She worked her way to the back of the cave, treading lightly on the slippery earth that bordered a bottomless pool. Footprints not her own could be seen in the clay, and deep grooves made by digging fingers. Her eyes shot toward a dark space in the rocks up ahead. Her heart nearly stopped. There had clearly been a rock slide. The secret hiding place was now revealed!
She cried out and struggled over, then fell upon the debris. Her fingers bled as they clawed their way through, but she felt no pain. Determination had a way of giving a person unrealized strength, even to one so old as herself. But the treasure was nowhere to be found--someone had been there before her. Her eyes darted back to the boulder she had abandoned earlier. Had the secret behind it been discovered, also? She rushed back and renewed her efforts, this time moving the stone easily, thanks to the power of her desperation.
She reached into a crevice in the wall and pulled out a tome with shaking hands. The book’s twin was mysteriously missing, but at least the copy remained. Her mother had seen to it that there was more than one, and the woman and her daughters had worked hard to keep them both safe.
Nannaven ran her fingers over the cover, recalling some of the history contained within the pages. Her mother had told them their people once took pride in their heritage, reading, and writing, and singing of it freely. But during the Purge it was discovered that knowledge gave “the impure ones” power, and so a campaign was started against it. Jecta parchments were burned, their writing tools confiscated, and songs silenced. Over time, all that was left was that which remained in people’s memories. A few secretly retained the skills of documentation, and they were called the Memory Keepers. But they were also called the Enemy.
Nannaven’s mother had been a Memory Keeper, as was her mother, and her mother before that. For generations they gathered bits and pieces of information, saving it within the pages of the tome. Scraps of parchments scribbled with symbols were tucked between well-written fables, random stanzas of songs, and snippets of poetry. It had been her mother’s lifelong goal to duplicate the information, securing its survival. She and her daughters had spent their candlelit days rewriting the words onto fresh parchment, ensuring the continued tradition of the Memory Keepers. But their mother’s death changed everything, and Nannaven had turned her back on her heritage, choosing to be healer instead. Her sister chose a different path and disappeared from her life altogether. Only recently had Nannaven learned where she was. Her insides twisted at the recollection, but she could not think of such things now. She pushed her sister from her mind.
She carried the book near the entrance, selecting a spot where the light beamed in through the opening she had clambered through. Sitting cross-legged on the ground, Nannaven rested the heavy book in her lap and lifted back its cover. She recognized her mother’s handwriting immediately, then that of her sister. She ran her eyes over the ancient symbols, symbols of a language believed to be lost forever. Strange how after all these years she still knew what they meant.
She turned back brittle page after brittle page, searching for the words that would hopefully leap off the parchment: fire and light. She was certain they were in a song, but she could not recall which one. It had been many years since she’d thought of songs. But something about those words, and the memory of her mother’s voice singing them in the sanctuary of the cave, compelled her to keep looking.
As she flipped toward the back of the book, she wondered if her memory had somehow failed her. Perhaps the words were not there after all. She found tales of great heroes, and poems about love, prayers for good health, and songs to the gods. There were writings of kings and priestesses, and lies told as truths, but she had yet to find the words she was looking for. She scanned another page and her eyes suddenly stopped. “The Song of Hope,” she whispered. “Yes. I remember.” She read the first stanza, smiling at its message.
The Maker said that it would be,
The Spirit lifted life within,
The Earth, the Wind, the Flame, the Sea,
And so it did at once begin.
The familiar melody drifted into her mind as she recalled how her mother’s voice would lilt then deepen as she sang.
Then came one day when lies did part,
From evil hearts that lived within,
And turned the eyes raised to the star . . .
Nannaven paused. Star? She had seen a great star in the sky not so long ago, a celestial light blazing a trail across an indigo night. When was it? A few months ago? A year? Then she remembered. It had been the night of the fire, the fire that—
“Reiv,” she whispered. Her eyes skimmed the page until another set of words caught her attention:
But in the face of night that came,
A courage shown bright in the breast,
Of he who came as One Unnamed . . .
The Unnamed One! Could the whispers be true? She read another stanza, then another, her eyes moving faster across the page. The King did breathe her will once more . . . Fields were bathed in crimson night . . . Till memories brought by He Unnamed…
Tears welled in her eyes. She wiped her face with the back of her hand and moved to the last stanza.
Then came the day when Earth and Sea,
Did part before their many eyes;
But just as Fire had met Light,
Their spirits did as one survive.
And there it was—the message she had been looking for.
Nannaven lifted her head and stared at nothing, barely able to fathom what she had just read. How could she not have known? All this time everyone thought it destroyed, yet here it was, a song in her mother’s book. But this was no ordinary song. This was the Prophecy.
She rose quickly, pulling the shawl from her shoulders, and laid it on the ground. She centered the book upon it, then pulled the corners of the shawl together and tied them into a pouch. Something else would have to be stuffed in, the book’s shape was at risk of being recognized, but she could not leave it behind. The people thought they knew the words to the Prophecy, but they did not know them all. Nor did Dayn and Reiv, and they were the key to it all.
The sky looked bluer when she exited the cave, the sun a little brighter. For too long she had seen the world through milky eyes. Now everything seemed clear. She hurried down the path, but paused to gaze at the cedar one last time. She patted the tree’s ancient trunk. “Time to say goodbye, my bittersweet friend,” she said.
Nannaven turned her eyes to the distant horizon and all her hopes came into focus. The book would give the people back their history; the song would restore the future they had long been denied. Even now its verses were being sung. The Fire had met the Light; the Unnamed One was amongst them. Could crimson fields be far behind? A difficult path lay ahead, this she knew, but the people of Aredyrah had no choice but to walk it. The Prophecy would lead them there, but the Unnamed One would show them the way.
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The Saga Continues in
The Search for the Unnamed One: Book Two of the Souls of Aredyrah Series
Preview of Book Two: The Search for the Unnamed One
Chapter 1: Phantom
The air in the catacombs was thick and damp and filled with the odor of human waste and lingering decay. Whyn pulled the stench through his nostrils and into his lungs, his belly tightening with a desire that tingled to his toes. It was not the same desire he felt for Cinnia, his wife, nor for any woman who had ever pleased him. This was different, and yet the effect it had on him was as powerful as an aphrodisiac.
Whyn stared at the slender back of the Priestess who walked but steps ahead of him. She possessed a beauty unlike any woman he had ever seen, and an ugliness he found equally attractive. She seemed to float on air, her long white hair swaying at her back, the hem of her pastel gown trailing behind her. As Whyn gazed at her, he realized the ache in his belly was for her, but it was not like that of a man for a woman. It was more like that of a soul craving sustenance. Until recently, he h
ad only thought of the Priestess as an authority figure; even now he feared her more than longed for her. But for some reason the need to drink her in was overwhelming. It was as though she were a separate part of himself, and he had only to fill himself with her to find completion.
He glanced past her toward the light in the corridor ahead. A grizzled old man shuffled several paces in front of them through the twisting darkness. The lantern in the man’s hand swayed, its golden orb casting eerie shadows upon the walls. One by one grimy doors came into view. Wide eyes watched through tiny, barred windows, only to melt into blackness as the lantern passed.
A hand clawed toward the light, the pale face behind it momentarily revealed. “Mercy, good Prince,” a woman’s voice rasped.
Whyn kept his eyes forward, daring not to look at the woman, nor to acknowledge her plea. She was only a Jecta, and no doubt an insurgent bent on the destruction of Tearia.
“Does this place pain your heart, my young Prince?” the Priestess asked, pausing to face him.
“No, Priestess,” Whyn replied. “It lifts my spirits.”
The Priestess smiled, her porcelain skin and gold-painted features reflecting her satisfaction through the darkness.
She flashed her eyes toward the old man. “You,” she ordered. “Leave us.”
The man turned and nodded, then bowed his way back down the corridor from which they had come, taking the lantern with him.
Whyn and the Priestess stood in the dimness. The only light to guide them now was an occasional torch bracketed to the wall. Wynn struggled to focus on his surroundings, listening to the sound of his own rapid breathing and the melancholy drip of water somewhere in the distance.
The Priestess brushed past him. Clutching a shoulder bag close to her body, she ducked into a passage that branched from the main artery. She motioned Whyn in and led him in the direction of what looked like a distant orifice, its circular glow like that of a red eclipse on a starless night. As Whyn followed at her back, it seemed to him that the Priestess was a beautiful phantom lit from within, leading him to a mysterious world to which he would soon be privy.
Moans and hushed whispers wafted from the endless line of cells that they passed. How many people were imprisoned in this place? Whyn wondered. Hundreds, it seemed. But he knew there would soon be thousands…or perhaps there would be none. After the Purge, there would no longer be any need to keep prisoners, no longer any need to waste the food and manpower on them. Now with Whyn’s father, the King of Tearia, dead, there was nothing to stop the Priestess from her magnificent plan.
The air became steamy, the stench more pungent. The orifice loomed larger now, but still seemed very distant. No longer did it look like the glow of a moon, but more like the mouth of a great furnace, its door rimmed by the flames that burned behind it. Sweat dripped down Whyn’s neck and slid over his chest, leaving the thin, gold-colored material of his tunic plastered against his skin. A chill raced through him. Strange how he could feel both hot and cold at the same time. It was as though his flesh had been set afire while at the same time his insides had been turned to ice.
“Here is where we will find answers to the Prophecy,” the Priestess said, halting before a door much like any other.
Whyn stopped, his eyes gazing toward the red circle of light at the far end of the corridor. He felt an overwhelming urge to continue toward it, as though it was somehow beckoning him.
“You will not be going to that place today,” the Priestess said, recognizing the longing in his eyes.
Whyn nodded and turned his attention to the door before them. A flicker of candlelight could be seen beyond the barred window, a luxury none of the other prisoners were allowed.
“Who is kept in this place?” he asked.
“The last of the Memory Keepers,” the Priestess said. She lifted a key from a peg on the wall, rattled it in the lock, then pushed the door open and entered the cell.
Whyn followed and surveyed his surroundings. The room was glittered with candles, revealing tomes and parchments stacked against walls and littering the small wooden table at the room’s center. In the far corner rested a pallet of straw covered by a tattered blanket. An old woman lay upon it, her bony frame pulled into the fetal position.
“Tenzy, raise yourself,” the Priestess commanded. “I do not give you light to sleep by.”
The old woman stirred and blinked herself awake, then raised her frail body from the floor. Pulling her ratty shawl around her shoulders, she eyed Whyn with interest. For a moment it seemed as though she recognized him, but there was no way she could have. He had never been to this dismal place, and she had surely never been within the sunlit walls of Tearia.
“The light,” Tenzy whispered, staring hard at Whyn.
“Yes, fool woman,” the Priestess hissed. “I give you light to find answers within these parchments, not to sleep by.”
The woman’s eyes darted toward the Priestess, then back at Whyn. Her face grew grim. “My error, Priestess. No light here,” she said.
“That can be arranged,” the Priestess said. “Let me catch you sleeping one more time when you should be working and you will find yourself in the darkness like the rest.”
The old woman cackled. “Who would find your precious answers then? You? Or perhaps this pretty boy-thing of yours?” She moved toward the table and shuffled her hands through a pile of parchments, stacking some into piles, rolling others into scrolls.
“Watch your words,” the Priestess warned.
“Or what?” Tenzy retorted. “There is nothing more you can do to me, and there is little more I can do for you. You asked me to find evidence of the Prophecy, and I have found none. As I told you before, there is no longer any trace of it. Your Red King of old saw that no record survived, certainly none written by the hand of those of us you call Jecta. What more would you have me do?”
“I would have you look at this,” the Priestess said, pulling a tome from the bag at her shoulder. She tossed it onto the table.
A startled gasp escaped the old woman’s throat. She ran her fingers over the cracked leather cover of the book, her eyes drinking in the symbols tooled into the grain.
“So you recognize it,” the Priestess said.
“Aye, that I do,” the old woman whispered.
“Then you should have no trouble translating it from its abominable language into one I can understand.”
“This is an ancient book…written in an ancient language. My memory fails me these days. I may not be able to—”
“Do not play games with me,” the Priestess snapped. “You will interpret it, and you have three days time in which to do it. If I do not have satisfaction from you by then, I shall seal your books up and you with them.”
“Just as well,” Tenzy said. “I have grown weary of this existence.”
“Perhaps you would feel differently if another was sealed up with you. Test me one more time and the pages of your precious books will forever bear the stench of you and your kin’s rotting flesh.”
“My kin are all dead,” Tenzy said.
“So you say,” the Priestess replied. She turned and walked toward the door. “Perhaps a crooked child would sway you.”
Tenzy stiffened. “I will do what I can.”
“Three days, no more,” the Priestess said, and with that she swept out, ordering Whyn to follow.
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Glossary
Aredyrah (Air-uh-DEER-uh)—An ancient island world divided by superstition, mysticism, and a forbidden range of volcanic mountains.
Agneis (AG-nee-us)—Goddess of Purity; Supreme deity of Tearian culture.
Alicine (AL-uh-seen)—Kiradyn; of the Aerie clan; daughter of Gorman and Morna; sister of Dayn.
Brina (BREE-nuh)—Tearian; sister of Queen Isola; maternal aunt of Ruairi and Whyn; wife of Mahon, the Commander of the Guard.
Cinnia (SIN-ee-uh)—Tearian; daughter of Labhras; betrothed to the Prince of Tearia.
&nbs
p; Clans of Kirador—Four clans inhabit the wildlands outside of the city of Kiradyn. They are the Aerie to the east, the Basyls to the northeast, the Sandrights to the west, and the Crests to the northwest.
Crymm (Krim)—Tearian; former bodyguard to Prince Ruairi; a member of the Guard.
Daghadar (DAG-huh-dar)—Also called the Maker; the one true God of the people of Kirador.
Dayn (Dane)—Kiradyn; of the Aerie clan; son of Gorman and Morna; brother of Alicine.
Eben (EH-ben)—Jecta potter; friend of Jensa and Torin
Eileis (I-luss)—Kiradyn; the Spirit Keeper (healer and spiritual advisor) of Kirador.
Eyan (EE-yun)—Kiradyn; of the Aerie clan; son of Haskel and Vania.
Falyn (FAL-un)—Kiradyn; daughter of Lorcan; sister of Sheireadan.
Gair (Gare)—Jecta; blacksmith of Pobu
Gitta (JIT-uh)—Reiv’s horse.
Gorman (GOR-mun)—Kiradyn; of the Aerie Clan; father of Dayn and Alicine; husband of Morna.
Guard—The elite military unit of Tearia
Haskel (HASS-kuhl)—Kiradyn; of the Aerie clan; brother of Gorman; husband of Vania; father of Eyan.
Isola (Iss-O-luh)—Tearian; Queen; wife of King Sedric; mother of Ruairi and Whyn; sister of Brina.
Jecta (JEK-tuh)—The name given by the Tearians to anyone considered “impure.” The Jecta primarily live in the city of Pobu, but many work within the walls of Tearia as slaves or servants. Their impurities include (but are not limited to) dark coloring, scars or other bodily imperfections, mixed bloodlines, family ties, or criminal history.
Souls of Aredyrah 1 - The Fire and the Light Page 32