The Sunset Lands Beyond (The Complete Series, Books 1-3): An epic portal fantasy boxed set

by Sarah Ashwood

  “My lady—”

  “Let’s just go in, okay?” I pleaded, interrupting whatever my companion had planned to say. Thankfully he didn’t argue but tucked me under his arm and helped me back inside the fortress.

  Classifications of Magic

  Seated on a low couch in one of Treygon’s inner rooms, I was surrounded by people. The hustle and bustle of conversation about what had happened had finally died away. Briefly, silence reigned.

  Time for some hard facts, I told myself, and finally voiced the question I’d been dying to ask: “What’s really going on here?”

  Even though several different theories had been tossed around, I’d noticed Aureeyah, Risean, and Lord Elgrend had remained strangely silent, keeping their own counsel. I looked right at them when I spoke and caught their subtle exchange of glances. Clearly, they were thinking,

  How much do we tell her? What do we tell her? Can she handle the truth?

  I think I surprised them by stating firmly, “I want to hear everything you’re not saying. I’m sure you know what this is all about, and I’m pretty sure I deserve to know too, so please tell me.”

  Another wordless exchange. Aureeyah, the first to break away, said, “I did not foresee this—though I allow I should have, considering her unique heritage.”

  “Do not condemn yourself for what we all failed to anticipate. Even the knowledge of fairies is not limitless,” soothed Master Risean.

  “Excuse me? What’s this all about?” I broke in. “You didn’t think to look for what?”

  “Tell me, my child,” said the old Moonkind, setting my inquiries aside. “While observing your fight, the fairy, the High Elder, and myself concluded that you…well…”

  “That I what?” I prompted impatiently.

  “When you fought, did you feel as one—overtaken by your weapon, perhaps? Overtaken, or even that you had…become your blade?”

  “Overtaken? Yes, I suppose you could say that. I know that sounds strange—”

  “Not so strange,” the fairy interjected. “We knew this had to be, when you held your ground while crossing swords with the High-Chief.”

  I stole a peek at Ilgard, who was leaning against the opposite wall, a little removed from the rest of the group. Although the Simathe’s face was quiet, his black eyes were reflective. He watched me closely, corded forearms folded over his chest. When our stares caught, I quickly looked away.

  “But what happened?” I insisted, turning back to the threesome. “How on earth could that be—me, becoming my weapon? I’ve never heard of anything like it.”

  “Hannah…” Seating himself beside me, Risean picked up my hand and clasped it between both of his. My first instinct was to pull away, but I fought it down.

  Live and let live, I told myself. Besides, I had more important things to worry about right then than any lingering bitterness between us.

  “Permit me to explain,” he said, and I was all ears. “In Aerisia, we believe there are two primal forces governing and imbuing all things. One is good; it is light and life and all things beautiful and perfect. The other is evil; it is darkness, shadow, suffering, pain, and death. All things, we believe, subsist by the express result or particular intervention of these two forces—the forces of good and evil.

  “Now, there are those among us born with the ability to Command a measure of these forces. To not only be empowered by them, but also to Command them at will. Do you understand what I say?”

  “I think so. You mean people who possess what we might call magical powers are really Commanding either the forces of good or evil to do what they want. Which means, I suppose, that people like you Command the forces of good, while those like Jonase…evil?”

  He smiled, nodding his bearded chin. “Aye, just so. Now, there is a second method of employing magic besides this.”

  “You’re saying there’s more than one way of working with magic?”

  “There are, in point of fact, two. While we are able to wield magic, using it to accomplish many things, we do not magically Become things.”

  “Not Become things?” I echoed, confused.

  “An example, my dear. When you destroyed the pillow, you Commanded magic, albeit unwittingly, in order to protect yourself. But when you fought the High-Chief, you Became your sword. You did not Command it to do your bidding, you Became it as you wielded it.” He leaned closer, intent. “The difference is vast. While some Command magic, some use magic to Become an object. Can you see this?”

  I nodded cautiously. “Yes…I think so. Are you implying that I can do both?”

  “Yes, both,” spoke up Aureeyah, edging around to stand before me. “Never before has anyone possessed the gift of wielding both. Far more common to Command than Become. That is why we were so astonished by your earlier display—we did not expect you to be blessed with the gift of Becoming. Foolish of us. You being the Artan, we should have known to look for it. Even the prophecy—”

  She broke off with a glance at Risean that seemed tainted with fear.

  “What is it? What about the prophecy?”

  But they ignored me and, after a tense moment, lapsed back into the discussion.

  “Aye, because you are the Artan, it seems only right that you of all people should be sanctioned both to Command and Become. We may have failed to foresee it, but now…” Risean beamed with joy. “Now, we see yet another proof that you are our Artan. The evidence is incontrovertible.”

  Expelling the air from my lungs, I slumped against the back of the couch. As if matters weren’t confusing enough already!

  Once more, I addressed the fairy. “But Aureeyah, you told me fairies were neither human nor spirit, but sort of a mixture of both. You told me the same life-force that causes plants to grow, mountains to endure, and nature to thrive is what makes the different fairies what they are. If that’s true, then shouldn’t you also Become as well as Command?”

  “Not so, my friend. You see—” She claimed a seat on my other side, gesturing with graceful hands as she spoke. “We fairies are indeed imbued with the life-force of our realms, as I told you. Howbeit, our capability is still to Command the magic in our dominions, for it is us and we are it.”

  “But if you’re a part of the forest—”

  “I am a part of the forest, yet I do not Become my forest when I work magic.”

  “It is similar with us.” I turned back to Risean. “As people of the moon, we wield certain powers, but we do not Become the moon or our moonstones in order to do so. Can you not see this?”

  “I—I think so. It’s all pretty confusing.”

  He smiled kindly, wrinkles emerging and lines deepening around those tropical-water eyes. “I am sure that it is. Nonetheless, as the Artan, you have proven yourself blessed to employ both forms of magic. You must therefore strive harder and learn to direct them at will.”

  “But I’ve tried and can’t seem to catch on,” I protested, feeling more than a little overwhelmed, not to mention put out.

  Work harder, huh? Thanks, like I’ve been sitting around on my butt doing nothing. You’ve probably been using magic your whole life. Me? Until a little while ago, I didn’t even know it existed! Gimme a break here.

  “The first step in learning to do a thing is to understand you’ve a knack for it. And now that you know how your magic works, I am confident your skills will grow apace. Possibly, the reason for your prior struggles was that the fairy did not know how unique your talents truly were or how to guide you in their use.”

  I could buy that.

  “But what about different degrees of power?” I wanted to know. “If I, as the Artan, have the potential to someday become far more powerful than either you or Aureeyah, does that mean I’m more strongly endowed with the force of good than either of you? Or that I can wield more of it?”

  “Both, I should think,” spoke up Lord Elgrend, Aerisia’s High Elder. “And while we discuss these matters, I should perhaps clarify that the same is true of those who wi
eld evil, commonly called black magic. While the Dark Powers are the powers of night, The Evil are those who serve and are endowed by them to different degrees. Some are far more powerful than their fellows.”

  “And I’m supposed to defeat them?” I bolted upright on the couch. “Me, just one person against the very forces of evil? That’s ridiculous! How in the world do you expect me to do that?”

  “Because, as the Artan, you’ve all the Powers of Good at your disposal; you simply must to learn to wield them. As it were, you are the Powers of Good—for if you are capable of both Commanding and Becoming, you are the greatest wielder of magic who has ever been or ever shall be,” Aureeyah stated calmly. “It is your destiny not only to crush The Evil, but also to plunge a blade into the heart of the Dark Powers themselves.

  “We have pledged our aid. You will learn to Command and Become as you desire, and when you do, none shall stand in your way.”

  Progress

  Command and Become…those two words had taken on an existence of their own these days. I’d had to relearn their definitions and apply them in ways I’d never thought possible. Two simple words, yet they’d come to dominate my life. Now that I knew better the extent of my magic, the easier using it became. I was getting to the point where I could direct it where and how I wanted. At least I was no longer surprised by feats of magic overtaking me unexpectedly.

  The lessons with Aureeyah progressed rapidly and well. The emerald-eyed fairy had become a good teacher, friend, and mentor. The more capable I became, however, the greater grew my fear that she would soon return home, leaving me trapped alone inside Treygon’s cheerless walls. I dreaded that day.

  The party from Laytrii had left the day following their arrival, and no other visitors had shown up. I missed Rittean and Lady Elisia, who I hadn’t seen since leaving Laytrii’s palace. Aureeyah remained my only true friend around here. I liked Cole a lot and got along pretty well with Kan. Nevertheless, no one could truly be said to be friends with a Simathe, except the Simathe themselves. I was an outsider at Treygon and probably always would be, but I was becoming okay with that.

  I supposed life in Aerisia, if nothing else, was teaching me how to accept the hard things in life, deal with them as best I could, and move on. I was learning to cope—to simply surrender what I couldn’t change or control.

  Besides being separated from my family, dealing with Lord Ilgard remained the hardest thing to figure out. Our uneasy alliance was just that. Even though we’d had no more temper flare-ups since our last brawl that had ended in me scrubbing floors for hours, neither had we made any gigantic strides toward being friends. I decided he’d taken to avoiding me, because he rarely trained with me now or acted as my bodyguard.

  Even though my lessons with the fairy were now going well, I still kept up my weapons training. I wasn’t allowed to use any magic, either, not even to Become my weapon. The time might come, Ilgard had explained, when I would be prevented from using magic and would have to rely on strength of arm alone. Should that happen, knowing how to defend myself with a weapon would be imperative. Aureeyah had agreed with him, and so I was learning to use a sword as well as a bow. The yedin, the weapon with which Ilgard had taken out Jonase, I wouldn’t touch, however. Neither had I learned to ride the Restless, for all that my biggest fight to date with the Simathe High-Chief had been spawned over that very issue.

  Ilgard periodically left on those secret little trips he sometimes took, doing who knows what. I was curious about the responsibilities such a man—as both the Simathe High-Chief and a member of Council—must hold, but I knew I’d never find out. Our truce continued to hold, but we weren’t really friends. Despite being Joined, he went his way and I went mine.

  Apart from all this, I couldn’t deny that whenever he left, a part of me seemed to leave with him. I chalked it up to our Joining; surely it was this and nothing more. It had to be since one element of it was tainted with need—a need for the protection and safety I felt in knowing he was nearby. Still, I also knew that underlying it all could be a psychological reaction to the fact that he had saved my life.

  This was a troubling facet of our relationship that I couldn’t overlook, along with the fact that he had kissed me. Obviously, that was something I couldn’t simply ignore. Of course, that was hardly the first time I’d ever been kissed. I’d dated off and on throughout high school and college, but my parents had encouraged my brother and sisters and me to focus on our studies, and I’d liked earning good grades. Maybe my parents were a little strict; maybe I’d been a little sheltered. I enjoyed going out as much as the next person, but I wasn’t much of a party girl, and I’d tended to push romance off toward the future. But the future was now, that kiss was the present, and how was I supposed to react to it? No matter how much I protested internally, a certain, treacherous part of my heart insisted on wondering what it would be like to share a real kiss with the silent lord.

  When I could, I sometimes found myself watching him, studying him—trying, almost, to see what made him tick. Sometimes I would glance up from one activity or another to find him watching me closely, an inscrutable expression on his face. Sometimes it unnerved me. Sometimes it intrigued me. Sometimes it flattered me. Sometimes I wanted to stare right back, although I never did. Sometimes I wondered, Why? Why is he watching me? What is he thinking?

  I never knew, and my confusion remained.

  Despite it all, the days slipped by, blending into one another like a stream emptying into a river. As the next season approached, I detected a rising tension in the fresh autumn air. Something was coming; something was about to happen. I couldn’t say what or why, but when I saw Ilgard and Aureeyah with their heads together, or Ilgard and his lords conversing in hushed tones with the fairy, I knew something was up. I was never invited to join their little conferences, and if I approached, everybody shut up in a way that told me I wasn’t welcome. I knew there were things they weren’t telling me. I could feel it as surely as I felt the changing of the seasons. As fall approached, I could sense both the gradual change in the weather and in the people surrounding me. The clock was ticking, but toward what I had yet to discover.

  Going Back

  It was early that morning. A chilly mist clung to the ground, tinging the world gray and damp. Thick, low clouds clinging to the mountaintops obscured their lofty peaks from view. The air smelled of wet earth and fallen leaves. Belying the cool temperature, sweat beaded my forehead and dripped from my chin as I went through another series of martial art-type exercises.

  A while back, I’d found it possible to tap into the same bank of pure, explosive energy that had served me in my first two outbursts of magic then channel it into my own body. Once I made the discovery, I thought, Why not? If it was true that I could someday be caught off guard with only weapons to protect me, what if I were someday caught off guard with only my body to protect me? Back home, I’d always enjoyed kickboxing classes at my local gym. This was like kickboxing on steroids, and I was having fun.

  A couple of straw men propped up on wooden stakes were my victims this morning. The early-morning air stillness was broken only by the thumps of a hand or a foot striking the plump bodies, the whip of fabric about my body, and my swift intakes of breath. I knew one of my Simathe bodyguards stood nearby, but I paid him no mind as I forced myself to go harder, faster, harder, faster, until I was panting so hard my breath wheezed in my lungs.

  Finally, I let out a flying kick and successfully knocked the head off my battered practice dummy. With a half-spin, I regained my balance and set my feet, only to double over, hands on my thighs, stretching my hamstrings while catching my breath. My head pounded, and sweat dripped off my face, splattering in the dust. Slowly, I let go of the power, briefly feeling fatigue double as the magic left. Staying in place, I deliberately concentrated on slowing my heart rate and breathing, stretching my limbs and quieting my mind—things Aureeyah had taught me that helped speed recovery—not only physical recovery, but also f
rom magic wielding.

  Thankfully, the endorphin high from a fierce workout soon kicked in. Within a few moments I was able to straighten, raise my head, wipe the sweat off my face, and roll my neck out. As I did, I caught an appreciative nod from the guard waiting a couple dozen paces away.

  “Well done,” he approved.

  “Thanks.” I flashed back an answering grin.

  Catching movement from the corner of my eye, I turned to see Lord Ilgard striding across the training grounds, heading our way. Tendrils of fog swirled about his boots, and his cloak was drawn around his shoulders, warding off the morning chill.

  Drawing abreast of us, he jerked his chin toward his subordinate. “Leave us.”

  “My lord.” The other man was quick to obey.

  “Lady Hannah.” Ilgard stopped in front of me, alien black eyes glittering in the pale, weepy light. “Something has occurred that takes me away.”

  I frowned, puzzled. The man had left several times during the months I’d been at Treygon without bothering to come tell me. Why was he doing so now?

  I had to tip my head back to see into his face. He was a very tall man.

  “Um…okay.”

  He didn’t say anything right away. I wondered if I should. The wind picked up, sending a fallen leaf skittering across the practice grounds. The chill breeze touched my sweaty clothing, making me shiver and rub my upper arms for warmth. I wondered what sort of news he was planning to break. Good, bad?

  Probably not good, I thought, since he looks so grim.

  Of course, he always seemed sort of grim, so that actually didn’t tell me much.

  Finally, he broke the silence. “Lady Hannah, today you will depart, as well.”

  My heart sank to my boots. Leaving? Again?