The Riven Wyrde Saga boxed set

by Graham Austin-King

  Aervern’s eyes carried Miriam along the streets, past bodies and screaming wounded that writhed in the light of the guttering torches. The fae didn’t seem to be taking part in the fighting. It was almost as if she just wanted to show Miriam the worst of it. At least she hoped it was the worst of it.

  A fae exploded into fire as an iron bolt slammed through its chest. Three satyr standing close to the fae’s burning corpse fell in moments as more bolts followed, but then the fae were upon the hapless Bjornmen, tearing them to pieces as they fought to reload the massive crossbows they carried.

  Her view lifted as Aervern looked up to the fae’reeth. The tiny creatures were no larger than the hummingbirds Miriam had fed sugar-water as a child but she knew each one was as deadly as they were beautiful. She watched as they swooped down, surrounding Bjornmen in a spinning maelstrom of knives and blood as their victims flailed at them in vain. Where they passed only torn and shredded bodies remained.

  The Bjornmen city was more than just a fort, Miriam realised. Aervern had passed what were clearly shops and homes as she headed for the keep that thrust skyward at the centre of the city. Whilst the men outnumbered the women, Miriam saw more than one woman fighting beside the men and still more besides laying in the dirt.

  A scream pulled at her and Aervern both and Miriam grimaced at the sound. She knew what she would see before it even came into sight. The Bjornman city was a fort first, but it still had homes and families. She felt the tears run from her eyes and down the sides of her face into the grass. People had homes here. They had lives. They had children.

  The bodies were tiny broken things and Aervern seemed to stare down at them forever. Miriam was normally able to focus on other things within the fae’s field of vision but Aervern moved to stand directly over the bodies, giving Miriam no choice but to look. Blood matted their hair and pooled under the small bodies. The boy could have been Devin’s brother. He had the same hair, the same shape to his chin and nose. Even though death had taken the fear from their faces the sight tore at her heart and Miriam lay screaming in the grass until, finally, the fae moved on. Her screams may have ended but the tears lasted longer still.

  Aervern came for her much later, placing a cool hand over her eyes and removing the magic she’d wrought. “You understand why this was done? Why I have shown these things to you?”

  “No!” Miriam spat, anger robbing her of the caution she usually had around the fae. She no longer cared. Let the fae torture her, let her kill her. None of it mattered now. “I understand nothing, fae! For your cruel amusement? To see me broken? Why do you even keep me alive, Aervern? You treat me as an equal one minute, and then as a pet the next. What do you want with me? I’m of no use to you, you can’t even breed me. Is it just my misery that you want?”

  Aervern stood impassive as stone as Miriam screamed at her. The angry words were thick with her tears, and even in the depths of it she felt a thrill at having an emotion this strong. Living under the pressure of Ileriel’s mind had left her numb for too long. Eventually she ran out of harsh words to hurl at the fae and sank down to the grass, hollow and spent.

  Aervern glanced around her and crouched down beside Miriam, speaking in a voice little louder than a whisper. “Now you are ready. Now you have seen. Come, we should not speak here.” She extended a hand to the old woman and lifted her to her feet with no visible effort. The moon was bright and the sparks of the Lady’s Gift were clear under her skin as she closed her eyes. The glamour shrouded them slowly, making them part of the darkness that surrounded them.

  Aervern moved smoothly, slow enough for Miriam to follow without taxing her, but fast enough to cover the ground with haste.

  Shrouded in shadow they fled, away from the city and towards the darkness of the distant trees. Behind them Rimeheld crumbled. Thick vines worked to tear down the work of thousands as the city fell but no human eyes remained to see it. The laughter of the satyr filled the air as the fae’reeth turned lazy circles above the city and the first strains of the flute lifted in celebration above the ruin the city had become.

  ***

  The darkness under the trees was almost complete, with only faint shafts of moonlight breaking through the gaps in the leaves. Miriam sat against the tree, as Aervern instructed her, and waited.

  The fae seemed almost nervous, pacing back and forth in front of her. “You were the first,” she began, stopping her pacing to look at her as she spoke. “I am told it was the taking of you that allowed Ileriel to pass through the Wyrde into the Land of Our Lady. You have spent more time in the Realm of Twilight than any other of your kind. What have you learned?”

  Miriam frowned. It was an odd question, broad and unfocused. “I’m not sure—” she began but Aervern waved her to silence.

  “I did not truly expect an answer,” she told her. She squatted down in front of Miriam, fixing her with eyes that seemed to glow brighter with the intensity of the gaze. “You were the first. You alone have seen the changes in both this world and mine. You have seen what those at Tir Rhu’thin do, how they have taken your kind and used them.”

  “I have,” Miriam said, fighting to keep her own voice level.

  If Aervern caught the tone she didn’t show it. “You have seen how they use your kind to breed from, keeping them like beasts in pens wrought of craft and glamour. That is as it is.” She shrugged. “But now you have also seen of my home, my city, of Tira Scyon and what they have wrought there.” She extended a long finger that shone in the light from her eyes, stabbing it at Miriam. “You witnessed how Aelthen and his Highfae,” she spat the word with all the venom she had hinted at the last time she’d uttered it. “How they have enslaved my people with the promise of glyphlore and power. How they have broken tradition and peace by ending the gelding and returned the Great Revel to my home? How they ended Tauntha, a life that stretched back to the sundering.”

  “You want my pity?” Miriam asked, her words cold and hard. “You feel I should pity your lot when you fae have stolen my life? When I was taken? I was ripped from my own world and away from my son. My life has been an unceasing nightmare. I have been raped and used for years and had each child taken from me. I have laboured under an influence so heavy it sought to crush my very self until I barely knew who I was or what was happening around me. After all of that you expect me to feel pity for you? When all you have done is force me to see the things you insist I watch. The feast, your mother’s death, the butchery of tonight?”

  “I do not ask for your pity, human,” Aervern spat back, matching her tone. “I ask you to see! All this time I have had you watching and still you have not seen.”

  “What are you talking about?” Miriam demanded.

  “Think!” Aervern urged her. “Think back on what you have seen, what I have shown you. Your manling mind is as agile as any fae’s. Since you passed into my care I have shown you what these ancient fae have done to my world. Now I show you what they do to your own.”

  Miriam narrowed her eyes and studied Aervern’s face. It gave as many clues as rough-hewn stone. “Why?” she asked, finally.

  The stone crumbled and revealed a flurry of emotion too complex for her to hope to understand. “Because the return of those from the Outside has brought nothing that is wanted,” Aervern said softly. “Nothing that should remain. Even now I feel the touch of Our Lady. I feel the power that flows into me. This realm…” She shuddered, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “This realm is too much for any fae. The Lady’s Gift is endless here. It must be locked away. Aelthen must be locked away.”

  Miriam gaped, and then shook herself. “How?”

  “How were they forced to the Outside before?” Aervern shrugged. “The barrier your kind named the Wyrde. How is it that it fell?”

  “How would I know?” Miriam sputtered.

  “It is no matter,” Aervern shrugged. “That which is broken can be remade.”

  “But how?”

  “You wish this then? You will as
sist me in this?” The fae’s eyes were intent and she placed a peculiar emphasis on the question.

  Miriam shuddered, struggling free from the grip of the memory Aervern’s words had brought with them. “Free me,” she said.

  The fae cocked her head, considering. “There will be no need. The Wyrde will set you free.”

  Miriam stood, pulling herself up on the rough bark of the tree. “How do you need me to help?”

  “The Wyrde has fallen,” Aervern repeated simply. “Who held it before it fell? Even knowing what little I do of the Wyrde I can remember the feel of its touch, of those that held it and worked it anew. Where are these Wyrdeweavers now? What befell them?”

  “How would I know?” Miriam laughed at that, trying to stop herself as she heard the hysteria turning it into a cackle.

  Aervern stared through the laugh until it faltered and died. “You will seek out these Wyrdeweavers, then we shall see what shall be done.”

  “Even if I could find them, even if I had any idea where to start, how would I find you?” Miriam protested.

  “I will find you, Miriam,” Aervern told her. “The power that carried us through the Worldtrails was mine, not Aelthen’s. You carry the touch of it still. I could find you across field and seas. Have no fear of that.”

  Miriam paused at that. The notion of simply running away once Aervern had set her upon this task had only really half-formed in her mind but this put paid to that. She sighed and caught herself. A glance at Aervern, and the fae’s small smile, told her that she had known exactly what Miriam had been thinking.

  To find these wyrdeweavers though, to find one or two people in all the world. The notion was almost farcical. “Where would I even begin?”

  Aervern nodded and began to lower herself to sit, inviting Miriam to follow suit. Miriam smiled and shook her head. “These old bones are too stiff for all this up and down. I’ll stand.” She bent and picked up a fallen branch, leaning on it with one hand as she propped herself back against the tree.”

  “I do not see this realm as you, Miriam,” Aervern began. “To my eyes it is a place of wonder yet the scent of you manlings is heavy in the air. I smell foul fehru wherever I step, the manling city was rife with it. The power is thick here, and even with the Wyrde fallen I can still sense the echoes of it. The stains of it lay thick on the earth and there are places so thick with it that the very soil reeks. One such place we have both visited already, where Aelthen leads his hunt is where your search must begin, at the Withengate.”

  Miriam shook her head. “I’m an old woman, Aervern. I can’t wander the world looking for people who might be dead for all we know. Even if they’re alive somewhere how would I know who they are? Do you expect me to wander the world accosting strangers?” She laughed at the thought.

  “You are not the withered crone you pretend, Miriam,” Aervern said, ignoring the old woman’s laughter. “I will take you as far as the Withengate. Your hunt can begin there.” She paused with a small smile, as if she had told a clever joke and was waiting for the laughter. The smile faded and she frowned slightly. “You are right in what you say, however, even the satyr need some sign of their quarry. I could follow the stench of the Wyrde myself but the Lady will call me to my own realm soon enough. However, even were she not to, I somehow doubt these Wyrdeweavers would welcome my company.”

  She blinked in shock as Miriam burst into laughter, looking at her as if she’d gone mad, and then venturing a small, uncertain, smile before she went on. “Had I the knowledge of these glyphs I feel something could be fashioned. As it is I will simply have to place my sight upon you.”

  Miriam shook her head. “I can’t walk around with your sight, Aervern, it’s too much. It was all I could do to lay on the grass with it and not throw up.”

  “This would not be the same as giving you my vision, Miriam,” Aervern explained. “I would merely allow your manling eyes to see that which stands in plain sight.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Aervern shook her head with a sigh. “It will be simpler to show you.” She stepped out of the trees into the moonlight again, drinking in the power before beckoning to Miriam. “Stand close, I wish to move with haste. I do not believe Aelthen is taking note of us but Ileriel? That is one I do not trust.”

  She stared up at the moon as the sparkling swirls of light grew under her skin. “None should have power like this,” she muttered and closed her eyes. “It is like the wind. With no limits or end.”

  When she opened her eyes again they blazed like twin suns and Miriam shrank back from her as the fae looked down to the ground beneath them, extending a hand and muttering as her brow creased in concentration.

  The mist that came from her outstretched hand pooled down by their feet. It was a far smaller work than Aelthen had produced, barely wide enough for the two of them to stand upon, but it was enough. Miriam gaped in wonder as Aervern pulled her up onto the mist and it lifted them up into the air. Aervern made no pretence at running as Aelthen and the fae on the hunt had. Instead, she crouched low as the two of them rose, scarcely more than the height of a tall man above the grass that whipped flat in the wind of their passage.

  Miriam leaned forward, bracing herself against the motion. Somehow flying so low to the ground was worse than being high in the sky. She gripped hard, sinking her fingers into Aervern’s arm before she realised she’d even reached out to her. The fae seemed oblivious to it. Her face was a blank mask as she concentrated on whatever it was she did to maintain the mist underneath them.

  They began to climb to crest the trees and Miriam hunched low against the wind that tore at them. The air was thick with moisture and it leeched the warmth from her flesh as bad as a winter rainstorm. She closed her eyes against the wind and the sight of the trees rushing underneath them in a moonlit green torrent. The journey seemed to go on and on, and when they finally sank down to the earth Miriam had to work to pull her hands out of the fists she’d clenched them into.

  The Withengate was a trampled mess. A stone circle stood around a fallen arch with one stone still standing at the centre. The ground was churned from the passage of untold number of cloven hooves. Aervern flinched as she stepped into it, glaring at the oozing mud that sucked at their feet and hissing at it, cat-like, before she looked up at Miriam.

  “Fehru.” She spat. “In the earth here the whole of the Withengate reeks of it. It is rare to come across it in the Realm of Twilight, save for the relics and ancient craftings. The Land of Our Lady seems riddled with it.” She ignored Miriam’s questioning look, crouching low and sniffing at the air with eyes half-closed. She took a step, and then another, moving towards the stones of the circle as Miriam watched on.

  “Yes, here,” the fae muttered. “I can sense it even without Our Lady’s Grace.” She straightened and beckoned Miriam. “Come, let us see what can be done with you.”

  Aervern’s hand was cool as she laid it over Miriam’s eyes again. There was a moment of intense heat and she would have pulled away had the fae not held her so tightly.

  “There,” Aervern said. “Now, look. See.”

  Miriam squinted. The world was suddenly too bright. Every image seemed too sharp, too focused. She followed Aervern’s pointing finger and frowned at the spectacle, trying to make sense of what she saw. The circle was filled with traces of light, leading in odd patterns around the stones and the space between them.

  “What is this—?”

  “No,” Aervern cut her off. “There is no time to speak of this. Now, close your eyes. Feel it too.”

  Miriam closed her eyes, feeling more than a bit foolish as she stood there in the darkness as she felt about for…something. She could almost feel the expectant stare of the fae boring into her but nothing more. She sighed and drew breath to speak and protest when she felt it. A vibration, an echo. There were no words to describe it. It was the sound of a bell as it fades to silence, the ringing so slight it hard to tell where the sound ended and the imagination
began. It was more than a sound though, there was a vibration. A shimmer in the air that was more felt than heard.

  “You feel it, do you not?” Aervern whispered, her breath hot on Miriam's ear.

  She nodded.

  “Now then, draw this sense back within you. Contain it, bury it deep down inside yourself.” Aervern instructed and, without really pausing to consider what she meant, Miriam had done it. Coiling the power within herself, locking it away from the night.

  Aervern leaned in close and looked into her eyes. She stood motionless and stared long enough that Miriam stifled an uncomfortable laugh.

  “Good,” she said, finally. “This gift will not remain long within you, Miriam. You manlings were never meant for the Lady’s Grace and it will seek to leave you. Use it sparingly. I do not know how often I will be able to locate you to replenish it.”

  “What was it?” Miriam managed. “What was I seeing?”

  “A remnant,” Aervern told her. “Call it an echo if it makes it easier for you to grasp. This is the footprint of the Wyrde and the Weaver that worked it. Did you feel the path the Weaver has taken from here?”

  Miriam closed her eyes and reached for the power, searching inside herself for it.

  “No!” Aervern snapped, grabbing at her wrist. “You must use what you remember. The Grace will pass from you swiftly. It is not to be squandered.

  Miriam nodded and concentrated, thinking back to the sensations that had rushed through her. The stones had been surrounded by the shimmering vibration, so strong it had almost smothered anything else. She turned to the south where she’d felt another, equally strong vibration. She frowned through the darkness at the confusing mass of shadows against the trees, the lines were too regular. She stepped closer and the images came together to reveal the ruin of what must have once been a cottage and outbuildings. They were torn apart now, threaded through with thick vines, with just the smallest section of wall still standing.