by Kal Spriggs
Aramer spoke out of reflex, his persona of Arren too well rehearsed for him to prevent it. “There used to be many of them, but Aktan of the Black Fortress hunted them down, since they opposed him. There haven't been more than a handful left since then and those that remain conceal themselves.”
“The sorcerer of Black Peak Pass?” Jonal asked. He shivered, “Tell me, why in the name of the ancestors would anyone want to stay in these lands? Sorcerers, tyrants, enough damned politics and backstabbing to make me wish I was home, Norics, Armen, and ancestors-know-what-else.”
Aramer shrugged. Convincing the young man of who he was had taken far too much of his energy, now he could only set and wait. He felt a dull ache settle into his bones as he contemplated what was to come if the worst should occur. I will have to be the one to tell her mother, he thought, and that was almost too much to bear. How could he face Lady Rachel's grief as she lost her second daughter?
She will come, Aramer thought, she has to come.
***
Siara Pall
She brought the tray of food in and set it on the desk in front of him, but he stared at the far wall without even noticing her. “My Lord,” she said, “you should eat.”
He blinked, as if he only now realized that she was present. “What?” He looked down at the tray and she could tell by his expression that the very thought of food made him feel sick. “Thank you, Siara.” He gave her a pained smile, “I'm not really hungry, though.”
“It is not your fault,” she said.
His lips formed into an angry line, “I trusted him. I put two thousand good men's lives on the line and I got far too many of them killed.” The self-disgust in his voice tore at her.
“They don't see it that way,” Siara said. “They saw how you salvaged the situation, how you saved almost four hundred of them and how you recaptured two of the ships from the enemy.” The overall feelings she got from the crew was one of subdued victory. They mourned their losses, but they also knew that they'd struck a solid blow against the Armen. They had accomplished what they came here for... even after they were betrayed by their allies.
They hate Hall Prakka, she thought with venom, as they should, though I only wish that I foresaw his betrayal coming so that I could have warned my Lord.
Christoffer looked away, “Then they're fools. When we get back, I'll go before the Council and give them my resignation,” he said, his voice tired, “it's the only thing to do.”
“No!” Siara said, her voice sharp, “That is a foolish thing to do. Who else will lead your people, if not you?”
He turned back and met her gaze, his cold blue eyes brimming with icy anger, “Someone better! Anyone who won't get over fifteen hundred men killed!” He shook his head, “I can't do anything right, don't you see, Siara, I'm a blight on everything I touch.”
“You are not,” Siara said and she grabbed his hand. She brought it to her belly and stared into his eyes, “You are not a failure,” she said. “You are my love, my lover... and you are to be the father of my child.”
For just a moment, she thought she saw joy win out in his eyes as he realized what she'd said, but then the despair crashed in again and he recoiled, his face drawn with pain. “Oh, ancestors, damn me,” he said, his voice hollow.
“My lord, why are you not happy?” Siara asked. His expression cut her the way nothing else could have. He hates me, she thought suddenly, he must revile me so that this news hurts him so much.
He turned away, shock heavy in his voice, “Leave me... just, please, leave me.”
***
Chapter Fourteen
Lady Amelia Tarken
The Heartwood, The Eastwood
12th of Laurel, Cycle 1000 Post Sundering
Amelia flinched as the shadow flashed in front of her face and she stumbled back. A moment later, she heard hollow, echoing laughter and she clenched her hands against her ears to shut it out. It did no good, and she shivered and curled into a fetal ball as the laughter continued for what seemed like an eternity.
At last, though, the laughter ceased and she slowly sat up. The forest path was empty, no sign of the shadowy figure remained. She still heard words, whispered on the edge of her hearing, but that was normal of late. Mad, she thought, I've finally gone entirely mad and my mad little world is coming apart.
She stood and brushed herself off. She couldn't let Simonel see her this way or, worse, Tirianis. Both of them were under enough strain as it was. The last thing they needed was for her to start gibbering and cackling as her world fell apart.
No, she knew, better to just try to figure it out on her own.
Even as she thought that she started to walk briskly along the trail and she told herself to ignore the voices on the edge of her hearing. Nothing good had come from when she tried to listen to them. Some just babbled in languages she didn't know, while others told her to do things; either things that made no sense or things that would hurt her or others.
She came at last to Simonel's house and her eyebrows went up as she saw Nanamak in the shadows. At least, she was mostly certain he was actually there. He seemed more solid than most of her delusions. She gave him a nod and continued past, too afraid to do more than that.
Simonel awaited her inside. He looked up from where he inspected his armor, “Amelia, thank you for coming, I know you've been feeling unwell...”
She waved a hand, eager to head off that topic of conversation. Last time he had tried to convince her to have Irios or another mage check her out, but that was the last thing she wanted just now. She had suggested that she felt sick to her stomach and had headaches, but that was only some of the symptoms, and she didn't want to have to explain to anyone that she was seeing shadowy figures and hearing voices. For that matter, what if they found she had a tumor or cancer or something else? On the one hand, it would be nice to know she wasn't going mad, but on the other, she didn't want that weight upon Simonel and Tirianis. “It's fine, Simonel, what can I do?”
He gave her a warm smile and he put his hand on hers. The warmth she felt at his touch was more than physical and she wished, not for the first time, that she wasn't going mad so that she could spend more time with him. “You've done more than I have a right to ask... but I'm afraid I need to ask for more of your help.”
She nodded, “Does this have to do with the seer, the one who spoke the prophesy?”
Simonel nodded, “I've found a few copies of it... but she was speaking in the oldest dialect of my people, so they are all translations. Not even the eldest of our Ancients speak that tongue anymore.”
“I would think that some would still remember...” she trailed off though as a gibbering voice interrupted that train of thought.
Simonel didn't seem to notice her distraction, “Our language is a living one, just as any that is spoken. Over time, words have shifted, changed meanings. For that matter, our minds are not able to hold the memories of thousands of cycles and memories fade and become feelings or impressions.” He shrugged, “It is part of why some of our eldest are hard to understand, some of them have tried to hold onto those old memories at the cost of new.”
Amelia shivered at that thought, living in a state of impressions, almost a dream-state rather than making new memories. In that state, what was the point of living?
“In any case, I think the only option I have is to seek her out myself,” Simonel said. He looked up as he heard something, but whatever it was, Amelia couldn't hear it over the sound of distant, maniacal laughter. “Ah, Tirianis is here,” he said after a moment.
Amelia smiled as warmly as she could as her friend arrived. “Tirianis,” she embraced the other woman, even as she hoped she kept her emotions under check. She knew her friend was under enough strain from how the rest of the Wold seemed to be affected and she didn't want to further burden her.
“Good to see you,” Tirianis said, her voice distracted. She looked at Simonel, “I'm sorry I'm late, but several of the hunters got into it. I mana
ged to intervene before there was bloodshed, but it was a close thing.” Amelia could hear the sorrow in her friend's voice. The way that her people were tearing themselves apart clearly hurt her.
Simonel shook his head, “I've got to find out the source of these attacks and how exactly Listania is managing it... and I fear the key lies with this prophesy, somehow.” Clearly the violence that had afflicted his people bothered him far more deeply than he showed. It troubled Amelia too, for it while the fighting and anger were bad enough, the murders were the worst.
There seemed no pattern to those, some were done by family, with brother or father found over the victim, bloody weapon in their hands and shock on their faces. Others, though, there was no sign of the murderer, just a shredded corpse or even sometimes little more than chewed bones... but with human tooth-marks. Each loss of a life that might have seen countless cycles was another blow to the already frayed Wold society.
“What I need to do,” Simonel said, “Is go to see Aralanar myself. She can tell me what she saw, what the spirits told her, and from there I might be able to act. For that matter, she might well know what Listania is doing.”
“This place will fall apart without you here,” Amelia said. She wanted to say that she would fall apart without him, but she didn't dare.
He shook his head, “That's where you come in. You've the power to project illusions onto people's minds. With Tirianis to advise you, you could keep up the illusion that I am here, long enough, at least, for me to travel to Aralanar's exile and to question her myself.”
Amelia swallowed at that. Could she maintain such an illusion? Not just upon the younger hunters, but on the ancients? For that matter, with the madness creeping upon her, how could she be certain that she wouldn't be too distracted?
Tirianis nodded though, “That is possible. I could tell her what she needs to know, when people try to speak with you and get answers. I could also tell her how you would judge when there are more outbursts or violence.”
Simonel nodded, “That's the plan.” He cocked an eyebrow at Amelia and gave her a warm smile, “Well, Amelia, can you help?”
The very last thing she wanted in the world was for him to leave her alone with his people as madness enveloped her. She returned his smile even as her mouth tasted like ashes.
“Of course,” Amelia said.
***
King Simonel Greeneye
Simonel paused on the trail as he scented the air. The forest here had thinned and given way to the steep mountain slopes. The air smelled different too, although there was a harsh, metallic scent to it that made him frown.
He continued up the path that he had followed over the past couple days, though he took it at a slower pace now. Aralanar's kin had been allowed to bring her food and talk with her, the only exceptions in his father's exile of the woman. Simonel presumed that the path was left by them, though it's state suggested more traffic than he would have expected.
He felt unease slow his step as he drew closer. Am I certain I want to speak to her?
Yet he had no other choice. The attacks had grown more insidious and he could not set idly by while his people's darker natures consumed them.
At that thought, the path rounded a rock formation and suddenly he faced a cave. Light glowed in the depths of it and he took a deep breath as he strode forward. The metallic taste was stronger now and he wondered at it again as he stooped low to enter the cave. He paused on the threshold, though, and called out, “Aralanar, your King comes to speak.”
His voice echoed into the depths of the cave. For what seemed like an eternity, he heard no response, until finally, a soft voice responded, “My King may approach and be welcome.”
He felt a shiver at that voice, though, for it had all the welcome of a serpent's slithering scales. Simonel put his hand, reassuringly, on the pommel of his sword and stepped inside.
The low cave wound downward until it eventually opened up into a large, round chamber. Glass globes hung along the walls, enchanted to give off light and warmth. At the center of the chamber, near a rent in the earth that steamed metallic-scented vapor, a short woman sat cross-legged with her dark hair long and unkempt obscuring her face. “Is it the father or the son who comes to see me?” Aralanar asked. There was a tone of amusement to her sibilant voice.
“I am King Simonel Greeneye,” Simonel said, his voice hard. He did not like being toyed with.
“Ah... the son, then,” she said. “So it has come to pass then? Your father is dead, killed by an unknown hand. The Enchantress, as well, and chaos and murder in the shadows of the Eastwood.”
“What do you know?” Simonel asked quickly. He wondered how involved she was in Listania's efforts or if this were all conjecture by the woman. “What have you seen?”
She raised her head and Simonel hissed as he saw her gouged eye sockets, the scar tissue old and sunken. “I see nothing anymore, young man, but I hear much. I took out my eyes so that I could see my visions more clearly.” She laughed then, a cold, terrifying laugh, that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Her laughter cut off, the silence as sharp as a knife and she sniffed at him, “I can smell the woman's scent upon you, the one whose mind burns so bright... You've met her then, the woman you love?”
Simonel straightened, “What do you know of her?” The very fact that this woman knew anything of Amelia made him cringe inside. How had his father tolerated her before? Or had this coldness been a product of her exile?
“I don't know, but I suspect,” she responded, “and when I tell you what I've heard, you too will suspect... and despair, I would judge. You are not worthy of the destiny you've been given, which is why I suspect you'll fail.”
“Tell me what you know,” Simonel said. “Tell me what the spirits showed you on the night of my birth.” He kept his voice level only with force of will as a variety of emotions washed over him. He wanted nothing more than to be quit of this hole and the madwoman, but he needed the information that only she knew.
“Ah... you ask for what you expect to be riddles... but I've had the time to parse them. I know the meaning, now, and I could give you that, not some broken set of riddles that will drive you mad to try to make sense of... just as I gave them to those who came before you.”
“Someone came before me?” Simonel asked. “Who? Who violated your exile?”
She tipped her head back and laughed and again her cold, terrible laughter filled the chamber. “Oh, no, young King, knowledge for knowledge... tell me, has the Horn returned... do you truly bear Medis Sakveri?”
Simonel shifted and raised the horn and only then remembered that with her missing eyes, she could not see it. “I have it.”
“Then the bearer has brought it,” she nodded, her face suddenly excited, “the times they warned of are finally here... and I can finally share the truth... as I have shared only riddles with those who came before.”
“You promised names,” Simonel said harshly.
“I promised nothing... I insinuated that I would share names... a distinction that should not be beyond you, listen close to any bargain, young King, and closer to the babbling of a madwoman.” She laughed again, as if she had just shared a precious secret. “But enough toying... two came before you. The first was Nanamak, sent by your father, and I turned him away with the precious information he sought.”
Simonel frowned at that, for Nanamak had not mentioned it, even when Simonel said that he had to come to Aralanar for the precise words. “Who else?”
“You already suspect it to be Listania, but does hearing it from me reassure you?” Aralanar asked... “Or does it frighten you?” She laughed her laugh again, “Because it should frighten you, what that wizard will do with the riddles I gave her.” There was a gloating tone to her voice, as if she was pleased by how she had tricked the wizard.
“I'll manage her, soon enough,” Simonel said. “Now, tell me what you can of your visions and I'll be gone of this place.”
“I
will... I will... but you have to promise me that you, in turn, will free me,” she said, her voice low and intent. “Free me of my prison and I will tell you more than the riddles I gave the others... I will tell you the truth, so that you may know what others only suspect.”
He shivered at the thought of this madwoman free in the world, but he had to have the information. “I will set you free,” Simonel said.
“Thank you,” she almost sobbed, but then she stood up and spread her arms, “The truth of it was... the spirit of Maghali Mede looked upon his people and he sorrowed... for we who lived in exile, the Kalakhi Salvet Khis, we were shadows of our once selves. Soon, he saw, Andoral Elhonas would reach forth his hand and strike down the Enchantress and our King, and once again we would be slaves to his will, bound to his spirit.”
“You're saying the Enchantress guarded us from that?” Simonel asked, shock on is voice.
“Oh, yes, young King, did you not understand her importance? The essential nature of the Veil? It was not to protect us from the pitifully short-lived degenerates who lived outside our lands... it was to defend us from the will of Mukai Suli.” She used the other name for Andoral Elhonas, one that was used to scare naughty children. “Without the Enchantress, our people will fall under his sway, even now his darkness awakens the darkness within them and corrupts the spirits of our ancestors.”
Simonel blanched at that. “I have to go.” He realized, now, how it was that Listania had attacked his people... a realization that seemed so obvious that he hated himself for not seeing it already.
He started to turn away, but she called out, “Stop! I am not finished, young King, and you have not freed me.” He turned back to her and saw that she had walked forward so that she stood only a few steps away. “As I said, Maghali Mede saw this would happen... so he took all of himself and he poured it into a child yet to be.”
Simonel's eyes widened, “You're saying that the King of Dzveli Eris Maghali, of both Viani and our own race, has been reborn? That his spirit is made flesh again?” He felt awe at that, for Maghali Mede was his people's greatest hero and was revered by many.