Realm of Ashes

by J. D. L. Rosell

  Entering through the Acadium gates, I headed directly for Eltris’ tower. Reaching it, I found no Acadian apprentice waiting today. I wondered why as I knocked loudly three times at her door.

  There was no answer. I waited less than a minute before I tried again. “Eltris!” I called in. “Eltris, are you in there?”

  When she still didn’t answer, doubts finally surfaced. Maybe it hadn’t been Eltris who had called me. Maybe someone had tricked me. Or maybe, still caught in the midst of my strange dreams, I’d imagined it.

  I rubbed my eyes, temporarily relieving the pressure building in my skull, then stared up the tower. Was she even here? Perhaps she was up on the second floor and couldn’t hear my calls. For a moment, I had the mad idea to try and climb the tower and enter through a window. Instead, I sighed and turned away. If Eltris was there, she wasn’t ready to talk. And I had too many other things to do to wait around.

  I’d taken only a few steps when I heard the creak of the door opening behind me. I whirled to see a scowling woman standing in the tower doorway, curly gray hair springing from her head, a frumpy brown robe hanging from her stout, short frame.

  “Eltris,” I greeted her, trying to hide my surprise. “So you are here.”

  The Master Augur wasn’t as polite. “So you finally decided to come.”

  “Finally?” My mind spun as I reconciled her words. “Your call — I didn’t imagine it?”

  “No, you didn’t. And I waited all night for you to figure that out.”

  My shock was quickly giving way to annoyance. “You could have sent a finch, like any ordinary person, instead of… whatever you did.”

  The augur stared at me, her yellow eyes piercing. “No, I couldn’t. Not with the danger you were putting us all in.”

  Before I could ask what she meant, she turned back into her tower. Only the open door gave me any indication to follow.

  Apprehensive, I entered the dim tower. From the little light, the entry room was as much a disaster as before, like a rat’s nest built over decades. Eltris already limped up the stairs, so I didn’t linger, but followed her to the second floor.

  Though the boarded windows blocked out the daylight, smokeless braziers filled the room with intense light. Above, I heard the sounds of finches singing and flitting among the rafters. A worn rug extended across the stone of the tower floor.

  As I looked around, Eltris walked to the opposite side of the room, then turned to face me. “Now,” she said without preamble, “channel.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  The Master Augur glared at me, her hands twitching at her sides. “You’re a warden now, if you hadn’t figured it out. And new wardens are dangerous. As you showed me last night. So I must teach you to channel. Now—” She gestured impatiently. “Go on!”

  “Master Eltris, what do you mean about last night? Was I… was that channeling?”

  “Yes. Unguided, unwise, and dangerous channeling, for you and the rest of us. So, though I have much else to do, I will at least show you enough not to get us killed.”

  “But why was it so dangerous?” I insisted. “Was I in the Pyrthae?”

  Eltris stared at me with disgust. “Can you not even recognize that? Then you also must not know who almost claimed you.”

  A horrible suspicion arose in me at her words. Suddenly, the vast sphere of fire and the shadow amidst it made all too much sense. “Famine found me. He was going to burn me, burn me to nothing.” I tried to remember the fuzzy details. “But the shadow that commanded him — that was Vusu, wasn’t it? He stopped Famine from attacking me.”

  The augur sniffed. “You’re not entirely devoid of intelligence then.”

  My questions were so insistent it made it easy to ignore the gibe. “But why? Why would he do that? I thought he’d want to kill me after I put a quarrel in his side.”

  “You’re the Finch,” Eltris said, lips curling. “You should tell me. Now, if you’re done wasting my time with your suspicions, show me how much you can channel.”

  I knew better than to push my luck, even if the questions still needled me. And, if I were honest, a large part of me yearned to know what Eltris could teach me.

  But I could only shake my head. “That’s the problem. I don’t know how.”

  She snorted. “Of course you know how. If you’re a warden, you can channel.”

  “But it just happened on its own the first time. I felt my locus opening up and then—”

  “Don’t use such words,” Eltris cut me off. “Not until you know what you are talking about. Tell me of the sensations and where you felt them when you channeled.”

  I pushed my irritation aside and tried to remember. “It felt like an area in the middle of my stomach opened up. Not like a hole exactly, but more like a molten stream pressed in and through me into the rest of my body, that I couldn’t help but release.”

  She nodded sharply. “And before that?”

  I closed my eyes and tried to put myself back in the moment. “I grew hot, feverish. It made me sweat and itch. I didn’t think much of it at the time, though, as I was distracted.”

  “Distracted?” Eltris narrowed her eyes.

  I hesitated, then replied honestly. “Someone was trying to kill me.”

  The augur stared hard at me for a long moment. Then, “Anything else?”

  Only Eltris wouldn’t question attempted murder. “No,” I said with a touch of amusement. “Nothing else that I remember.”

  “Very well. We must make you hot again.” The augur suddenly raised her hands toward me. A moment later, heat like I’d never felt before pressed in around me. I gasped at the sudden change in temperature and staggered. It was hotter than anything I remembered, hotter than any steam room or sunny summer day. Only the day I’d channeled had been hotter. My headache, which had been fading, filled my head to bursting.

  But I knew what Eltris was trying to do. Fighting through the discomfort, I willed myself to open to the fire and force that had poured from me before. As heat washed over me, I pushed away images of my skin blackening and my eyes drying in my skull, and tried to channel radiance.

  Nothing came.

  “It’s not working!” I cried out. “How do I make it work?”

  As abruptly as the heat had inundated me, it ceased. I gasped as cool air rushed back against my skin, and clutched my arms around me, shivering.

  “As I suspected,” Eltris said calmly. “You’re not fully attuned to Pyrthae.”

  “Not fully attuned?” I asked through chattering teeth, a pit forming in my gut.

  “Oh, you are a warden, there’s no doubt to that. But when first attuned, the locus is not yet developed, and won’t open on command. Only through repeated accidental channeling does the locus form enough to be controlled.”

  My worry eased, but only slightly. “So all those accidents — the fire, the dreaming. All of that has to happen again before I can control this? But what if I—?”

  “I’m not finished!” Eltris interrupted. “If I’m to train you, you must be silent when I speak. All my pupils have called me master during training, and I don’t intend for our relationship to be any different.”

  I swallowed down the bitter draught, as I knew I had to. “Yes, master.”

  “Good. Yes, more accidents will happen before you achieve control. But there are some things you can do to limit the damage. Most important will be to practice the exercises I’m about to show you, as they will help give you some measure of control over your channeling when it does come over you.” Eltris gestured impatiently. “When you’re ready…”

  Sweat still coated my skin, chills wracked my body, and my headache pounded inside my skull. But I couldn’t waste time with weakness. “I’m ready.”

  We began with me lying down and breathing through my belly, then tightening my gut. This, Eltris said, was to increase awareness and control where the locus formed. Through controlling the locus, I could begin to channel at will, or stop channeling. Never
theless, she continued to instruct me in building awareness in my arms and hands, then legs and feet, as I would need command over every part of my body to gain complete control.

  We kept at it until the Acadium bell tolled, signaling just under a turn had come and gone since I’d arrived. Eltris nodded and bade me to rise.

  “Practice this as you lie down to sleep each night. Build awareness throughout your body. Over time, you will learn control, and it may prevent the worst of the accidents. So long as they don’t come on too strongly.”

  I wished she’d left the last part unsaid. “Thank you, master.”

  “But these exercises won’t prevent what you did last night. How did the dream come upon you? What were you thinking about?”

  I couldn’t prevent a flush rising up my neck. “Nothing, really. I was just thinking about… a friend. Thinking about how it would be nice to see them.”

  “Don’t think of the Pyrthae. Don’t think of channeling. Don’t think of daemons or Famine or Vusu. And in particular, don’t think about mysterious men.”

  I stared at the batty old woman, thinking I must have misheard her. But though her mouth was still set in a frown, the corners of it twitched.

  Fully blushing now, I said quickly, “I’ll try. But I don’t know that I can control what I think before I sleep. My mind drifts as I relax.”

  “Then don’t relax,” Eltris retorted, all traces of humor gone. “If you must think of anything at all, think of mundane things. But if you are to be safe, you must clear your mind completely. If your mind is a blank slate when you sleep, it will not stray into dangerous waters. Now sit, legs crossed, back straight. You will practice clearing your mind.”

  Whereas the awareness exercises had been relaxing, clearing my mind proved aggravating. I’d never noticed how many thoughts drifted through until I tried keeping them all out. My frustration mounted as, time and again, I could maintain no more than a few seconds of complete blankness. If I couldn’t manage to clear my mind now, I held little hope I’d be able to do so in the darkness of my room, when my fears and worries had an easy time worming their way in.

  “It isn’t possible.” I opened my eyes and looked up at Eltris, who stood over me.

  The augur scowled. “Not for the feeble-minded. But you must do it. I’ve warned you what will happen otherwise.”

  “But I don’t understand how dreaming can lead me into the Pyrthae. Is…” I hesitated to ask the question, anticipating the augur’s chastisement, but I knew there was no help for it. “Is it quintessence I’m channeling?”

  Rather than chastising, Eltris scrutinized me for a long moment. “Quintessence, you call it,” she muttered. “A suitable name, I suppose.”

  “What is it exactly? Xaron seemed to think it was the mind, or the soul.”

  “No one knows for certain.”

  I waited impatiently for her to explain. I wanted to stand, but was afraid the movement would prevent whatever explanation was forthcoming.

  She looked away from me, craning her head back to peer at the finches flitting above. “Quintessence is the rarest and most precious of the Pyrthaen elements, and does not work in the same way as the others. While the abundant energies like radiance, kinesis, and magnesis exist as the fundamental components of the Pyrthae, like water, earth, and air in our plane, quintessence is congregated into entities, and seems to be an animating force. In sufficient quantities, it enables control over the other energetic elements.”

  I opened my mouth to ask the dozen questions racing through my mind, but Eltris continued before I could speak.

  “Just as the elements reside within your body, so does quintessence. Perhaps it is what makes us conscious and aware, the substance of our mind. Or perhaps it is, as many of the religions would tell us, our immortal souls.” Eltris’ lips curled, showing what she thought of the idea. “Whatever it may be, it is the element that enables us to channel — the conduit by which we control the flow of energy, the hammer by which we forge it.”

  She stopped and stared down at me, seeming to expect an answer.

  I nodded hesitantly. “I think I understand. But I don’t get how this connects to me dreaming my way into the Pyrthae.”

  For once, she didn’t mock me, but nodded. “Quintessence isn’t just used for forging the other elements. As an energetic element itself, it can also be channeled.”

  Confusion turned my thoughts upside down. “But if quintessence is what our minds are made of, how can we channel it? Wouldn’t it mean there is… less of us? That we’re giving a part of ourselves away?”

  “I say ‘channeling,’ but it is more like the use of a tool than the flow of energy. Instead of expelling something like fire or force, you use the hammer itself for whatever your ends might be.”

  “And one of those uses is entering the Pyrthae.”

  “Yes. Among many others.”

  “Like passing messages between minds?” I guessed. “Or seeing traces of channeling after the fact?”

  She narrowed her eyes, the calm teacher dissipating. “Perhaps. But those don’t concern you. For you shouldn’t channel quintessence at all.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “And why’s that?”

  As she looked up again at the rafters, I could tell her patience was reaching an end. But she almost managed to keep her voice even as she explained, “Channeling quintessence draws dangers that using the other elements does not. When a warden channels magnesis, for example, they draw the energy into our world from the Pyrthae. No part of them leaves Telae, our realm — they are simply allowing Pyrthaen elements in. But when a warden channels quintessence, a part of them actually enters the Pyrthae. Only by doing so can our minds escape the confines of our bodies.” Her gaze returned to me, sharpening. “As you did last night.”

  I nodded, unease at the thought making my skin clammy and chilled. “I think I understand. When I entered the Pyrthae, Famine could find me.”

  Eltris eyed me shrewdly. “As I said, quintessence is the most precious of the elements, and the more you possess, the more power you wield. And it is also what Famine has an insatiable appetite for.”

  Cold, sharp and sudden as the kiss of the monsoon winds, bit through me. “So that’s what he wants. Quintessence.”

  “Yes. Famine, as are all the Quintyr, is oriented toward one aim. His obsession is the consumption of quintessence.”

  “But if it’s quintessence he’s after, why does he destroy everything in his path?”

  Again, that considering look came into Eltris’ eyes. I was drawing close to a limit to her secrets, I knew. But I hadn’t reached it yet. “In the Pyrthae, quintessence is rare. But here in Telae, everything alive possesses quintessence in some measure. Grass, trees, birds, fish. And in the greatest measure, humans.”

  I felt so faint I was sure I’d have collapsed if I were standing. “So that’s why he wants to return to our world. To Telae.”

  She wore a bitter smile. “Finally, you understand. And you know why it’s so important that you don’t stray into the Pyrthae.”

  The augur turned and walked toward the stairs. Unwilling, I rose, stretched out my stiff limbs, and followed behind. There were so many more questions I had, so many she might be able to answer. But one nagged more insistently than the rest.

  I decided to push my luck. “Master, if I could ask one more thing. I understand why it’s dangerous for me to channel quintessence. But you said I endanger everyone by doing so.”

  Eltris didn’t turn until she stood by the top of the stairs. I stopped just before them facing her. But I saw from her stiffened jaw and creased brow that I was to be disappointed.

  “Practice your exercises and refrain from channeling quintessence,” she said shortly. “That’s all you need concern yourself with. Now, leave me to my work. I’ll follow up with you when I have time.”

  I knew I was treading dangerous waters now. But I couldn’t leave it there. “Three days. I’ll call again in three days, and we can make time then.
Master.”

  Anger flashed in eyes. For a moment, I thought she’d refuse simply out of spite. “Five,” she finally said. “Five days. The second turn after noon.”

  It much further away than I’d hoped for. But any promise of her spilling more of her secrets was better than nothing.

  “Fine.” I gave her a small bow and turned down the stairs, feeling her gaze follow me into the gloom.

  8

  Alley Whispers

  The Seed, even ripped from its source, had gained enough power to assume its own form. Rootless, it roamed the skies, brooding.

  ‘If famine I bring,’ it thought, ‘then Famine I will be named.’

  The daemon Famine thought long and hard as he flew, and finally saw the sacrifice of Tyurn Sky-Sea spelling his own destruction. Though he had not been able to prevent it, he thought he might turn the gift to his advantage.

  So Famine sowed seeds of his own among those Tyurn sought to protect, poisoning them and hoping to turn them to his own purposes.

  - The Seeds of Famine, a translation from the Lighted-tongue; by Oracle Kalene of deme Hull; 881 SLP

  A somber mood claimed me as I set foot again on the cobblestones of the Acadium’s main street. Though I’d finally spoken with Eltris and learned more than I thought the batty old woman would ever let on, the knowledge hadn’t heartened me. In some ways, knowing Famine’s motivations didn’t change anything. I’d always known he desired an end to our world. But to know he’d grow more powerful with each soul he consumed brought a creeping chill to my skin, as if a sudden shadow had fallen on me on a sunny day.

  And as I thought more, I realized I had more questions than ever before. If Eltris was correct about my dream, and I sensed she was, Vusu and the strange woman had stopped Famine from consuming me. And after the trial, the Master Augur had said he’d bound the daemon god to him. The little I knew couldn’t make it add up. What was Vusu’s hold on Famine? Something allowed him to yoke and harness the power of the god. Perhaps that only went to show that Famine wasn’t a god; he was a Quintyr, as Eltris had insisted, though I barely knew what that meant.