The Twelve Plagues (The Cycle of Galand Book 7)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Er…does it by chance have a third name?"

  "Varalan. The Becoming."

  "Varalan," Dante said, testing the word. "What about this 'entity'? Does it have a name?"

  "I doubt that it thinks of itself as having one. But we call it Nolost."

  Dante thought for a moment, then gave a shake of his head. "What else can you tell us? About any of this? Even the smallest details might end up making the difference."

  "Most of it can wait for Maralda. But there is one thing. You're not nearly scared enough of Nolost."

  "I am," Gladdic said.

  "At this point I am also pretty terrified," Blays said.

  Carvahal waved his hand. "You don't understand it well enough to be scared enough. It's expressing itself in ways you don't even recognize. For instance, that woman you said tried to kill you at the lake, whatever-her-name."

  "Ranala."

  "She was one of its assassins, of course."

  "What?" Dante said. "You're telling me this thing orchestrated a fake attack and a fake shipwreck just to plant her in our midst? Isn't that more than a little circuitous? Even if she was its agent, why not just have her sneak up on us in the middle of the night?"

  "I don't know why Nolost works the way it does. Disbelieve me all you want, it's not my world that's in the process of being devoured by madness. But what I am telling you is that it will attack you in ways you don't see coming—and won't even believe are possible."

  They talked more that night, but it was mostly speculation and rehash. When they concluded, a servant brought Dante to the softest bed he'd ever laid down in, but despite that and the healthy amount of refreshments fogging his mind, he had a hard time falling asleep.

  At last, they had answers. But they were far worse than anything Dante had feared.

  11

  He was raring to set out on their journey to wherever Maralda was keeping herself at that moment, but Carvahal insisted they'd been pushing themselves too hard and needed to take a day to recover before attempting their next task. Which might all have been well and good, except Carvahal paired it with the not-at-all reassuring statement that he needed time to find out if he even knew where Maralda might be.

  While Carvahal retreated into the deepest chambers of his palace, the three visitors ambled around the city, which was as charming and lively as any that Dante had ever seen. If they'd been willing to surrender Rale to the lich, Taim had offered to let them and a few hundred others of their choice move to the Realm instead. He wondered, if it came down to it, whether Carvahal might be willing to offer them sanctuary himself—and if he wasn't, whether they had any way to sneak their people in without leave, to live in the wilds like the ramna did.

  He reached Winden via loon and let her know that she and Wanders ought to return to Wending with as much caution as they could. Next he raised Nak, who had good news—thanks to their new food supplies, the strands were killing fewer of their people—and less good news: thanks to the smoke of the volcanoes, they hadn't seen the sun in days, and smelled ash and soot with every breath.

  They'd been hearing screeches in the night, too. Not from the lakes, but from the mountain heights. So far, the patrols hadn't found anything except snowy prints, which looked like nothing they'd seen before. Dante warned him to stay vigilant, and to come up with a plan to march to Wending if they began to suffer attacks they couldn't easily defend against.

  "About time," Carvahal declared when they returned in the middle of the afternoon. "I thought you were going to be out amusing yourselves all day."

  "That's quite a city you've built for yourself," Blays said, waving his arm behind him. "How does a fellow become a resident?"

  "Be born to another resident of it. Or offer me a tremendous bribe. I have good news to share. I think I can get you to Maralda."

  "You spoke to her?" Dante said.

  Carvahal laughed. "I said I had good news, not perfect news."

  "Then how confident are you in the information you got from whoever you did speak to?"

  "Fairly. Considering it's been an age since I saw her—and that she doesn't like to be found—that's much better odds than I thought you'd get."

  The ifs and maybes and contingencies of their very nebulous plan were starting to make Dante feel like they were banking everything on a comic longshot, and he had little appetite for the feast Carvahal threw them that evening. But a couple of the best brandies he'd ever had cured that, and he threw himself into the spiced meats, sauces, and preserves, half of which were from fruits he'd never tasted before. It was all of supreme quality, and combined with the heightened sensations of the Realm, the flavors were often enough to make Dante's eyes water.

  Carvahal spent most of the conversation on the political intrigue that had taken place within the Realm of Nine Kings in the weeks since they'd left it. Initially, there had been some conflict within the makeshift alliance that had formed to allow them the chance to win the spear, with some second-guessing their decision to stand against Taim, especially as the days had worn on with no news from Rale. Yet as soon as word came in that the White Lich had been slain—and that this had been done by the wielder of the Spear of Stars—the defectors naturally saw themselves as wholly vindicated, and that Taim had not only been wrong, but weak.

  Yet after the recent news that Taim was making a second, larger move against Rale, several of the gods had begun to doubt themselves again, while others grew angrier that Taim was still continuing the vendetta after the mortals had proven that fate was on their side. Carvahal thought that once they learned the specifics of the attack—most of all, that Nolost lay at the core of the scheme—their anger would be inflamed to fury.

  A fury that could erupt in outright war.

  "Would you see this as good news?" Gladdic asked. "Or ill?"

  Carvahal shrugged. "What I see is chaos. You attempt to gain advantage from it, or make your enemies fall victim to it. But you do not predict chaos. With regards to your situation, I don't see it making much difference. Even if every one of us were to turn against Taim tomorrow, we couldn't undo what's being done to you before all Rale is consumed."

  "Ah," Blays said. "So it's horrendous news, then."

  A lull in conversation ensued. As his thoughts wandered, Dante blinked and reached inside his doublet. "When the Eiden Rane died, most of his body disintegrated into nothing. But he left this behind. I haven't been able to figure out what it is or what it might do. But I didn't think it was safe to leave behind, either."

  He held up the lichstone. It had a soft blue glow to it, but it might have just been reflecting the light of the ether-fueled candles arranged on the table.

  "Give it here?" Carvahal held up his hand in a catching gesture. Uncertain about the wisdom of it, Dante lobbed the gem across the table. Carvahal reached for it, but it bounced from his hand and his eyes flew wide as he bobbled it above the scrap-filled plates.

  Then, with a graceful lunge, he snatched it from the air, and plopped back in his chair, where he tossed the stone in the air to himself.

  "Got your heart going?" He caught it and tossed it again, higher this time. "You can feel that something's off about it, can't you? As if you wouldn't want to fall asleep with it too close to you—but you wouldn't want to let it out of your sight, either."

  He hefted the stone, bouncing it in his palm a few times. He plucked it up and held it closer to the glow of an ethereal candle, inspecting it with his right eye, then his left. Once he was satisfied, he set it on the table before him with a solid glassy thunk.

  "As I'm sure you gathered, beings like the lich have become something more than mortal. Yet they began life as mortals. Exceeding the natural limits of their born bodies requires physical structures. Reservoirs. Augmentations. This was the lich's. It is a powerful object—and while he might be dead as you knew him, a part of him remains within it."

  Dante leaned forward, eyes locked on the white gem. "It's powerful in what way? Would I be able to put it to us
e here?"

  Carvahal thought about this for several moments. His mouth twitched. "That might be possible. If you could unlock it in some way, and perhaps bind it to you instead. But don't even bother me asking me how to do that. I wouldn't know." He leaned back, gazing down at the object. "It's still dangerous, I can tell you that much. Would you like me to destroy it for you?"

  "No. Not if there's a chance I can put it to use."

  The god's eyes leaped up from the stone and locked on Dante's. "Do you understand the implication of binding it to you? There's a chance—likely a very great one—that the opposite happens instead. You could instead find yourself bound to it—your mind and body possessed by your greatest foe."

  "He's already done that to me once before. It wasn't a lot of fun. But if things grow dark enough, and the stone offers any hope to turn the tide, it's a risk I'll have to take."

  Carvahal watched him for some time. "The Arawnites of Narashtovik. What's the most famous story you tell about me?"

  "Lots of choices there," Blays said. "But definitely the prophecy where you granted one Blays Buckler a Divine Knighthood, complete with appropriate lands, which it's said will usher in an eternal reign of peace, prosperity, and feasts with good ale."

  "You'd get the same answer from priests and common folk alike," Dante said. "The tale of how you stole the fire from the pole-star and delivered it to humanity."

  Carvahal picked the lichstone back up. "I understand there's more than one version of that story. Which is it that your faith professes?"

  "Ah. Well. In many of the southern lands, especially Mallon, they say that you betrayed Taim's edict, took the secret of fire, brought it to us, and were punished for it."

  "Did I ask what they say in Mallon?"

  "In other places…like Narashtovik…they say that Arawn was the keeper of the flame. And that he made the decision to give the flame to you so that you could bring it down to us. But then, well…you wanted all the credit for the gift of fire for yourself. So you locked Arawn away in the infamous starry prison, delivered the gift to us, and were given all praise for it."

  The corners of Carvahal's mouth curled downward. "Maybe Maralda was right. Maybe it was cruel to separate you from us as we did. Left to yourselves, you forget all that's right, and what little you hang onto becomes garbled beyond all recognition. What must the minds and souls of people be like who live in a world of vanished and rotten truths?"

  Dante sipped his brandy. "Was that, er, not how it happened?"

  "Do I strike you as the type to betray my own half-brother just for the sake of my own ego?"

  "That depends," Blays said.

  "On?"

  "Whether unwanted answers will be answered with a smiting."

  Carvahal grew slightly less frosty. "It's not your fault, I suppose. And I suppose that I should be above it. And I further suppose that the story you believe is the one that Arawn intended you to believe all along."

  "What do you mean?" Dante said.

  "It is true that Arawn was the guardian of the star. But it was my idea to bring its fire down to you. It took a great deal of arguing to convince him it was a good idea, but once he'd converted to the cause, he believed in it fully. Together, we conspired to deliver the flame. And did so, in a tale of daring that deserves to be told in its own right, but I think I will keep that one for myself today.

  "We succeeded. As you know. But one of us made a small error. To this day I'm not sure which one of us it was. Despite its smallness, it was enough for Taim to realize he'd been conspired against. He had us. But Arawn insisted the betrayal had been his work alone. For that, he was imprisoned. Taim still suspected me, but Arawn's false confession weakened Taim's position enough that the worst he could do was exile me for a time. Which I don't think was very smart of him, frankly. For without my kingdom to run, I had nothing left to do but think. And people who enjoy having their plans going to order generally don't like it when I have too much time to think."

  "That's not what you told us before," Dante said. "You said Arawn was getting too full of himself, so you tricked him into the starry vault."

  "I never said that to you."

  "But Neve did."

  "Like I just said, then."

  "But you are Neve."

  "Am I? Always?"

  Dante gritted his teeth. "That's something you kept deliberately obscure to us."

  "Because it's better to my purposes that it is obscure. Do you need everything so spelled out for you? If you do even a little thinking, the two different stories aren't even at odds with each other. No," he said, cutting Dante off, "no more objections, I've already strayed a hundred miles from why I started telling you this. Which was to ask this: when we brought you the secret of fire, what exactly do you think that was?"

  "The stuff we use to make food good?" Blays said. "And burn down rival villages?"

  "That was only part of it. And to my mind, the lesser part. This was the real gift." He snapped the fingers of his right hand, calling forth a beacon of ether. "And this." He snapped the fingers of his left hand, conjuring a cloud of nether. "But most fun of all, this."

  He drove the two powers toward each other. They collided with a bang, showering the table with fading sparks.

  "Sorcery?" Gladdic said. "You are the one that delivered us the power of sorcery?"

  Carvahal nodded. "Before that, you were all common mortals. That was the design for you. For these powers are the powers of the gods, and you weren't meant to wield powers like ours when your minds were so limited."

  "Why did you defy this design?"

  "To see what kinds of trouble you'd get into with your new powers, of course." He smiled. "That's what I'd leave you with if you were anyone else. And it isn't untrue. It wasn't the core of why I did it, though. That was because I'd come to agree—in part—with Maralda: you would never be divine yourselves, or even walk among us in divine lands, and I thought it was cruel to leave you without any spark of it within you."

  He gazed into the distance, looking thoughtful. Then he swore and jumped from his seat with a laugh. "I almost forgot why I began telling you any of this. Follow me!"

  He swept himself from the feasting hall and they followed in his wake. Blays kept his silver goblet with him, sipping as Carvahal led them down veering hallways, through secret doorways, and up hidden staircases until Dante was certain they'd traveled further and climbed higher than the outside dimensions of the palace would have allowed. If he'd had to make his way back out on his own, he'd have starved before he found the exit.

  They came, finally, to an arched door made of glass, or some far stranger substance, etched with intricate runes that slowly shifted in color between red and blue. Carvahal placed his hand upon the door. It pulsed and swung inward, revealing a night of strange constellations.

  He bade them to wait and stepped through.

  It was a full minute before he returned. His face was somber, almost bleak, but he carried himself with a new sense of purpose. He lifted his closed fist and opened it. A shape like a shard of a broken blade sprang across his palm. It blazed with incandescent pearly light.

  He kept his eyes held to it. "Do you know what this is?"

  "It looks like the tip of the Spear of Stars," Blays said. "But somehow…more so."

  "No," Dante said. "It looks like Cellen, the Black Star—but made of ether."

  "You're both wrong," Carvahal said, musing. "But not far from the truth, either. When I took the fire from the pole star and spread it across your world, I stole a small part for myself. I've kept it hidden here ever since. But now, I think, I'm going to give it to you."

  Fearing the offer might be a jest, or akin to some rare creature that would bolt as soon as it noticed him, Dante didn't move. Until Carvahal extended the shard to him. Gingerly, Dante reached for it. It looked as though it would slice through his hand if he so much as touched it, but when he took it up, a cool tingling ran down his arm to the elbow, intensifying and then ebbing with
the same rhythm that nether slowly expanded and contracted.

  He had a hard time speaking. "What can it do?"

  "It's unshaped power," Carvahal said. "It can do whatever you are capable of willing it to do. If you had the vision for it, you might be able to bring a man back from the dead with it. Or raise the highest mountains in the world. Or, when the last of your kind has been forced into the deepest woods and highest peaks, to create a means of hiding yourselves away from the demons that have torn the world out by its roots."

  Blays scratched the back of his head. "I don't suppose it might also be able to, say, kill Nolost dead?"

  Carvahal started to say something, then snapped his mouth shut and narrowed his eyes. "I should say that would be impossible. But I won't. I will say that any such effort would have to be clever beyond anything that I can conceive of—and that the shard will be depleted after any attempt to use it, successful or not."

  Gently, Dante turned it over in his hand. It seemed very weighty but was in fact no heavier than an apple. "So it's exactly like Cellen, then?"

  "If that's how you want to think of it."

  This made Dante all but certain that it wasn't in some key way, but he was even more certain that Carvahal wouldn't tell him anything useful at that point, and that any further answers he received might harm his understanding more than they'd expand it.

  "Thank you, lord," he said. "But why have you given this gift to us?"

  "If you're willing to risk being taken over by the lich, you deserve the chance to use a different weapon before it comes to that. Besides, maybe when I stole it from the original fire, it wasn't so that I could use it for myself. Maybe fate wanted me to protect the shard until now, when it could be used to preserve our creations through at least another age."

  Blays took a step closer to the shard. "When you say 'fate,' do you mean in the general way? Or as an entity like Nolost?"

  "How would I know? It's fate. Every person who's been able to see into the weave of fate has been driven insane." Carvahal raised his eyebrows. "I would avoid any attempt to do that, incidentally—because one doesn't need to see the future to know your sanity's about to be tested to its limit as it is."