Exiles & Empire

by Cheryl S Mackey

  Ivo tore free from Dehil and lunged toward Gabaran and Jadeth. His bellows of rage and pain were no match for the crackle of thunder and static as the colossal portal steadied before them. Easily forty meters in diameter, it spun with the lazy, powerful grace of a galaxy in the pitch black sky.

  Emaranthe’s motionless body lost momentum. Gravity returned to throw her to the ground.

  “Emaranthe!” Ivo bellowed over the buzzing crackle of energy and his friend’s pleas to stop. A giant hand gripped his elbow before he could follow her off the cliff.

  “Watch, Earthlander, your woman thinks of everything,” Gabaran said in a stunned whisper. Numb to all pain but the one bleeding out with each beat of his heart, Ivo’s knees buckled.

  Emaranthe’s body wilted, stilled, but the force of the leap and the placement of the portal had been deliberate. She tumbled bonelessly through the air and downwards, and then sailed through the spiraling center. It swallowed her with a blast of heat and wind.

  “Go, make a run for it, it won’t last long and neither will the shield,” Gabaran barked out, his voice a deep rumble that didn’t have any patience for second guessing. “Jadeth, you and Dehil grab Ivo. Now jump!”

  Jadeth and Dehil grabbed Ivo and together they towed the wounded warrior at a limping run. Gabaran needed no run up, he simply turned and launched himself and Jaeger into the portal with a roar that echoed like thunder.

  Jadeth, and Dehil leaped, bearing Ivo’s dead weight. They cleared the gap to the portal with mere inches to spare. The blast of hot wind drowned out the pop of their ears as they tumbled into a sky filled with sunlight and a land filled with… snow.

  Chapter Three

  “I never knew you had it in you.” Rodon chuckled. Blackened teeth slid into a cruel sneer. Sparks arced from the doomed Windwalker’s splayed wings and travelled across the wavering dome. Time hitched, resumed, and refroze as Atil’s control faded with each passing second. Rodon’s shadow crept closer with each lapse of time, until he loomed over the dying Immortal in his true form.

  “I know you don’t remember everything.” Atil exhaled the words from nearly immobile lips. Empty eye sockets, voids of shadow in the crackle of lightning and time, stared back. “I had hope.”

  “Hope is for the weak. You should know this well, old friend.”

  “You are no friend. You have not changed.” Atil grimaced. Lightning arced. A burn split his thin face, ripping a welt beneath one cheekbone and drawing blood. “You are dooming us all to repeat the past because you do not remember.”

  “You know an awful lot for a blind Windwalker,” Rodon said. His blackened lips curled and his form wavered between shadow and man until he solidified before the splayed figure. “Just what do you think I have forgotten, Atil?”

  “Who they are. Who is here. They have been waiting,” Atil whispered. “They will remember.”

  Rodon’s sneer melded shadow with shape. “I don’t need all my memories to know what I have to do. They will die and I will take what I have wanted for so long.”

  “Just what is it you want so badly, Dro-Aconi?”

  “What will give me my revenge. The Crown of Gods.”

  Atil’s ravaged face turned into a mask of sorrow. His empty eye sockets saw all too well in a world of pure darkness.

  “You will never have it then.”

  Rodon lunged for the Windwalker. He collided with the time field. Thunder cracked as energy branches forked along the shimmering dome. Atil didn’t flinch when putrid teeth gleamed and eyes swirled in dark pools of triumph.

  “What do you know? Tell me!” Rodon demanded. Inky spittle smeared his jaw line and dribbled. “It’s those four immortals. I’ve watched. I’ve waited. They must be who…”

  “When they remember you will regret everything.” Blood trickled from the corner of his lips. His eyeless gaze leveled on Rodon, the triumph in the empty eye sockets was unnerving.

  Rodon reared back. He shivered in disgust as the last Windwalker spoke again.

  “She was tasked with repairing a world torn asunder by you. She will defeat you in the end–they all will.”

  “No!” Rodon growled. “They know nothing!”

  Sparks raced along the shimmering dome. Atil hissed. A grimace split the raw burn on his face. Fresh blood slid in a slow, stuttering path down his leathery skin. The dome crackled. The air sizzled.

  The stench of burning feathers turned Rodon’s lips up in a blackened grin. He surveyed them, splayed wide and charred against the nearly invisible energy shield. Easily twenty feet across each, they had been impressive even to him. Once. Long ago before he had remembered.

  Even now the memories of his first lifetime returned like the ever swelling sea. The first memory to return was that of indomitable rage and the feeling of betrayal. The second was one of jealousy. The third, oddly, grief. He remembered who he had been when he adopted his original name and discarded the one that came with this nearly useless body.

  Even as an Immortal, the same anger, and grief roared through his veins and fueled his need for revenge even if he didn’t remember why. Again. This time he would succeed.

  “I know who I hunt,” he said. “And I know who you protect, Atil. They can’t save you now.”

  “No, but I don’t need saving, Rodon.” Atil’s smirk grew manic. “You do.”

  Lightning forked, bleaching the body of the spread eagled Windwalker white against the energy shield. He shuddered, his mouth wide in a soundless scream of agony.

  Rodon sneered as Atil burned from within. “You always were a fool, Atil. Was it you who hid the lost city from me?”

  Atil laughed and threw his head back in crazed glee. The warped laughter grew harsh and thin with each pained breath.

  Rodon stared at the dying Windwalker. Fissures of light webbed Atil’s ashen skin. Fingers of lightning forked and spread through bone and flesh like cracks in stone. The cracks splintered away from him and encompassed the entire dome in seconds.

  The fissures expanded. Shards of light speared the night sky in blinding white fingers. The dome of energy exploded, throwing everything into fast forward. Sight, sounds, smells, all converged into a blur of motion.

  Rodon snapped back into his physical body hard enough to crack the ground beneath his feet and barely had time to duck aside from the arrowhead that hovered inches from his face. Being partially shadow-bound had its uses, a lingering remnant of his time imprisoned long ago when The Four had sealed everyone’s fate. Or so they thought. His own people had fallen with the mortals and everyone’s memories had failed, only to return piecemeal and incomplete.

  The arrow vanished into the horde behind him. He chuckled and regained his feet and solid body in one smooth move.

  The assault tapered off, his enslaved army falling still. Unfazed by the events, they waited mindlessly for their next order. A far cry better than skeletons, or the Tainted, the fallen Legion of The Unknown Sun, and their myriad of powers, was at his beck and call at last.

  The haze of colorful smoke swirled into a noxious brown, and the fading thunder of cannon fire echoed among the stone pillars on the desert floor below. He waited for the thick cloak of smoke to fade, confident in the knowledge that none, not even immortals, could have survived the attack.

  He surveyed the destruction with narrowed eyes. The stench of charred flesh and the coppery tang of blood hung thick in the air. A familiar rush of longing and hatred turned Rodon’s blackened grin into a twisted sneer.

  The plateau stood empty but for the burning remains of tents, and a crater dug from the rock as if by the hand of one of The Four. The glow, however, hovering in the starless night sky beyond was familiar. The sight of the giant portal spiraling in lazy swirls of lightning and flame sucked a lump of dread from somewhere deep inside where the shadows of his true self coiled in abhorrence.

  “No!” Rodon’s form flickered, grew faint at the edges. Shadows bled from the gaps in his clothing and slithered like tendrils of living smok
e at his feet. “You can’t do this to me again!”

  The portal winked out even as his words faded into the thick stillness of the night and the world went dark once more. Rodon growled low in his throat, a sound of restrained rage aimed at the person he hated most.

  The person he loved most.

  Hate.

  Love.

  Rodon’s sneer twisted at the thought. They are one and the same, aren’t they, Tanari?

  Rodon shook off the memory. It clung in his mind like a distant cobweb, old and dusty, long forgotten. They were coming faster now. Unbidden. A token of a previous life, the memories did little to curb his desire for revenge and power. He perversely waited for each one. Too bad they made little sense yet. It didn’t matter.

  He curled his hand into a fist. The scarred, leathery skin wrinkled with the deliberate movement. It was as if he watched someone else bend the broad fingers. His hand dropped to his side, forgotten. This body was unimportant. What he could do with it was what mattered.

  Rodon spun on his heel, not caring that something light and airy crumbled to ash beneath his heavy boot. He stepped on the charred bones and made for the nearest warrior.

  “Name and ability?” he barked the question at the warrior, barely noting that it was possibly a female, judging from the myriad of snake like brown braids bristling against the Legion armor. She stepped forward, her empty eyes unseeing within the depths of her helm. Like all other Legion, the helm bore the insignia of The Unknown Sun– a symbol Rodon had long loathed, but tolerated for decades while he waited and planned.

  “Garista. Death Smoke.”

  The voice, emotionless and toneless, was indeed female. Rodon eyed her, noting her solid form and well worn armor and weapon. The Devil’s Pike she bore was, like all other Immortal’s, God-Forged. Its twin prongs were sharp and held at the ready. He grunted and turned away.

  “Congratulations, you are now my second in command.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Have the Legion fall back to the gorge. Line the ridge with night watchers.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  His Second spun and barked orders. The Legion of The Unknown Sun, his enslaved, once a powerful and noble army of immortals, was his after a thousand years of patient waiting and careful planning. He grimaced, baring rotted teeth to the endless darkness. And soon, his patience would pay off and they would be at his mercy too.

  Rodon’s chuckles blended with a low peal of thunder. His body shifted with a rumble of earth beneath his feet and melted into shadows that billowed and swirled on an unseen wind. No longer tethered to the physical world, the Stormwarden walked on legs of lightning that scorched the earth with fire. He trailed thunder and lightning in his wake. Black rain fell in driving shards before him, turning the darkness cold and inhospitable. Perfect weather for the Master of Storms.

  His voice echoed off the stone cliffs. “Find them. I will have the Crown of Gods and my revenge.”

  Garista heard and obeyed. The host of the Legion marched as a single unit behind the menacing tempest, eastward, to the ravine where eyes and ears could hear and see whispers of their enemy’s movements.

  ***

  The long cart wheeling plunge turned Jadeth’s stomach. All too fast, the blanketing white rose up to catch her. She hit the deep snow hard, the impact shoving the breath from her lungs.

  Gasping, she remained still for a long moment before the encroaching dampness forced her to move. She shoved her arms beneath her and pushed herself upright. Somewhere along the steep fall, she let go of Ivo. Grimacing, she twisted to search her cold, white surroundings.

  Everyone else lay scattered about the small clearing and only Dehil and Gabaran moved to stand.

  Jadeth inhaled sharply as she stumbled to her feet. The snow was knee deep, but hard and compact. No new snow to soften their fall.

  “Are you two all right?” she asked. Her hammer was weighty in her sure grip, but she quickly jammed it into a snow bank and let the healing ribbons wash over them.

  “I’m fine,” Gabaran grunted. He tossed Jaeger over his shoulder again, not noticing or caring, that they were both soaking wet. “We need to find Emaranthe and get them into the Citadel.”

  Jadeth gasped and spun in a circle, her gaze skimming the towering forest canopy. To her shock, far above them, steep, rugged cliffs and pinnacles of stone merged with chiseled towers, terraces, and arched walkways. The suns, rising single file in the north, cast fingers of sunlight between the massive mountain peaks and valleys beyond the impressive fortress.

  “We’re in Anat,” she whispered. “How? Where? This was only a myth!”

  Dehil joined her with Ivo draped over his shoulder. He nudged her arm, his face grim as he studied hers.

  “Welcome to Tevu-Anat, Jadeth,” he said. “Home of the Exiles.”

  Gabaran’s frosty glare matched the carved stones of his homeland and Jadeth swallowed. She dropped her gaze from the soaring Citadel and turned her thoughts to the tiny mage who had sent them all here.

  She spied the indigo cloak first, just a wad of dark blue buried in snow across the clearing. Horrified, Jadeth wrenched the hammer from the snow bank and stumbled into a run.

  “Emaranthe!” She sank to her knees beside the frozen, stiff fabric and dug through the elbow deep snow frantically.

  A second pair of hands joined, dark and scarred, but no less frantic.

  “Hurry, she can’t handle cold like this,” Jadeth whispered around tears. “What if…”

  “She’s fine.” Gabaran muttered from behind, now towing both Ivo and Jaeger with ease. Jadeth spun to face the giant elf with a snarl.

  “She’s not fine! This will kill her!” She turned and kept digging. “How can you say that?”

  Dehil’s strong hands swept away a large swath of snow, unburying most of the unmoving figure in one motion. He tugged her free and up into his arms in one swift motion and broke into a trudging run toward the Citadel.

  “Hurry, we need to get her warm.” Jadeth followed, hammer held high. The green ribbons of light became an aura that lit their way as they plunged into a dark, deep forest. A path, narrow and twisting, led them deep into the darkest, coldest, forest Jadeth had ever seen. Even for an Eideili, a wood-elf, this was an unknown. The trees here all but blocked out the early morning light, leaving only a smear of rosy gold visible where the tree crowns halted mere inches from each other. The path veered and a wall of stone appeared to guide them into a narrow gorge. Far above, the fortress and the mountain itself hid the sunlight.

  Gabaran followed with the two unconscious Earthlanders, his jaw set.

  “I say that because it is the truth, Jadeth. This is my home. This became her home many years ago. She has an uneasy truce with the cold north,” he said at last. His voice rang out over their muffled footsteps.

  Jadeth ignored him, her lips pinched against the frosty air, her gaze uplifted to the fortress no one had dared to find.

  Anat. The hidden realm of the Exiles.

  Emaranthe…had brought them home?

  Chapter Four

  It wasn’t the cold that worried him. It was the silence. Jaeger pried one eyelid open and quickly slammed it shut again. A frosty light, cold and bright, pierced the gloom and his body shivered in reaction. The absolute lack of sound prodded at the non-blinded parts of his mind and he pried his eyes open once more.

  The beam of light trying to blind him came from a small hole in the ceiling of an otherwise windowless room. He exhaled, confusion robbing his fuzzy mind of clarity, and watched the puff of frosty air fill the room.

  Every inch of his body radiated pain, but it was the oculus that kept him from caring. The hole had been bored through a block of opaque aquamarine ice and still higher up, through solid stone.

  “What in the name of The Four?” he whispered. He regretted making any sound when his soft words echoed harshly off the walls of the room and were thrown back at his abused mind. “Ice?”

  He felt the c
old creep in, deep to where his soul sat wrapped in layers of frost and guilt, and it stirred the icy part that had yet to thaw in well over three hundred years. He scanned the room, stunned when what his immortal soul had known right off became a conscious thought.

  He was in a room made entirely of ice.

  “No,” he grunted. He wrenched his body upright with a groan of pain, forcing his large frame to move when it shouldn’t. The shards of ice that were his souls faded into the background of his thoughts, leaving Jaeger in control again. The fading energy sent a spike of ice through his veins and he grimaced.

  Uncertain if he wanted to know how the rest of him fared, he glanced down. His armor was gone and he vaguely recalled that much of it had been wrenched from him bodily. The new tunic and trousers, snow white against the slab of stone he was seated on, were unfamiliar. He moved to reach for his axe, but the barest motion of his left hand sent pain rushing to his shoulder and torso. His arm fell limply into his lap and the cold blue world spun. He swayed and sank back onto the icy platform.

  “You should not move, Earthlander,” a female voice stabbed him in the brain. The dizziness traded places with fuzzy darkness. “Your wounds are too soon healed for you to rise just yet.”

  He slammed his eyes shut and prayed to the The Four to end him.

  “Where am I?”

  “Tevu-Anat,” the woman’s voice hitched on the last word of the foreign name. The meaning was known, and the shiver that raced goose bumps up his spine had nothing to do with his soul.

  “How did I get here? Where is Ivo? What in the name of The Four happened to me?”

  Her hiss of anger snapped his jaw shut. He’d forgotten that The Four were not the gods of the exiles. His cheeks burned despite the chilly air.

  “Your questions will be answered, Earthlander, if you will practice the patience you pray to your gods for,” her voice faded and the rhythmic staccato of boots on ice beat against Jaeger’s abused brain as if it were being ground to dust beneath her heel. “But be wary of how loud you speak, immortal, your gods are not ours and to mention them is treason among my people.”