The Riven Wyrde Saga boxed set

by Graham Austin-King

“So?” Joran asked for both of them.

  Ylsriss sighed, looking at them both as if they were particularly dense children. “So that means that one or the other type was brought here intentionally. Or even both I suppose.”

  Devin shook his head. “I still don’t see your point.”

  “I’m not sure I have a point,” she admitted, hugging herself against the light breeze. “It’s just odd that whoever built this place would use two different types of stone. It’s not as if they were just random stones either. These outer ones are all uniform. You see the blue tint to the stone? These others are closer to granite or something.” She walked over to the closest of the stones forming the circle. It was shorter than the hubstones but still taller than her. She traced her fingers over the stone lightly and her small size made the stone seem all the larger.

  “Why move it at all?” she whispered. She turned to the others. “These things must have a purpose. The effort of moving them and shaping them must have been enormous. Why move them here at all if the ritual would work without them?”

  Devin nodded at Joran and then her. “You’re right, it doesn’t make much sense. Okay, let’s think about it. What do we know already? You both came out of the stones here, close to the hubstones, a bit like you were passing through a doorway. If those stones are the path to the fae world, or if they mark the place of gateway at least, then what are these others for?”

  He went to another stone, motioning for Joran to go to a third. The stone was weathered and pitted with age, the tall grass cradling the base almost tenderly.

  “What are we looking for?” Joran called.

  “I have no idea,” he replied back over one shoulder, resting a hand on the stone. His hand slipped gently down the surface, running in the pits and grooves under his fingers. “Just anything really. Like Ylsriss said, they have to be here for a reason.” He moved around the stone, eyes searching the surface. It seemed smoother on the side facing into the circle or was that just his imagination?

  He looked around him, trying to place himself in relation to the steps of the ritual, taking the steps in his mind almost by reflex. The flash was so slight that at first he wasn’t even sure he’d seen it. A glimmer of quartz caught by the rising sun perhaps? He searched for a minute before giving up and thinking on the ritual again. Closing his eyes helped and he reached for the face of the stone to steady himself. The stone was cold, icy really and he could feel the heat leeching from his hand.

  The stones would be facing in at the ritual, surrounding him, watching like sentinels. Watching, remembering. He traced the steps of the ritual as Obair had taught him and, just like that, the stone flared before him, a bright flash of brilliant light that was gone in an instant. Devin gave a shocked groan and toppled backwards into the grass, clutching at hands white with frost.

  “Devin!” Ylsriss cried, and ran to him. “What’s wrong? Joran! Ask him what’s wrong?”

  Wordlessly Joran turned Devin’s hand, showing the thick frost on his fingers. He bent to feel for breath and Devin gasped, lurching back again as his eyes flew open and he looked about wildly. “What? What was that?”

  “What happened?” Joran asked him in a shocked voice. “We just saw you fly back from the stone and found you like this.”

  “I don’t know,” Devin said, looking past them to the stone. His hands hurt and he flexed them, turning them this way and that to find the source of the pain.

  Ylsriss prodded at Joran impatiently until he translated. “What were you doing right before it happened?” he asked.

  “I was…” Devin stopped, thinking back. “I was stood at the stone, trying to think how the ritual would have me placed at this point.”

  “That’s it? Just thinking?” Joran asked.

  “Yes. No…” Devin shook his head. “Now that I think about it I was tracing the ritual in my mind too. The way Obair had taught me. The same way as when you arrived. I could feel something, something in the stone, sucking the heat out of me. It felt like it was sucking the very life out of me.” He fell silent as Joran translated for Ylsriss and went to the stone, looking closely, though he was careful not to touch it. It looked different somehow, though it was nothing obvious. Nothing he could put a finger to.

  Ylsriss appeared at his shoulder, reaching out to touch the stone before he could stop her. He gasped as her fingers made contact but she simply stood, silent for a moment before looking up at him with a raised eyebrow.

  Devin reached out but the stone was just that, stone. Cold certainly, but nothing like the burning ice that he’d felt before.

  Ylsriss looked to Joran. “Heat? Another form of energy I suppose.”

  Joran looked from her to the stone and back again. “What? There are no glyphs here, Ylsriss. I don’t think that’s what this is.”

  She pushed past him and crouched close, running her fingers over the face of the stone. After a moment she closed her eyes, hands questing, searching. She crouched for long minutes, running her hands over the rough stone, then pausing and peering closer. Her eyes opened to look at she moved her hand but there was nothing to see. She tried again, searching for long moments before she spoke.

  “Glyphs,” she murmured. “There are glyphs on this.”

  “What? Where?” Devin leaned close, peering at the stone as Joran translated.

  “It’s nothing you can see,” Ylsriss told him. “It was so slight I almost missed it. They’re too worn and weathered. I can only just feel them.”

  “But, there are no fae here. No capture plates.” Joran looked around as if to confirm he hadn’t missed them. “What I mean is, if there are glyphs where do they draw the power from?”

  Devin’s eyes widened as he listened to Joran and he crouched down beside her, placing his fingertips on the stone. After a moment he frowned at her and she reached for the stone with one hand, searching for where she’d found the glyph and pulling his hand to the spot.

  “Here, you feel it?” she asked, knowing he wouldn’t understand but speaking anyway.

  His eyes widened as he found it and he grinned. They crouched around the base of the stones, taking one each, with hands tracing over the surface and calling out as they found more of the glyphs. They found them on each stone they searched, and though some were more eroded than others they seemed identical.

  “I recognise one or two of these but there’s nothing even close to an activation sequence,” Ylsriss said, shaking her head as Joran relayed her words. “It’s so hard not being able to see them.”

  “Perhaps we don’t need to,” Joran mused.

  She stopped, giving him a curious look. “What do you mean?”

  He chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. “Well, Devin managed to do something just by touching them. Maybe the activation isn’t built around working the glyphs in a sequence. Maybe it’s something else, like the way they do the ritual.”

  Devin looked at them both, gesturing impatiently. “Someone else here is going to have to learn Islik or Anlish,” Joran grumbled before explaining the conversation.

  Devin nodded thoughtfully and turned back to the stone, pressing both hands to the stone as his eyes closed.

  “Devin, no!” Joran cried. “We don’t even know what it does.”

  Ylsriss turned at the tone. She couldn’t understand the words but the cry had been clear enough. Devin stood motionless, a faint frown of concentration on his brow. As she watched he stiffened and his breath fogged, white in the air between him. The stone cooled, and then turned icy. Frost formed on his fingers as his skin grew first pale, and then took on a bluish tinge. Long moments passed and Joran gasped in shock.

  “Look at his face.” He pointed with a hand that shook. “Stars above, look at him!”

  His skin, so pale already, was withering in front of their eyes, the vitality and youth draining away. Faint lines grew into wrinkles, and then grew deeper in moments, the crow's feet lines by his eyes growing longer and reaching down to his cheeks. Hair, so dark before, gre
w grey at the temples and then whiter as the very colour leeched out of it. They stood, rooted by shock as the young man aged decades in moments.

  The stone flared bright in front of him. Glyphs burning incandescent against the stone and Ylsriss saw that the entire stone was covered in them. Thousands of tiny, intricate carvings that the wind and rain had scoured from the surface. A burst of light turned her head as first one, then another of the stones burst into light, until the entire circle flared brilliant in the morning light.

  ***

  Devin pushed forward through a darkness, somehow moving though he knew his body remained still, pressed to the stone. At the edges of his consciousness he could feel the stones drawing the strength from him, drinking it in hungrily and reaching for more. The ritual of the Wyrde surged through his mind, almost moving by itself as it turned faster and faster until the steps were a thunder that seemed to shake his very being. There was something, something indefinable that seemed just out of reach. He could feel it, tantalisingly close, and on some level he knew it would be the key to all of this.

  He was already weakening, growing lightheaded as if he'd missed a meal, then worked hours in the fields. He could feel the strength leaving him but shouldered the worry of what damage he might be doing to himself aside. He needed to know. It was a compulsion now, a need strong enough that it overrode anything else and he threw himself deeper into the effort, forcing the steps of the Wyrde onwards.

  It began almost like a light, somehow cold and filling his vision, dazzling him even though he knew his eyes were closed. The sensation of movement stopped abruptly as he found himself pressed to a barrier as smooth and cool as fine glass. The power of the Wyrde was still there, pushing him onwards, and the brief irrational thought that he might be crushed passed through him with a twinge of panic.

  He pushed, testing the substance of the thing as it flexed against him. The pressure behind him was enormous, bearing down on him as it forced him against the wall before him. In an instant he understood, the power wasn't forcing him into the barrier. The energy was there, just waiting to be used. Without really considering how to do it he reached for the pressure building behind him, joining it with the steps of the ritual in his mind, and drove it into the barrier. The power tore through him, blasting through whatever force had stopped him, driving him onwards. The light grew brighter, searing at his mind as well as his eyes, and then knowledge filled him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Obair threw the cottage door wide in response to the screams and Joran’s shouts. His hair was wild and he had the wide-eyed look of someone who had pulled themselves from their bed at the noise.

  “Help us with him!” Joran shouted as they staggered towards the cottage. Devin hung between them, feet dragging on the grass as Ylsriss and Joran clung to an arm each, thrown around their shoulders.

  “Damnation and ruin, what’s happened to him?” the old druid gasped taking in the sight. He took Ylsriss’s place, ducking under the lad's arm and hissing at the touch of his skin. “He’s as cold as ice!”

  “He collapsed at the stones,” Joran gasped between breaths. “We found something, glyphs, but then this happened.”

  They dragged him up the three steps and into the cottage, lowering him into the rocking chair close to the hearth. Obair pressed his face close to the boy’s frost covered lips and sighed in relief as the faint breath stirred his whiskers. “Get that fire going!” He barked the order at Joran, peeling back one of Devin’s eyelids and muttering at what he saw. He stepped back, looking down at the young man as he gnawed on a knuckle.

  “What happened?” he demanded, rounding on the others.

  “We were looking at the stones in the circle,” Joran explained as Ylsriss ran in from the bedroom with blankets, laying them over Devin and tucking them in tight. “It just didn’t make any sense for them to have no purpose. We searched over them and Ylsriss thought she'd found a glyph. It was worn, and you’d never have found it by just looking, but Devin managed to activate them somehow.”

  “Forgotten gods! Is that his hair? I thought it was frost!” Obair muttered as he looked at the young man. “So what happened,” he demanded. “Tell me everything.”

  “There isn’t much more to tell,” Joran admitted. “Devin did something, somehow managed to activate the glyphs. The whole stone circle was blazing with them. He had his eyes closed, pressing his hands against the stone, but it’s almost like it was feeding itself from him. First it was frost on his hands, and then this.” He waved helplessly.

  “And you two just stood there and watched?” Obair demanded of them.

  Joran’s mouth opened and closed as he searched for the words. “It just happened so fast,” he managed in the end.

  Obair muttered something in disgust and turned back Devin.

  The small cottage warmed quickly as the fire stirred to life and ate hungrily as Ylsriss fed it first twigs, and then small logs until the flames blazed in the hearth. Through it all Devin lay motionless while Obair quizzed first one, then the other, repeating questions and demanding answers that neither could give him.

  Finally there was nothing left to ask and they sat watching as the colour slowly returned to Devin’s face and fingers. Joran prepared a small meal, though none of them felt like eating, and numb fingers moved tasteless food to disinterested mouths.

  As the daylight began to fade they transferred him to a bed, piling the blankets high over him. Ylsriss perched on the other bed, watching him as the others left. The low murmur of conversation carried from the other room but she felt no urge to join them. Translation made the three-way conversation awkward at the best of times.

  She awoke near dawn, eyes flickering in the half-light as she reached for her neck and muscles made stiff by sleeping in the awkward position. A cup sat near her foot, filled with tea long-since gone cold. She stood and stretched, reaching up towards the ceiling as she worked her shoulders and tilted her head from side to side to try and work the knot out.

  The sound was little more than a hiss but it was enough and her head whipped round to the figure in the bed. “Devin?” She leaned closer. “Are you awake?”

  He hissed again, lips parting just enough to let the sound escape. His eyes were open though, wide and alert as they looked back at her, tinged with panic.

  She rushed into the other room. “He’s awake!” she shouted as she lit a taper from the fire and carried it through to light the stub of candle set near the bed. Devin winced against the light, blinking until his eyes adjusted.

  “Has he said anything?” Joran said, looking over her shoulder.

  “Not yet,” she replied. “Here, help me sit him up a little.” They shoved at the pillows until he was propped up in the bed.

  “Ylsriss,” he managed finally. The word was barely more than a whisper, slipping past lips that seemed half-numb still.

  She smiled down at him. “Ask him how he feels, if he wants something to drink?” she said to Joran.

  Tea seemed to make a difference, though it took Ylsriss to pour it into a shallow bowl and guide his two hands as he struggled to drink it. The warm drink seemed to help and she followed up with a thin broth. The colour returned to his cheeks slowly and by mid-morning he was back in the main room, sat in the rocker pushed so close to the fire it was a wonder it didn’t scorch.

  “How much do you remember?” Obair asked him.

  Devin frowned, pulling his gaze from the hands that he twisted and turned in his lap as he inspecting every new line and wrinkle. “I remember going to the stones with these two. I remember most of it, I think.” He spoke slowly, as if reading from a book and unsure of his letters.

  “Ylsriss found glyphs,” he said, looking up and smiling at the old man, finding wonder where nobody else had thought to look.

  “How much do you remember about the stones,” Obair clarified. “About what happened?”

  The smile slipped from Devin’s face as he looked at the old man. “I don’t know. Fragme
nts. It’s hard to make sense of it all.” The words were coming more easily to him now and he looked at the old man with an intensity in his eyes. “I can remember touching them, the feel of the stone under my hands. I remember how it went so cold. It happened so fast it was like walking out into a winter storm. It was bitter, so cold that it burned my hands but, even so, I couldn’t let go of it. There was a sensation, a bit like the pressure I felt when Ylsriss and Joran arrived, and when I pushed through it was like I was somewhere else. I hadn’t moved. I could still feel the stone under my fingers but somehow that all felt so distant. It was almost like I was seeing with just my mind, without the need for eyes. Like I was dreaming, I suppose, but somehow different. The images were flooding into me. I saw the entire lifetimes of dozens, no, hundreds of people in moments, and then I could see it all.”

  “See what?” the old man asked in bafflement, glancing at the others.

  “I can’t describe it. My eyes were closed but it was like I was staring into a bright light. I could feel things, see things. I could focus on one area if I wanted. I could examine the colour of a man’s eyes. Or I could rise up and watch it all unfold.” He paused and the next words held none of the excitement of the last. “I think it was the histories, Obair. You keep telling me that they were all destroyed in the purges but I don’t think they were ever written down. The true knowledge was here all along, safe within the stones.”

  Obair sat back, mouth flapping as he struggled for words. “Are you sure?”

  The question was so ridiculous that Devin laughed, dry painful laughs that bent him over in the chair. “I could see things,” he began again. “So much that it’s hard to keep it all straight. It all flooded into me so fast that it’s hard to understand what happened first.

  “I saw the home of the fae, saw the red and gold trees under their twilight sky. I saw the first men and women pulled into their world through gates of light, bound and tied. I watched as the years passed and their cities spread out over their world. Mankind serving the fae as slaves and then, as time went on, working with them almost as equals. I saw silvery discs set down into stone, shining bright with power as they drank in the moonlight. I can’t begin to describe half the things they created. There were men and women carving glyphs down into stone, glowing bright as the power filled them. Gateways created, ways through to other worlds. Towers so high they pierced the clouds.” He looked up at them to the wonder in their eyes.