by B J Hanlon
“Well now, you are still alive” A snake like voice said. A barrage of coughing came from just before him. Down, near the base of the pedestal was the serpentine figure of the Inquisitor de Demar. He wiped a white rag from his face and Edin saw blood. The man tried standing straight, but remained hunched. “See what you’ve made me become?”
Edin kept his eyes locked on the man. There was nothing to say.
“I am glad you still live… I’m wanting more and more desperately to tear your heart out myself. Bring him in.”
A door slammed open and a justicar entered followed by two more carrying a third. They dropped the body to the floor like a bag of refuse. It was almost unrecognizable as a human. The limbs were bent as if every joint was pulled from its place. Flaps of skin hung from his arms and back. The man had barely there dark hair… but it held vague tint of red to it.
The face looked swollen and bruised but there were parts that looked familiar. Edin’s spiritual body shivered. “Berka,” he gasped, “what have you done to him?”
“Hmm,” the old man said and strolled toward his former friend.
He saw Merik, the justicar step back, his face seemed contorted with anger… but it wasn’t aimed at Edin. It was turned toward Diophin.
Diophin bent down and patted Berka’s head.
“Don’t touch him…”
“Your childhood friend is tough… obviously though I’m not sure how much longer he will stay that way.”
“He’s one of you…” Edin rasped, seeing his friend, despite all that had happened made tears well in his eyes. “He hates me… how could you…”
“This is beside the point. For months, you have eluded my summoning with the Callto Stone…” He held out the yellow glowing rock, “As I thought, you’d made it to the island but now… it seems the barrier is gone.”
“What do you want?”
“You…” He hissed, his voice lowering like a cat getting ready to pounce, “though, I have a different proposal.” He stood in the hunchback way and held his hands out like some benevolent lord. “You are strong… whispers say the strongest. Come to me and I will free him.”
Edin gazed down at Berka, there was no fight in him, he was a corpse but his rising chest said a corpse that still lived. “You are a demon, Diophin the wicked blotard.”
“I have been called that.” He glanced sideways toward Merik, “but I am one who can also grant life.” He coughed again, holding up the red stained handkerchief.
“You see my order has been fighting the evil of your kind for a millennia; it is an endless game with such high stakes that we’ve never been able to make that killing blow… but the shield is down and I know you are exposed. Join us and you will live…”
Edin swallowed, did he just… It didn’t matter. “Never, you must be a fool-”
Diophin cut him off. “Think of your friend, your village… the peace that would be had from magi being no longer a threat. Dunbilston is ready, Resholt has been mobilized… your precious islands are now in our grasp.” He coughed, almost choking for a minute or more.
“Come over to the righteous side, fight with us and I’ll even allow you your woman. And after the magi is done for, you will be allowed to live, although you will be made sterile. But you’ll have your life. Think about it…”
The yellow light grew brighter, it expanded like a ball hurtling toward his face at a great velocity.
Edin shut his eyes. When he opened them again, he saw the small room with carved wooden beams looking like waves. Edin sat up in bed with a slight pain.
His torso was cocooned in a wool cloth that stretched across his chest and wrapped around his shoulders, ribs, and waist.
He leaned forward and put his head in his hands.
The picture, Berka’s broken body on that cold floor like a disused hunting dog made him clench his jaw. He felt the tears beginning to pour down his face. How could this happen to him?
Edin heard the door open and saw Laural step inside. With her, was a tearful Arianne. She ran toward Edin and threw her arms around his neck. The pressure caused him to wince and Laural seemed to have noticed.
“Careful girl… he’s worse than when I healed you.”
Edin didn’t hug her back. He just looked up at Laural, “what happened?”
“You need rest.”
Edin stared back at her as Arianne pulled back and sat down next to him.
Arianne sighed. “They took Dorset and Mersett into custody, treason charges.”
“What?”
“Placisus escaped, he has been stripped of his position by the Premier. Everyone is looking for you now… the city is at war with itself…”
“Because of me…” suddenly he remembered the offer from the Inquisitor, they were mobilizing.
“Belo and Alerin, another council member, Cannopina and others have set up defenses around parts of the city. The isle is split, some backing Pharont, some backing you…”
“Me?” Edin exclaimed, his head started swimming again. “Why would someone back me?”
“They believe Mersett… that you’re the one from the prophecy, the…”
“Don’t say it…” Edin paused looking blankly at the wood footboard by his feet. The words from his ancestor flowed in his brain. “The west rises in darkness, the land will cover of shade…”
“What was that?” Laural said as Arianne gripped his hand.
Everything began spinning in his mind. Diophin said the isles were in his grasp, that Resholt and Dunbilston were coming together. He’d destroyed their protection, set the isles in a state of civil war… they were unprotected, vulnerable and soon to be under an attack.
“What’s wrong?” Arianne said.
Edin realized he was frowning. He glanced at her, then at Laural. Did he warn them? If he didn’t it would be just like joining the Inquisitor. Maybe Berka would go free… He and Arianne, if she still wanted to would be able to live their lives in peace…
“Nothing is wrong…” Edin whispered, “I just need rest.”
Arianne nodded, she held a soft look and pulled out the blanket to slip beneath.
“Alone.”
Arianne seemed to hesitate and then she looked away, he could see tears beginning to take shape. She stood and sweeping across the room, flew out the door and Edin heard her footsteps pounding down wooden stairs.
“She cares for you…”
“Can you be certain?” Said Edin as he laid back and closed his eyes. He heard the door close. There was fighting, maybe a war outside, another on its way, and he was here, laying down like a child. He wanted nothing to do with this fight, these people. Pharont, Diophin, the gentry… they were power hungry.
Arianne was the same.
Edin couldn’t sleep, he sat up fifteen minutes later and began to peel off his bandage. His body, scared and pasty. There was a burn mark, about the size of his palm seared into his left pec. It was bright red above his heart. He got out of bed and found a set of clothes in a chest and at the bottom, was his sword. Edin pulled it from the sheath and laid it across his legs.
He reached up for the nonexistent crillio fang and patted his chest where it had sat for months. Edin had nothing left from his previous life but his memories. Too many good mixed with the bad. Too much joy with a book end of sorrow.
The book isn’t over, not yet, but how many more chapters would there be? How many more people would have to die…
He went downstairs, the house wasn’t exactly in top shape, dust covered a few paintings, though others looked as though they’d been recently wiped with a damp cloth. He’d definitely stayed in worse places.
Edin didn’t recognize any of the people in the paintings, not that he expected he would. There was a short hall where the stairs turned back on themselves and continued downward. He followed them, passing closed doors and open ones. Nothing stood out.
The windows had been boarded and covered in a thin curtain of purple velvet.
At the bottom,
or what he assumed was the bottom voices came from behind a closed door. Edin pulled it open slowly.
Placisus stood from the end of a long table. He was the only one looking toward Edin. He straightened up and the others stood. He saw Belo, Laural, Caesum, Nan and a few more he didn’t know dressed in soldiers’ uniforms and one in a fine clothing.
“Hello,” Edin said, he felt the eyes of everyone in the room staring at him as if he were making grand, expected entrance. The tension in the room felt thick like a steamy mist in dense valley. For some reason, an old joke came to him, one he’d used on his schoolmaster years before to cut the tension for being late.
“This isn’t where I left my donkey.”
A smile came over Placisus, he chuckled, then a couple more joined, the soldiers first, then Belo whose laugh overpowered all of theirs.
“No time for laughs boy,” Caesum said, though the corners of her lips were upturned just slightly.
“She’s right,” Placisus said trying to stifle whatever else was going to come up. “How do you feel?”
“Fine… what’s happening? There is fighting?”
They looked toward Laural, “he’s fine to hear this.”
“Right, yes there is fighting… quite a bit of it. Luckily, we have many healers so not many casualties… not yet.”
More people had died for him. Edin clenched his fist.
“We’re stuck in the southwestern quadrant, cut off from all but the sea. Pharont’s brosons and militia have us pinned back with the beach as our only escape.”
“And no ships…” one of the soldiers added.
Placisus shook his head, “there are civilians all around, some support us, others Pharont. I’m sure someone has already told on us and his men know exactly where we are.”
Edin said, “I’m no strategist… but that doesn’t sound good.”
“It’s not… we have a good group of men, my soldiers mostly and a few civilians, maybe a quarter of the magi but he’s been building his powerbase for years and now he’s using it.”
“He wants you lad…” Laural said. “And a few of us too, take our heads I’m guessing.”
“We have till tomorrow to turn you over or they’ll overrun our barricades and attack.”
One of the soldiers kicked out a chair toward Edin, it skidded and stopped barely an inch from his knee.
He adjusted his sword and peered at them. “Then you have no choice, right?”
“There’s always a choice… it’s not just about you,” Laural said. “Pharont is trying to declare himself king… using our Arianne for it. He wants to rekindle the old empire and usher in a new age of magi rule.”
“Doesn’t sound so bad…” One of the soldiers said.
“On the face of it, no…” Placisus grunted, “but he believes in rule by force… he is the strongest Instorios in generations. You saw how Mersett collapsed under his power.”
“And Edin should’ve died… speaking of how…”
Edin shook his head. “I don’t know…”
“He’s the Ecta Mastrino,” Laural said. “He’s stopped the mists and heard the prophecy...”
Edin reached for a glass and took a drink. It was frothy and the bubbles popped on his mustache. He tilted it up, more for the time to think then the ale. He heard the door open behind him with following footsteps.
“He has three of the talents…” Arianne’s voice said as she took a seat as far from him as possible. “And I’ve seen him move like a terrin.”
When he put the mug down, the little council was staring at him.
“Is this true, I thought you had two…” Placisus said.
“I think…” Edin said, he remembered feeling something when he was in that cavern, when the stone had been pressed into his hand. “Four…” Edin whispered, he lowered his gaze to the table. At the center was a pitcher filled with what he hoped was more ale. He summoned a small burst of wind that pushed it toward him.
“A gusoria?” Arianne exclaimed. “Since when?”
“The cavern.” Edin spoke of the assault and the vision with Edin Harlscot. “The diamond he shoved in my hand… it was a Ballast Stone.”
“Shimmer,” Arianne said, she pulled the other two out from the tunic and let them hang. “Where is it?”
They looked to Placisus. “It wasn’t my people that found him,” he said raising his hands, “it was Pharont’s. We were guarding Belo’s party.”
“This doesn’t help our situation… even if he is the Ecta Mastrino, Pharont would never cede power to him,” Belo said.
“I don’t want power…”
Laural chuckled slightly. “And that’s why you need to hold it.”
Edin wondered what Arianne looked like at that moment.
“We will need your strength to save us from Pharont… and what comes next.” Laural said.
“An invasion from a mundane army?” A guard said. “Do you think it’s real… its coming?”
“It’s not them I’m worried about,” Laural said and glanced toward Madame Caesum. “For reasons of my own, I left this place as you all know… but it wasn’t just that. I found a copy of an ancient scroll in the archives. It spoke of Vestor and his war with the darkness.” Laural’s eyes turned toward Edin. “He may need a drink.”
Placisus pushed the pitcher over and Edin poured himself one.
A terrible foreboding feeling clawed at him from the inside and he glanced at the door at the far end. An exit.
“There weren’t just wild monsters back in the time of Vestor, humans were hunted like deer or bison. There were no permanent villages because then they’d be easy pray for these predators. The elves knew how to hide, their homes resided in trees and in certain parts of the forests that had a quality to them. A magical quality that the predators would not be able to pass. For a long time, only the elves fought these beasts, these–”
“Cousins,” Edin said quietly and drank his beer. He felt their eyes on him but did not look away. “They’re rising again… The west rises in darkness, the land will cover of shade…” Everyone was silent, they looked at him curiously, almost fearfully. “That is what I remember… all I remember except one other word… ‘Alhar.’”
He heard someone gulp to his right, possibly even the thick soldier who so casually kicked out Edin’s chair for him.
“Everything may rest on your shoulders child.”
“Who are they, these predators, these cousins then.” One of the guards said.
“Dematians.” Edin said.
Someone snorted. “Had me worried there for a moment.” It was the other finely dressed man next to Belo.
“Shut it Alerin… just shut it.” Belo said.
“They’re real,” Edin said and sat forward. He lifted his tunic and showed the scar across his side. “This is curtesy of one of their blades.”
“You fought them?”
Edin nodded.
“And killed them?”
“Yes.”
“Then they can be killed.”
“They can,” Laural said, but it isn’t just them, they are from a time that far predates our own, a time of real monsters. And it was said they can harness them.”
“Harness them… like control them?”
She shook her head, “it’s more like starting a fire and controlling the blaze with burn trails… But these blazes burn hot.”
Edin drank more ale and shifted in his seat. Were they really talking about dematians invading their world? If so, where were they from? What had they been doing for so long? He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced at it. Long slender fingers with the nails painted a soft purple.
“If this is true then we must unite with Pharont and the mundanes… this could affect all of us.” Placisus said.
“He won’t listen,” Laural said. “And the nobility of both Resholt and Dunbilston are so focused on each other, they’re ignoring the reports from the west.”
“Porinstol is under attack?”
&nbs
p; Laural shook her head. “That’s why I came back. It’s nearly destroyed.”
13
The Castle Assault
“Gods are cursing us aren’t they?” Belo said. “We’ve hid far too long, we’re separated from the mundane world not only by an ocean, but by our very selves. They hate us.”
“And we them,” Edin said. He looked around the room, eyes looked down except Laural and Caesum.
“The dematians, I mean, they can’t cross the sea can they?” A young man said. He stood behind Placisus like a sentry protecting his king.
“We don’t know that… but it doesn’t change our predicament. We’re surrounded and Pharont wants Edin,” Placisus said. “We cannot let him be killed… the Ecta Mastrino would unite the people. We will not give in, even if it costs our lives or our friends’ lives.”
It took him a moment and then he glanced up. “Dorset?”
“And Mersett,” Arianne said, her hand still holding his arm. “They are part of the deal, hand you over and everything will be forgiven.”
“Where are they being held?”
“The castle, under broson watch… Casitas is in charge.”
“Don’t you have anyone you can trust?” Edin asked.
“The guard was disbanded… those who joined the brosons swore their allegiance to Pharont, not Delrot. Some of my men did this, though I do not blame them, they have families.”
“And we’re just a small group of upstarts…” Belo put in.
“Yes.”
There was a long pause. “We are facing impossible odds… if we do not comply.” A solider said, he didn’t look at Edin, though he too was probably thinking about loved ones somewhere on the islands.
“If we do, we only have the dematians to worry about,” Laural said, “and no Ecta Mastrino.”
“Stop calling me that…” Edin nearly shouted. He took a deep drink from the ale and didn’t put it down for almost a minute. “I’m not whatever it is you want me to be.”
“We need to get to Pharont… convince him of the threat,” Placisus said.