The brute coiled the wet cords of the whip, his breathing hard by the time he finished. He knelt in homage to the sorceress. She acknowledged him with a nod of her head, but her face remained in shadow. There was an annulus of thirteen candles between the sorceress and the bleeding boy. The candles burned with the sour odor of something dead.
“What is your name?” The question rasped up from the old woman’s throat like fingernails scratching stone. The boy’s knees had buckled with the twenty-ninth lash. He hung by his wrists on ropes attached to rings of rusted iron on the walls.
“Drakkor,” he choked, but with such strength and defiance it cut through the silence like an executioner’s ax. He stared at the sorceress with unblinking eyes.
The old woman was hidden in the shadow of her cowl, but when she turned, the flames of yew wood struck her face, and for a fleeting moment he thought she smiled. When she turned back, she cradled a chalice in her hands. The goblet was gold, inlaid with diamonds, bloodstone, and carnelian.
“Stand, Drakkor, child of no man,” she said in a voice quavering with emotion.
The brute lifted the boy to his feet and untied the ropes.
Drakkor pushed the man away and stood on trembling legs in the center of the circle. He could feel the blood running down his back. He straightened his spine but could not stop the tremors of pain that rippled through him.
“We have looked for you a long time,” the sorceress said as she stepped forward and raised the chalice above her head with both hands. She stared into the darkness as if speaking to a being who hovered in the pungent swirls of smoke. “Saleem nostranu ‘a mo la escornorla. Saleem nostranu ‘rosnona se o vasen pusson.” The ritual words were echoed in a haunting chant by the hooded figures behind her. The sorceress lowered her hands. “Kneel and repeat the words of the oath,” she said, then repeated them again in the ancient tongue. The crackle of her voice pierced the humming of the minions like a driven spike.
Drakkor knelt. His pain was buried beneath numbness and shock. His eyes moved from the black holes of the sorceress’s face to the glint of candlelight on the polished brass chalice. “Saleem nostranu ‘a mo la escornorla.” He mimicked her words and her voice. When he licked his lips, he could taste his blood mixed with sweat. “Saleem nostranu ‘rosnona se o vasen pusson,” he repeated and felt constrained to raise his eyes to the graven image of she-dragon looming over him.
Drakkor did not understand the words of the archaic language, but he had heard the rumors and assumed it was the ritual oath of she-dragon. The consecration of the soul, commitment of mind, and sacrifice of body. The beckoning.
His heart pounded. Saleem nostranu ‘a mo la escornorla. Saleem nostranu ‘rosnona se o vasen pusson. He recited the words in his mind as if speaking them in silence might somehow give them meaning.
The sorceress stepped forward, and he lowered his eyes. She offered him the chalice. Ornate rings of precious stones adorned her skeletal fingers. Her shadow scurried across the walls in the flickering light of the cavern like a frightened spider.
He took the chalice from her hands; it was warm to the touch. He recognized the biting aroma of blood.
“Drink,” the sorceress said. “It is the blood of the dragon, and from henceforth and forever it is how you shall be known.”
The stench of the blood made him retch. The Peddler of Souls had told him many things about the prophecy, but nothing prepared Drakkor for the emotions that collided when the bittersweet thickness slithered down his throat. Nothing had prepared him for what he saw, for what he imagined, and for the words of the mystical woman.
“You are the child of no man and have proven yourself worthy of the blood of the dragon. You are he who will gather the eggs of stone forged in the breath of fire.” She could hardly control her emotions as she recited the words of the prophecy to the rhythmic cadence of the chants that echoed in the vaulted chamber as if they were living things.
Her voice was like music, and each word was spoken as if it were the only utterance in the cosmos.
Drakkor closed his eyes, and when he did, he saw the thirteen stones of fire glowing in the swirling darkness of his mind. A strange sense of destiny swept over him, and he was falling into blackness. He was seized by a suffocating presence and consumed by the darkness and a whispering voice screamed in his head. “It is your destiny to rise immortal to an endless life and to rule all flesh and reign forever as god of the world.”
Drakkor fought to remain conscious. To grasp the reality or illusion of the voices in his head. Were they nothing more than the words of the prophecy echoing from the recess of the secret chambers in the bowels of Oldbones Keep or were they the whisperings of she-dragon?
Drakkor raised his head with fierce resolve. For a fleeting moment, he thought his feet had left the ground. Whatever the factuality or falsehood of all he had endured, from this day forward, he would never be the same.
Annum 1059, Age of Kandelaar
Village Darc, Dominion Blackthorn
At the same moment, far across the inland sea of Leviathan Deeps, beyond the thousand lakes of Pliancum, one hundred and fifty-nine leagues to the north for a raven on the wing, a wisewoman hurried through the cobbled streets of Village Darc.
The baby in the basket slung over her arm began to cry. She quickened her step, taking care not to stumble in the darkness of the moonless night. She dared not look at the newborn child lest she lose her resolve. To deny the vision would bring the wrath of the gods.
A battle of emotions raged within her soul. What a tragic thing it was to pluck a suckling infant from a breast where no heart beat. What a tragic thing that a mother so young and so alone—without husband or family—should die giving birth. And what a difficult thing the winged spirits of God had told her she must do.
It was winged spirits that had come to her in her dreams, was it not? Or had it been the wraith from the tombs of the dead who appeared when a person’s time had come. No! She had seen the spirits, and they had spoken to her of the babe and why she was the one who must do what she was doing.
She reached the place she had seen so clearly in her vision. The place where she must leave the child. The place where he’d be found. She wrapped the homespun wool about the babe and put the basket on the stone steps of the cottage.
What came next still frightened her, but she knew it had to be. She stared at her trembling hand a long while before reaching into her pocket for the precious treasure hidden there. It was wrapped in soft fur. She lifted it slowly. She had not seen nor touched it since the days of her childhood. It had been a gift from her stepmother’s father, a restless vagabond who was forever seeking his fortune in places others dared not go. He adored the darling girl with the auburn curls from the moment they had met.
Eight years from her day of blessing, he gave her his jewel heart. “A treasure to remember me by,” he had said to her. “Whenever ye hold it and look upon it, I wish that ye should think on me.” Even now the old woman could remember his words. He certainly got his wish. She was most certainly thinking of him as she took the carefully wrapped stone into her hand. “’Tis a gemstone traded from a hapless fool at the black market at the waterfront,” he had told her. “A pirate, I believe.” He could make every act a bold adventure. And then he laughed and whispered softly, “He promised it was magic and held a mystical power.”
The pirate’s word had been true. As least that is what she’d believed as a child. She had touched the beautiful stone only once. It was cold, and yet it burned her fingers. The glimmering that pulsed through her being had frightened her. Her stepmother had found her curled in a corner, crying. The stone was wrapped and put away and never touched again. Until the dream! Until the winged spirits of God had come in the night and told her where it was hidden and what she must do.
Her childhood treasure was exactly where her stepmother had locked it away three score a
nd seven years before. When the wisewoman took it from the wooden box, she was careful not to unwrap the fur. She slipped the soft lump into her pocket and hurried away into the night to find the child and his lifeless mother.
She had done what the winged spirits of her vision had required and brought both the babe and the stone to this place. She placed the bundle of soft fur against the infant’s cheek. His crying ceased. The dreadful thoughts of all that might befall a helpless infant abandoned in the black of night rose up in the shadows like a dreadful living thing.
What grand purpose can there be in my errand? she wondered and pinched her eyes tight.
The child stirred, and the fur fell open.
The stone was smaller than she remembered, but her first touch had been with the hand of a child. With a courage born of living to old age, the woman pushed her childhood fears aside and touched her treasure with a single finger. It was neither hot nor cold the way she remembered, nor was there a tremor through her being. There was nothing but a gradual glow of pure white light from deep within that illuminated the pinkness of the child’s cheek.
Light, and a strange sense of farewell.
“Who are you, little one?” She looked at him in awe and whispered, lest the demons she felt sure were watching could hear her. “What destiny is yours?” She wrapped her thoughts inside her heart and disappeared into the night, leaving behind the babe and the magical stone, but taking with her a secret the child could never know.
CHAPTER 1
Annum 1088, Age of Kandelaar
Temple of Oum’ilah, the Mountain of God
Ashar walked in a circle. His fingers thumped across his forehead. His eyes were closed, and his lips moved in silent recitation of the begots and begottens in the ancestry of his lineage. This was the day that Ashar had worked toward since he’d been left at the temple gates almost seven years before.
Rol’s voice broke the silence. “Do you think they will show us the sacred shining stones?”
Ashar pushed the question away and tightened his eyelids.
The boys were on the tower porch of the outer courtyard of the temple of Oum’ilah, the place the pilgrims called the Mountain of God. They wore simple tunics. Nothing like the linens, embroidery, and handcrafted leathers worn by people in the village in the valley that stretched eastward from the foot of the mountain far below. Ashar and his friend, Rol, were postulants to the Holy Order of Oum’ilah, God of gods and Creator of All Things, and had been for years.
“Ashar! Do you think they will let us see them even if we’re not accepted?”
Ashar opened his eyes and pinched his face into a scowl. “Shh.” He raised a hand to keep Rol from breaking his concentration, then closed his eyes again and continued the recitation of his lineage from the time of First Landing. He was determined to do it perfectly when he stood before the Council of Blessed Sages.
Rol ignored Ashar’s request for silence. They had been friends for more than half their lives. “If we pass the test and they ordain us, that means we’re worthy? Right?”
Ashar didn’t answer.
“So why wouldn’t they be willing to . . . you know—”
Ashar stopped him with a gust of breath in protest and opened his eyes.
“Be quiet, Rol!” he scolded. He was about to say more when he saw the look in his friend’s eyes and realized Rol was babbling to stem his fears. In spite of their preparations, neither of them knew with any certainty what the day would bring. Ashar knew the past could not be changed and the future was unknown; today was both an ending and a beginning.
“I hope they will, don’t you? I think they will,” Rol persisted, pausing when his voice began to tremble. “If we survive the inquisition, I mean.”
Ashar had refused to dwell on the frightening stories of the inquisition, but the intriguing possibility of Rol’s question fluttered in his stomach. Was it possible they would be allowed to look upon the legendary shining stones of light? The flutter became a shiver that wriggled down his spine. He pushed the boulder of anticipation aside and returned to his recitations. He furrowed his forehead and forced his mind’s eye to focus on his lineage.
Shalatar was the son of Ilim. Ilim was the son of Worm. Worm was the son of Issens. Issens was the son of Syn. There was no sound, and yet he could hear his own voice in his head speaking the names as they scrolled through the darkness behind his eyes. He imagined speaking them aloud before the Council of Blessed Sages and a shudder passed through him.
“I don’t think Oum’ilah would mind if they gave us a quick peek at the shining stones, do you?” Rol spoke the name of the God of gods and Creator of All Things with well-rehearsed reverence, but Ashar cut him off with a scolding voice.
“You’d do well not to be frivolous about such things!”
The sun rose slowly through a scud of clouds on the eastern horizon. A shadow crawled across the cluster of stone buildings. The ancient dwellings clung to the cliffs on the high ridge of the Mountain of God that rose from the granite as if carved there at the dawn of creation.
The Navigator had built the temple at the highest point of the plateau using the stones of an ancient city that had been abandoned and in ruins long before the mountain was discovered by the voyagers. Who the ancient people might have been and how they built a city with cut and polished stones of such massive size remained a mystery. There was evidence the ancient habitation had been used as a religious site. There were cryptic etchings on a circle of monolithic stones perfectly aligned to the stars. The stones had come from a quarry in the valley and had been carved in place. They had been lifted to the mountain and fitted so tightly together that the point of a blade could not be slipped between them.
When Ashar was eight years old, he was brought to the mountain and given to the priests of the temple. The memory of that day was blurred by the confusion of emotions. When Ashar allowed himself to remember, the anguish of it was never more than a yesterday away.
Once he had resigned himself to the service of Oum’ilah, the God of gods and Creator of All Things, and had accepted the fact he would live on the mountain until he died, his life was the substance of heart more than mind. The fear of a child was replaced by the tranquility of a young man.
He was in his sixteenth year. He was long and lanky for his age, almost five cubitums tall. He was pleased by his height, but when he looked at himself in the polished brass, he lamented what he saw. His body was an ungainly rippling of bony ribs rather than a bulge of hardened muscles. His hair was long like other initiates, but thick and tangled with a natural curl that made it seem much shorter. Unlike Rol, whose hair was dark as soot and whose skin was the color of river clay, Ashar’s hair was the color of dirty straw, and his skin was pale and freckled. His large eyes were dark blue with a fringe of gray and betokened his unusual intelligence and intuition.
With his concentration broken, Ashar stepped up to the low stone wall that protected the porch from the sheer drop down the face of the granite cliff. He looped an arm around a supporting timber and leaned over the edge.
The ridge of the temple was high above the valley floor between the endless cordillera to the south and the massive monolith of rock that rose two thousand cubitums from the river on the north. The mysterious hallowed fane stood at the pinnacle of the monolith. The shrine to Oum’ilah, God of gods and Creator of All Things, was put there by the Navigator a thousand years ago to hide the dwelling place of God from human eyes, or so the legend said.
On this day of days, Ashar stared at the swirl of perpetual covering of clouds that enshrouded the top of the monolith. Master Doyan taught that this holiest of holy places was a place so sacred only the consecrated guardians of the hallowed fane and the Oracle himself were ever allowed to go there. Ashar and the postulants accepted the teachings and believed the holy site was the sanctuary of Oum’ilah on earth, the place where the Navigator had spoken face-
to-face with the God of gods a second time.
The hallowed fane was so shrouded in mystery, folklore, and legend, that Ashar was uncertain what was history, what was belief, and what was myth. He was not sure that even Master Doyan knew the difference. The stories repeated for a thousand years had evolved into indisputable beliefs. Tales of the extramundane were unquenchable in the villages surrounding the mountain. Even in hamlets as far south as West River and as far north as the village of Heap’s Tower, pilgrims who embraced the Way of the Navigator believed the only way to reach the hallowed fane was to fly, embraced in the arms of the winged spirits of God.
A sect of fallen priests blasphemed that the holy shrine was an idea and not a place. “Nothing on top of the mountain but the nests of falcons,” they mocked. The apostate priests declared the Navigator was an allegory and not an actual person. “How did the Navigator build the shrine?” one skeptic mused when Ashar and some other postulants chanced upon the exiled priest in the marketplace. “Did the winged spirits of God haul up the stones?” the man had sneered.
Flying to the hallowed fane holding the hand of the winged spirits of God was a satisfying folktale, but not the truth, according to Master Doyan. Once each year, on the twenty-first day of Kisilmu, season Kīt S’atti, a young priest was consecrated to the highest honor as a guardian of the hallowed fane. Temple virgins escorted him to the locus of caves at the base of the monolith.
From there, the honored one was escorted by a senior priest to the Place of the Tombs, from where one could climb no higher. It was always cold and the way oftentimes frozen.
How the chosen one ascended to the hallowed fane from the Place of the Tombs was never discussed. But the unknowable was always rife with rumors, and the story passed down from the oldest of the initiates said that the guardians were lifted into the clouds in a wicker basket on silken ropes and pulleys carved from pockholz wood.
Of course, it was all speculation. No guardian had ever returned to validate or deny the telling.
The Immortal Crown Page 2