Elias coughed. “What is this sacred powder?”
Enra shot him a sly, sidelong glance. “It is a secret.”
“Does smoking this powder help you to see shades?” asked Teah.
“Shades?” asked Enra. “I do not know this word.”
“She means spirits,” supplied Elias.
Enra fixed her dusky eyes on Teah. “You smoke it too?”
Teah smiled. “No, but I am familiar with such hallucinogens.” Elias arched an eyebrow at her and she was quick to add, “Purely from academic research.”
“It is the duty of every strong man and woman to smoke the powder as tribute, and to help the fallen.” Enra turned her gaze on Elias. “You are strong, no?”
“I’m not sure if it’s appropriate for me to participate.” Enra flashed him a flat look, which told him she didn’t understand his choice of words. “What I mean is it proper, is it allowed, for an outsider to join?”
“I told you, we are battle-kin now.” She laid a hand on his leg. “There are many things you may see when you use the powder. Some will see the future, or visit far lands without leaving the cave.”
“Very well then,” said Elias.
“This is good,” Enra said with a broad smile. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” She scurried off with their flat stone plates and left them to their own devices.
Teah grunted. “Are you always so easily manipulated by women?”
“I don’t want to smoke the powder, but nor do I want to offend them,” Elias replied. “Look around, not everyone in the tribe seems happy we’re here.”
Teah hid a smile. “If you say so.
“I’ll just pretend to smoke it.”
“A sound strategy,” said Teah.
Elias looked to Malak for help who only shrugged and said, “Females.”
Elias leaned back against a rock and drew Leosis’s cloak about him. He watched a group of children chase each other around the bubbling pool at the base of camp. One of them carried a painted stick which he waved around in the air while giggling. If one observed only the children at their games, it would be hard to guess that they made their camp under a blasted kingdom in the heart of a network of tunnels overrun with hostile fey creatures.
Elias had never given overmuch thought to parenting, but he had always figured in the back of his mind that once he and Asa were settled they would begin a family of their own. At present he found himself imagining the ghosts of children that could have been. What would their legacy have been, he wondered. Would they have his red temper, his restless spirit, or would they bear Asa’s demure aspect, her tranquil and sharp mind? Now he feared his legacy would be naught but a ruined future, a realm destroyed for his secret affection for a princess that he could never have.
Sometimes he wondered if it was loneliness or grief that had sparked his feelings for Bryn after Asa’s death, but the truth was that he had been enamored with her since the moment he first met her. He had to ask himself if part of the reason he left Peidra was because he was running from his guilt over his feelings for Bryn, or, rather, his guilt over betraying the memory of Asa. It had been but three short months after Asa’s death before he stole his first kiss from Bryn in the royal gardens. Yet that was in another life, and his memory had grown so hazy he had to ask himself if it had ever happened at all.
Anguish and rage warred in his bosom. He idly wondered which would prove the victor, and the better champion for the trials that lay ahead.
Teah nudged him, and he ascended from his dark musings. “If we have time on our hands let us not squander it.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Let’s see if we can continue your lessons in controlling your gift.”
She led him to a secluded corner of the camp into an alcove that crooked around a corner at the lowest point of the beehive-like cavern. She withdrew several candles from her pack and set them on a small natural rock shelf. “Here, now,” she said, “see if you can light one of the candles.”
Elias sat cross-legged on the cold stone ground and focused his will on one of the candles. A brick-red nimbus of energy cocooned the candle. As he bent his will upon it, the little motes of energy began to oscillate and vibrate faster. “Feora,” he whispered. A fist-sized teardrop of flame sprung into being in an orange flash and reduced the candle to pool of smoldering wax.
Teah cast him a sidelong glance. “I said light the candle, not destroy it. Don’t use a machete where a scalpel will suffice.”
Elias snorted. “Have you any more practical advice?”
“You summon your power fairly, but rather than releasing all that you gather in one fell swoop, try to hold it inside you, like a deep breath, but instead of exhaling all at once, let it trickle from you. When you’ve accomplished your task, draw your magic back and let it diffuse back into you. Try again.”
Elias focused on one of the remaining two candles. He centered himself and collected his power. He held the dam of energy back as he channeled it. It vibrated in his chest like something alive squirming to get out. With clenched teeth he opened up the dam and let a small amount bubble out. He willed it to flow to the wick and set it aflame. A gout of flame spurted onto the wick, lighting the candle with a flash and the scent of burning wax.
“Good,” said Teah, “this time you only burnt half the candle away.” She snuffed the flame out with her fingers. “Again.”
Elias sighed but bent his effort to the task.
After half an hour and a headache beside, Elias finally succeeded in lighting a candle to Teah’s satisfaction. “Now then,” he said, “let’s take a rest before I have to smoke my wits away.”
Teah let loose a soft sigh, an unfamiliar gesture. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”
“Both, I hope,” Elias jibed and was rewarded with a rare smile from the Enkilder.
The rest of the day passed without incident, leaving Elias plenty of time to rest, and to think.
To that end he had little to ponder save the predicament he had caused and the fear that he would never again see the ones he loved, at least on this side of the veil. Sitting still did him little good, so he sought the void and thus a terminus of his troubling thoughts. He followed one deep breath after another until he grew light-headed. Ripples of purple light formed in his mind’s-eye and he sank into them and then knew no more.
Chapter 35
Pyre
“It is time,” someone said.
Elias blinked, disorientated. He sat cross-legged by the pool of water in the Wilder encampment. At once the events of the past several days came back to him. He rubbed at his stiff neck. “I must have fallen asleep.”
Teah looked down at him with a knowing smile. “Not quite.”
Elias let that cryptic comment pass unaddressed. “What time is it?”
“After sundown, I think.” Teah smiled again at the incredulous expression on Elias’s face. “Come now and let us get you a bite before the ceremony. I have a feeling you’ll be needing it.”
Elias had a feeling she was right.
After they took a small repast Elias and his companions followed Enra up a rope ladder to a chamber above the one in which the Wilder made camp. They took an ascending passage slick with moss and water which ran in thin rivulets from cracks in the earthen walls. As Elias’s legs began to deaden they gained the crest of the climb.
The passageway opened into an asymmetrical chamber that featured a large pyre stack of tattered cloth, driftwood, and whatever flammable odds and ends the Wilder had been able to scavenge. A fissure in the ceiling let in a scant ambient glow from the moon far above. A palpable gravitas hung in the air, and Elias suspected this chamber was where the Wilder passed on all of their dead.
He had activated his arcane sight seemingly without intention, perhaps prodded by some natural instinct. The sudden lambency of the chamber caused him to shield his eyes for it was the equal of gazing into a summer sun. Chiefly brick-red, the energy pulsated in the center of the chamber like a gi
ant heart. Dancing around this central glut of energy smaller nodes spun and whirled, whisking about the perimeter of the chamber.
Elias reached out blindly for Teah’s arm. “Yes,” she breathed, “I see it too.”
“Malak,” said Elias, “stay close.”
“I’m already far ahead of you on that particular,” the equally stymied Malak replied.
“I sense that the history of this place far outdates the Wilder,” Teah said.
“But to what purpose?” asked Elias.
“That I cannot say,” Teah replied. “But I can warn you to keep your wits about you.”
Elias snorted. “That is exactly what I’m going to have trouble with.”
“Just remember to keep your own energy field close about you, like a shield,” Teah said. “Do not fall prey to the wayward energies to be found here. In this place the veil is thin, the barriers between worlds loose.”
“Then perhaps this is a windfall,” said Malak. “Could we use this place to create a portal to send Elias home?”
Teah shook her head. “I think not. The energy matrix is far too unstable for time magic. He would never survive, as I’m sure neither would the chamber. No, we’ll have to find another way. Yet, there may be something to learn from this place. Pay attention, both of you.”
“I shan’t give you cause to remind me twice,” said Malak. Elias couldn’t help but agree.
The ritual began with a song offered to the pyre by the Medicine Woman. Her voice was as weathered as ancient leather, but had its own peculiar beauty. Next followed drums accompanied by dancing and chanting.
Elias’s mind wandered during the ceremony, for he was fixated on the pulsating energy in the room. He studied the smaller, oscillating pockets of energy and wondered if they were the ancestors of the fallen come to carry them home.
A wispy vision formed in an empty space off to one side of the crackling funerary pyre. Elias blinked and bore his will upon it until it was all he could see...
Insubstantial as gossamer and ash, a woman stood with her back to a man, clothed in a full gown with a high lace neck—a style that had gone out of fashion in Galacia centuries ago. “You said that you would love me for forever and a day.”
The man sighed and examined his fingernails. “Forever proved too long, Drea.”
“I am with child, Your Grace.”
The man withdrew from her half a step. His hand twitched. “The child cannot be named. It cannot be recognized.” He paused and drew close to her again, gripping her by the shoulders. “I know an apothecary, off Alfgar Square.”
The woman turned about and leaned into his arms. “If the child shall be fatherless in name, than he shall be fatherless in point of fact as well.”
The young noble looked down to see a bloom of red blood blossoming on his white shirt, and a stiletto gripped fast in the fist of his lovelorn paramour. “What have you done?”
“I must have missed your heart, otherwise you’d already be dead.” The woman’s lips trembled, but her eyes held his quick, alight with fury. She reached her free hand to keep him from drawing his rapier with his fleeting strength. “Do you think that I’ve not heard the story of Anne, and how you poisoned her tea when she refused your apothecary? I’ll not let my son be murdered by the likes of you.”
His lips twisted in a rictus grin. “My father warned me to steer afar of the Duanas. You’ll not escape detection, you black-hearted slattern.”
“Don’t you worry, dearest Duke, I shall be long lately of Peidra before you are ever discovered in this pit.”
The light went out of his eyes and he crumpled to the floor, with Drea atop him, her hand still gripping the stiletto. She knelt by his side and wept, her hands stained with the black of his blood...
Someone was shaking him. A voice thundered in his ear, Teah’s. Elias blinked and the vision winked out.
“Elias where did you go?” Teah asked.
“We thought we lost you before you even took the powder,” Malak added.
“I saw a vision of the past,” he replied.
Teah grasped his face and peered into his eyes. “You have been outside your proper timeline for too long. We are beginning to see the effects, as I have feared.”
“Perhaps,” said Elias, less than convinced. He felt himself again, now that the vision had passed.
“In any case remember what you saw, it may hold some significance someday.”
“Oh,” said Elias, “I think it already has.”
The ring of dancers receded, though the drummers continued to beat out their slow and mournful rhythm. A new circle formed including Iatha and Enra and a scattering of others from the tribe. Enra and Iatha stood apart, leaving an opening in the circle between them. The former turned her head and looked expectantly at Elias. He took a breath and went to fill the vacancy between them.
Enra raised a pipe adorned with small unworked gems and feathers bound with leather braids. She pulled a taper from the inferno of the pyre and lit the pipe. A thick white smoke that smelled of burnt molasses curled around her head. Elias had planned to take a small pull from the pipe and not inhale its vapor, but after she took a long draw Enra took a second and leaned toward him, gripping his chin her free hand. She pulled his jaw open and brought her pursed lips to his open mouth, close as a kiss. She exhaled the smoke into his mouth and pushed his lips closed. She pressed her fingers against his lips and he inhaled the acrid vapor.
Enra raised the pipe over his head and cheer shot through the chamber as the drumbeat quickened into a more festive rhythm. Enra clasped Elias’s hand and passed the pipe over him to her grandmother. Once Iatha had taken from the pipe she took up Elias’s other hand.
“Look now into the flames,” said Enra. She cast him a sly look. “Some say in them a man can see his future, or across the great gateway.”
Elias did as he was instructed as a lone voice began to sing. The flicker of the flames seemed to accelerate as the keening song punctuated their crackling. “Who’s that singing?” he asked. “She has the most beautiful voice, though I don’t know the tongue.”
Enra grinned at him. “There is no one singing, Outsider.”
“Oh,” Elias said and returned his attention to the fire.
As he gazed back into the flames a symbol flashed in his mind, drawn in lines of golden fire. It spun and rotated and though he tried to blink it away it became more persistent. The flickering of the flames quickened. Shapes danced in the whorls and eddies of the flames and Elias fancied he saw fiery visages peering back at him, but they were all overshadowed by the symbol—a symbol that he was certain that he had seen somewhere before. Elias leaned closer to get a better look.
For a terrifying moment he found himself propelled toward the pyre. He feared he was falling into it and was without the power to stop himself. He tunneled into the flames and everything went red. Elias screamed out, but he had no voice.
The red that filled his vision vanished in a cold white snap and then there was silence...
Elias blinked against the sun.
When his dazzled eyes regained their function he saw that he stood upon a cedar porch facing a long yard which opened onto a lake. He swaggered drunkenly onto the lawn. Sweat stung his eyes. He reached for his sword only to find it gone, not that he was in any position to use it. He felt as disoriented as the day Comet had tossed him and he had received an egg-sized lump on the back of his head.
He swallowed the mouthful of bile that heaved up his throat. He lurched to the lake. He just needed to recover his equilibrium and then he could set about finding out what happened. He scooped water onto his face and raked his hands through his hair until it slicked back from his brow. Caring little for the questionable potability of the water, he drank greedy handfuls of it.
“Elias, dear, are you unwell?”
A shiver ran up Elias’s spine. He blinked the water from his eyes and looked up and across the lake. His heart skipped as his eyes alighted on the familiar grist mil
l. Countless were the times he had taken kiln hardened corn there to be ground into meal to make knoll whiskey.
He pressed himself to his feet and turned around to look at Asa. Her skin was more tanned than he remembered and a faint smattering of freckles dotted the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She wore a simple, blue house dress but she had never looked so beautiful to him. Her aquamarine eyes squinted against the sun as she took a couple of careful, exaggerated steps down the porch stairs.
Elias blinked as he saw the reason for her lumbering gait: Her breasts strained full against her dress, as did her stomach. Asa was with child. It was all Elias could do to remain standing, for his legs had gone weak. He raised trembling hands to his face as hot tears slid from his eyes.
Suddenly she was standing before him, gripping his arms in her small, dainty hands. He had once joked that her hands and feet were so tiny that he wondered how she could even stand or carry anything more than a cup of coffee. She had been quick to show him how fierce and adept she was despite her highborn upbringing, and Elias had never stopped trying to steal kisses from her ever since.
He held her close and she said into his ear, “What has gotten into you? You look to have seen a ghost.”
Elias bit back a sob. “I just forgot how good you smell is all.”
Asa giggled and swatted him on the shoulder. “None of that! You remember what that old crow Phinneas said. I’m fit to burst any day now.”
Asa pulled back from him. “Are you thinking about your father again? Or is it that business up north?”
“Up north?”
Asa shook her head and her face hardened. “I don’t care what happens to the throne or beyond, we’ll find a way to raise our children and be happy together, even if we have to flee to my cousin’s household in Phyra.”
Elias went cold. “What’s happened to Eithne? Is it the seventh house? Have they come?”
Asa studied him. “If I didn’t know better I’d say that you were caught in one of those nightmares you have. I think I ought to send for the doctor.”
“Asa...”
Elias went stiff as a searing, white pain tore through his head, like a forge-hot knife thrust between his eyes. A wracking cry escaped his lips. He pressed his hands to his head as another stabbing pain cut through his skull. He peered through his hands at Asa. Her lips moved, an expression of naked fear stealing across her features, but he couldn’t hear what she said. A high-pitched drone filled his ears and a white flash stole his sight momentarily.
Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle) Page 30