The Coming Chaos

by D. K. Holmberg

  The woman pulled a chair up, sitting across from them. The other dark-haired woman stayed near the doorway.

  “I am Charlanna, the elder of Ceyaniah. We are not accustomed to having visitors here.”

  “Obviously,” Rayen said.

  “Ceyaniah is a difficult place to reach, but then, the elder who founded it wanted it such.”

  Daniel looked around the room. The other woman was watching, but she had been silent. She kept her gaze fixed on him and Rayen, and there was something about the way she watched that left him wondering if she had some ability of her own.

  “You obviously know quite a bit about the Council of Elders,” Daniel said, tearing his gaze away from the woman by the door. “We think that someone with knowledge of the Council is intending to convene it in order to gain power.”

  Charlanna leaned toward him. As she did, he had a distinct sense of power about her, different from the power he detected from others. It seemed to crackle, sizzling against his skin. It was a steady sense that left him with little doubt she was gifted in some way, though he had yet to see anything that would explain how.

  “There have been others over the years who have wanted to convene the Council, but they have not remembered the old ways.”

  Daniel shared a glance with Rayen. “And you do?”

  “We don’t practice the old ways, but we remember. That was our task.”

  “Why?”

  “Would you ask your Great Watcher why you have the ability to travel as you do?” She glanced to Rayen. “And you, would you ask Ihnish why you were gifted with shadows?” She smiled tightly, shaking her head. “You would not. You recognize you have been handed a gift, and you must utilize that gift in the ways asked of you.”

  Daniel had suspected she knew more about them than he knew about her, and that answered it. Not only did she seem aware of his abilities, but she knew about Rayen, where she came from, and the nature of her people. Even if they were isolated here in Ceyaniah, that didn’t mean they were ignorant of the outside world. He found that intriguing. They were connected to the rest of the world in a way the rest of the world was not connected to them.

  “We need to understand what they are after,” Daniel said.

  “Once you understand, what will you do with that knowledge? How do you think that will help you?”

  “We need to stop them.” He glanced from Charlanna to the other woman. “There are people suffering because of this.”

  “There are always people who suffer. That is unfortunately the nature of the world. Those with power use it to maintain their grip, while those without find themselves crushed by the others.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that way,” Daniel said.

  “Perhaps not, but that is the way of the world.”

  “Is that why you keep yourself here?”

  “We are here because we are people of Ceyaniah.”

  “What does it mean to be a person of Ceyaniah?”

  “You are a descendant of the Great Watcher, and yet you have failed to see?”

  Daniel frowned. “What does that mean?”

  “It means that you should be quite aware of what it signifies. The children of the Great Watcher have long observed.”

  “You really don’t know anything about the world?” Rayen said, glancing toward Daniel. “The children of the Great Watcher have isolated themselves, keeping themselves apart from the rest of the world.”

  Charlanna frowned. “Why?”

  “I suppose my people have felt it was dangerous to be too deeply involved with the rest of the world.” He didn’t know the history of Elaeavn as well as some, but it was the answer that made the most sense. For as long as he could remember, they had been isolated. Elaeavn had been not quite as difficult to reach as Ceyaniah, but it had been closed to visitors, allowing only those from within Elaeavn to spend any time there.

  He’d never really considered why. When he was growing up, he’d believed it was on behalf of the safety of their people, done so that those without abilities didn’t find themselves surrounded by people who had them. Considering everyone—or nearly everyone—within Elaeavn had some ability, it would be a reasonable thing to want to protect others from.

  “You should not have been isolated. The people of the Great Watcher have been meant to observe and report, to ensure that if the Council was needed, they would be there to call it.”

  “What is the Council?”

  Charlanna looked at them, frowning deeply. “You really don’t know?”

  “We really don’t,” Rayen said.

  “And yet you came here seeking answers about the Council.”

  After watching him for a moment, Charlanna got to her feet. She disappeared, and Daniel glanced to Rayen. “I’m not sure what we hope to find here,” he whispered.

  “I’m not either. I think Carth wanted us to find information about the missing stone, but I have a sense that either they don’t know anything about the stone or, if they do, they won’t share it with us.”

  Daniel had that sense, too.

  “Are you still prepared for the possibility we’ll need to travel from here?”

  He nodded. “I don’t think there is anything restricting me from Sliding.”

  He glanced back at the woman standing at the door. She had been silent ever since their arrival here, and he couldn’t tell what she did, or what powers she might have. The fact that she alone stood guard over them suggested she had some sort of power. The people of this place obviously knew about the nature of their abilities, which meant they wouldn’t be surprised by what he and Rayen could do.

  After a few moments, Charlanna returned, carrying a slender wooden box.

  She rested her hands on top of it and looked up, holding his gaze. “You know nothing about the Council, but do you know anything about the stones?”

  Daniel stared at the box. Could she have all of the stones?

  “We know about the stones,” he said.

  “As you should.” Charlanna pressed on the top of the box, and somewhere within it, a lock clicked. She flipped the lid open. The inside was lined with a red velvety fabric. A ring of five smooth-looking rocks rested inside the box, another one in the middle of them.

  “This represents the stones,” she said, tapping on each of them. “And this represents the Watcher. An oversight above the stones. Separate.”

  “Which stones do they represent?” Rayen asked.

  “Which stones do you think they represent?”

  Rayen said nothing, and Daniel understood what she’d been trying to do. She was testing Charlanna, trying to understand just how much she knew. It was possible Charlanna didn’t have the same knowledge of the stones that they did.

  Charlanna smiled at her. “This box represents the stones present in this world, the ones I suspect you know about. Unfortunately, the knowledge of stones has been lost to Ceyaniah over time. We know only that there are five. As I said, sitting above the stones is the Watcher.”

  There was something about what she said that troubled him. “You said the stones in this world.”

  Charlanna nodded. “That is true. There are five stones in this world, five that comprise the Council.”

  “Are there other stones?” More than that, was there another world?

  Charlanna studied Daniel for a long moment. “As a child of the Watcher, you can travel, and yet you wonder if there are other worlds?”

  “What other worlds?”

  “There are some that are difficult to reach, and some that are easier.” She nodded to Rayen. “She has traveled. She has the look of knowledge to her.”

  Rayen met Charlanna’s eyes for a moment. “I don’t deny that I have traveled.”

  “And in your travels, what have you seen?”

  “I’ve seen lands influenced by these stones.”

  “Of course you have. Your own is included, is it not?”

  Rayen frowned and then slowly nodded.

  “Are there limits
to where you can travel?”

  Rayen shrugged. “There were limits to how far we were willing to go. The sea is vast and endless.”

  Charlanna shook her head. “Not endless. Vast, true, but not endless, not at all. And if you were to push far enough, travel beyond, you would find that there is more.”

  Charlanna reached beneath her and pulled out another box, similar to the last. She pressed on it, triggering a lock somewhere within it, and pulled open the lid. Like the other one, it held a ring of stones with another in the middle.

  “This represents the Council in another land.”

  “And the center stone?” Daniel asked.

  “That is the Watcher.”

  “Why does the Watcher oversee both councils?”

  “The Watcher oversees all councils,” she said. “The Watcher is outside of all, unable to take part, and yet able to influence.”

  “How many are like that?”

  Charlanna reached beneath the table again, pulling out another box. She pressed on the top, prying it open. “How many do you think?”

  He stared. They had been so focused on the Ai’thol gaining access to each of the Elder Stones, thinking there were only five. But if there were more, the danger was far greater than they had known. What would happen if Olandar Fahr obtained access to each of the stones? He was already dangerous enough with the power of the known stones in this world.

  “What happens if the Council convenes?” he asked. There had to be some reason for the Council to gather, and considering what he’d seen of the table in the middle of the tree, whatever reason there was would be powerful.

  “When the Council comes together, power comes with it. And with that power comes an understanding.” She tapped each of the stones from the box in front of her, and when she was done, she tapped on the center one.

  He started to work through what she was telling him. For a long time, they had believed that the Great Watcher had gifted his people, the people of Elaeavn and the Elvraeth in particular, with the abilities they possessed. If so, did that mean they were somehow meant to have powers similar to this?

  Or was there another reason?

  If he tracked through what he’d learned, the crystals within Elaeavn didn’t represent an Elder Stone at all.

  His gaze drifted to the box, but not the surrounding stones. This time, he looked to the stone at the center of it.

  “How many boxes do you have like that?”

  She frowned, watching him. “Why?”

  “How many?”

  “There are five.”

  Five Councils. Twenty-five Elder Stones.

  Five crystals in Elaeavn.

  And if Olandar Fahr gained the kind of power that would come from all those councils, how powerful would he be?

  It would be incredible. He would be unstoppable. It was the kind of thing they couldn’t allow. While they’d already slowed his reach, delaying him from using his power to draw the energy from the sacred crystals, he wondered if that would even be enough. Would Olandar Fahr have some way of compensating for what they had done?

  Olandar Fahr was already a step or more ahead of Carth, and if he knew how many stones existed, how much power there was, then he could be unstoppable.

  Only, the more he thought about it, the less sense it made. Why would the crystals of the Great Watcher be in Elaeavn?

  “Do you know where to find the stones in this land?” he asked.

  “I know where most can be found, but not all. There’s a reason they are difficult to find, and a reason they are difficult to bring back together.”

  “Can you show us?”

  “I thought you said you weren’t after power.” She closed the box, pushing it off to the side, and then reached for another, closing it. When she was done, she moved on to the third box, closing it much like the others. Finally, she looked up at him, fixing him with a stare that bored into him.

  Daniel watched her a moment. “I’m not after power, but I’m beginning to think we need to convene the Council before he has the opportunity to do so.”

  21

  Daniel

  The city no longer seemed quite as impressive as it had been when they had first arrived. Daniel Slid, moving between the trees, using his connection to the shadows to practice how he could navigate among them, uncertain whether he was doing so as effectively as he wanted. It was easier each time he did it, the sense that he could continue to use the shadows, to navigate within them, and to Slide using that connection in a way he had never considered before.

  When he emerged back at the edge of the forest, Rayen was there. Shadows swirled around her, and he suspected she did it so she could mask herself.

  She glanced over at him. “You are just as unsettled as I.”

  Daniel flicked his gaze to the center of the city where the massive tree rose. He couldn’t shake the sense of the table there, the Council of Elders, and everything he’d learned.

  “We’ve been thinking we were chasing after five Elder Stones. If there are that many different councils, how much power is out there?”

  “I think Carth has always suspected there’s more than one council,” Rayen said.

  Daniel frowned. “Why would you say that?”

  “She’s traveled far more extensively than I have. In the time that she was gone,” she said, her eyes taking on a faraway look and the shadows within them deepening, “she wasn’t anywhere the Binders could find.”

  “She wanted you to think she was dead.”

  “Sure, but even then, she shouldn’t have been able to conceal herself so easily from the Binders. The network is extensive. In order to hide from us that effectively…”

  “You think she was somewhere else.”

  “I think she had to have been.”

  “Why wouldn’t she have shared this?”

  “Because we are pieces to her.”

  Daniel didn’t have that impression. He agreed that Carth played a grander game than they did, but he didn’t feel that she didn’t care for them.

  “What if the other councils aren’t necessarily different pieces?”

  “Why?”

  He frowned, and on a whim, he grabbed her hand and Slid.

  They emerged in Asador, in a small room he knew Rayen had long occupied, and darkness shrouded everything. The sudden change startled her, and she blinked, looking at him. “You already gave up on Ceyaniah?”

  Daniel shook his head. “I’ve been there, so I can return.”

  It would be a simple matter to do so, nothing more than stepping forward in a Slide, and though he had just traveled an incredible distance in little more than a blink of an eye, he didn’t feel fatigue the way he once would have. More than ever, he was certain that his connection to the shadows had changed him, strengthening him.

  Lighting a lantern, pushing back some of the darkness, he went to the table taking up most of the center of the room. He hadn’t been here all that often, but enough that he knew Rayen would have this here. It was a Tsatsun board, and the pieces were arranged on either side of the game board, waiting for a player.

  “Look at the board,” he said.

  Rayen frowned as she stared. “You mean the Stone?”

  “The Stone is the goal, but that piece isn’t played until the endgame.”

  “Maybe I’ve been giving you too much credit,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “The entire purpose of Tsatsun is to move the Stone. When you control it, you win.”

  “You win, but look at the pieces. What do you notice?”

  Rayen studied the game board for a moment, frowning. “What are you getting at?”

  “Many of the pieces are the same.”

  “And?”

  “And some are sacrificed. Have you ever played a game of Tsatsun where you didn’t have to sacrifice any pieces?”

  “I have not. Carth has.”

  Daniel couldn’t imagine what would be involved in a game where one wouldn’t have to sac
rifice anything in order to win. In every game he’d played, and particularly in those he’d won, he’d been forced to give up certain pieces. He’d never attempted a game where pieces weren’t forfeited in order to reach the Stone. At the same time, he’d never really noticed there was a symmetry to the pieces.

  Daniel slid one of his pieces forward. It was a solid first move, but it was one that wouldn’t place him in danger of losing it on the next. He focused on playing out the game, thinking through the various possibilities as Carth had taught him. How would he play if he didn’t want to sacrifice any of his pieces?

  When he had first learned how to play, Carth had shown him that in order to win, certain pieces needed to be forfeited. Could that have all been part of her game?

  He could see Carth using that strategy to try to convince them of one thing while playing a very different game. He frowned for a moment, looking at the board. Rayen hadn’t made a move, and he turned the board around, choosing a piece and sliding it forward.

  Carth had described playing it out like that before, explaining to him that was how she had learned to grow her skill, and she had used games with herself in order to continue to improve. Doing so meant he would have to keep the possibilities of both sides in mind while playing.

  Could he do that and still try not to sacrifice any pieces?

  As he went, playing one side and then the other, focused on the nature of the game, he found there really wasn’t any move that wouldn’t involve a sacrifice.

  Sitting back, he stared at the game board for a moment. “I don’t know if I can do it,” he said.

  Rayen joined him on the sofa, glancing from the board to him. “I’ve seen Carth play like that, but it’s been a while.”

  “Like what?”

  “Lost in the moves. I think I have underestimated you, Daniel.”

  He waited for the expected insult, but it never came.

  “Are you sure you’ve only been playing for a short while?”