“Cruel?” Dierá shouted. “How can celebration be cruel?”
As she said it, she knew she should not have, because Zanük pulled away from her as she did so; and none of the Empyrjurin spoke to her for the rest of the day. She pretended to be hurt by his actions, when in truth she was more confused. She did not eat her evening meal. She cast her food and drink on the floor.
When none of this roused their sympathy, she pretended to be sick and faint. When this got no response, she went to the open cistern on the other side of the room and disrobed, slipping into the cool waters. Scrubbing herself clean occupied her for a time. As she started to relax and drift away, she forgot she was trying to draw G’rkyr’s attention and simply enjoyed one of the few pleasures that remained to her.
As she drifted there in the cool waters, her father’s face floated before her eyes. In this dreamlike state, she spoke with him as if he was there before her. “I have twice failed, father,” she said. “He did not see me as his queen, his equal. He did not love me even as I loved him. As I stood before the ageless, I could do nothing save tremble and watch him stumble onward to his death.”
Her father took her hand in his. “Athania Dierá Steorra, you could not have changed the course once set upon.”
“But I have the gift, father. I could have turned this aside, if only I had chosen to do so.”
“To reveal such a thing…to what end…to your ruin?”
“We dwell within the mists of ruin. Our age is a lost age, as our people are a lost people. I chose inaction when action was called for and—”
“—and you chose selflessly. You put the needs of our people above the needs of your heart. You became a queen, when a queen was most needed. A queen cannot always follow her heart, and you have learned this, though the cost has been dear, very dear. But I sense that… I sense—”
Her father’s words cut off and she could see him no more. The transition was so abrupt that she sank into the waters of the cistern and came up sputtering, gasping for air. As she started to go under again, G’rkyr scooped her out of the water and put her on the ground beside the cistern, where she choked and wheezed as she struggled to take in a breath while coughing up water she had swallowed.
After she finally took in several deep breaths, she threw her arms around G’rkyr’s midsection. “I’m sorry,” she told the gargant. “I didn’t mean to lash out at you.”
Uncomfortable with her nakedness against him, G’rkyr handed Dierá her slip and then turned away as he waited for her to put it on. “You meant it, Dierá,” G’rkyr said with his back turned to her. “You meant every word because you do not understand. The masters are as cruel to us as they are to you. In Jurin, today is Atonement’s last day. Atonement is our celebration of the cycle’s end and the coming of the time when day and night are the same.
“The masters…made Zanük and I…dress up and attend their feast…to my people’s fall…on our most…sacred of days. Your face…in my thoughts...is what…”
Dierá hushed him by thrusting herself against his side. “I’m sorry, G’rkyr. I thought only of myself, of my loss. The ageless king is most cruel.”
G’rkyr held her small form as she clung to him. “The fat one who lords over us is not a king. He acts the part of one, but he is not a king. You and I are not important enough to be taken before the master’s king, though perhaps Rastín was if what you said of him was true.”
Dierá moved around to stand in front of G’rkyr so she could look up at his face. “Not a king, but he said he was a king.”
“He may have been called by royal title, but he would never dare to name himself a king. He is but a slavelord, one of a hundred hundred such among the masters. This world is his bounds, no doubt for displeasing the masters’ king, and so he turns his displeasure to our suffering.”
“You know the masters well. Zanük said that you were more. What did he mean by that?”
G’rkyr withdrew from Dierá for a moment, started to say something, but then became quiet. Zanük spoke for his brother. “We, of course, know the masters well, for we have only just fallen.”
“Fallen?”
G’rkyr said, “He means to say we were once masters, not true equals to the drakónus or the titanus, but masters the same. Now, we are fallen. We are as you.”
Dierá could not believe what she was hearing. “And you, G’rkyr, are more?”
“I am,” the gargant admitted. “My father is Nük T’nyr. King of the Empyrjurin.”
“And Zanük?”
“Zanük is Zanük.”
“Why was I given to you?”
“A cruel joke, a twisting, a glimmer of what once we had. Now that we’ve taken to you it is certain—”
“You speak of drakónus and titanus.”
“The slavelord is Drakón. Dragon in your language, I believe. Most of his sworn are S’h’dith, the snake people. The watcher, he is titanus. Titans as you know them.”
Dierá reached out to G’rkyr. “But you said you were at war with the masters?”
“And we are,” said Zanük.
G’rkyr added, “We are, Dierá, and I must tell you—”
“Brother,” interrupted Zanük, “She does not need to hear you say what she already suspects. I will say it for you and spare you anguish.” Zanük paused, taking in Dierá’s expression. “The answer to the unspoken is yes. We are a warrior people known for our ferocity. We are savage, brutal, and without fear in battle. I am bred to this, as is G’rkyr, as are all Empyrjurin. An age ago, the masters rewarded our people for countless battles won across countless worlds by raising us up. My father sought to reach too far…This is our cost…”
Dierá balled up her hands into fists. “But you are not savage. You are not brutal. You are not cruel.”
“We are more so,” G’rkyr said quietly. “We are Empyrjurin. These things are our life—”
Zanük spoke heatedly with G’rkyr in a language Dierá did not know. These words brought the other Empyrjurin from the recesses of the cell. Five larger females spoke with Zanük and G’rkyr in this same language, then one Dierá did not recognize came forth. After this one spoke, all became quiet.
Zanük broke the silence. Speaking in the language of the Jurin peoples, he said, “My mother wishes to know of you.”
“Your mother?” Dierá replied in the same language.
The one never before seen gazed at Dierá, and Dierá saw what she had not seen before. The five larger females were older; the one was fully grown. As understanding came, she bowed her head and knelt before the queen of the Empyrjurin.
Zanük repeated his statement, adding, “A rare trust she grants you.”
Dierá stood, unconsciously fixing her slip and smoothing back her hair. She hesitated before to tell the Empyrjurins who she was, but she did not hesitate now. She said clearly and carefully in the Jurin language, “I am Athania Dierá Steorra, a shieldmaiden of the Élvemere. In Élvemere, I was to have been a queen, a wife to Rastín Dnyarr Túrring, son of the High King of Élvemere.”
Realizing something unsaid, Dierá turned to Zanük, but the gargant recognized the question in Dierá’s eyes even before she asked it. “You want to know the obvious, to know why G’rkyr and I are not important enough if my mother is what you suspect.”
Dierá nodded, finding a new softness to his brutish face.
“My mother has right of birth over Three Hammers clanfolk. The other clans have their great mothers. Our people have but one great father. King Nük T’nyr, my father.”
As Zanük spoke, Dierá regarded G’rkyr and the queen. “In Élvemere, the kingdoms of my people each have their kings and queens. My father, Alborn Steorra, was king of Dobehen.”
Zanük’s expression became stern, the equivalent of a smile. “You, Dierá, are more as G’rkyr is more. You are a daughter of a king, and yet—”
“Dobehen was the first kingdom to fall to the ageless. My people speak of it only as a curse. To say that you come from
this place where the ruin of the Élvemere began is to say you are nothing, so what I tell you is that I am nothing.”
“You speak an untruth to play against what my people value most. It does not change my opinion of you. Your line is one of strength. My father led the ageless to glory countless times and he struck the strongest first. Break resolve by breaking strength. It is the way.”
Dierá blew out a long breath and looked up at Zanük. “Truly?”
“It is as it is.”
The Empyrjurins began speaking in the language Dierá did not understand. The queen spoke at length. G’rkyr and Zanük made several responses, but mostly listened. When the queen finished speaking, there was a sudden uproar among the Empyrjurins. G’rkyr and Zanük beat back one of the large females just before the queen retreated to the dark recesses of the cavernous cell.
When G’rkyr and Zanük returned, Dierá put her hands on her hips and glared at them. She wanted to know what happened, and she hoped her stance showed the strength the gargants so highly respected.
G’rkyr’s response was laughter that boomed and echoed throughout the cell. To Dierá, it seemed laughter was the one thing all peoples shared, but she suspected that gargant’s laughter was a show of scorn rather than humor.
Zanük said, “G’rkyr leave us.” G’rkyr stopped laughing, his expression hardened, but he left without comment, leaving Dierá alone with Zanük. “He seeks to show my mother his heart remains hardened with fire. He will not be himself until he has proven this to her.”
“And why must his heart be hardened with fire?”
Zanük’s laughter followed the echoes of his brother’s. “G’rkyr has refused to take the thing he wants—and that thing is you. But that is as nothing to what my mother wishes.”
“Go on,” Dierá said as she cast a sidelong glance to G’rkyr who lurked just at the edge of the shadows.
“Before I continue, I must know the truth of you.”
Dierá turned back to Zanük and gave the gargant her full attention. “I’m listening.”
“In your own words, you told us you knew nothing of the Jurin peoples save what you’ve learned in books and had been told. Those things you read and learned—”
“—were in preparation for this day, this moment. The moment when the sons of the Empyrjurin king chose an elf maiden over their own people—and you have chosen, have you not?”
Zanük’s face burned with the living fire of his people. “How could you possibly know such a thing?”
“It was what I was born to,” Dierá said, almost bitterly. “Tell me now of the dream, the wish, the desire of my heart and make it truth.”
“But you—do you—” His words shifted to the language Dierá did not understand. When she did not react, he returned to Jurin language. “—you do not—and yet—”
“I have not the true gift, only a part of the gift. My mother had the gift and she saw my futures—the turnings of the many paths, spreading ever outward like the branches of the Eternal Tree.” She paused, closed her eyes, sucked in a long breath. “Please,” she begged, “this not knowing is torture beyond imagining.”
Zanük said, “Karthar would never kill such a king or even the son of such king with his own hand. Rastín must be among the twice-born now. If so, he is forever lost to us, for he exists in living death and now knows only the service of the masters.”
Dierá said nothing in reply, thinking to herself only of how little the Empyrjurin knew of the Élvemere.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
What Rastín perceived and what actually happened could not have been the same thing. Instead of joyful arrival in the blessed land, he found himself in a gray room with walls so close he felt he could not turn around. The sole furnishings in the gray room were a bed of straw, a wooden bucket, and a door.
It seemed as if life before this room was but a dream, yet memories of flat, open fields did not fade. When he closed his eyes, he walked with his mother among great oaks, rigid pines, and willful elms. Together, they sang to the ancient ones to coax them from their deep slumber. The ancient ones preferred songs in the languages of the first peoples, so Rastín and his mother sang their songs using the words of those long lost.
Upon waking, the oldest of the ancients spoke of nothing save root and bark, earth and water, wind and leaves. It took concerted effort to get them to lift their roots from the earth and speak of other things. When they finally did speak, they did so in the language of nature. A purposeful blending of the sounds of babbling brook, rustling leaves, and gushing wind was an act of welcoming, cordial and sincere. Rastín did his best to weave and thread the wild magics required to respond in kind, but in truth he did not enjoy the long talk with all its formalities and requisites.
Fortunately, the young ones among the ancients did not care for all the formalities and requisites of the long talk. They would uproot and take Rastín to far off places where the elders would not walk. Places where the Fhur peoples dwelled, and where he learned the customs of the Fhurjurin, Fhurtrollen, and Fhurgnomen. Places where the Spiraren peoples dwelled, and where he learned about the places between places. Even lost places where Entspiraren still dwelled, although the ancients and Spiraren had gone their separate ways ages ago.
Often the young ancients would play games with him. His favorite was one where they spoke on behalf of the forest, and he had to guess for whom they spoke. Even now he evoked flashes of sunlight, wind blowing across gray-green leaves, and glimpses of small purple flowers. He knew this plant well—it was sage—and so he raced off in search of it.
When Rastín spotted a thick patch of the plentiful shrub, he knelt down beside it to take in its musty yet smoky aroma. As he stood and turned to seek permission to pick some for his mother, he saw a pair of eyes glowing behind a tangled mass of branches. The glowing eyes startled him, but as looked closer he saw that what he mistook for branches were thick locks of hair, twisted and tied.
He stepped toward the mud-covered creature, not sure why he was not afraid. Perhaps it was because the young ancients had not called out in alarm, as they would have done if he were in danger. If he had been closer to the great river, he might have mistaken the creature for one of the S’h’dith, the snake people, but this beastlike creature was not S’h’dith.
A word, a name, came to him. Wërg. As he watched the creature, he knew it was telling him this, though it used no words to do so. Another word came to him. Akharran. And he knew that was the creature’s name.
Suddenly, he felt as if he was in one of the places between places. It was bitter cold, dark, and lonely, yet he was not alone. The one called Akharran was there with him. She was somehow recognizable. She was transformed into a being of subtle beauty, no longer a mud-covered beast. Only her eyes were unchanged.
In this form, she could have passed for Élvemere, yet her skin was bronzed; her hair, long and dark; and her figure, full. She was at least a hand and a span taller than him as well.
“Here we reconcile,” she said in the language of Rastín’s people. “It was your father’s final behest.”
“I’ve only just left my father,” Rastín said. “He rides for S’amore in Dobehen to speak to King Alborn.”
“He will arrive too late and with too few to push back the Empyrjurin. Dobehen falls, and Élvemere within a fortnight.”
Rastín forced himself to remain calm. “You speak false.”
Akharran took his hand in hers and her touch felt familiar even as she said, “Dny, we don’t have much time. You must listen. You must remember. In this place, you can become one with both your selves.”
“I don’t understand. What is happening? What is this place?”
“Your father and mother…They knew, they saw. They showed me. Dny, if I can save you, I can save my people. Already your children in my womb give me your words, and you give me your ways. One day my people will rise anew and retake what is ours. As perhaps one day you will retake what is yours.”
“The Wë
rg?”
“Yes, Wërg,” she told him. “But on the day we retake what is ours, we will no longer be Wërg. We will be Wërmere, and you will know us by this name just as you will know the children of these as Wolmerrelle.”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, he saw the gray room looming before his eyes. He called out to Akharran, tried to hold on to her, tried to remain in the place between places. Akharran called out, “You are Rastín Dnyarr Túrring, son of the High King of Élvemere. Know this and remember.”
Bright light from the open door hurt, his eyes watered as he squinted and blinked. Chained and manacled slaves of a winged and horned race entered and took Rastín away.
Rastín was dragged along dark pathways, and then suddenly he was in great round room. The room’s vaulted ceiling was covered in a mural and its walls were hung with rich tapestries. The mural depicted twin yellow suns in a cloudy sky. The tapestries, meticulously drawn battle scenes.
Before a dais, he was pushed to the floor. He remained this way for some time, even as he heard those who had brought him withdraw. When he dared risk it, he raised his head to see another stalking along the edge of the dais. Although he could only see it from ankle to shin, it was enough for him to know that this one was more like him than unlike him, even if very large.
“You may rise,” the other said in a deep, thunderous voice.
Unsure whether to stand or kneel before this one, Rastín stopped part way between. With his head respectfully downcast, he tried to remember things before the gray room. As if from another’s dream, he saw places, things, and peoples he knew he had never seen, but they were oddly familiar. A voice was speaking to him, but the words were in an unknown language. Horror enveloped him as he realized the images he saw were from the tapestries, and yet the things he saw he knew.
The one on the dais struck him, the other’s hand enveloping his head. Still reeling as he stumbled sideways, Rastín looked up at the whole of the towering figure. As he watched the other speak, the meaning of the words spoken came to him in spite of the other’s thick unknown accent.
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