Darkness Rising (Ancient Vestiges Book 1)

by Brenden Gardner

  He is hallucinating worse than I am. “Drink and eat. There is much to do.”

  The islander lord took another drink of water and closed his eyes. He was sleeping. There was still so far to go, so much to do, but she did not have the heart to rouse him.

  It may be ruinous if I let him sleep, though I doubt I have the strength to walk the rest of the night.

  She built the canopy above her, and lay down on the other side. Sleep took her quickly, and she wondered what really was here in days long ago.

  Awaking after some time, she saw the moon high in the sky and she felt a little stronger. Daniel paced with a look of anger and relief. He did not say what was on his mind, and she was glad for it.

  Curse me all you want, but we needed strength to survive.

  Night faded to day and Ashleigh called a halt only when the heat became unbearable. She ate and drank, with only a wary look towards the islander lord, and counted the canteens.

  Two more days, then we are done.

  On the ninth night of the journey, she thought the desert was as flat as it was on the first three nights. The dunes were smaller, and when Daniel called for a halt, it seemed to stretch on for miles. The sand was swirling, and Ashleigh held onto little hope.

  “Two meals left,” Daniel said as he packed away what little was left. “Save what you can for the morning. That must sustain us,”

  “You must do a favour for me,” Ashleigh said.

  The islander lord looked at her quizzically before saying, “What would that be?”

  “I will not starve or dry up in the sun. Do not stop me when I take my own life, when this quest proves itself as vain as all those before it.”

  “If only you extend the same curtesy.”

  Ashleigh nodded, and the islander lord inclined his head. Then she fell asleep wordlessly.

  Ashleigh woke up to sand in her mouth. Spitting it out, she took a drink of water, but her mouth was still dry and hoarse. Daniel crept to her weakly, wiping sand off his face, speaking softly, “We need to go. Some creature is out there, setting its will against us. Whatever became of your father, you will know and soon.”

  There was a warm wind gusting through as Ashleigh pushed east, sand blowing in her face. She tore a slip of linen from her satchel and held it up against her mouth and nose, though some grains made it through.

  Hours passed and there were naught but endless plains. “This never ends. Curse it all!” Daniel grunted through the cloth.

  “A little further,” she soothed. “Just a little further.”

  The further it stretched, the harder it was for her to walk. The warm wind was more than gusting now: it was pushing back, every step a hardship. It seemed like all the sand in the desert was being thrown towards her, yet it still rolled out for miles and miles.

  She felt her strength fade. She found herself crawling further towards the east. Daniel kept pace. “Let me do it now,” he said, muffled through the cloth.

  “No, further,” Ashleigh insisted. “Just a little more. Then I will not stop you. I must know. I must—”

  The sand blinded her now; the land was bright and orange, but she saw a black form of a man who seemed to push the wind from him. As the walls of sand cleared, the man was slim but not tall, and he wore a brown robe that draped from shoulders to feet. His face was wrapped in a light brown and red scarf that hid all but the outline of his eyes.

  They are a deep brown, like his skin: dark and piercing and full of judgment.

  “Who comes before the Order and those who serve the will of the Father Above?”

  Daniel loosed his grip on the dirk at his side, and looked up at this man and said, “By night I seek the dragon, by day I bask in his radiance. When night comes again, I learn at his feet, by day I am his disciple.”

  What was no longer existed. The grains of sand remained beneath Ashleigh’s fingers, but the wind died down all around. She looked past the man in robes to an immense structure behind him, layered, widest at the base, narrowing before a squared top, grey-green in colour, but not worn by heat or sand.

  The man kneeled and uncorked worn, bronze canteens that Ashleigh drank greedily, until Daniel ripped it from her hands. It was like water, fresh and cold, but invigorating, as if it called upon dormant strength. The man then offered wafers wrapped in dull yellow leaves. Like the drink before, it was familiar, but different. Before long, she stood on her own two feet, strong and refreshed as if she slept the whole night in peaceful slumber.

  “I am Hamad, a servitor of the Order,” the man said as he unwrapped the scarf revealing a square face worn with care. “High Servitor Jophiel will be expecting you. Come, please.”

  She followed like a puppy at her master’s heel, not quite knowing why. More than once she thought this was a hallucination that would carry her to the Lord of Death, but she felt too strong and her sight was too vivid. It was as real as life itself.

  The structure was further away than she thought. The wide stone walkway was clear of all sand and dust. There were large symbols engraved upon the path, though none she recognized. The short walls that surrounded the path were engraved with depictions of men and women at prayer, of conquerors, sailors and smugglers, and the judgment of kings.

  “Along the walls, here, is that…” Ashleigh stammered.

  “Dalia, Isilia, Island Nations, and Trecht,” the servitor said. “They are the children of the Order; you and your people we serve, same as we do to your friend of many families. Think of us as your guiding protectors.”

  “We have not heard of you,” Daniel barked, glaring all the while. “These could be fantasies that you conjured up.”

  “To what purpose would that serve?” Hamad asked. When no reply came, he continued, “You say you have not heard of us, though that is more on who you know and what they have told you. The high servitor has told me that you, Lord Daniel Baccan, serve Overlord Damian Dannars—a man who thinks much of himself, but still commands considerable power. He knew of us once, but cast us out; a mistake I fear that will haunt us both. It seems he did not trust you much as you would have liked.”

  “How do you know?” Daniel bellowed, annoyed. “This is a dream. This is—”

  “Dream you will, like all men. You do not walk through one now. We are servitors. You will understand what that means, and soon.”

  The walkway ended and she could not see the far edges of the structure. The servitor walked towards two towering stone doors, engraved with two symbols that Ashleigh could not fathom. Hamad put a hand in the middle and began chanting high, then low. The engravings came to light, one red, the other green, and they came together as a single, unified entity, and the doors swung open.

  “Be welcome to the Temple of the Unseen,” the servitor announced.

  The temple was plain with high thin windows and an immense ceiling that stretched beyond sight. The main hallway was wide with men and women in brown robes conferring with each other, though never looking towards Ashleigh. She did not know what to think of them.

  The hallway soon shortened and chambers were constructed to the left and right. There were stone tables and chairs with men and women eating and drinking from pewter. Some chambers were squat and round, housing only a low alter with a statue upon it. The first she spied was of a tall man, his sword thrust into the ground. It was a monument that she had seen before in market squares and council chambers: Imperator Cimmerii, surveying the land from high and low.

  “The imperator…” Ashleigh muttered, though not low enough.

  “We serve all who live in the lands, blessed by the Father Above,” Hamad said. “Your imperium is among them. There is much to learn from the history of men and women who rules this land, who farm and tend it, who did it harm, who would do it harm.”

  “Imperator Cimmerii did not harm…” Ashleigh protested, but she could not finish the words.

  “We are of a mind on that matter, yet not all are of the same mind.”

  “Dogs of the imperium
,” Daniel mumbled.

  “To your left,” Hamad said quickly. “There is the overlord. A man we are still trying to understand. Gabriel and Mother God are here too, along with King Marcus: a man you should no doubt know something of, my lord.”

  Daniel said naught, but he looked wounded.

  The hall widened once more, a great brown carpet stretched endlessly, and all along the walls were tall stone bookcases, while men and women in robes sat at stone tables or lounged against the stacks reading from them. In the middle of the room were twin stairs, long and winding; its rails yellow and scaly. The servitor led her up the stone steps.

  “A sword may carve out a kingdom, but knowledge preserves it,” Hamad said during the ascent, near fifty steps.

  The second floor was wider by half than the first, with rows of stone benches sat before a dais, and beyond that, long draping brown curtains hung from above.

  “It is here that we meld knowledge with wisdom and prayer,” the servitor said. “God Above preserves us, and shows us the will of the First Son.”

  “The First Son?” Ashleigh asked, fearfully.

  “This is as far as I will take you,” Hamad announced, disregarding the question. He stood before two sets of doors, akin to those that fronted the temple. “High Servitor Jophiel labours long for the realm, as he has for fifteen centuries. It is to him that you have risked life and limb, and to him that you must show respect to.”

  Ashleigh knew answers were not far.

  The servitor pointed towards the door and spoke. “On the left, this is the mark for power, writ in red in the language of the ancients.” She looked at the door, and the marking appeared to be a P and an R, but crossing each other, with a broken circle around it. “On the right, this is wisdom.” Much like its kin, it looked like letters familiar to her, but a W, D and M interposed on each other. Ah but the circle is unbroken. That is important. “This is what the high servitor represents: power and wisdom. Power, without wisdom, is wanton destruction—the evisceration of all life. Wisdom, without power, is noise without meaning—void of purpose. Recall that when you treat with him.”

  Hamad placed one hand upon the door, chanting high then low. The engravings coalesced, and the door swung open. Ashleigh walked through in dread, in fear, in apprehension, and in anticipation.

  The hall was narrow with thin windows high upon its wall, a plain dais at the far end, with a robed man with his head cast down in prayer, facing the far wall. She heard a loud thud, turned around, and saw that the door had shut behind, and a large rectangle formed, power near the top, wisdom at the bottom, sealed in unison.

  “You stand in the Halls of Resonance, Children of the Dawn, our Adtier,” a voice that could only belong to High Servitor Jophiel pronounced. “I had expected one, not two, and that long ago. I watched you pass the desert; your resolve did not waver. You knew the words, so I let you pass.”

  “Are you Jophiel?” Daniel asked in a loud, commanding voice.

  “I am,” the man at prayer turned and revealed himself. He was tall with close cropped brown hair, dark piercing eyes, and a warm, welcoming face. His robes were like those worn by Hamad, but for a red trim, and a great dragon emblazoned upon the chest, its tail reaching down his legs. “Though you have come too late.”

  Ashleigh felt great pain; it screamed inside her skull, as if it was about to burst asunder. She could hear Daniel screaming in agony, cursing. Amidst the cacophony, she felt the eyes of this man at prayer upon her, and his voice cut through the noise, though no words passed his lips.

  Endure. Endure the dream. Seek the meaning that you so desperately need. Seek. Seek and look.

  She fell into darkness.

  Chapter Twenty

  Burdens of Command

  Stephen sat in a wide cell atop a tall tower.

  There was a table in front of him, plain, though he did not recognize the wood it was carved from. The twin chairs had soft cushions and tall backs; a fierce lion with an overlarge mane, and slobber dripping from its jaws was engraved in the wood. The carpets were rich and dark, dyed a golden yellow. Bookshelves and portraits lined the walls. He refilled his cup from the pewter teapot and thought back on the winds that carried him to the old kingdom.

  He departed Dale to do the work that the Voice could not. It was unenvious but necessary; for Counsel Anastasia was intractable, and while Ser Johnathan played his role well, there were whispers of a change in the man. “They think he is strained or stressed,” Stephen was told. “The priests think he should be questioned again, but of a father learned in the Faith, begging your pardons.” It was a warning he shared with the Voice when they parted, and Lutessa was not unwilling to heed it. “There is little more that we need of him. They will be confined together, ne’er seeing those who would beg their attentions.”

  Stephen wondered more than once if this was the course he should take. He knew it as the simpler road: the choices were clearer, and there was a lesser need for men in cowls. Of late, he wanted to leave those men in the shadows and crypts—the more he learned of them, the more he withdrew and questioned his choices. He could not deny what they did to the overlord—how it warped and twisted him—it was a path that he resolved not to walk any longer, regardless of the service that he swore.

  My soul belongs to Mother God, not these men.

  If the choice was to trust between a wild woman—or men that were dark and terrible—he did not find it difficult.

  Then why am I so fraught with worry?

  He had taken to the seas north out of Kallen on board the war galley White Kraken—one of the few vessels that remained to the Faith.

  Now the Faithsworn, as our crests emblazoned upon white sails sing proudly.

  It was a ship of hard backed, strong armed men who he vetted, and watched by the Faithsworn he trusted the most.

  When I see the king, he must see that I come in strength, even when our sea presence is not what it was.

  The sea voyage was short, taking no more than a week. The Trechtians responded as he expected: a blockade of ships in the middle of the sea lying wait. Stephen gave the order to have the parley banner raised high above the tall masts. The White Kraken was boarded by a captain of middling height, dressed in a green silk shirt and smooth black trousers. A scowl marred his face, and his eyes were dark and strong. This captain seemed more like a nobleman attending court, but no man had such a retinue of knights in gilded plate of green and gold, burly armed pugilists, and men-at-arms with crossbows wound and aimed.

  “These are the king’s waters, and you are not his subject, Dalian,” the captain had declared. “Return to your home, and we will forget this incursion. You are to leave the northern waters to us, or did you forget the pact the Voice drew with us four years past?”

  “I must have words with the king,” Stephen insisted. “Much has changed. We are in peril.”

  “You are in peril,” a diminutive pugilist said, rubbing his knuckles together. “Comin’ here has put you in it!”

  “Hold your tongue,” the captain scolded. “You have not been given leave to speak. As for you, priest, I say again: return to your home. We have naught to discuss.”

  “What of promises made by turn cloaks?” Stephen asked.

  The captain’s scowl dropped at once. “What would you know of turn cloaks?”

  “We of the Faith are concerned wholly in our own affairs. It is our fervent wish to live in peace and serenity. Yet when cruel men impose their will on us, we are fierce in our defense—and that began with knowledge and trust. Overlord Damian Dannars and Lord Daniel Baccan, we know that they were born in Trank. They betrayed your king for love, for anger, for ambition. It is the ambition that frightens us. It is the ambition that I must speak of to your king. I would… put in his hands, what was promised long ago; trust to his governance, far more than the overlord and his thralls.”

  A tall knight to the captain’s right spoke quickly into his ear. There were three narrow bands of yellow gold upon his r
ight shoulder. His words were no more an audible murmur, but the captain suddenly sang a much different tune. “We will bring you to the docks. Your men will remain here; only you will pass into our city. The king will decide what to do with you.”

  Stephen was escorted by a retinue of knights from the docks as he walked into the enormous fortress city. The roads were all paved with dark grey rock, its walls towering high overhead. Residences were like a labyrinth: tall stone houses with many floors, roofed by dark rock, ne’er a straight path; always winding and meandering. There were tall wooden lampposts with wide lanterns hanging above every ten feet, though empty now as day still dawned. Men and women walked about carrying sacks and pulling crates, while children in the street ran with hoops. He thought it calm and serene, its subjects with nary a concern.

  If only we could all recall to such a time.

  At the far northern end of the city was an immense dry moat, spikes near fifteen feet in height from the base. A long drawbridge came down and a portcullis raised nearly thirty feet in height. The courtyard was wide and long, with men and women trampling about, squires and knights bare to their waist locked in combat with wooden training swords, and lithe boys with long yew bows hitting their mark on archery butts.

  A kingdom of warriors.

  Yet Stephen thought the true wonder was the immense stone castle, with its towers that seemed to reach the clouds.

  He walked through a twinset of towering stone doors and could not help but admire the Trechtian seat of power. The central corridor was lined with rich red and purple carpets, chandeliers with dozens of little candles dangling from the ceiling far above, and the lion banners draping from every doorway and wall. They took him to the north and east, and passed servants in dresses that only the proudest merchant wives would wear in Dale; they attended long oaken tables and huge hearths in a mess hall. He saw bespectacled men looking over parchments, examining maps and tables, and glimpsed a towering door in the shape of a lion, with nearly fifty knights lined along the walls and outside it.