do not put their lives above yours. As long as our people live and the faithful remain, there is no death for them, only renewal of the flesh.”
Rastín thought Alborn spoke of the dying but soon realized Alborn’s words were for Eldri and Síari, who were already seriously injured. Síari held in her guts with one hand while she bravely fought with her other arm, using her legs when her arm alone was not enough.
“We move now, to the mountains,” Alborn said urgently, and without hesitation Dierá, Eldri, and Síari began to carve a path ahead. Rastín broke into a run, moving as fast as Alborn could move and the panic allowed.
Thousands of others were already well ahead of them, racing into the dig site to find cover or open space where the lightning would not find them. Little did they realize they were being herded into this place by the overlords and the magi.
Rastín had run fewer than three chains when the lighting stopped just as suddenly as it had begun. Then the overlords called out with one voice—that of the ageless—to the workers. “There will be finds this day, and one of those finds will be the cornerstone we seek. Fail us and this will be your last day in this life, for we will no longer have need for you.”
“Paradox,” Alborn said as he collapsed to his haunches. The look on the old guard’s face was of such exhaustion that Rastín feared the other was taking his last breaths. “If true, we are dead either way.”
“Then we will hope they lie, as ever,” Rastín muttered as he squatted down next to Alborn. His next thoughts were of Dierá, Eldri, and Síari as he watched them tend each other’s wounds. Removing his cloak, he b
egan tearing off long strips for bandages. Several of these long strips were needed to hold in Síari’s entrails.
Finishing, Rastín bowed his head. Cloaks or no cloaks, other elves had recognized both Rastín and Alborn during the panicked run. Word was spreading among the Élvemere that the son of the high king lived. He must think and act appropriately now more than ever if he wanted to live. He knew any mistake could cost his own life as well as the lives of Dierá, Eldri, Síari, and Alborn. As order was restored, he also knew they had precious little time to decide a course of action.
Chapter 8
Like armies of buzzers pouring forth from their underground nests, the peoples of a hundred worlds spread across the mountainside. Work resumed, and with it the familiar din of pick and ax biting into rock. Rastín paced and cursed, finally breaking the long silence by asking, “Alborn, you must know. What is it I must do? Is there something I can do?”
Dierá, Eldri, and Síari remained quiet. They knew the question was directed at Alborn. For his part, Alborn regarded Rastín with eyes that could not see but somehow did. He did not speak for some time. In those silent moments Rastín again was certain the old guard was seeing beyond flesh and bone. “If escape into the highlands will not be possible come nightfall, we must look for another way. For now, though, it seems we must dig and pray.”
“Pray to what? The ageless dogs? There is nothing left to discover.”
“Perhaps,” Alborn said. “Or perhaps it could be that it was found and forgotten.”
Rastín shouldered a discarded pick and ax. Eldri and Síari did likewise. Dierá set off by herself across the dig site and returned with picks and axes for herself and Alborn.
As before when they marched, Dierá, Eldri, and Síari moved out from Rastín’s current position in a protective pattern. Dierá began digging a chain to his left. Eldri moved a chain up the mountain. Síari moved a chain to his right. The three heaved their picks and thrust them against the barren rock of the mountain almost in unison, and the echoes of this activity joined the growing din.
Alborn found a spot a chain below Rastín that had already been partially dug out by another. Rastín slammed the tooth of the pick into the ground at his own feet, rock chips and dust flying in every direction. The steady rhythm of the labor kept his mind occupied for a time. Heave, thrust, crunch. Heave, thrust, crunch.
In the first toll, he looked up from his work only once, so he could check on Alborn. The old guard, although clearly tired, was holding his own. Seeing this pleased Rastín. For a time afterward, Rastín only knew the rhythm of heave, thrust, and crunch; the sweat beading on his brow and dripping down his back; the cool, light wind off the mountains.
The overlords, serpent magi, and even the ageless became as nothing to him, because they were outside, beyond the place where the work carried him. He had spent cycles of his life in this place with only the rhythm to keep him company. Without the soothing rhythm there was nothing. Within, everything.
Many tolls passed, lost to the rhythm. It was nearly midday when Rastín returned to conscious thoughts, and he only did so because as he looked up from the pit he created a Wërg stood over him. The Wërg was piling rock and earth. Her carts were half filled.
Looking up at the Wërg, he could not help but read her expression. She was telling him, “Danger, great danger. Dny must now remember.” When she told him this, Rastín was certain she was Akharran.
“Promises not kept,” he told her, using her language. “Father dead.”
“Death,” Akharran replied. “Great death.”
Rastín was uncertain whether she was speaking of his father’s death or something else, but he did not have time to dwell on it. The midday reprieve was called, and Akharran was forced to depart hastily.
Each in turn, Dierá, Eldri, and Síari moved off to get food and water, each returning with an extra share that was meant for Rastín and Alborn. But when Rastín tried to eat or drink, the food and water were pulled away. “We eat, you wait,” Dierá told him.
Rastín did not understand. Alborn explained, saying quietly, “They check for taint. If they do not become sick, the food and water are safe.”
“I do not like this new life,” Rastín told Alborn plainly. “What am I that my own people would poison and kill me?”
“It is what it is, what it has been since the reckoning and before. A high king is appointed, rather than crowned. You must know this, although I know your father kept much from you.
“Our fractured people have forgotten much. They have forgotten the kings of old, and now hold only to petty rivalry as each great house and each great family struggles to rise up and claim thrones of a land that is no more.
“Élvemere is gone, Rastín. It is ash and dust. Only your father kept the memory alive. For in him, the dream, the wish that is Élvemere lived. Without him, Élvemere is nothing. Gone, lost. We are a people made vagrant. We have no land, no home; and even the dream, the wish, the memory is now gone.”
When Dierá signaled it was all right for Rastín to eat and drink, he and Alborn commenced.
Alborn continued, “Much more than you dare to guess is at hand. In this place, the future of everyone and everything will be decided. I am certain your father spoke to you of this thing that we unearth. Tell me, Rastín Dnyarr Túrring, of this thing that has taken our people and claimed our beloved Élvemere.”
Remembering now a thing from the past, Rastín drew himself up, his steady gaze never leaving Alborn’s face. He was about to answer, but instead said, “Élvemere lives. Whether it is wish or dream, it lives because I say it does. It lives in me. Although others may call themselves king, our people have but one high king. I am he as was my father before me.”
Alborn stood beside Rastín. “You are my king. If you say Élvemere lives, who am I to question otherwise? By your stance, I take it you have remembered now a thing found and then forgotten. You have a decision to make, Rastín Dnyarr Túrring. A choice must be made.”
Síari regarded Rastín, and Rastín in turn could not help but notice how wounds had bled through the bandages. Her face was pale and there were deepening circles under her eyes. But there was a light in her eyes and a smile on her lips. As he watched her, she took in a breath, exhaled; took in a breath, exhaled. Then she closed her eyes and was no more.
Death was no stranger to Rastín. In this place, Rastín had seen more death in the short cycles of his life than most elves see in the long millennia of their long lives, yet Síari’s death moved him to tears, carried away words he meant to speak, and swept him to his knees.
Certainly, he had wept openly upon hearing of his father’s death, but he had never before found tears such as these. In that moment, he could not have explained why Síari’s death affected him so; indeed even later when he reflected on that moment he could not say with a certainty why he had broken down in great fits and sobs.
Perhaps it was a sudden understanding of the burden he carried or what his failures meant. Regardless of cause, Rastín Dnyarr Túrring rose from bended knee a king in his hearts of hearts—and not a king because others said he was a king, a king because he knew it through to his soul. From this day forward, no matter what was done to him, he promised himself he would never not be a king.
He touched a hand then to Alborn’s shoulder. The old guard seemed to know what Rastín would do next even if Rastín himself did not know. Just before he turned and walked away, Rastín said, “I see without seeing. I know without knowing. You have done right by my family, and one day I hope to do right by you. Dierá and Eldri are yours now. They will keep you and serve you as they would me.”
Chapter 9
Fire and lightning rained down from blood-red skies to mark the end of the midday reprieve. Rastín paid this no heed as he trudged across the mountainside, moving among the pits, searching.
It was a toll passed midday when he found it. Plain enough. A pit not unlike all the others before it. Ten spans deep and twenty spans across. He c
limbed in, called out to the heavens.
At first there was no answer, and so Rastín called out again and then again before there came a response. In a great pouring forth, his people came. They came not because he was their king, but because he had cried out to the heavens and because his words told of a discovery.
He worked then among countless thousands until the great gray stone was unearthed and revealed. As he stood there, looking up at the heavens, he knew blessed death would come. He was ready to receive this gift, as ready as he had ever been.
A hundred overlords descended from the heavens, walked down living stairs and living carpets to stand before him. Behind the overlords came ever more serpent magi. Soon there was no place Rastín could look to see the eyes of his kind.
Forced to his knees to accept the blessed gift, Rastín saw Holsteb and endless lines of those who had been blessed before him, their faces looming before his eyes as in life. As Síari had done at the last, he took in a breath, exhaled; took in a breath, exhaled. Then he closed his eyes and prepared to become no more.
As one, the overlords touched the tips of their staffs to his head and imparted the gift of the ageless. Behind the overlords, the magi chanted and exalted him. Lightning flashed from the heavens then, one hundred bolts, and every worker and every beast in every corner of the dark land paid tribute to the exaltation by crying out.
Rastín’s own screams joined those wailing his praises as lightning rent flesh from bone. Pain became so excruciating that Rastín felt it was all he had ever known. Then there was blackness so deep, cold, and remote that he would never again think of the place between places as dark or cold or lonely.
He awoke from this blackness lost within himself, unsure of anything, void of everything, save the knowledge that he had been exalted when he had wished for nothing more than blessed parting. His sight was the first of his senses to return, though the world before him was blurred and obscured. Hearing followed, making him wish he had not ears. He heard only the sounds of the damned, issuing forth in wave after wave.
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