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

by Sarah Ashwood

  The interior of the Hall was dimly lit. Dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight streaming through an opening at the top of the dome. In the back half of the room, dozens of box tombs were laid out in orderly rows that stretched far back into the shadowy recesses of the Hall. The entrance of the Hall was uncluttered by tombs and free of every object save one: a raised dais, mounted upon five steps. On top of the dais was a huge stone slab, a place for the deceased to lie in state. There was sufficient space around it for mourners to gather and funeral rites to be conducted. It was here, upon the slab, that the Simathe lord finally laid down his burden.

  Several women were immediately there, unfolding the silk cloth and arranging it to drape down the sides of the stone. They fixed his lady’s dark hair in waves then took her sword—the sword of Laytrii—and placed it upon her breast, folding her hands over its carved hilt. Her silver breastplate and back piece were positioned at the foot of the stone. Ilgard knew the armor would soon be hidden by the fragrant masses of flowers mourners would bring and deposit as final offerings to their Artan.

  Perhaps the women would have done more, but at his quiet “Enough,” they gathered up the supplies they had fetched for the preparation of the body and left. Any others who dared to enter were likewise dismissed. Prince Kurban, the last to attempt, was the last to be turned away.

  When the Tearkin departed the shadowy Great Hall, stepping into the weak sunshine of another cloudy day, he heard the building’s smaller, inner door being shut behind him, as the Simathe High-Chief had requested. Sighing, he lowered himself to a seat on one of the wide steps leading to the Hall’s open outer doors. In melancholy silence the giant studied the gloomy sky and the gloomy day, a day every bit as dank as the others preceding it. Although grey clouds threatened, it had not rained since the day the Artan perished. When those rains ceased, they had left thick clouds in their wake, clouds which overshadowed the battle-weary Aerisians wending their way home to Laytrii.

  Risean Wy’ Curlm approached, claiming a place beside him. By now, hundreds of mourners crowded the steps and courtyard of the Great Hall. Thousands more spilled out into the surrounding streets and lanes. An unnatural hush had fallen, making this massive throng of people hold themselves in silence. The air was heavy, pensive. To the Tearkin prince it seemed that everyone, himself included, was waiting. But for what, nobody knew.

  Several hours crawled by, and still the crowd surrounding the Great Hall of the Dead watched and waited. Here and there, a babe in its mother’s arms would release a wail, only to be quieted by its mother’s touch or the satisfaction of something to eat. Somewhere, a dog barked but was quickly shushed.

  The only real stir occurred around the noon hour and was created by the surprise appearance of a contingent of mounted fairies. Riding golden horses with single-horned foreheads, they navigated the city streets with ease as young and old alike parted to let them pass. At least twenty formed the party, their auras ranging from the white of Braisley in the lead, to the green of Aureeyah, the blue of Aemela, the yellow of Serenda—a younger fairy bearing the fairies’ unicorn standard—and every color in between.

  Ripples of astonishment ran through the gathered assembly as the newcomers dismounted in the courtyard. Even these noises soon melted into silence, as the people resumed their attitude of noiseless expectancy. The fairies scattered rapidly, some going to Council members, some into the crowd, Aureeyah to the Cortain leaders, and Serenda to the Moonkind. Braisley made her way to Kurban and Risean, both of whom rose in respect as she drew near.

  “We are aware of what has transpired. Where is the lady Artan? And why do all await without?”

  As they had done once before, the Tearkin prince and Moonkind guardian exchanged a long, anxious glance. It was Risean who eventually answered this most powerful of fairies.

  “The Artan is within,” he explained, his face troubled. “The Simathe High-Chief remains with her. Since she expired, he has not left her side. No other arms have carried her. Few hands save his have touched her. He has banished any who would enter.”

  “Someone must speak with him.”

  “Aye, my lady. Someone must.”

  “I will do so, then.”

  For the first time in a long time Risean smiled, a gesture of relief and gratitude intertwined.

  “Of course. Our very great thanks, my lady Braisley.”

  Broken Stone

  A fairy’s warm, white softness enveloped him, but the Simathe warrior-lord did not bother turning to look. Only one Aerisian fairy possessed such a strong, brilliant aura.

  Sinking gracefully to her knees, Braisley knelt with him before the body of the Artan. Clasping her long, elegant fingers together, she rested them upon the stone slab, regarding the dead woman in silence before switching her perusal to himself. Although he felt her sorrowful, if measuring, gaze, Ilgard refused to look away from his lady’s cold face, even when the gossamer-winged fairy finally spoke.

  “A number of days have passed since her death. High-Chief, she is not going to return to you. You must let her go.”

  “That is easy to say, difficult to do.”

  “I know that,” Braisley agreed. “However, for once you must do as other humans do. You must make your farewells, and you must allow them to put her in a tomb. Then you must walk away and leave her. Forever.”

  “And leave behind the best part of myself?”

  “I did not say forget her. I did not say do not love her,” the fairy soothed. “But she is gone and you must accept that, even as you accept that she—wherever she may be—doubtless loves you from afar.”

  He lowered his chin. “Your words bring no comfort. Of what use is love when not shared?”

  “Now I know,” he continued, without waiting for an answer, “why we Simathe live alone and do not love. Why none but myself will ever be foolish enough to do so.”

  The fairy only looked at him. “That is selfishness speaking. Would you forgo the days with her because you now grieve? Do you assume you are the first to love and to lose? Hardly. There comes a time in the life of all humanity when love’s object is taken, and pain is all that remains. Humans know this. You suffer because you thought you were not human, only to discover now that you are. You know not how to tolerate it.

  “Nevertheless, pray—take heart, my lord.” Her tones changed from reproachful, and she placed a hand on his forearm. “I am certain that time’s passage will eventually lessen the ache of loss. One day, all that will remain are memories of the love you shared.”

  Shared? They had not been given the opportunity to share a love. She had offered hers; he had waited to take it. Waited until there was no time left to enjoy it. As of now, a future without her seemed bleak indeed. As for being human and doing as other humans did, well, other humans did not love as he. They did not know what it meant to be Joined to a woman, as he had been. They could not know what it was to live with such a bond for many months, only to have it all swiftly, brutally ripped away.

  He’d told Braisley that his lady was the best part of him. She had been. Through her, he had experienced life with an intensity previously unknown, despite the long years of his existence. Because of her, he had seen the world from a different viewpoint, and with new eyes: her eyes. She had been his heart, standing outside of himself but always bonded firmly to him. In her, he had seen love. With her, for the first time, he had known love. Now, love was bitter, and her essence—continually carried with him, lost.

  The sound of the Great Hall’s inner door closing penetrated the fog of his dreary reflections. He looked up to find Braisley had gone, leaving him alone with his lady and the tombs of hundreds of others. He realized then, with a sharp stab of pain, that he must say goodbye. In that, at least, the fairy was right. He could not spend eternity here at his lady’s side, however loath he was to leave her. Raising himself with awful slowness, he bent over her face, touching her cold cheek lightly with his fingertips.

  “Hannah,” he said, his mout
h dry, his throat tight. He could think of nothing else to say.

  Hold me in your love, she had said, and so he would. But he would rather hold her alive and warm and breathing in his arms, as well.

  His eyes stung, and the longer he stared at her face the more it blurred. It took him a moment to understand what was happening, and when he did, he was taken aback. Tears. Never in his life had he shed or even come close to shedding a tear. Not for himself, not for anyone else. There had never been a need and certainly not a need like this. Nevertheless, he would not give in and willed them away.

  It would have been easier to give into his grief—after all, he had a great deal to mourn: Aerisia’s loss and his own. The cutting short of such a young life. The possibilities she had laid out before him… marriage, a child. He had never dared even think about such things. They were forbidden to one of his kind. He could not stop to ponder how tantalizingly close they’d been with her, for they were now only dust and ashes, fit for nothing except being poured upon the ground.

  That was as it was. The time of farewell had come, and the warrior blinked his eyes, clearing them in order to take one last, lingering look at his beloved’s face. Even in death, evil could not touch her. She might have been alive moments ago, instead of days. Almost a smile played at the corners of her mouth, and he bent to kiss her for a final time, enjoying that smile in bittersweet, painful remembrance. He fingered a lock of her hair, rolling it between his fingertips, remembering how soft he had thought it from the first time he touched it.

  Farewells, though, could not last forever. In the end, he rose wearily to leave.

  He was already down the steps and striding across the marble floor when an idea struck that made him hesitate, stop, and go back. Perhaps it was foolishness, perhaps he was more human than he had believed, but he wanted to take something of hers to keep. A ring from her finger, a lock of her hair… any little trifle to keep her memory alive and fresh.

  When he stood over her, he saw that no rings encircled her small fingers. Pulling his dagger from its sheath, he grasped one of the soft brown waves of her hair and had the blade against it, ready to cut, when something else caught his eye. He released the hair, letting it fall from his fingers with the softness of a whisper while he replaced the knife. Now the Simathe reached for the necklace around her throat, the necklace she’d been given the morning of her first journey to Treygon. He removed it carefully, twining the gold-rope chain around his fingers before turning once more to go.

  Just as he stepped off the bottom stair, the oval stone clasped in his palm began to burn so hotly his breath caught in his teeth. The golden chain also began to flame, searing his flesh. He could not remove it fast enough. In his haste, the chain was clumsily torn off. The stone fell from his palm, striking the marble floor where it broke, crushed upon impact. Unable to look away from what he had done, Ilgard gazed in dismay at the bits and shards of that ancient stone on the marble floor and the golden chain winding its way about the mess in obscene, serpentine coils.

  In his mind, the Simathe cursed viciously. When would tragedy end? Would he not be allowed to keep even this small token of the one he’d lost? He was angry, so angry he could feel it rising inside like water finding its own level, washing away his pain with a flood of rage.

  “Has she not suffered enough for Aerisia that to fulfill prophecy she must die? Have I not suffered enough? Have not we all?”

  The words were shouted at the empty air, at the rounded dome with its stained glass panels soaring high overhead. They echoed in the dusky chamber. Dust motes disturbed by his breath danced wildly on unbalanced air before resuming their stately floating. The dead did not hear. The dead did not care. No one inside that vast Hall cared, save himself. No comfort, no answers were going to come. Heartsick, he simply scooped up the golden chain and did not look back at the dead woman as he strode away.

  That was when he heard a strange sound, the sound of winter wind soughing through bare branches. It arrested his attention, bringing him to a standstill. On his back, he felt a growing warmth, the warmth of a summer sun. He found himself frozen in place as invisible, silken cords slipped about his body. They bound and captured him but not with any ill intent. Holding his arms to his sides, those silken cords pulled at him, turning him to face the tomb he had just left.

  What he saw standing before it was a woman. Or rather, the phantasm of a woman. Perhaps it was her spirit. The High-Chief could not decide as, with his head cocked to the side, he studied the shimmering creature. She hovered above the shards of broken stone and appeared to have risen from it. When she beckoned with both hands, his feet moved him forward. Apparently, he was under her control, but he felt no alarm. At closer range, he could see the phantasm bore a striking resemblance to—

  He shot a glance at his lady, lying on the block of stone as though she slept, then back at the creature now mere inches from him. Impossible, but true. The two faces were one and the same, the only differences between them the typical Aerisian hair and eye coloring of this one before him. Otherwise and on every other account, she could have been his lady.

  The phantasm drifted closer. Wordless, she ran wraithlike, inquiring hands over his face and down his neck. Her fingers brushed lightly as if searching for something or measuring him up. They flowed down his arms, touching the hilt of his sword before removing themselves. The silken bonds fell away, and once more he was able to move as a free man. Rather, he could have moved as a free man. Something about this silent spirit held him captive. Perhaps it was that she looked so much like his lady…

  Then the beautiful creature was drifting backwards, multicolored lights from the dome’s stained glass panels flashing across her shining hair and glistening gown. Multicolored lights which, when they touched her, were absorbed into her, so that she glowed with a plethora of colors.

  She smiled. Her lips parted, and she spoke.

  “My thanks, Lord Ilgard of the Simathe. You have freed me from a long imprisonment.”

  The warrior blinked in surprise, amazed that her voice so closely resembled his Hannah’s. Almost, he could have sworn it was the same voice.

  The creature—transparent one moment, opaque the next, fully visible after that—drifted in and out, around and about, moving in slow, languid motions as she spoke.

  “She has fulfilled the tasks bequeathed to her, tasks myself and others after me were unable to accomplish. Prophecy has been fulfilled; my namesake has arisen victorious.”

  He knew then who he addressed. “You are Artan,” he said, his voice level and calm.

  The spirit smiled. “So I am, Lord of the Simathe. Ages past, a woman by name of Heldwyn bound my spirit to a stone similar to her own and sent it from the Underworld to a place where it would be found. The necklace of the Artan, it was called. So it was for the both of us. For two Artans.”

  The phantasm glided towards the head of the stone slab, placing a translucent hand upon his lady’s hair.

  “Do you love her, High-Chief? Never mind, I know that you do. How could you not?”

  She smiled down into the dead woman’s face. “Our fates were bound together, yours and mine,” she murmured, speaking to his lady alone. “Almost from the first I have been with you, although you knew it not. As you went, so did I. Where you journeyed, so did I. It was I who called you back from death’s brink to make your final stand. Had this fight been lost, I would not speak now.”

  “Prophecy is broken. She is dead,” Ilgard pointed out from where he stood.

  “Nay,” the other replied. “Prophecy is not broken: it cannot be. There were other things she had to do.”

  “Dead?” Bitter mockery tinged his voice.

  “Do you know the prophecy, Ilgard of the Simathe?” Not waiting for his reply, she quoted solemnly, “Bound to the past, the bond will be broken that she may pass through the vales of shadow and despair to walk forevermore in the light.”

  “High-Chief,” leaving his lady, she came to him, placing a ghos
tly hand on his shoulder. “Do you believe this? Believe prophecy will be fulfilled? Would you hold your lady again?”

  The warrior-lord could not answer. Hope sprang up, unbidden but desperate at the prospect she placed before him. Swallowing hard, finding his voice, he managed a gruff, “Aye.”

  Aye to the first question, aye to the second, but most especially to the third. The one word, the single answer to all three questions, satisfied the creature. Her smile glowed like the light she absorbed and emanated.

  “Then so you shall.”

  Dismalness gone, hope was a fire. The Simathe watched with bated breath as the phantasm now placed gentle hands on either side of his Hannah’s face.

  “Live, little one. You have done well in fulfilling all that was foretold of you. Now you must return to this land and its people who love you—to this one who loves you.”

  So saying, she bent, pressing a kiss to the dead woman’s forehead. Ilgard stood motionless, his nerves tense and strained. Would she live? Could the first Artan give life to the second?

  The creature straightened, flashing him a smile. “It is done. The time for my departure is at hand.”

  With that, she drifted beyond him to the place where shafts of light from the dome high above were merging, forming a perfect circle that was reflected upon the marble floor. There, in the midst of the circle, she halted.

  Ilgard glanced from one Artan to the other. She could not leave yet! His lady had not awakened. Her body lay unchanged, silent and cold as a winter frost. She was not warm and breathing. She did not live.

  Ignoring his distress, Artan’s spirit raised a hand in farewell, saying kindly, “Do not despair. Wait. Simply wait and believe.”

  Then she lifted her hands, raising them high above her head as if reaching up to grasp something. Her face turned upwards. Ilgard also looked up to see another woman, or another woman’s spirit, slowly descending in that circle of multicolored lights. She too radiated the heat of the sun and was arrayed in battle armor similar to a Cortain’s. Radiant at her hip was a perfect replica of the sword resting upon his lady’s breast—the sword of Laytrii.