“And then there was war,” he began again but shook his head as his voice rasped and caught in his throat. “Do you think I could have some water? I want to tell you all this before I forget it.”
Obair fetched a cup quickly, letting Joran finish as he translated quickly for Ylsriss in a low voice. Devin drank in gulps, water running from the corners of his mouth before handing the cup back.
“I saw the war begin,” he said. “Saw the towns and villages of mankind fall one after the other as the armies of the fae tore through them. They fought back, of course, using weapons I don’t understand. Carved rods and staffs that sent fire and ribbons of light into the armies of the fae. Glyphs set into stone that exploded when a fae came near. Terrible things that were awful to see.” The words drifted into silence as Devin stared into space, his expression pained. He shook himself and gave them a wan smile before he spoke again, missing the worried looks that Obair exchanged with the others.
“It was never enough and they were always driven back. The deaths were horrific, the sheer scale of it all, an entire people driven almost to extinction. The bodies were everywhere, I remember it like I was there, like I’d lived through it myself. Finally there was only one city remaining and mankind flocked to it, huddling together as the silver banners of the fae marched closer and closer. They broke through the walls, sending the trees themselves to rip the stones apart. The sky was filled with small purple creatures with wings, fae’reeth I think they’re called. Thousands of them, swarming through the streets of the city and tearing us to shreds as we fled.”
Obair caught the change in the mode of address and raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
“Finally we fled. The gateway was rough and thrown together in a matter of days. The glyphs weren’t perfect and a lot of it involved things that had never even been considered before, let alone tried or tested. It opened though, a gateway as wide as barn doors, and mankind rushed through in panic as satyr butchered those who’d volunteered to hold the fae back.
“The Worldtrail was tattered and badly woven. It touched down in a thousand places, flinging mankind across this new world like seeds tossed into the wind. We were scattered but we fared better than those it left in the space between worlds, frozen in an instant and left to hang among the stars.
“The gate couldn’t last long and there were still thousands pressing to get to it when it collapsed. Who knows what happened to them all when it did.”
He sighed hard then. Filling his lungs and puffing it out all at once before falling silent. The silence was a welcome thing, surrounding them and holding them as the images played through each of their minds.
“We were safe then,” Devin said, beginning again. “Safe and free in a world that had never known the touch of the fae. Though scattered, people managed to find each other and settlements were founded. Thousands more died within those first few months. Mankind had been dependent on the fae and the glyphs for so many things and this world was alien in so many ways.” He looked over at Joran, still translating for Ylsriss. “Joran forgot most of what he knew of our world before the fae took him. He’s still coming to terms with it now. Can you imagine an entire race of people who’d never known the change of seasons or had to fell trees for fires? We learned, though. We adjusted and slowly we began to grow and thrive.
“I couldn't tell you how long it was before the first fae found us.” He admitted with a shrug. “Some things were easy to understand but just how much time had passed? That’s really hard to judge. It could be a thousand years, it could have been only a hundred. I don’t suppose it matters really,” he said. “They found us. They must have searched thousands of worlds before they stumbled across us. Maybe they weren’t searching for us at all, perhaps it was just bad luck. Maybe it was always going to be just a matter of time.” He spread his hands helplessly. “The hunt began almost at once. They passed over to this world after every full moon, taking to the skies and hunting down mankind, taking delight in the chase.
“The Wyrde was born out of this, out of desperation. The glyphs were useless to us. With no way to power them they were nothing more than writing. The knowledge of the glyphs had been kept safe, hoarded by those that would become known as the druids. It was passed down from father to son, mother to daughter. As the fae began to hunt us they came together, bringing the stores of knowledge that had been painstakingly written out. Forming the Wyrde would be complex enough, a feat of glyphlore that would have challenged those even at the very peak of when man and fae worked together. Without the ability to harness the moon, and without the help of the fae to imbue them with their Grace, the glyphs were worthless.”
He looked around at them as he drew a breath. They were clustered close to him like he and Erinn had pestered Samen for stories in Widdengate. The image brought a smile to his lips, despite everything.
“The hunt was a sporadic thing. The armies of the fae had worked united, to wipe out mankind, or at least cull them to manageable levels. I don’t think they ever imagined we would fight back, or that we might manage to flee. The fae that first found us were far from united. It was a small group that first passed through the Worldtrails and stumbled across this world. I didn’t understand this as I experienced it but now I realise that they were probably amazed at the way the moon stays in the sky all night. Joran explained it to me, this place, our world, it must seem like a heaven to them. So the Wild Hunt began, bursting from the Worldtrails and cutting down all that the fae could find. Some were taken back to the Realm of Twilight to serve as slaves again but most were simply slain.
“The druids worked at the notion of the Wyrde for years as mankind’s numbers dwindled, and it was only desperation that led to the idea of using a soul. A soul trapped at the moment of death and tasked with protecting all mankind.” He stopped, sinking back into the chair, suddenly too hot. The fire had made the room warm and under the blankets he was stifling. He pushed at them weakly, sending them tumbling down his legs.
“It is a little warm now isn’t it?” Obair said, standing and making his way to the door. “I’ll let some of this heat out if that’s all right?” Ylsriss helped pull the rocker back from the fire as the old man stood at the doorway for a moment, savouring the cooler air and looking out over the lake in silence. “All of this was in the stones?” he asked finally, breaking the stillness.
Devin nodded wearily. “This and more. It’s hard to focus on it all.”
“The ritual of the Wyrde?” Obair pressed, coming back to join them.
Devin nodded. “I know the ritual now, how to lock the fae away from this world again. There was nothing about the other ritual though, nothing about how to power the glyphs.”
“So then we’re no better off than we were before!” Obair said as he threw his hands in the air.
“No,” Devin said quickly. “You misunderstand. The knowledge of the keepers was placed into these stones, maybe into others too, but it was the knowledge of how to work the Wyrde. The knowledge of how to power the Wyrde was entrusted to the guardians.”
“What?” Obair shook his head. “We’ve been over this. I know the ritual, Devin. I could maintain the Wyrde because it was in place but I haven’t the faintest clue how to begin again. If my Master knew he never told me.”
“He didn’t need to, Obair.” Devin said as he smiled weakly. “The knowledge is there. It's waiting in the stones at Widdengate.”
“At Widdengate?” Obair repeated. “Surrounded by an army of Bjornmen.”
***
“Caert,” Ylsriss repeated, patting the side of the wagon.
“Cart,” Devin corrected her. “Or Wagon.”
She frowned up at him. The week they’d waited had done him some good. He’d never completely regain the look of youth but many of the lines had faded from his face. He looked more like a man in his mid-twenties now, though the white hair would always raise eyebrows.
“Which is it then?” she asked Joran as he loaded another sack onto the
cart behind Devin. “Wagon or cart?”
“It’s both, or either,” Joran replied with a shrug.
“What? Why have two words for the same thing?” Ylsriss demanded. “This language makes no sense!”
“Islik has more than one word for ships. Reavers, ferries, scows?” Joran shrugged.
Ylsriss shook her head, tossing blonde curls about her shoulders. “No, that’s not the same thing at all. Those are types of ships. They don’t look anything like each other. This language is ridiculous. It makes no sense!”
Joran laughed with a shrug. “She thinks your language is stupid,” he explained to Devin.
“Do we have everything?” Obair called from the door to the cottage.
“I think so,” Devin replied. “Let’s go.”
Obair climbed up beside Joran and clucked the horses onwards. The wagon had been a stroke of luck. Left in the barn and covered in a decade’s worth of cobwebs he’d feared it would be useless when Joran first found it. Without the wagon the old man had worried they’d have had to wait another week or more before Devin was able to travel. As it was he still thought it was too soon. He watched the old man glance back over once shoulder at him with a concerned look.
“I’m fine, Obair,” Devin told him. “If we don’t leave now we’ll be spending the winter here.”
The druid muttered something that Devin didn’t catch and turned his attention to the horses. It was slow going and the cart rattled and shook until they made it to the track. That had been another stroke of luck. Joran had found it when hunting. It was overgrown, barely visible in places, and probably hadn’t been used in a decade or more, but it was wide enough for the cart and should lead them to the road in time.
He twisted to catch a last look at the lake before the trees blocked the view. It felt strange to leave now that it had finally come down to it. They’d come here seeking answers, not really believing that they were here to be found. Now that they had them, and more, it was time to leave. Rhenkin and the Duchess would be waiting for them but part of him could have stayed easily. The stones both fascinated and terrified him and, despite the ordeal, there was a small part of him that longed to touch them again.
He’d been right about the winter though. The last few mornings had carried the snap of frost in the air. It was nothing that was visible yet but autumn was definitely in its last gasps. Winter would not wait for them and the prospect of trying to pass over the mountainous trail in this rickety cart as the snows howled down was not a pleasant one.
The days soon fell into a routine. Obair or Joran drove the wagon, stopping every few hours to switch the horses with the other two that were hitched to the back of the cart. Devin and Ylsriss would sit in the back as she practised her Anlish. She was a quick study and the language was coming to her without issue, though it would be months before she had a firm grasp on it.
The nights had their own routine too as they set camp close to the road, actually on it during the second night. Obair had insisted on setting watches, though the full moon was over a week away. It was easier to give in than to argue. By the third night though, Devin had enough.
“We’re stopping?” he called to Obair as the cart slowed, and then stopped. “Already?”
“It’s going to get dark before much longer, Devin,” the old man said back over his shoulder. “The horses need their sleep as much as you do.”
Devin pulled himself upright from where he’d laid back against the sacks of supplies. “Obair,” he began. “You’ve spent your life with nothing but goats and chickens. How much do you really know about horses?”
“Everything needs to sleep, Devin.” Obair sighed as he stood up at the bench-seat and reached his arms skyward in a stretch.
“Every animal needs sleep, Obair, but not the same way as we do.” Devin told him. “Horses are happy with about three hours a night so long as they get a break during the day. We can’t do this forever but we should be travelling when it’s not fae nights.”
“I didn’t know that,” Obair admitted. “You want to push on then? In the dark?”
“It doesn’t get that dark with the moonlight, Obair.” Devin pointed out. “Besides, we’ve enough lanterns to keep us on the road. We can sleep in shifts just as easily on a cart as we can in a camp.”
Obair gave him a look that sat midway between worried and irked and walked the horses back onto the road.
By the second week however, the routine of setting camp was set. The fire burned low in a pit dug out for that purpose and three slept as Joran or Devin kept watch from the wagon, bow and ironheads on their laps. It made for a miserable night and Devin often found he couldn’t sleep even when Joran came to relieve him.
“What will you do?” he asked Joran in a low voice.
Joran looked down at him, his eyes reflecting the fading light of the coals in the fire. “Do? When?”
“Once we reach Rhenkin,” Devin explained. “There’s really no need for you to go to Widdengate, either you or Ylsriss. What will you do?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Joran said softly, looking up at the stars above the trees. “If you’d been able to ask me before we came through the stones somehow I’d have said I would stay with Ylsriss. Now…” he spread his hands.
Devin looked over to where Ylsriss lay. “She hasn’t forgiven you?”
“Would you have?” Joran asked him. “I took her away from her baby.”
Devin grimaced. He was probably right. “There wasn’t anything you could have done though. It was flee or die. Wasn’t that what you told me?”
Joran nodded, meeting his eyes before looking away quickly. “I don’t think she sees it that way. I don’t think she ever will. She’s pleasant enough when you’re all around. When it’s just us though, her eyes say it loud and clear. She blames me still. She hates me still.”
“You and her though, you weren’t…?”
Joran blinked. “What? No! No, nothing like that. I mean there was a time, after we’d run from Tir Rhu’thin when I thought maybe, but no. We were never anything more than friends. Then when she found me with Aervern everything changed.”
“Aervern?” Devin asked, trying to make it sound nonchalant. “You’ve mentioned her twice now.”
Joran looked away, muttering something to himself. “She was a fae who found us in the human city. When the Wyrde formed it created a barrier that locked the fae away from this world but it also locked some others away in an in-between place. Some hellish place halfway between our world and the Realm of Twilight. When it fell those fae were able to return to the Realm of Twilight. Those are the fae that kept Ylsriss and I at Tir Rhu’thin. Aervern wasn’t from there. She said she was from a place called Tira Scyon.”
“How is that any different?” Devin asked.
Joran climbed down from the cart and came to sit next to him, speaking in a low voice so as not to wake the others. “I only ever met Aervern but she was nothing like those from Tir Rhu’thin,” Joran said. “She’d never met another human. She didn’t even know about the Touch.”
Devin looked at him, incredulous. “Oh, let me guess. She was different to the others?”
“You sound like Ylsriss,” Joran said, bitterness twisting his face.
“Joran, these are the fae,” Devin told him, striving to keep his voice level. “They took my mother when I was barely ten. They’ve killed the only father I’ve ever known and driven the woman I’ve come to call my mother to the point of madness. They took you so long ago you can’t even remember your family. They’ve enslaved you, twisted your mind. They killed your brother for crying out loud! How could you think that she’s any different to the rest of them?”
“Because she is different!” Joran snapped, glaring down at Devin. He shook his head and lowered his hands, aware now that he’d somehow stood and clenched his fists.
“These fae are different in a hundred little ways. It didn’t even occur to her to see me as anything less than equal. She was as ha
ppy to teach me as she was to learn from me. They don’t even have glyphs! The fae at Tir Rhu’thin have runeplates and moonorbs everywhere you look but Aervern had never even seen a working glyph. They don’t know how to make them. They don’t even have a written language. She was astonished at Ylsriss learning something from a book.”
“So, what? You’d want to go back to her?”
The answer was too slow in coming. “No! No, of course not. But the things she talked about, that you talked about. When fae and human worked together…”
“I remember,” Devin said softly. “But that was all a long time ago. There’s nobody left who even remembers the glyphs. Even Obair only knew the glyphs of the Wyrde as a ritual.”
“No, you’re right,” Joran muttered, almost too low to hear. “This world knows nothing of glyphs and fae.”
Chapter Twenty
The fae nights were miserable and left them all short-tempered from lack of sleep. The trail had pulled them up out of the woods and taken them higher as it climbed into the rocky hills. The very wind seemed to rake at their skin with icy talons, lashing at them with rain that was closer to snow or hail than water. Despite the association that they all seemed to make between the forests and the threat of the fae all of them had been glad as the path began to descend again and they returned to the trees and the protection the woods offered from the elements.
“Why are you turning off?” Obair called from the back of the cart.
Devin glanced back at him. “You remember the road we took with the horses on the way here? It was barely more than a track in some places. We’d never get this cart through it. Even if we did it would take longer. We can head for Kavtrin until the roads meet, and then head back towards Druel.”
The Riven Wyrde Saga boxed set Page 108