Embers of a Broken Throne

by Terry C. Simpson

  “Ah.” Ancel glanced over to Ryne. “You knew of this?”

  Ryne shook his head.

  Although her silver brows were still drawn together with the effort required for what she did, Ordelia managed a smile. “If Eztezians can have secrets, things they can do that others cannot, surely the opposite is also possible.”

  “Which makes me wonder who put him up to the ridiculous claim of Ryne being the Shadowbearer,” Jerem said from behind them.

  “One of the Nine, perhaps?” Trucida ambled forward, her steps spry for a woman whose skin resembled ancient, wrinkled leather.

  “No one has been inside my head,” Traushen gasped, teeth clenched. His shoulders sagged.

  Ordelia let out a long exhale. She no longer grimaced with the effort it took to fight off Traushen.

  “That man is the Shadowbearer.” Traushen glowered at Ryne, face twisted with disgust and hate.

  “The Shadowbearer died long ago,” Jerem said. “I was there.”

  “That is what the Tribunal would have you believe,” the Cardian said and spat blood to one side, “But their lies have no effect on me.”

  Ancel was glad for the Eye’s protection. The seething undercurrent within himself said he would have torn the man apart.

  “Why should we believe you?” Trucida walked around Traushen, poking at him as a horse trader would when on the verge of making a purchase. “I’ve known this man for too many years to count, watched him protect a village and its people from wild animals, slavers, and the shade, putting his own life at risk countless times.”

  “I’ve seen the same,” Irmina said.

  Ancel smiled at her before adding his own account. “He came to me in Eldanhill, showed me what I needed, saved our town, our people. Even if the Shadowbearer were alive, his only intent was to kill, to ruin, starting with the Setian, and then the rest of the world. My master is nothing like that.” It was one of the few times he’d openly acknowledged Ryne as his master. He found it oddly satisfying.

  “You’re all fools. I was there in Castere. I saw what Voliny showed Ryne. I saw his past laid bare. He’s—”

  “You hurt my friends.” Stefan’s voice, hard and edged with venom, cut through the room. He rose from beside the wounded men, face a mottled mask, and approached the Cardian until he stood in front of him. “You could have killed one of them, or worse yet, my son. If not for the word you brought, if not for your position with my daughter, I’d take your head right now.”

  Traushen’s eyes grew wild. “You have to listen to me. He’s— ”

  Stefan drove his knee into the Cardian’s stomach. “Take this filth to the dungeons.”

  “With pleasure,” Ordelia hissed.

  Four soldiers took Traushen by his arms and led him away. The man began to shout and rage, screaming for anyone to listen. When he began kicking and fighting, one of the guards slammed a gauntleted fist into the back of his head. Traushen crumpled. They picked him up and carried him off.

  “This had made me realize the wisdom of your words,” Stefan said, watching the door as it closed behind the last guard. “Any one of us could have died here where we’re supposed to be safe, to a man obviously misled by our enemies.” He smiled at Ancel, but tightness existed in his voice. “I want you to do what you must, but first I need to speak with you. This whole thing has rekindled some memories.”

  “Of course, Father.” Ancel squeezed Irmina’s hand and then followed his father to the door.

  When they stepped into the hall he expected his father to head outside. Back in Eldanhill, Stefan would always take to fresh air when events occupied his mind. Instead, his father strode in the opposite direction, hands crossed behind his back. Ancel ambled after him.

  Accompanied by the echo of their padded footfalls, the smell of mold from the old carpet, and the illumination provided by torches in sconces along the walls and chandeliers, they made their way deeper into the castle. Tattered canvas and cloth decorated most walls. Open spaces, empty of dust, showed where a painting or tapestry had been removed. Stefan paused at certain doors, sometimes wearing a frown, as if recalling time spent in these same halls. On a few occasions he brushed his hand lightly along a wall, coming away with dirt and grime, and then rubbed his fingers together.

  “I remember when all this used to be different,” his father finally said after several halls, alcoves, turns, and doors. “This castle was a place of grandeur, Seti itself a shining example for the rest of Ostania. Before Nerian ruined it.”

  “What kind of man was he?”

  “A time existed when he was great, a god almost. Did you know they called him the Lightbearer for all the good he’d done, wars he’d won against the shadelings? Whenever word came of a shadeling sighting he would be the first ready, armor on as if he slept in the damn thing.”

  “The Lightbearer?”

  Stefan nodded. “He was like a father to me. And then he changed.” Stefan’s hands formed a fist. “I first thought the need to bring Ostania under one banner poisoned him. But I learned it was more than that. Mater, the very power that saves us, was the beginning of his end. It corrupted him. Not because of some outside influence, but because the man craved power.” Stefan stopped before an ornate door several dozen feet wide. Flickering torchlight cast shadows across his face, made a hood of his eyebrows. “I fear it will do the same to you.”

  “Father, you don’t have to worry—”

  Stefan pushed on the arm’s length bronze handles before him. The door creaked open. A burst of mustiness and rot drifted out. With a grunt he shoved it the rest of the way and stepped in with Ancel at his heels.

  Countless torches and lightstones tossed their glow into a massive room. Columns lay on their side, cracked and crumbling. Tears and rents marred the floor as if some gigantic hand with massive claws had raked the castle’s flesh. Dirt, stone, and bricks were strewn about the interior. Burn marks streaked the walls, crawling to the high ceiling, staining half-melted chandeliers. A gaping wound of broken marble marred a section before what might have been a throne. The room stank of mold and decay and something more: an echo of the Forges that had scoured the room, cooked it like burnt rice at the bottom of a pot.

  The shade’s corruption was prevalent among the other essences. Since they entered Benez, he’d barely noticed the taint. It had been lighter, but not so in this room. Ancel chased away the bad memories that came with the sight.

  “What happened here,” he whispered, awed and fearful of the power that could have wrought such destruction.

  “This is where Thania, Galiana, and I faced Nerian before he killed—well, when we thought he killed Celina and Anton. This room, that battle, his order to kill given to his bodyguard, Kahar, were my last memories of the man. You want me not to worry,” Stefan said, making a gesture to encompass the ruined throne room, “but how can I not?”

  Ancel pictured what the battle must have been like against such a powerful Forger, a man thought to be strong enough to rival an Eztezian. The thought of it made him shiver. “Father, all this and what I’ve already experienced makes me understand how you feel about what I must do. But the power I use is stronger than Mater, and it doesn’t corrupt. As for Mater itself, I can control what it does, how it affects me.”

  “Nerian thought the same. Greater women and men than you and I have voiced your sentiments, each of them with great conviction. They succumbed.”

  “Perhaps, but I need you to trust me. I need you to believe in me. Without that, I don’t have much.” His parents had kept him upbeat in the worst times of his life. If he couldn’t rely on anything else he could always expect them to be there for him.

  Stefan placed a hand on Ancel’s shoulder and stared deep into his eyes. “I have three children blessed or cursed to be powerful Matii. The Pathfinders might live for century upon century without succumbing to the madness, but eventually even they do. I-I don’t want the same for you. Or at least I wish for you to enjoy your life before that day comes
.”

  “Until the scourge of the Nine and the shadelings are gone, there will be no enjoyment.”

  “I know, and it saddens me.” Stefan shook his head. “I lose two of the most important women in my life but regain two children thought dead. And now I stand to have you all taken from me. What have I done to deserve such punishment?”

  “Nothing, Father.” Ancel gave his father’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “But remember, we haven’t lost Mother yet.”

  A confused expression crossed Stefan’s face before he said, “If you say so. I know we shouldn’t give up hope, but how—”

  A resonance in Ancel’s head cut off his father’s words. It was all too familiar. How hadn’t he sensed it before?

  “What’s over there?” Ancel glanced toward an alcove on the room’s far side.

  Stefan brought his hand down. “That is the ceremonial chamber that the Alzari among Benez’s High Council frequented.”

  “Do you know the reason they used that particular place?”

  “Security? Privacy?” Stefan shrugged.

  Ancel strode toward the room and the resonance, an insect drawn to the bountiful colors and lights of resinbuds, unaware of the flower’s deadly lure. The sensation grew from a tingle to a throb in his chest, across his body. Without warning, one after the other, his Etchings lit up. They brimmed with energy, crackling, alive, stretching across his skin to reach for that which summoned them within the chamber.

  A blue glow leaked from the once dark doorway.

  Enthralled, Ancel entered.

  In a room given its glare by the blue luminance, symbols and glyphs decorated the floor, the walls, the pillars. But none of those held his attention.

  Not so for the towering silver spike at the back of the chamber. His gaze was riveted upon it.

  Below the Chainin shone the blue light’s source. An orb, several feet wide and tall, displayed a series of soundless images and action.

  Battles ran their course, men against men; men against shadelings; shadelings against shadelings. A multitude of races, banners, and armies. Within them all, one constant spun to the forefront: a man, garbed in different iterations of armor, won victory after victory.

  Ancel gasped as he recognized the face from countless years studying under Galiana and at the Mystera. This man was Nerian the Shadowbearer.

  Another image superimposed itself over Nerian, the differences subtle at times, drastic at others, but enough to maintain the illusion of a separate identity. The final picture showed a giant of a man, Etchings covering his body, armor seamless, a huge divya greatsword in one hand.

  The man and the Shadowbearer were one.

  Ancel’s heart felt as if Ryne’s sword had clove it in two. His knees weakened. “No,” he yelled. “NOOO!”

  “Ilumni help us,” Stefan cried.

  Intermezzo 3

  Archrender Anton peered down at the boiling black shapes near the edges of the Great Divide’s barrier. He took a breath, inhaling the arid air. At first he had not believed the reports that the deadly creatures imprisoned within the Divide had somehow broken free. Constructed from Prima Materium, the primordial elements from which the gods themselves were created, the prisons were mostly impregnable. He could think of only one man with the knowledge to achieve the feat. The last time such a breach occurred had been the Shadowbearer’s doing. But that man was long dead. No other Eztezian could or would dare unravel the Forge. It held the shade’s worst creatures still trapped in Denestia at bay. This had to be the working of something greater, something far more powerful.

  He, like the other Elders, had felt the breach when it occurred, the tearing of earth, metal, and wood essences that made up the elements of Forms. The shattering of the Stream’s light and heat. Moments later, he’d witnessed the counterstroke in a luminance so bright it seared his vision. Power shot through the Sanctums of Shelter, creating the barrier that now trapped the majority of the shade’s minions.

  This day had been inevitable. Regardless of prophecy. Nothing could be imprisoned forever. Funny how some people saw the unavoidable as fate.

  Amuni’s black plague had stalked the land as long as anyone remembered. It took many forms, from the grotesque malformed shadelings that were products of experimentation in a war between gods, to the darkness that resided within the hearts of all men. That darkness grew in many a battle, all part of one great war. A war began when the gods battled for dominion over all, and continued even after they disappeared from the world. A war of race. Of religious crusades. All the things good and bad in men. A war of belief.

  Heart heavy, Anton shook his head while he assessed the enemy before him. Belief was one of man’s greatest strengths and biggest flaws. A man would fight to the death for what he believed. He would become benevolent, wax poetic, adventure to the end of the world. In the same breath he would pillage, murder, become corrupt for what he deemed most important. None more so than to enforce relationships between men and gods, to ensure the possibility of his own prosperity even after death.

  A sense of helplessness eased through him as he surveyed the barrier. Eventually it too would fall. His predecessors had formed mountain lines from the Kelvore to the Everlast to the Nevermore to the Riven Reaches to help protect the rest of Denestia. Although imbued with the Form’s raw power they had failed.

  In the past, when he had nightmares of this day and the ones to come, he imagined himself running, taking his people to a safe haven provided by the gods. He never spoke of his dreams. To mention them, and in turn state it would take a combined effort even from those who did not worship the Forms’ deities, would have been seen as blasphemy. As the Archrender his faith had to be beyond question. He was the most pious. The holiest of men. The deliverer.

  A man could break under the weight of expectation. But not him. Long ago, he learned how to bend.

  A pull, toward the near southeast, and then another even farther south than the first, reminded him that what his people saw as profane would have to be sacrificed. Another lighter tug, with a similar resonance to the others, drew him to the Great Divide itself. The gaping rent in the earth, a black gash across Everland from the mountains to the sea, held something else. A prisoner existed there. This, he knew beyond a doubt. He recalled the short years spent in her loving arms, hearing her comforting words, the nights she put him to bed with stories such as the one before him now.

  To have a chance in the upcoming war began with her. Melancholy edged through him with the thought.

  He raised a hand encased in stone and metal. Steadfast and immovable as the mountains, he thought to himself. “Summon the Stoneguard. We march.”

  Chapter 29

  With darkness and distance as his sole allies, Ryne waited next to the Entosis amid the smell of fresh earth and rich forest. Insects played a melancholy tune to match his mood. Avoiding disaster with Traushen had been a close thing. To repeat the feat this time required him to leave. He ground his jaw. He hated feeling as if anything or anyone forced him to flee.

  Little choice remained to ensure Ancel’s growth and safety. He knew the risks with the throne room and the Chainin the day they revealed the plan to return to Benez, but the resonance he sensed spoke of a Forge rather than Ancel’s presence causing the divya’s reaction. Traushen came to mind as the person responsible, but his gut told him it was too obvious. He wished he had more time to prove his suspicions, but the enemy had outmaneuvered him. If wishes had wings. He smiled grimly as he thought of the words Stefan often used. Blowing out an annoyed breath, he continued to wait.

  “So it’s true.” Ancel’s words echoed through their link. So did his hate. His fury was a beast bubbling below the surface, barely restrained.

  “Is it?”

  “You wouldn’t be where you are if it weren’t. I’d have come for you.”

  “Yes, you would have, and I believe that was the intention behind it. First Traushen and now this immediately after. The person behind the plot was certainly pers
istent, so to prevent any misfortune, I left to give you a chance to think. You sought the Eye?”

  “Can’t you tell?”

  Ryne smiled. “Good. Then you’ve taken to the first lesson well. Control is everything.”

  “This is the secret you and Irmina kept from me.” A sense of hurt carried across the link.

  “Don’t treat her differently because of this. She did what was best for you.”

  “I can still come after you.”

  “You could, but you won’t. You have a choice to make, to help save your people and at the same time gain the power to challenge me, or simply consume yourself with my immediate demise. I doubt you’ll make a foolish decision. The first achieves both purposes in time. Also, you realize there’s a greater plot afoot.”

  Silence.

  “Why? If you’re him, then why help me? Why not just kill us all?” The quaver in Ancel’s voice tore at Ryne.

  “Because I’m myself now. I told you the Shadowbearer was under the shade’s influence.”

  “Why do you say it as if you aren’t one and the same?”

  “The part of me that would kill innocents is dead. At my weakest when I had used Mater without the Eye’s protection, I left myself open to influence, either by the Nine or the Skadwaz leading Amuni’s Children. Perhaps both are part of the same plot. Even when my actions seemed to say the contrary I have always obeyed the gods’ mandate to protect Denestia.” A tide swelled in his chest, insurmountable like the Sea of Swirl’s maelstroms. “But I am me now, Thanairen Danindad Adelfried, Materwarden of the shade, Ruler of Undeath, the Sealer of Fates. Let those who would summon the gods before their time tremble in my wake.”

  “I am not impressed.”

  Ryne laughed. “Good. You, of all people, shouldn’t be.”

  “You do know I’m going to kill you.”

  “Perhaps. If it is needed for you to acquire my Tenet, then I welcome it. But remember, others before you have lost sight of their goal, have tried to take me before their time. They all died.”