An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3)

by J. D. L. Rosell

  He only nodded, unsure of what else to say.

  "If you two are done," Wren interjected, "I'd like to get out of here."

  "Right you are." Tal flashed her a small smile, then looked back to the priestess. "Take care, Izoalta. Perhaps, one day, we shall meet again."

  The Nightelf made a sound suspiciously like a snort. "Not likely."

  Tal smiled again, then turned and opened the door, holding it for Wren and Garin to follow behind.

  Feeling as if he walked on unsteady ground, Garin hefted Velori and stepped outside.

  As Tal shut the temple door behind him, it seemed he left one chapter of his life behind and began a new one.

  The sorcery flowed effortlessly through him. It came from all around — from the air, from the ground, from all things living and not. It did not push insistently like it had when he had dammed it; though powerful, it was almost gentle, an inundation that lifted him rather than sucked him down. As it steadily plied him, he murmured the words that shaped it, and the essence of existence leaped to his commands.

  Their passage from Naruah would no doubt have been easier with Izoalta in tow. But even as they stepped onto the streets and Nightelves, armed and hard-eyed, streamed in around them, he did not regret his decision that she stay behind. She had given him too many gifts to put her at further risk.

  You are strong enough for what you must do.

  In all the uncertainty of the knowledge he'd gained, he valued this reassurance the most.

  Now, as Garin and Wren shouted in alarm and flinched back, he called upon the sorcery, like horns summoning an army to the battlefield. Wind interceded between arrows and spears. Earth and roots rebelled against the feet trodding on them, throwing Nightelves tumbling to the ground. Tal stepped forward, and the maelstrom moved with him, forming a shield impenetrable by anything their assailants could muster. With his mind open to sorcery, he felt Garin and Wren following behind by the tendril that wove in and through them. He kept them from harm.

  Their efforts rebuffed, the Nightelves backed away from his passage, their courage failing before the brute force against them. Tal wondered how they conceived of him, if they thought of their god as he uprooted their street and made ruins of their homes. He wondered what Falcon would have made of it had he been able to see it.

  Even amid the storm, sorcery lashing through him with lethal power, his lips twisted into a smile.

  Then the great trunks that marked the end of town were before them, and Tal and the two youths stepped through. But their battle was not at its end. His smile soured as he considered the flashes of spells in the forest. Who were they fighting? Had Garin and Wren been followed?

  Had they not come alone?

  As the realization came to him, Tal strode forward and parted the storm to see with his own eyes. Nightelves were pitted against others — others that looked like Reachfolk. Anger born of fear surged in him. Gathering his sorcery tight around him, he ran toward them.

  "Stop!" he bellowed, his voice bolstered so that it boomed like a thunderclap. "Flee, elves of the Night!"

  He doubted many understood the Reachtongue, but the threat Tal posed reached across every language. The Easterners fled before him, disengaging their opponents and melding back into the surrounding woods.

  The Reachfolk flinched as well, but they did not run. Tal found the sorcery faltering within him. He could not hold onto it.

  They were here, all here. They came for me.

  The sorcery slipped away, the winds dying and the ground settling. He had never been wise, and part of him knew it foolish to let down his guard so soon. But he couldn't help it. He ran toward those faces he recognized, and they came near to him, though slower. Cautiously, he recognized. And of course they would. They had seen him emerge from a storm of his own creation.

  Still, they approached.

  Tal slowed as he came within feet of them, his chest heaving, though the sorcery burning through his veins made little of the exertion. He looked from face to face, scarcely believing them to be there.

  Helnor, spattered with blood, but grinning through it.

  Falcon, shaking his head with a bemused smile, a story weaving behind his eyes.

  Aelyn, a scowl etched into his face, deeper even than his usual.

  Kaleras, the most unexpected among them, giving him only a cursory glance as he watched the woods, wary when the others' wariness had faltered.

  Rolan, another surprise, the boy's eyes wide with fear, but wearing an uncertain smile all the same.

  And she who rested a hand on the boy's shoulder.

  "Ashelia," he whispered.

  She stepped away from her son and toward him. Her eyes whirled in that familiar way, gray spinning to silver and back, like silvern sunlight on an overcast day. He could not take another step forward, so afraid was he that she would back away.

  "Forgive me." He spoke a little louder, finding his voice again. "Please, forgive me. I was trying to keep you safe."

  She came another step closer, mere feet away.

  "I did not come here to argue," she murmured.

  Ashelia closed the last of the distance between them and lifted her hands to his face.

  She kissed him.

  Tal watched her face for a long moment after their lips met. This can't be happening. They cannot be here. She cannot be here.

  But she was. He closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around her, and she folded into him. He willed it to be real. It was real.

  Slowly, he believed it.

  Ashelia pulled away first. Her eyes shone with more than her Bloodline's trait. A tear tracked down her nose to curve past her lips, still slightly parted. She smiled at him.

  He smiled in return.

  "Thalkunaras bauchdid!"

  Tal's muscles stiffened. His body went rigid as if iron rods had been jammed through his limbs. His blood roared in protest at the intrusion. The sorcery still simmering beneath his skin could have cut off the spell in a heartbeat, but for the moment, he kept it tightly leashed.

  He recognized who had ensorcelled him, and so he waited patiently as Aelyn stalked toward him, ignoring his House-sister's furious protests.

  "You," Aelyn snarled, coming close to Tal's face and pointing a knobby finger in it. "You have the blackened depravity to approach us after what you did!"

  "Aelyn! Stop this!" Ashelia's face was contorted with rage. "What are you saying?"

  Aelyn ignored her. His eyes whirled, angry orange light dancing within them. He leaned in so close his breath, none too pleasant from the road, filled Tal's nostrils.

  "Why," the mage asked, the word breaking on his lips, "why did you kill my Queen?"

  Passage III

  As this is my lore, which I trust will remain untold while I survive, allow me to air some small grievances against my "comrades."

  Soltor is, perhaps, the most irritating of all — if only because of his all-consuming obsession to serve. He is made all the more pathetic by his ill-disguised desire to repossess some sort of identity. Why else would he take so many mortal faces when such ruses inevitably come to light?

  I know his desire. He longs to live as he once did, but can only rationalize it to his mad mind by claiming it is for Yuldor's cause.

  Thartol is little better. As he has perished less often, his mind remains intact, and he retains some small ambitions of his own. If only he could keep them to himself! He is a fool if he does not realize Yuldor knows his every plot. One day, he may lose his immortality if he is not more prudent.

  Only Hashele can I tolerate, and then only slightly. I suspect it is because she has not fractured as the other two have. She watched as Soltor became reborn again and again and paled with each resurrection. Thus she has taken great pains to avoid it herself. She thinks and acts in a manner still, dare I say, mortal enough for me.

  Though we still have our disagreements.

  And I will not venture near the topic of the intolerability of Yuldor himself, to say nothing of
his fragmented facets. Such a subject would fill more than one ream of paper, and I have little interest in dwelling upon it.

  - The Untold Lore of Yuldor Soldarin and His Servants, by Inanis

  Debts to Pay

  Garin could only watch as Aelyn bound Tal.

  His head reeled. What did Tal have to do with the Queen's death? The Thorn had been responsible, hadn't he? And if he wasn't, what made Aelyn think Tal was behind it?

  Yet, even as he swam through the swirl of confusion, Garin wished he could seize Tal himself and shake answers from the man. He had killed Heyl — and the Thorn, he assumed — then left Elendol without a word. He'd held a second Extinguished at his mercy in the heart of the village, yet let him walk free. A Nightelf priestess had somehow helped him, though the rest of her village seemed to understand nothing of it.

  What did he truly know of Tal's loyalties?

  Doubts plaguing him, he stood by as Aelyn joggled Tal by his borrowed clothes.

  "You killed her," the mage repeated, his voice cracking. "Killed her, or as good as did. You were there, burn you! How did she die? How?"

  From what Garin had seen of Aelyn's immobilizing spell, Tal should not have been able to speak. Yet something shifted in the air, and Tal's body loosened like his blood had turned from ice back to liquid.

  "I tried to save her, Aelyn," Tal murmured. "But I wore the Binding Ring."

  "Bound to her!"

  "And the Thorn made her give command of me over to him. I was helpless."

  "But you survived." Aelyn shook him again. "You survived! And she—" His voice broke now, but he fought to gain it back. "She was beyond price, beyond any other child of the Mother. How could you not sacrifice your life for hers?"

  Tal reached up his hands to fold them over the mage's. But as he made contact, something broke in Aelyn's expression.

  "Wuld rayni nasht!"

  The air distorted around Tal's head. His eyes bulged from his head. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gasping for water. Yet though he had broken the binding spell before, Tal made no move to free himself now.

  Garin stared, confused, shocked, helpless. He had been angry with Tal as well, furious even. But not enough to do this.

  Not enough to suffocate him.

  "Aelyn, Aelyn! Stop this! You're killing him!"

  Ashelia threw herself at her House-brother, wrapping her arms around him and dragging him back from Tal. But Aelyn was in a frenzy. His bronze tendrils blazed and spun, and a mad cackle erupted from his throat. There was no mirth in the sound, only the drowning depths of despair.

  Helnor stepped forward with Ashelia. His big hands gripped either side of Aelyn's face, forcing the mage to look into his eyes.

  "Belosi," he said, firm but gentle. "Release Tal from the spell. You know it is not his fault our beloved Queen died. It was the Thorn, that damned Extinguished. You cannot blame Tal for not being able to save her."

  Aelyn was shaking in his siblings' arms. The strength seemed to be going out of his legs. Yet still, he did not release the spell.

  Tal, meanwhile, had fallen to his knees. His hands rose halfway to his neck, but stopped short of it. His head was bowed.

  He was dying.

  Garin edged toward him. All his anger toward the man had dissipated, leaving only a desperate need to do something, anything. But there was nothing he could do. He could not unwind the spell or counter it. He did not know what words to say that might convince Aelyn to relent.

  He could only stand there and watch one of his mentors kill another.

  Falcon kneeled by his friend's side and placed a hand on Tal's shoulder, then stared up at the mage. Gone was the trouper's act now; the grief etched in his lined face was all his own.

  "Please, Aelyn, let him go. You know he's too much of a fool to save himself!"

  Wren stood at her father's shoulder, fists clenched tight. She appeared to be breathing almost as little as Tal did. Behind her, Rolan danced from foot to foot, eyes wide and mouth parted in horror.

  "Belosi," Helnor urged again.

  "Aelyn!" Ashelia all but screamed in his face as she shook him.

  Aelyn crumpled to the ground, his siblings falling with him.

  "Wuld rayni nasht uunae."

  The words rang in Garin's ears, pregnant with power. For a moment, he did not know who had spoken them or what they were meant to do.

  Then the bubble around his old mentor's head began to shred and fade away.

  Tal heaved in a ragged, pained breath, then collapsed on his side, panting for air. As Ashelia and Falcon swooped in to attend to him, Garin finally turned to stare at the man who had spoken the counter-spell. Kaleras' shadowed eyes flickered over to meet his, then darted away toward the woods. Garin could only stare at him in wonder.

  Of all the people in their party, Kaleras was the last he expected to save Tal.

  Something about the situation struck Garin as incomplete, something he could not put his thumb on. Yet his thoughts felt like blocks of ice, too heavy and bulky to shift. He glanced at Wren and found she looked just as perplexed as him.

  Helnor still supported his House-brother, while Ashelia and Falcon were levering Tal back upright. Having recovered his breath, the man looked none the worse for his brief asphyxiation. His gaze was steady as he looked at the friend who had nearly killed him.

  "I tried, Aelyn," he rasped. "I swear I did all I could. But…" He held up his hands. "You can't tell now, but I cut off the ring to win free."

  The mage raised his head. The whorling of his eyes had become muted, and his gaze seemed dull and faraway as he stared at Tal's hands.

  "You have ten fingers," he noted with a hint of his usual caustic manner.

  A small smile stretched half of Tal's mouth — rather unwisely, to Garin's mind.

  "Well, they grew back. No, don't look at me like that — I had nine after the first Extinguished, remember?"

  At the reminder, Garin stared at Tal's hands himself. He looked around and saw the others appeared as flummoxed as he felt.

  "Grew back?" Ashelia ran her hands over his, feeling each digit and staring at them in wonder. "I have never achieved regeneration in all my years healing. How did you do it?"

  Tal shrugged, wearing the shadow of a smile. "Sorcery cannot be denied."

  "And there's that to account for," Aelyn interrupted. "Where did you attain such power? I have not seen you summon anything near to what you just did. If you have always possessed sorcery to such a degree, why did you not save her?"

  His voice was hoarse with emotion, fury giving him new life. Garin watched him carefully, glad he did not yet seem to be on the verge of another attack.

  Tal let out a heavy sigh. "To free it, I had to cut a piece of Heartstone out of myself."

  Garin was starting to think Tal had gone mad when he realized what he meant. "Your side."

  Tal nodded at him, the corners of his eyes creasing. "Exactly."

  "The old wound?" Falcon spoke up excitedly. "You healed it?"

  "Impossible." Ashelia moved from his hands to his sides now, her brow furrowed. "I tried to mend it. But the scar…"

  Tal only answered her with a smile before turning back to the mage who had nearly killed him.

  "I was not enough, Aelyn. And neither were you. But that does not mean either of us were to blame for Geminia's death."

  It was Aelyn's turn to be shocked into silence. His eyes buggered. His jaw worked, seeming to try to find words and failing. Before he could voice any of his thoughts, however, Kaleras spoke again, even as he maintained his vigil over the surrounding woods.

  "This must wait. We cannot remain here any longer."

  His words jolted Garin back to awareness. Like the others, he'd become absorbed in the conflict and Tal's revelations and, for a moment, forgotten the danger the Nightelves posed to them. And there was also the Extinguished who might linger nearby.

  But Kaleras had not neglected their safety.

  It takes more than a man
returned to life to impress the Impervious. Though he had not thought it possible, his regard for the warlock grew greater still.

  Tal nodded, one hand still resting on Ashelia's back, the other on Falcon's shoulder. All of them remained crouched on the ground.

  "I don't sense any near, but you're right — we must flee," he answered. "Izoalta may not call them off if she wishes to avoid suspicion."

  "Izoalta?" Ashelia queried.

  "The town's high pellar," Wren answered briskly, as if she were already over the shock of Aelyn's attack.

  "Later," Kaleras said, sharper than before, then began walking deeper into the woods.

  The others followed. Tal rose on his own, but his lover and his friend stayed close by his side. With a last glance back, they carried on after the warlock. Wren was quick on their heels and gave Garin a sharp nod, as if to say, Coming?

  He did not yet follow, but only gripped Velori's handle hard.

  Aelyn had risen as well, but he lingered behind. Helnor left his brother with a backward glance, then pursued the others, placing a hand on Rolan's shoulder. As they walked away, Garin heard him say, "Never mind what your uncle said, Little Tree Frog. Tal did all he could for our Queen…"

  They were the only two left now. Garin stepped up to Aelyn. The mage's eyes were downcast, and his tendrils swirled with buried emotion. He wished he could extend a comforting hand, but he didn't dare risk it. Instead, he offered what words he could.

  "We'll sort him out," he murmured. "I swear to you, Aelyn, between you and me, we'll pry every last secret from his head."

  Aelyn met his eyes. A small, one-sided sneer curled his lips. "Maybe you're less like him than I thought."

  Garin wasn't sure what to make of that. In the end, he only shrugged and moved after the others, trusting the mage would come behind.

  Flesh, Blood, and Bone