“Was that the same journey my father took when I was little? I remember him taking a journey to the Realm of Frost about the same time” inquired Robyn.
“Yes, it was,” answered Aster. “Agathorn stayed there to do his part and returned when it was done. This is good news. So what burdens you, Hidnor?”
“A few days after his return, something happened in Karelya, and the Oaken Ring was summoned,” replied Hidnor.
The Oaken Ring! Another thing to strengthen the fact that what brought the king of Helgon to Eredia was cataclysmic. I knew quite a lot about the Eastern Elves and remember the Oaken Ring to be the center of their civilization. It was an ancient council consisting of all the mythologized beings of the natural world. Beings so obscured by mystery that people almost doubted their existence. The Ignian temple of the eastern elves holds a permanent spot in the Ring. The Oaken Ring was not summoned lightly.
A’tor and Robyn exchanged concerned looks. Beside Helgon, Karelya was the only ally left that Eredia could depend on after Bayland had fallen.
Hidnor continued, “We do not know the full details of the incident but the Oaken Ring sent me a message borne by Yoldes, the White Owl. Trador would have received a similar message if his condition allowed.”
“What does the message say?” A’tor asked, fearing the worst.
“Agathorn forfeited his spot in the Order of Eon.”
“What? What could possibly be the reason for that?” asked Aster. “He’s supposed to be the wisest and most powerful elf. Why would he abandon Talor?”
Gashnor replied, “Yoldes didn’t say.”
“So Karelya is in great unrest. We lost Bayland. We lost Agathorn as the representative of the Oaken Ring among our already-diminishing order. And now Lorken’s flag is flapping in the courtyard of the Ibdomad. It seems that this year we will have a sad Ardul’s Seal Day,” said Aster, gazing at his sleeping friend.
“I too miss the days when Talor was young and proud,” Hidnor said. “The Order of Eon and its seven members were ever ready to face our enemies, but the moment we prepared for never came. Now, it knocks on the door of your age, and whether you are prepared or not, you will have to face it. Now, when we are at our weakest.”
With resolve, A’tor said, “Tell us what needs to be done.”
The door clicked open, and they all turned. Someone entered the room, interrupting the conversation. The Crown Priest stood by the curtain at the stairs. "Lord Agat has arrived,” she announced.
All turned to King Hidnor, who took a deep sigh and nodded to Aster.
Aster waved to the priest to lead Agat in.
Soon Agat arrived at Trador's bed. His gaze locked with Hidnor’s.
A sad fatherly smile sat on Hidnor’s face. Hidnor stood to receive his cousin’s son. "Forgive my late arrival,” Hidnor said. Raise your head high, my child. Your father couldn't have met a better death. Although he didn’t get the burial he deserves, I am sure that our entire house is proud of him. Helgar himself is proud of him.” Agat stood proudly, saying nothing.
"I wish I could fill your ears with promises of retribution and sweet justice, but I can’t. Nothing is left in our quiver to throw at our enemies. Time has bled us dry, and we stand empty-handed," Hidnor added, now addressing the three youngest among them. "Now it is up to your generation. The next choices are only yours to make. You can choose to sit in our chairs and walk our paths even if your feet don’t fit our footprints, or you can step down from the stage and join the audience, waiting and watching in passivity."
Sherako seemed irritated, and I was unable to understand why. I saw only Aster, who turned toward the storm roaring outside the window, his brow furrowed. Hovering in my wind form, I looked around me but saw nothing.
I thought of the Itians.
Where are the Mirror Mages?
Hidnor and Gashnor leaned back in the seven chairs arranged around Trador’s bed. Aster gazed towards the shore below for a moment and then walked to an empty chair.
"What exactly are you telling us?" Robyn asked in desperate frustration. "Are you not part of this? Will you not even guide us?"
"Without the Oaken Ring, we cannot reassemble the Order of Eon. We cannot tell you what to do now,” Aster said as he slowly sat down, leaning on the small table for support.
A’tor closed the window in the face of the hissing air, angrily trying to muscle its way inside. Outside, a mountain wave rushed towards the keep and ramming the obsidian walls of the Ibdomad.
Then Agat exclaimed, "Look!" A’tor and Robyn turned to what he pointed at and found Aster and the two dwarfs sleeping in their chairs beside Trador.
“Even now, they sleep,” said Agat in utter exasperation. “Won’t they help us or guide us? Will they just give up in the falling world around us?”
A’tor said, “Let them be. They have paid their dues and deserve their peace.”
Robyn silently gazed at Trador, as if seeking his guidance. Whatever needed to be done, the Order of Eon would not be part of it. It was crystal clear that they truly had retired.
As if trying to decide something, A’tor turned to his companions. "Not all cards are played. There is, I think, one left.”
A’tor had no idea how close to that card he was. From that spot, hovering in my wind form outside, I watched the heart-crushing scene inside the Lantern. I witnessed as the last of the Order of Eon went to sleep beside Trador.
I felt defeated.
It was only then that I noticed a hazy figure flapping his wide wings beside me. I barely escaped his eyes, but I watched as he chuckled at the action inside. Then, he flew away to the courtyard below.
The four of us remaining heard a ceremonial music we all knew. Filled with a monumental despair, we turned to see a flag foreign to Eredia held high in its courtyard. It was an ash-gray flag picturing a dead, burnt, willow tree half buried into a mountain with its trunk extending and morphing into the Searing Tower. It was the flag of Lorken. Unseen by mere men, the foul abomination I had seen was clinging to the tip of the flag. It uttered a screech that couldn’t be heard by them; in another dimension, it roared.
Not in a million years would I have expected to see that flag in such a place of light and goodness, and it stung my wavering indifference. I would never have expected an Itian in his demonic form to screech in victory in the Ibdomad.
In the Heart of Veil
How can emptiness fill you?
I left Eredia and drifted back east, toward the Bracelet, toward my home.
Silent as a grave, I traveled in the crude disguise of my human form, riding among a commercial caravan.
As I traveled, I saw refugees were pouring towards Eredia. As we passed each ruined city or town, I realized that the Second Redemption War had nearly ruptured Talor.
As we went further east along the sandy shores of the Sea of Rhythms, I saw fewer and fewer of the Eredian soldiers and more mercenaries and soldiers of fortune. I saw many of the Neligans, who Garold encouraged the merchants and nobles to hire. I tried particularly hard to avoid these mercenaries of the Evinshanost.
After perhaps a week of travel, we reached Suprema, the town where I had met the old Brute who told me of the arrival of the Gate Keeper a few years before. Many houses and huts were burnt, and many were abandoned.
Then I saw his tavern.
I waited until I could depart unnoticed before leaving the caravan. I walked toward the tavern. The cold air forced many to the warmth of its fire.
I opened the door and looked for my spot, and then I found my old table in that ever-shady corner. Trying to remain unnoticed by the dozen or so guests, I headed there and sat in the shadows. I raised the hood of my cloak slightly to gaze through the window at the gloomy shore, which was swarmed with refugees, caravans, and soldiers of fortune. I looked around me, searching for the Brute. I found him at the bar serving some travelers and a few soldiers of Eredia.
He didn’t notice me right away, and after waiting for a few minutes, I cal
led for him. Several guests were laughing loudly, so he didn’t hear me. A waiter answered my call, but the old Brute saw me at last and called for him to wait.
The past five years hadn’t been merciful to him; he seemed twenty years older. Slowly, he left his spot behind the bar and walked with painful steps until he reached me. I drew a chair for him at my table.
We remained silent for a moment and then he spoke, “Have you found him as I described?”
“Yes,” I answered. Then after another silent moment, I continued, “He could have been…” I paused.
“He will,” he said, and I detected some bitterness in his voice. “Do not give up on him. If you come with good intentions, as I sensed, then do not give up. He will come back to us. Trador didn’t give up on us, the Brutes. He came to Husk and rescued us from the vileness that stained our lands. He gave us refuge when the whole world turned its back on us after our own people brought shame to our race and blighted our legacy forever.”
After all that I had done, after centuries of watching and waiting, how could he tell me to not give up? What did he know, this short-lived man, of persistence or disappointment?
“Look at your city and your new country,” I said, my anger steadily growing. “Your own prince invited your enemy to his father’s keep. Eredia is gone, and the Order of Eon will never come back.”
“Trador’s tree gave a rotten seed, I agree. But if you look higher up near the top, hidden between protective branches and vigilant leaves, you will find a flower blossoming. For his daughter. He will come back!” His voice rose as he said this.
“Who will come back, you old fart?” said someone at the table by the window, one of those who had been so loud earlier. Slowly I turned to the table by the window around which sat the trouble source. Neligans. “You are talking about your sleeping king still?”
The Brute stood slowly, not responding. Subtly, he glanced at the spot where Sherako was hiding and headed back to the bar. Sherako’s eyes glittered in the shadow, and his face was visible in the light of the window. I realized that he’d shown himself to the old Brute.
As the Brute headed back to the bar, I noticed another shady guest in a corner. From under his hood, faint grayish fumes erupted from his eyes. In his sleeves, I saw a red insect leg, which confirmed my suspicion: a Verdan assassin with a Red Widow spider companion.
After all those years, I’d wondered, are they still after me? It had been fifteen years since my last escape from the Verda Luka’s ambushes. They were in Eredia for another reason, I assured myself, a reason I preferred not to know.
One of the Neligans stood up and headed to the bar, turning to the Brute. “Pour me some ale, you miserable, demented fool.”
One of the waiters poured him a mug of ale. The Neligan hit it with the back of his hands, smashing it in the waiter’s face. I saw the Verdan assassin watching them.
“Did I ask you to do it?” the Neligan said, and his friends laughed. The old Brute looked toward the Eredian soldiers, but they turned their eyes away.
Encouraged by that reaction, the rest of the Neligans went over to the bar to join in.
One of the Neligans scanned the travelers in the room to check for any possible threat. Some of the guests stood up and left as the harassment continued, and some turned to watch with amusement. Then the Neligan looked at me.
I remained seated, hiding beneath my hood.
Another Neligan pulled the waiter and knocked him on the floor.
“ENOUGH!” shouted the Brute.
All turned to see him holding a pike and pointing it menacingly toward the Neligan who had knocked his worker.
“What have we here?” asked their leader. “An old veteran?”
They all laughed. Suddenly he changed his disposition into an angry one. “Are you mad, old fool? Don’t you know who we are?”
“Scavengers, the worst type,” the Brute answered. “Filth who were once men but sold their honor and dignity to the Targ of Lorken.”
“And you didn’t?”
The Eredian soldiers stood up and left. The Verdan assassin remained.
The Neligan stepped closer to the Brute, towering over the once-giant humanoid. His voice became cold, cruelly empty. “You just survived because we have no spare time to wipe your type off the face of Talor. As for this country and its king, their memories won’t last another generation. He will never open his eyes in this world again.”
One of the Neligans turned to me. He whispered something to their leader, and the two briefly conferred. “What are you still doing here? Don’t you see they are closed?” I said nothing and took another sip, closely watching the Verdan from beneath my hood.
They turned to each other, and I sensed pique overtaking skepticism. Slowly, I turned to them. From under my hood, I saw the old Brute trembling beside the bar.
When they saw something coming up behind me on the wall, they gave me their full attention. An out-of-place shadow started to appear, a shadow of two large pairs of different wings: a batwing and an eagle’s.
I watched as the Verdan’s eyes slowly went in my direction.
I stood up and walked towards the bar. The old Brute waved to me, shaking his head, refusing my interference.
My hood emitted gray fumes and a low hiss. At that moment, nothing seemed to matter anymore and anger almost smothered my better judgment.
Just before the Verdan’s eyes fell on that shadow, and as if I never intended to go where they stood, I simply turned toward the door.
At the door, I lingered for a second and turned to the Brute. His eyes met mine for the last time and he nodded in understanding.
With one last subtle look to the Verdan, I saw that his attention was back to the Brute who screamed in pain.
Their blades were swift… their blades were merciless.
I closed the tavern door behind me. As I walked away, it was as if I had aged another thousand years within a few seconds. As despair secured its dominion over my soul, I heard it once again; the Sedai of Varus and I paused for a second listening to its somber tones. I noticed a shy gleam off my daggers and felt them caressing the agony I could hardly contain in my chest.
I hurried out of the town and climbed an overcast hill, and it was only then that all my anger erupted out of my being.
LET ME GO. Please let me go. Let me go home. I came too late. There is nothing for me here. Even now I failed to be part of anything. Everything we touch is doomed to forgetfulness, so just let it be!
I am tired, Makista, tired, and my journey is endless. I have waited for years upon years to honor Taria’s promise and the legacy of Trodos but it led me to nowhere. There is no dawn here. Talor is crueler than the underworld, colder than Sarus, and darker than Veil.
Ignoring my usual precautions, I left for my dark realm. I hurried to my closet and grabbed the three shards. Filled with rage I never knew before, I ran to my lake and looked deep into the lake’s waters. There they lurked; all my life’s work. Two thousand years of watching and collecting gazed back at me.
And then with every inch of my burning soul, I threw the Shards of Mergal there. I watched as the Legacy of Mergal descended to the merciless cold depths of my Vault. And as my searing wrath paled, I watched their glamour fading into its blackness ... in the heart of Veil.
BOOK TWO
CLING.
The metallic beat resonates from the spot where the soulless humanoid figure is digging in the darker side of the bunker.
As if nature itself is surprised by the sound, the howling of the storm stops. The wind comes to rest, and the snow settles. Outside is a lifeless painting of shades of white. The hissing of the air squeezing through the nearly-closed door stops, and the pounding of the angry blizzard on the walls and windows fades.
Both Nimtha and the Asker turn to face the humanoid who stands motionless before the excavation he’s been digging. It stares at something in the small pit’s bottom.
“Another beat like this one and those sea
rching this forsaken city will find you,” coldly put the Asker.
A faint whine escapes as Nimtha leans on the wall to stand up. He holds his right arm high and clenches his fist repeatedly, testing its functionality. Seeing that his fingers are obeying him still, he limps towards the hole in the ground, avoiding the charred bodies filling the whole room. In the waning light of the pearl floating beside him as he walks around, a stained spot on his pants tells of yet another wound around his hips.
The beating of wings travels the darker spots of the place till both, Nimtha and the Asker, reach the grave-size excavation. Nimtha stands in the light, and the Asker lurks in the shade, not more than ten feet away from the edge of the hole. Four eyes gaze at the bottom of the digging – one gray cat-like pair and another pair glittering like floating stars.
Five feet below the ground, at the bottom of the pit, is a black object which Nimtha doesn’t identify its nature immediately. He glances at the soulless humanoid on the other end of the pit and finds it eyeing him with a pair of dark pits. Nimtha realizes that the golem is waiting for orders.
“Bondarith,” utters Nimtha. With inhuman agility and speed, the golem jumps back into the pit and kneels. He reaches for the buried thing, barely visible below the dirt, and carefully starts removing the soil around it.
“This will take forever,” Nimtha says as he drops on the pile of dirt beside the hole. He turns to the Asker. “Yet, it could be what we were searching for indeed.”
“Do you understand what it would mean to find it? Do you truly understand what it is?” asks the ghostly presence.
The Genn pauses, still gripping his shoulder tightly, before he answers. “Yes I do: The way out.”
“This is what you believe? It will disappoint you to know that you are mistaken. If it was, I wouldn’t have come here. I wouldn’t have broken all the rules and converse with you. Now let us try to find out why did come back when you lost all hope. I remember that you went up north before you leave Talor for good. Why did you do that?”
The Dark Season Saga- the Final Harvest Page 18