He felt certain he knew their destination before any of the Alvar began moving towards it. The Great Oak at the center of the island.
Ghile had to trot to keep up with Duanotyn. Unlike following Arenuin through the Deepwood, Duanotyn did not deviate from her course and strode with purpose towards the Great Oak, all the while singing, “It is time.”
The island rang with Alvarsong. Ghile followed past many other Alvar who walked alone and in groups. The ground reverberated with their movement. The Great Oak towered before him, the sunlight bathing its upper trunk and boughs in golden light. How many times had he sat on those very limbs in the Dreaming? It somehow seemed fitting this was where the ritual would take place.
Ahead he saw the Keeper and other Guardians of the Grove. They formed the inner circle around the Great Oak, the other Alvar fanning out behind them. As Ghile past, many of the Alvar stopped. Those who did lifted their arms skyward and closed their eyes. Their resemblance to trees was suddenly so profound.
Ghile stopped.
It wasn't a resemblance, he realized, they were becoming trees. Ghile could hear it then, the crackling sound. He could hear the skin of the nearest Alvar thickening. Where their skin was only shaded and discolored like bark, actual bark appeared. Bright green leaves or clumps of pine needles sprouted from hands and arms.
Ghile turned and searched for Arenuin. She was far behind him, he had been so absorbed with everything going on, that he hadn't noticed her stop. The others around her had already begun their transformation, but not Arenuin. Her sapphire eyes met Ghile's as a smile appeared on her lips. She nodded once reassuringly and then closed her eyes. Ghile watched transfixed as her face disappeared and she completed her transformation.
Ghile turned slowly and took in the newly formed forest around him. Was he alone?
Sound from ahead around the Great Oak caught his attention, the Guardians were still there and had moved closer to the Oak's enormous trunk.
As Ghile approached, the Guardians stepped back to reveal a woman. A human woman. As she walked towards him, Ghile noted several things at once. She was tall. Easily twice his height. But, she was also equally proportioned. She was human, but was just bigger.
No, he thought. To say she was human would have been to insult her. She was shaped like a human, but she was faultless. Her skin was smooth and glowed with an inner light. Her hair was full and the color of fire. She was radiant.
And clothed, thank the All Mother. A soft green gown hung down to her feet.
She smiled at Ghile then and he panicked. Could she read his mind?
He didn't know what to say, how did you introduce yourself to a God? Luckily, he didn't have to.
“Hello, Ghile,”
The simplicity of it left Ghile speechless. Her voice was so melodic. She didn't sing like the Alvar, but even in those two words, Ghile could hear her balanced right there on the cusp of song.
He did the only thing he could think of, he turned his hands towards the sky and bowed deeply.
When he rose, Islmur stood before him, a motherly smile on her face. Ghile couldn't place an age to her. She looked young, barely of handfasting age, but at the same time old enough to be a mother. In her eyes, he saw the wisdom of an elder.
The Guardians remained beside the Great Oak, their eyes following their creator. Ghile felt his cheeks redden. The Alvar's faces held such love and pride in their creator. How would he feel if Haurtu stood before him?
“I sense much of my brother in you,” Islmur said.
Ghile averted his eyes. She did see his thoughts. She must sense his shame, as well.
“You wondered why you found this place in your Dreaming,” Islmur said. “Haurtu lived here with me for a long time. It was special to him.”
Ghile realized she had seen his thoughts again and was trying to take his mind from them.
She turned and looked at the Great Oak. “This is the last of the trees from the beginning times.”
His curiosity got the better of him. “The beginning times?” Ghile said.
Islmur smiled. “You have found your voice. Good. It is nice to hear you speak. I have missed the sound of words.” She looked around the grove and sighed. “I miss a great many things.”
“The beginning times, the time when we primordials walked Allwyn. Things were… bigger then. This is the last tree from that time. It has been my… resting place. I suppose my presence within it has preserved it.”
Ghile was still overwhelmed. With every word she spoke a dozen new questions raced into his thoughts.
Islmur nodded. “I understand, Ghile. Your thoughts are a swirling morass of questions all fighting to be asked and answered. That is why I asked the Alvar to find you and bring you here. I wish to help you.”
“Me?” Ghile said.
Islmur had walked to the nearest Alvar tree, and reached down to caress the leaves that recently sprouted from its upturned arms.
“Yes.” She turned to regard him again and Ghile felt the worth of him weighed and measured in that glance.
“From the moment you entered the Deepwood. I have hoped you would understand and believe. There is much good in you, Ghile.” Islmur said.
She laughed then and all the doubts he felt gathering to rebutt her words fled from that joyous sound.
“I am sorry, Ghile. I have overwhelmed you.”
Islmur sat down then. Even such a simple act of sitting seemed so graceful, so perfect.
“Ghile, please, sit down. You will need to overcome this feeling of awe and dwelling on your own inadequacies or you will never be able to face my brother and he will succeed in his plans to return to Allwyn.”
Ghile dropped to the ground more than a little embarrassed. Of course, she wouldn't want Haurtu to return to Allwyn. Islmur and her brother Daomur, the creator of the dwarven race, were the two surviving gods who imprisoned Haurtu and had then began the Great Purge.
Islmur was shaking her head even before she spoke. “No, Ghile. The histories as you have been taught them are not exactly true. I love my brother, dearly. And he must return to Allwyn. He will return, there is no stopping that. It is only a matter of when and in what form.”
Questions jumbled in his mind. This whole conversation, with Islmur's ability to see his thoughts and respond to them before he had put them to words, was confusing.
She started to speak again and then blinked. She couldn't contain a laugh and shook her head.
Ghile felt his cheeks redden. He took a deep breath and calmed himself. All this time he had wanted answers and now was that time. It was all so exciting and more than a little overwhelming.
Islmur waited, patiently, a sympathetic grin on her lips.
Once Ghile felt he had himself under control, he spoke. “Please, tell me.”
“I suppose, it would be easiest to start from the beginning, when my kind walked on Mother Allwyn. I am the oldest, you know. I was her first.” Islmur sighed. “She was with us for such a short time in the beginning, but she was with us. She had created so much by then…”
Islmur caught herself and returned her attention to Ghile. “There is balance in all things, Ghile. A give and take, a push and a pull. When a god creates, they must give up a part of themselves. The more they create the more they must give.”
She motioned with her hands to take in everything around them. “Mother Allwyn created everything that is. She has given much of herself, almost everything. So, she sleeps and dreams.”
Ghile nodded his understanding.
“My brothers and sisters and I were her last creations. What remained of her went into us. Do not misunderstand, she still exists. Not as an individual, but there is a part of her in everything. Those parts are all connected and are Allwyn. She exists, but in a different form.”
Ghile could remember being taught this when he was young. An image of him sitting in a roundhouse beside the hearthfire in Last Hamlet and listening to the elders explain that everything was created by the All Mothe
r and was thus connected through her. She was the life force that joined all and the Dreaming. The place Druids went when they entered their trances and where all magic came from, was that connection, was Allwyn.
“Just so,” Islmur said. “In the beginning the Primordials lived on Allwyn just as you do now. But, over time, we too found we possessed the ability to create, to draw from ourselves and create new life.”
“There is an important part in the final act of creation, Ghile. It is important you understand that as it applies directly to some of those many questions spinning around in your head.”
Ghile smiled, a little embarrassed. What must his jumbled thoughts look like to her?
“The act of letting go,” Islmur said.
“You see, Allwyn sees all we do through her many creations, but she no longer has any control over them. Once you create something, it is no longer in your control. It has free will,” Islmur said.
“It is the same with the Primordials. We have no control over our creations. They have free will.”
Ghile considered that. “So, you mean if the Alvar did not want you to awaken-”
“Then I could not. They humble me with this gift. Just as they humble me by hearing my council while I'm here. It is important you understand this, Ghile. To create is to let go. It is both the most terrifying and rewarding feeling one will ever experience.”
“So, you see what they see?” Ghile said.
“Yes. You have already experienced a small glimpse of the ability. Through the soulstones,” Islmur said.
“When I reach out and mind touch animals.”
“Just so,” Islmur said.
“But, if the soulstones are of Huartu, then why only animals? Why can't I touch the minds of humans? We were created by him,” Ghile said.
Islmur nodded. “In time you would be able to. Each of the soulstones are but a drop of Haurtu's power. Haurtu has an affinity with animals. Each of the primordials have an association with different creations of Allwyn. For me it is the trees. I first knew you when you entered the Redwood on the eve of your manhood tests.
Ghile tried to imagine what that would be like, to see and know everything that happened anywhere in Allwyn through the trees. But at the same time, having no control. That made him think of the soulstones.
“So the soulstones are of Haurtu, but are not Haurtu!” Ghile said.
Islmur nodded. “Yes. Once he created them, he no longer has any power over them. Haurtu has no control of you and though the soulstones know of their purpose; to prepare his vessel, they are free thinking creations.”
Ghile felt a small weight he hadn't even realized was there lift from his shoulders.
“Can Haurtu see through the soulstones?” Ghile said. He thought of Adon and if there was any of his brother there.”
Ghile could see the compassion in Islmur's eyes and knew she had the answers. “Please, tell me.”
“Ghile, Haurtu is imprisoned beyond Allwyn. He is no longer in it, though it is impossible to completely separate him from it. It is in this 'connection' that he was able to introduce the soulstones back into this world.”
Islmur held up a long thin finger. “But, he is no longer connected to his creations. This includes the life force that remains when their physical bodies, the part of them that is Allwyn, dies. So, what you call Adon in your Dreaming is what the first soulstone took from your memories in creating its form in your Dreaming.”
“Is it the same with Muk?”
“No,” Islmur said, “that is different. I'll try to explain.”
Ghile found he was leaning forward and focused on her every word. He knew in his heart it was not Adon, but now he also knew it sort of was. The soulstone was not Haurtu disguised and manipulating him. It was Adon as he had known him.
“When a creation of Allwyn dies, the energy, soul, what have you, returns to the Dreaming. When something new is born into Allwyn, its energy is drawn from the Dreaming.”
Ghile nodded for her to continue.
“When a creation of a Primordial dies, its energy is returned to the Primordial,” Islmur said. “The energy of Haurtu's creations cannot return to him. They are in limbo. This is why Haurtu must return to Allwyn, to restore balance, make things whole.”
“In the case of Muk and the soulstone, his energy entered his soulstone. What dwells in your dreaming is the energy or soul of Muk. But, understand it has joined with his soulstone and thus is both. This is why it teaches you,” Islmur said.
“And my shadow?” Ghile said. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to this question, but felt he needed to hear it.
“Ah, the shadow. Yes. You recall I said your Dreaming, earlier?”
“Yes,” Ghile said.
“The island of your Dreaming was formed by the soulstone. It created a place of comfort to it. As I said before, Haurtu loved this place as a child. But, the place itself is created within you. Have you not noticed your mood affects the weather?”
Ghile blinked. It did? He thought back to the many times he had entered the Dreaming. Was she right? Of course she was, but he had not really ever considered it.
“The shadow in your Dreaming represents the physical part of you. The part of you that is of Allwyn,” Islmur said.
Ghile wasn't sure he understood.
Islmur took her two hands and joined them together. When you were born, the energy that is of Haurtu and the physical part that comes from Allwyn join like this. The two become one.”
Ghile nodded.
“So, the shadow is part of you. The part that hungers, that hates, that part of you that exists below the surface of your thoughts, where your fears and insecurities hide.”
Ghile suddenly felt exposed and uncomfortable. He remembered what the shadow had shown him, those feelings he had when Adon was culled.
“It will share more with you, Ghile, and you must listen. It is trying to prepare you.”
“Prepare me? For what?” Ghile said. How could showing him something so horrible about himself prepare him for anything?
“For the battle that will come when you free Haurtu,” Islmur said. “The battle for your body. That is his goal, Ghile. The soulstones prepare the vessel for Haurtu. You have already sensed the changes both mentally, in the powers you now possess and physically. Your stamina and strength. Your lack of thirst and hunger. With each soulstone you possess, you become more like a primordial.”
Ghile didn't know what to say. She had not said if, but when. How was he supposed to win a battle against a god? How was it even possible?
“No, the part of me that is of Allwyn isn't Haurtu. I thought the histories said Daomur put the perfect lock on Haurtu's prison. Haurtu was the key and he was trapped inside.”
Islmur nodded and remained calm, even though Ghile's voice rose with every word.
“When I created the alvar, the part of them that came from Allwyn, I took from the trees. It is because of this that I am able to wake and return to Allwyn.” Islmur looked around her. “My children sleep so that I can wake”.
Islmur saw the look of concern come over Ghile's face as he glanced back at the tree that was Arenuin.
“Do not fear, Ghile. They will awaken once I return to my slumber. Which will be soon. Even now, I feel its call.”
“I am fortunate, Ghile. It was through chance alone that I am able to do this. In the beginning when we first realized we could create, we did not understand the cost. Of all things Mother created, it was the trees I most cherished and it was from them that I drew my inspiration and created the Alvar.”
“Recall I said Haurtu had an affinity for animals. At first he drew from them for inspiration. From lizards he created goblins. From wolves came the vargan. And there were others. But Haurtu never seemed satisfied with his creations. Also, we began to notice those races created from animals always seemed to lend themselves to darker temperaments,” Islmur said.
“And humans?” Ghile said.
Islmur frowned. “Haur
tu was never satisfied with his other creations. That was when Haurtu did something none of us ever considered doing. He drew of himself to create humans.”
Ghile knew his race was created by the primordials, but he had never thought of humans as descended from them.
“So, you see now how a human can free Haurtu from his prison. One that has been transformed by soulstones would be able to free him.”
Ghile felt the two soulstones beneath his tunic. “How many would be needed?”
“I do not know, Ghile. But, I fear the more you possess, the easier it will be for Haurtu to take control of you.”
Ghile ran his hands through his hair and sighed. “Islmur, I do not mean to be disrespectful. But, you say he must return, then talk as if you know I will be the one to free him and then hint I can fight him and stop him from taking my body from me. Then you say I need enough soulstones to open the prison that holds him, which you do not know how many that is, but the more I have the more likely he will be able to defeat me and take my body from me.”
Islmur nodded. “Yes, just so, I'm afraid.”
“Then why fight? It seems I am doomed, regardless,” Ghile said, throwing up his hands. He thought back to the night he had the conversation with Two Elks and felt the same frustration with his situation as he did then.
“Because, you have to fight. It is not just you who is at risk, but your entire race,” Islmur said.
“What?” Ghile said.
“I have explained how the act of creation takes from the creator. As the primordials created, they slowly began to suffer the same fate as Allwyn. As our progeny themselves produced life, it only further drew from us. As the races multiplied and spread throughout Allwyn, we began to sleep longer and longer. But Haurtu pulled from himself both spiritually and physically when he created the human race. The energy your race took was tenfold,” Islmur said.
“What did he do when he discovered this,” Ghile said. Though he feared he already knew the answer.
Ghile could see the sadness on Islmur's face.
“Oh, Ghile. He was so proud at first. Your race is so like us. Where the other races seemed content to stay in one place, like the forest or the ocean, you humans wanted to live everywhere. You were curious and intelligent. Haurtu kept nothing from you. He shared all his knowledge with you.”
Time of the Stonechosen (The Soulstone Prophecy Book 2) Page 28