Prelude (The Songs of Aarda Book 1)

by K Schultz

  “I don’t know if it be what we do or if it’s who we is what does it,” she said.

  “I don’t understand, Isil.” Laakea moved back to his seat.

  “Neither does I.”

  “We better find out soon before they send a larger force against us. So far, we’ve been dealing with small groups or raiding parties. If they can find us and track us long enough, they may send an overwhelming force. We’re lucky there were no survivors from the encounters to send word about our location.” Laakea’s eyes clouded, and his brows knit together.

  Rehaak and Isil shuddered as if the room had grown colder.

  “What’s wrong with the two of you?” Laakea asked, noticing their strange behavior.

  “There was survivors, Laakea, two men from the first fight we had along the trail. Didn’t Rehaak tell you?”

  “He told me about the fight, but he never mentioned survivors.”

  “I did not think it was important. How was I to know?”

  “We must move quickly before they locate us here because all these secrets have piled high enough to bury us. What else are you hiding, Rehaak?”

  Rehaak’s History

  Beads of sweat formed on Rehaak’s upper lip and the room felt suddenly too warm as the color rose into his cheeks. His hands trembled, and his heart raced, but he screwed up his courage. Laakea and Isil saved my life...I owe them an explanation. Should I do less after Isil’s display of courage? Once they know me, perhaps they will abandon me...but that might be for the best...it would save their lives; however, Laakea is right; my secrets may well bury us.

  “Well,” he began, “let me start with a few bits to anchor my story in time. Once convinced of the Creator’s existence, I realized our tales and histories contained blanks, but there were clues to superior knowledge of Him in a book called the Aetheriad.

  “I wandered throughout western Khel Braah to places spoken of in lore and written in legend, sites lost to memory, haunted, barren wastelands that were once great cities. I prowled forgotten ruins, covered by the dust and debris of a thousand years, and walked on cratered streets that had not felt Abrhaani feet in a hundred generations. My footsteps echoed in silent marketplaces that once resounded with the cries of vendors and hawkers. I wandered the streets and saw wonders and marvels men have not seen for millennia, all crumbling into dust and decay.

  “I struggled to understand the incredible machines, abandoned and left to rust while I lived in caves, makeshift shelters, or whatever lodging the ancient ruins afforded. My obsession led me to abandoned libraries in ancient cities. I questioned the oldest inhabitants of the places I visited. It was a miracle I found so much, but my discoveries never brought me closer to the Aetheriad.

  “Sometimes, I struggled to read fragmentary writings until I thought I might go mad or blind or both. I once spent half a tenday deciphering an almost unreadable parchment. It contained some nonsense about Eniila monks being summoned to the Scriptorium in the city of Chavanel and charged with transporting an item to Berossus. Chavanel is a rubble-strewn crater on the northeast corner of Lake Sithra, but Berossus has never existed, or at least I cannot find any other references to it. Part of the parchment had crumbled, and the item’s identity lay in the missing piece.”

  “What did you do for supplies?” Laakea interrupted.

  “When the money I received from my family ran out, I worked odd jobs, ate what I found along the road, or went hungry. Later, I discovered a gift for healing, which earned credit for me in the places I visited. My journeys are just the beginning. Through my explorations, I found out several things: first, Aarda had a larger population in ancient times; second, we had knowledge and technology far beyond our imagining; third and most puzzling, the three species of mankind lived together in peace for millennia.”

  Rehaak paused for effect. “Cooperation became mistrust and then degenerated into outright warfare. The war continued for centuries and ended in the complete segregation of our three species. The Eniila and the Abrhaani stayed close enough to continue skirmishing until we stopped fighting little more than a decade ago, but the Sokai disappeared during the conflict. No one has seen them for many generations. The Sokai may have perished in the wars, although no record of them fighting exists.

  “I needed more information, and every antiquarian I met told me I might find what I needed in the Scriptorium of Narragan.

  I traveled to Narragan with a caravan, and when I arrived, I headed straight for the Scriptorium. When I got there, the sheer volume of material shocked me. Imagine seeing stacks of scrolls, manuscripts, and bound volumes filling enormous rooms. What I need may still be there, but it was like seeking a single pearl at the bottom of the Syn Gersuul.

  “Fortune smiled upon me because they kept similar types of documents together. I was looking for the oldest records. They stored the oldest parchments in rooms by themselves. Those scrolls had fallen out of use, and many were crumbling or decayed. Most scholars did not bother with those scrolls since they believed they were legends with no basis in reality. Dust buried everything in those older rooms, but I sifted through it. The task was enormous, but I found material corroborating my theories, and several works mentioned an older volume, the Aetheriad, also known as The Chronicles of Aarda. There were clues about its contents, but nothing about its present whereabouts. That is just background information.

  “The real story, as Isil says, is this.” Rehaak gathered his resolve.

  “The real story is...I abandoned the Faithful One and the quest he gave me. Isil, they coerced you into renouncing Him, but I forsook Him by choice. I bear the full blame for my own sins.”

  Rehaak shared how fame had changed him from a true prophet, a speaker of God’s truth, into a greedy, lecherous, drunken charlatan. He found the words distasteful on his tongue, but the burden on his heart eased as he spoke.

  “Then, amid the debauchery and deceit, the Creator proved why people call Him the Faithful One. Despite my abandoning Him, He spoke and gave me a message for our people. My job was to warn them of the destruction threatening to overtake Aarda unless they acknowledged Him and followed Him once more. The Creator alone has the power to protect us from the coming holocaust.

  “I had squandered the currency of my respect and integrity, so no one believed me. When I shared the message in the market square, a riot broke out, and the Ecclesiarches exiled me from Narragan. I had failed the Creator.

  “Before I headed south toward New Hope, I renounced the Creator. Isil, you met me on the trail. If Laakea had not joined me in the clearing, I would still be there, hiding from my responsibility to the people and God. So once again, external circumstances thwarted my slothfulness. I do nothing unless driven to it through circumstance or necessity. I am an undisciplined beast. How can you trust my fickle nature?

  “I fail at everything I set my hand to. I cannot find the Aetheriad. People ignore my warnings. The Ecclesiarches branded me a heretic. I abandoned my family, my quest, and the Creator, and I will abandon you, betray you, or worse yet, get you killed.”

  Decision

  Shrieking seabirds had mimicked Shelhera’s scream and awakened Aelfric from his dream-filled sleep. He eased the knife away from his throat and wiped away the droplets of blood where the blade had broken the skin. No, not yet. I may have lost everything, but I will not end my own life, not yet.

  In the foggy gray morning, Aelfric stood on the rocky shore and looked across the choppy water. The icy wind made his joints ache, but Aelfric understood why he returned—it was a pilgrimage of sorts. He strained to see the far shoreline of the inlet. It was many years since he last visited this spot. Recollections of a new beginning filled with promise and possibility arose from the depths where they lay buried. Sixteen years ago, Aelfric had landed on this beach with Shelhera.

  Their life together began here. Once they pulled the boat onto the shore, they unloaded the supplies, hauled the empty dinghy farther up the beach, and hid it in a grove of trees. Late
r he came back, turning it upside down on two large logs to preserve it from decay. Under it, he stored his weapons wrapped in oilskins and sealed in a brass chest. He had sworn never to wield the sword in battle again.

  Aelfric muttered, “Sixteen years of living on Khel Braah stole my dreams, my youth, my wife, and my son. I was twenty-six when I arrived on Khel Braah, now I am forty-two, and Shelhera is dead and gone. The hot flame of her life and her love grows cold in my memory. Laakea ran away, and I have nothing left.”

  He wandered until he found himself at the grove again. The trees had grown larger, and underbrush hid the boat from view. Aelfric located the hull by pushing his way through the thick growth. He scraped the moss and leaves from its hull where it lay atop the decaying logs. The boat builders had tarred it to help prevent rot, and the tar worked well. He flipped it upright. It appeared sturdy, though he was no competent judge of the sea and the craft’s readiness to sail it.

  Under the boat, inside the brass chest, lay his sword wrapped in oilskins and his war bow. Aelfric raided the tomb of his old life and inspected the loot. The bone bow was unaffected by the weather, but the bowstring had rotted away, and rust pitted the sword where the oil did not protect it. The quiver, covered in mildew, contained arrows.

  “I abandoned these implements of war, but it was a pointless gesture. A man cannot escape his destiny or his past,” he growled. “I am a warrior, and like these weapons, I am rusty, tattered, and moldy.” Aelfric swung the blade in a few practice arcs. The sword felt familiar in his hand, but he had grown old. Stiffness hampered movement in his wrists and shoulders.

  Aelfric slumped into the bracken, the weight of sixteen years of pain pressing his body into the moist soil. He wept until his eyes grew swollen and raw. He cried for his own losses, but also for his son’s loss; the loss of the father he should have had, and his wife’s loss; the loss of the husband who was once affectionate and tenderhearted. Inside him, the lump in his heart, black and dry as charcoal, finally turned to ash, and although he still wept, his spirit felt lighter for the release.

  The sun heated the back of his neck, and despair gave way to anger. He stoked the fires of rage to overcome the crushing pain of his losses. Once the flames of his sorrow burned low, he arose, snatched his sword from the pile of weapons, and chopped at the thick brush around the skiff. “May the gods drag those bastards screaming from Aarda and roast them over the hottest fires of hell.”

  Aelfric slashed and hacked as if he was in the thick of battle once more. He saw the faces of ghosts; his old foes stood before him and passed judgment on him once more. The barons had condemned him without justification or understanding.

  In an hour, Aelfric exhausted his anger but had cleared a passageway to the beach. It was broad enough to pull the boat through and launch it if he desired. Aelfric realized that was precisely what he wanted. He wanted a refuge from sixteen years of memories and the causes of his pain.

  “I will return to Baradon and make the schemers pay for their treachery. Since I could not escape my destiny, I swear by all the gods, to reclaim it.”

  Aelfric rested on the grassy bank overlooking the beach and listened to the breakers and the cries of the gulls. With rage and grief burned out, calm settled on him like a warm blanket.

  I will return and change things. I spent sixteen years away from Harthang, the city of my birth, but it’s time for a homecoming. Once I assess the political climate in Baradon, I’ll make detailed plans.

  Aelfric proclaimed his decision aloud to the ever-watchful gods. “I refuse to allow my life to end in failure. If my brother Aelrin still lives, it’s time to settle the score and take back my rightful position. I fought, suffered, and bled for it. Once the people learn of my return, they will follow me.

  The people loved me, even if their lords didn’t. There are decades-old scores to settle with Aelrin and the Council of Barons, who treated me like a cur. This dog has grown old, but its teeth remain sharp enough to tear out the throats of the schemers now that nothing remains to keep me in exile.”

  The anger he held in check boiled to the surface and heated Aelfric’s blood. He envisioned his hands encircling his treacherous brother’s neck and squeezing Aelrin’s throat until his eyes bulged and glazed in death. The ghostly faces returned, their voices blended into a savage roar.

  “The king is dead. Long live the king! Long live King Aelfric!” Aelfric stared as intently into their eyes as any mortal could stand, unable to discern whether they rejoiced or lamented his return. He shouted at them, “I shall have my revenge. I am going home.”

  Rehaak’s Decision

  “It seems more important than ever that we join you,” Laakea said. “If the Faithful One won’t let you give up your mission, it must be critical.”

  Rehaak shook his head slowly from side to side and pressed his lips together.

  “If you need Isil and me to keep you focused on the Creator’s plan, then so be it. I swore a Sword Oath to you, and it can’t end short of death, either yours or mine.”

  “But how can you be sure I won’t desert you when things get difficult? Why should you trust me when I am unreliable, unscrupulous, and undisciplined, and I do not even trust myself?”

  “I’d say you got it backwards. It’s not you who we be trustin’, but the Creator. He be the one what is moving all of us along like driftwood in the current. He will get us where we needs to be. If you ain’t figured that out yet, you be a whole lot dumber than we thinks. We all got our faults. Don’t think you be any different than the rest of us. Laakea and I takes you as you is just like you done for us. Right, lad?”

  “That’s right, Rehaak, you allowed me to avoid answering your questions when I came to live with you, when I wasn’t ready to trust you. You accepted me without knowing me or my past, so I must accept you too.”

  “Yes, but I am a fraud,” Rehaak said.

  “And we don’t pay it no mind,” Isil snorted.

  Rehaak ignored her. “Laakea, my life did not depend on you. I lived in safety. It cost me nothing except—”

  “You still say that after what you saw me capable of?” Laakea interrupted and jumped to his feet. “Stepping into a Blood Debt between my father and me could have cost your life. You didn’t know what you were getting into with either of us. I might fail you. I could have left you to die at the hands of those assassins or killed you myself!”

  “But you did not, and you proved you are an honorable man while I am a deceitful, shiftless oath-breaker!” Rehaak stood and stepped toward Laakea.

  “You had no way of knowing the danger when you rescued me. You are who you are, and I am a cold-blooded killer!” Laakea, fists clenched, closed the distance between himself and Rehaak.

  Isil stepped between the two angry men and pushed them apart. She looked from one to the other. “You both be right, and I am a whore used by Ashd’eravaak’s followers. Yet we is the ones the Creator has picked for this job. If you wants to argue with anybody, argue with Him.”

  “But Isil,” Rehaak objected, “we are not sure what the Creator wants from us.”

  “I say we continue and trust God is called the Faithful One for a good reason,” Laakea contended. “Things are becoming clearer as we go. We must act soon, but we need not panic just yet. Pa used to say, ‘Although the outcome of a battle is uncertain, surrender guarantees defeat.’ We must fight or die.”

  “More like fight and die! What can the three of us hope to do when there may be hundreds, even thousands of the Dark Ones’ followers by now,” Rehaak said.

  “We’ve gained more information since we began. We are encountering opposition, which shows we’re on the right path. Besides, I doubt every assassin on Khel Braah is after you. They must be busy with other plots.”

  “I refuse to be responsible for the deaths of friends. You said it yourself, Laakea, we will eventually meet forces we are not powerful enough to overcome!”

  “We ain’t dead yet, and I, for one, intends to be somewh
at hard to kill. We chose this, so you ain’t responsible for nothin’, but the one what brought us together can keep us from harm. You may not believe me, but I know that there be things worse’n death.”

  “I won’t accept any more of your excuses, Rehaak. I have two days’ supply of charcoal. If I can’t finish my weapons by then, we will continue with what weapons I have. We will find your book, even if we must travel through the gates of death itself. Now tell us what you can of its location because we dare not sit here and wait for the next attack.”

  Isil and Laakea shared a look but said nothing further.

  Rehaak sat silent, humbled by his two companions. They are far better friends than I deserve, but I put them in danger, and if I fail again, Isil and Laakea will die. This is unacceptable. I wanted to dissuade Laakea and Isil from following me, but I did the opposite. “It is late, and I will consult my notes later. We should sleep and ponder what we have heard and shared.” Rehaak hoped he hid his intentions well enough to fool them.

  I will lose their friendship, whether I abandon them or get them killed. While any of us are alive, the Dark Ones cannot have Khel Braah. If we separate, we will be harder to find. I must slip away from them to protect them and Khel Braah.

  I will resume my quest...alone.

  Laakea’s History

  “It is late, Rehaak, but we should finish this before we sleep.” Laakea faced Isil and Rehaak across the table. Isil nodded, and Rehaak shrugged. The trees cast long shadows outside his father’s house as Laakea began, “My father and mother raised me here on Khel Braah. Ma and Pa came to escape Baradon, their homeland. Neither of them told me what caused them to leave Baradon. I don’t understand how my father knew they would find safety in Abrhaani lands.”

  “I suspect he understood we tolerates most things what don’t threaten us Abrhaani or our beliefs. All life is sacred to us, laddy, we only fights to protect ourselves or Aarda. One lone man and his woman weren’t no cause for fear since they wouldn’t do a whole lot o’ damage.”