Realm of Ashes
Page 1
Realm of Ashes
The Famine Cycle: Book Two
J.D.L. Rosell
Contents
World Map
City Map
Glossary
Oedijan Society
Prologue
1. Truth and Dreams
2. The Order of Verifiers
3. Visitors in the Dark
4. The Acadium
5. Tomes
6. Quintessence
7. The Good Pupil
8. Alley Whispers
9. Eyes in the Night
10. The Yorandu Heir
11. Rift
Interlude
12. A Finch Found
13. The Watchers
14. Twin Flames
15. Honorary Verifier
16. Dusk Summons
17. The Same Coin
Interlude
18. No One
19. Election
20. The Broken Tower
21. Burn
Interlude
22. Seeds of Famine
23. The Despot of Oedija
24. Reborn
Epilogue
Don’t Miss Out…
World of Bones
Books by J.D.L. Rosell
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Glossary
Avvad, or the Avvadin Imperium - The ever-expanding empire that lies to the south of Oedija.
Bali - The people who reside among the plateaus to the east of Oedija.
The Four Realms - Considered the last bastions of civilization in a backwards world, four nations are united in peace by a concordance. These nations are: Oedija, the Bali ishakas, the Qao Fu jaitin, and the Avvadin Imperium.
Honors - The lowest caste of Oedijan society. They are not permitted to own property, including money, nor choose their own employment, and are often housed and work within the estates of patricians. Honors are the descendants of the Kalthuae, the native inhabitants of the lands Oedija now claims, before settlers sailed from the west to found the nation.
Ishakas - The tribal kingdoms of the Bali people.
Jaitin - The matriarchal groups of the Qao Fu people; grouped by the caves in which they reside.
Oedija - The “Pearl of the Four Realms”; the primary location of the story. A republican society undergoing significant turmoil, with threats from within and without.
Qao Fu - The people who reside among the desert caves to the northeast of Oedija.
Tefra - Priests of Avvad who use Silks, or bound spirits, to fight on their behalf.
Servants - The elected leaders of Oedija, with semi-proportional representation from across Oedija’s ten demes. They number one-hundred and twenty-one, minus those Servants who are elected to the Demos Council. They are responsible for legislative actions.
The People’s Conclave - The legislative body of Oedija. Within their parameters lies the making and governance of laws, the taxing and determination of the treasury, the governance of commerce, and the defense of the nation.
Demotism - A system of democratic republicanism in which representative officials are elected by citizens, or landowners, into a legislative ruling body.
Demos Council - The ruling council within the People’s Conclave. Traditionally, it numbers eleven Low Consuls, with the Archon acting as a moderator, though often, the eleventh seat is disputed. Their responsibilities largely lie in determining the agenda within the larger Conclave. In times of strife, however, they are granted powers of military action and broad budgetary powers.
Low Consuls - The members of the Demos Council. Low Consuls are elected from the Conclave, requiring the support of ten of their fellow Servants to gain a seat.
Archon - The representative of the Despot or Despoina within the People’s Conclave and Demos Council. Their powers are primarily limited to moderation, except when a member is missing on the Demos Council or a tie vote must be broken.
Demes - Districts of the city of Oedija.
Prefectures - Areas of governance across Oedija’s countryside.
The Peninsula - A rural area of Oedija to the north of the city of Oedija.
Finches (as a title) - Hunters and peddlers of secrets. While in purpose, their mission is to expose wrongdoing and uncover hidden truths, in practice they often perform small jobs recovering and threatening others with incriminating information for those who will pay.
Order of Verifiers - A branch of Oedija government tasked with routing out corruption. It was disbanded a few years after its founding, and a century before Airene of Port fashions herself after them.
Verifiers, or Verifiers of Truth - Members of the Order of Verifiers, who were tasked with routing out corruption in Oedija’s government, and were met with often violent resistance.
The Underguild - A semi-legitimized criminal organization. Overseen by five Guildmasters, the Underguild has a great hold over criminal activity in Oedija, and is largely responsible for its relatively low crime.
Guilders - People who work on behalf of the Underguild.
The Despot/Despoina - The Ruling Wreath; a symbolic ruler who acts as a figurehead for Oedija. Small powers as the official emissary of Oedija and the nominal leader of Oedija’s militia (when marshaled).
The Wreaths - The royal family of Oedija, formerly the true rulers of the nation when it was a monarchy.
Taxoi (s. taxos) - The militia of Oedija. As Oedija has no standing army, the taxoi are organized and financed by patrician households whenever the need arises.
Stratechons - The five permanent military leaders of Oedija. Responsible for the city guard and the taxoi (when they are gathered).
Valemism / The Valemish - Worshippers of the volcanic god Valem, the religion of Valemism began in Avvad. It is considered a strict religion with a heavy emphasis on subjugation and obedience to authority, and the punishments for disobedience.
Wardens - People who are attuned to the Pyrthae and are able to manipulate forms of energy as magic. Across the Four Realms, they are forced into hiding, killed, lauded, and enslaved, depending on the nation. In Oedija, they are feared and kept to specific roles, such as Acadians or Shepherds, that suppresses their freedom and use of their abilities.
Energetic elements - The forms of energy present in the Pyrthae. Three energetic elements are commonly known: radiance, or heat and light; kinesis, or force; and magnesis, or the fields of magnetism. Other energetic elements are believed to exist, but are unconfirmed.
Hilarion - The jester to the Despot or Despoina. Hilarion is always chosen from among Oedija’s male wardens. Traditionally, he wears a crown of wheat, sackcloth clothes, and sandals bound with rope. Hilarion’s nominal purpose is to entertain at the whim of the Ruling Wreath, but his true purpose is understood to be to diminish fear that people hold for wardens by making him an object of laughter and ridicule.
First Laurel - The leader of the laurel guard, the soldiers defending the Laurel Palace and other Wreath properties.
The Confessionary Tribunal - The judicial branch of Oedija’s government, they are responsible for enforcing the rule of law, including the containment and punishment of rogue wardens. They are not elected, but are recruited by their own.
Tribunes - Members of the Confessionary Tribunal, they act as arbiters of Oedija’s justice.
Shepherds - Members of the Confessionary Tribunal, they act under the guidance of a Tribune to contain or punish any rogue warden.
The Acadium - Nominally, the center of learning and education within Oedija. The Acadium serves a dual purpose, however: the reeducation and containment of wardens.
Acadians - The scholarly residents of the Acadium; often, they are wardens. While not all Acadians are wardens, any warden caught are forced to become an A
cadian, or face the penalty of death.
Eidola - The gods of the Eidolan religion.
Eidolanism - The religion of the original settlers of Oedija, in Airene’s time, it is a fading religion, with many of its beliefs considered antiquated.
The Pyrthae - The plane of spirits, which is said to run parallel to the material plane, Telae.
Telae - The material plane; or, the world as it is known, including The Four Realms.
Pyrkin - A moss-like substance that is considered somewhere between plant and animal, it is supposed to have a connection to the Pyrthae, on account of its bioluminescence.
Pyr - Spirits who are considered either benevolent or innocuous.
Daemons - Spirits who are considered evil or mean-spirited; also a derogatory term for wardens.
Prologue
He watched the great serpent coil tighter around the ailing man.
Azhi had grown used to waiting. Perhaps he’d been a boy when he died, but two centuries had turned his mind ancient beyond any elder. Patience was the measure of his existence, more constant than the flow of time, more persistent than a cancer.
But the time for waiting was coming to an end.
The serpent twitched for a moment, then turned toward him. Azhi kept miles between them, but as the beast’s eye turned on him, fear carved into his core. It was black as a moonless midnight, black as an endless chasm. Black as a hunger that could never be sated.
He shivered and turned away. The Corrupted couldn’t reach him, not while he was still bound. But his bonds were fraying. Taozu had never been contained so long by a man, nor could have been, if not out of his own choice. When the moment came for him to break free, Azhi had no doubt it would be of his choosing.
Changing his form into force, Azhi flew back over the city. Oedija was mirrored above and below him, the towers of the Laurel Palace stretching toward each other. Only the Pillars touched, and these melded together, crossing the boundaries of the higher, lower, and material planes.
As Taozu reemerged, these cities would shift, changing to suit the great serpent. But only if he remained uncontested.
Azhi had learned many lessons in the Wumofu during his childhood long ago. When the serpent coils, his father had said, back away. It has claimed that sand for itself.
So Azhi would move far away, and leave Oedija’s defenses to the last god to claim it. But only so he could bring back that which could seal Taozu once again.
Azhi flew up into the city hanging above, just within Oedija’s walls. He swept through the streets, searching amidst the shadowed forms for the spark that he had started. For the man who had grown to trust him through constant guidance and companionship.
He found him curled up in the churned mud of an alley, head bowed, hiding his tears and shame. His headwrap had unwound a bit, letting loose thin, brown hair in tufts. His body was spare, but lithe. A man still in possession of his strength, even if he did not know it. A man far from his end.
Ascending again and leaving the man behind, Azhi broke through the illusion of the city and arced through the cloudy emptiness above it. When he descended, he found himself in a tower. Birds flew below him in the rafters, and a woman, bent with age but still moving with vigor, fed one from her hand.
As he entered, her keen, golden eyes found him. The smile she’d shared with the finch transformed into a scowl.
“You need her again?” she scoffed. She spoke, but it was the reverberations of her thoughts that sounded clear in his mind.
Yes.
“Fine. But mind you take care of her. She’s the last I’ll ever own.”
Azhi drifted down to where the bird waited. She watched him approach, her blue crest seeming to glow brighter as he neared.
Gently, as gently as the woman held her own bird, Azhi coaxed the whisper finch to admit him.
The world lurched, then righted itself. Abruptly, Azhi found himself clutching wood with clawed feet. He twitched a wing, then the other, cocked his head, and blinked.
“You’d think you’d be used to it,” the woman called from below.
Azhi flapped his wings experimentally, then threw himself off and glided down. He flew once around the woman, then settled on the window sill. Its window was boarded up but had a gap just large enough for a small bird to pass through.
“He’s breaking free,” Azhi said, his voice coming out as a boy’s. Always, it was startling to hear how unchanged it was from the twelve years he had been when he died.
“We always knew he would.”
“I shall have to leave soon. It will be left to you to be the watcher.”
“So I have always done. But where do you go?”
Azhi turned his bird’s head out the window and glimpsed gray sky outside. “To where hope rests.”
The woman snorted and released the finch. “Hope. Does it still exist? But never mind. Dead or not, we’ll still try.” She waved a hand. “Go. But bring my bird back whole.”
Azhi just cocked his avian head, then turned and leaped from the window.
As he flew over the city, the wind lifted his light body, sending it far aloft. Chill as it was with the coming monsoons, the whisper finch wasn’t bothered. This was what it had been made for.
As he neared the wall, he turned and dove, heading for the familiar alley. Breaking his dive short as he drew close, he flapped his wings and settled on the roof above the man. He’d stopped sobbing now and rested his head against the wall behind him.
His eyes turned up, then widened as he saw the whisper finch’s glowing crest. “You again,” he whispered.
“Hello, Eazal. My friend.”
The man didn’t smile but bowed his head again. “Why don’t you leave me alone? I want to be alone.”
Azhi considered him for a long moment. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps he was too broken for this task. But he had to make use of the tools he had.
“But did you think Valem Branded you for nothing?” he suggested softly. “Did you think he held no purpose for you?”
Eazal threw his head back and laughed, the sound sharp and devoid of mirth. “Oh, I know Valem’s purpose for me, or at least those who claim him. I failed in that as well.”
“You have not served it yet,” Azhi soothed. “But first, we must keep you alive. Come; follow me. I will lead you from the city. Then I will show you what you were meant to do.”
The man turned his head back toward Azhi, eyes narrowed, mouth drawn. “Why should I care?” he said, the words choked. “I’ve failed them. Over and over, I’ve failed them. How could I ever do enough?”
Azhi knew to whom he referred. “You could save them, and this city, and the whole of the Four Realms. But you must trust me. I saved you once, on the cliff. Do you remember?”
“Yes. And I’ve lived to regret it.”
“But you lived, and you have time to right those regrets. Come, Eazal. Your purpose doesn’t end here. You’re destined for something greater.”
Though his connection to the Pyrthae was tenuous, Azhi felt a glimmer of something at his words, as if someone had smiled in approval. He ignored it, and ignored, too, the shiver that ran through his bird’s body.
Eazal slowly rose to his feet and looked at him. “I don’t believe you. I don’t think I’m meant for anything. But I don’t know what else to do.”
Azhi flew forward and alighted on his shoulder. “Then come,” he whispered in the man’s ear. “I will show you the path.”
1
Truth and Dreams
From the Lower Realm of the world beyond ours, a Seed rose. It was a small thing, no larger than a pebble, and none noticed its passing as it lifted higher and higher, until it reached the Higher Realm where our gods, the Eidola, reign.
Tyurn Sky-Sea, Ruler of All Realms, Lord of All, was strong in arm and limb. He was master of the stormy sea and the violent sky and could be harmed by neither. But his quintessence was fallible, the fabric of his mind loosely woven, and his actions had ever been erratic.
- The Seeds of Famine, a translation from the Lighted-tongue; by Oracle Kalene of deme Hull; 881 SLP
I drifted between dreams.
From one scene to another, I was swept along, each image as devoid of meaning as the next. I watched, unable to do anything, unwilling to even if I could.
A man, broad in stature, with thick gray hair just beginning to bald, sat hunched in a cell, knees drawn up to his chest. Fallen from grace, he seemed, a different person than the one he was supposed to be.
A gust of wind whipped the man into sand, and another took his place. This man was clad in a tattered robe that looked to have once been white. He swayed as he walked into a shadowed room, then sunk to his knees on a worn reed mat. His eyes, dark as the heart of a monsoon storm, told of pain. Yet though the shaft of a quarrel was lodged in his side, it didn’t seem the source of his torment.