by Tora Moon
“Blazel!” Chariel cried, then raced across the room and threw herself into his arms. “You’re back. I knew you were coming.”
He hugged her tight, glad to see her again.
“I came home because you called me,” he chided as he released his hold on her. “I’m glad you did, I was getting tired of living in swamps. It’s so good to be dry.”
She stepped back to look up at him. “You know what this means, don’t you?”
“I do. I came as fast as I could.”
“The madness is close, so close. We just don’t know when it will arrive.”
“This madness,” the pretty woman asked as she settled on the arm of Eidstrun’s chair. “Does it have anything to do with the prophecy you just had?”
“Prophecy?” Blazel asked.
“She had one this morning,” the woman said. “By the way, I’m Leistral, part of Rizelya and Aistrun’s squad-pack.”
“Hey, I haven’t had a chance to do introductions yet,” Aistrun complained. He proceeded to introduce everyone.
“So, Chariel, can you tell us about your prophecy?” Jaehaas asked.
“No, I can’t. It isn’t that I don’t want to—I can’t. I rarely remember my prophecies once I speak them. Although…” She tilted her head and looked at Jaehaas. “You just may be the horse I saw.”
Jaehaas pulled back, a sneer on his face.
“It wasn’t an insult, Jaehaas,” Chariel said gently. “I see in images. You are half horse, so a horse is what my vision showed. I wish Wisah or Rizelya were here. They heard the prophecy, but they’re with the Supreme right now. I remember bits of this one, which is unusual, like the horse. And … something in it means Wisah and I are going on a journey. But I’ve never left the Sanctuary before in my life! It’s all so strange. We’ll just have to wait for them to finish to know exactly what I said.”
“I heard it,” Leistral said in a soft voice. “I’d left to go to the necessary room, and when I came back you and Wisah were there. I hung back to let Rizelya have some time with her niece, and then you started speaking in a weird monotone.”
“Well, what did she say?” Eidstrun poked Leistral gently in the ribs.
“Give me a moment, I have to think.” She closed her eyes.
Everyone in the room was quiet, giving Leistral time to recall the odd wording prophecies took.
“New-found friends,” she began, each word stretched out, her eyes still closed. “New Talents appear. Unlikely travel—”
“Blazel! You’re here!” came a shout from the door.
Leistral’s eyes snapped open and everyone turned to the door. Two women walked in, Wisah and the beautiful Red, Rizelya, Blazel had seen in the courtyard. Rizelya looked pale and shaky, like she’d just gone through a terrible ordeal. Blazel recalled some of his meetings with the Supreme when he was young. They could indeed be a trial. Wisah wasn’t as pale, but she too was shaken. Whatever had happened in the audience with the Supreme, it wasn’t good.
“Is there any taevo in there?” Wisah asked, nodding to the pot.
Eidstrun opened the lid and looked in. “Just enough for two cups. It looks like you two could use something stronger.” He started to push up from his chair.
“No, taevo will be fine,” Rizelya said. She trudged over to where Aistrun sat and sank onto the couch next to him. Aistrun put his arm around her.
Blazel felt a growl in his throat. He swallowed it before anyone heard him. Rizelya wasn’t his. Yet.
“Hey, Little Red, you look awful,” Aistrun’s voice was full of concern. He pulled her tighter to him. “Was the audience that bad?”
“If the Supreme ever offers to pull the memories from you,” Rizelya groaned, “don’t let her do it. It hurts. Thanks.” She took the cup Leistral handed to her; it shook in her hands.
A knock sounded on the door, and a matronly woman with green hair and brown eyes pushed in a cart. She nodded at them and silently distributed the food from the cart onto an eating table. When the cart was empty, she trundled back out.
“So, Leistral, what else do you remember?” Chariel asked. “We were rudely interrupted.”
“Not now,” Rizelya broke in, struggling out of Aistrun’s grasp to stand up. “I’m starving. I didn’t have any breakfast before the Supreme drained me. My stomach is touching sides.”
She strode to the table, wobbling and weaving a bit as she did so. Blazel bit his lip to stop the smile as he joined the others in the migration to the food. Maiden help me, but she is beautiful.
Chapter 10
Rizelya spooned another bite of soup into her mouth as she watched the intriguing man from under her eyelashes. Aistrun was regaling the party with the tale of their squad-pack’s adventures. Wisah and Chariel leaned forward, elbows on the table, food forgotten as they listened. The two new men were also engrossed in the story. Rizelya had heard it before—had lived it.
Whatever the Supreme had done, it had drained her—not as much as the damned janacks did, but close. She reached across the table to grab another slice of bread and her eyes met the strange man’s. She experienced a zing of attraction as he smiled at her. Chariel’s words came back to her: “Blazel’s gonna love you.”
He had a sense of strength and power about him, but also innocence. Rizelya’s gaze dropped to his broad, muscular shoulders and slid down to his taut belly. Would he be good in bed? She clamped down the thought. There was too much danger, too much to do, to have a relationship. The last relationship she’d had was with Kaieli and it had passed quietly into simple, deep friendship. She didn’t want a relationship. He reached for the pot of taevo and his muscles rippled under his shirt. But a fling? Maybe.
Aistrun paused in his story and Rizelya broke into the conversation. “I know everyone here, except you two.” She pointed her spoon at the strangers.
“Sorry about that,” Aistrun said. Then he pointed to the centaur. “This is Jaehaas de Haasneh and that is Blazel.” Aistrun then gestured at her and gave her a sly smile.
Oh no, what is he going to do?
“And this is Rizelya, our intrepid leader.” He paused and raised an eyebrow. “The monster whisperer.”
“What!” She felt her cheeks flame and tossed her spoon at him in retaliation. It missed, clattering on the table.
“Well, you do hear the monsters while no one else can,” Aistrun said, unrepentant. “Makes you a monster whisperer.”
“I can hear them,” Blazel said slowly as he caught her gaze. “At least I hear humming around the control janack.”
“You do?” Rizelya sat forward. “Do you see a strange woman? Have strange dreams?”
Blazel dropped his eyes and shook his head.
“Wait, what about your dream just outside Strunhelos?” Jaehaas said. “You be pretty messed up afterward.”
Blazel glanced down at his arm as if seeing something under the cloth. He took a deep breath and looked up.
“I guess you’ve all seen strange things,” he said. “This was weird. I only remember bits and pieces of the dream. A gaunt woman dominated them…” He paused and looked at Chariel. “She looked a little like you.”
“Damn!” Chariel grimaced, then looked at Rizelya before turning back to Blazel. “You’re the second person to make the comparison. I scared the daylights out of Rizelya this morning. She thought I was some kind of evil woman.”
“I think it’s the hair and the eyes,” Rizelya said. “The woman I see has the same dark charcoal-gray hair as you do and dark eyes, although, hers don’t have any pupils. And she has claws.”
“Yeah, I remember the claws now,” Blazel said. He rubbed his upper arm. “She clawed me in my dream and when I tried shifting I was sick.”
“Tell the truth, Blazel,” Jaehaas chided as he glared at him. “He be poisoned. The healer told me it be a mix of monster and narhili beast toxins. If we hadn’t been so close to the keep when the poison be activated, he’d have died.”
Rizelya shuddered and rubbed her c
alf. “I’ve suffered narhili poison. It isn’t fun. The woman in my dreams seems to be linked with the monsters and causes harm through them.” She shook her head. “I’ve haven’t had her hurt me.”
“She must be powerful,” Chariel said. “Only a very powerful Gray would be able to use the veil to affect someone from a long distance. I’m not sure I could do it. And I’m the darkest Gray there is.”
“But you contacted me in the swamp,” Blazel said, rubbing his forehead. “I was in the southern peninsula when I heard you call me back home. Your voice was very clear and it pushed me unrelentingly to hurry here.”
“I could only reach you because I know you so well. I really don’t remember calling you. I know something dreadful is coming.” Chariel put her head in her hands and groaned. “If only I could see what it is, then we’d know how to stop it.” She dropped her hands. “It would be amazing to consciously help people from a distance. There’s so many I could help, but I’m stuck here in the Sanctuary.”
“Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it,” Jaehaas said. “I once wished to see the Sanctuary, and here I be. Although I’d have wished for better circumstances, not the death of our people.”
“The people in my dreams feed off death,” Rizelya said in a low voice, her head dropped, her eyes closed. A memory assailed her. “‘Come eat, my friends,’ the gray woman said, and a needle-like claw dipped into a bowl filled with pus-colored pearls. Pearls created from the deaths of people killed by the monsters.”
Rizelya’s eyes flew open when she heard a gasp. She looked around the table and saw the faces of her friends were filled with horror. Leistral was green and held a hand to her mouth. She gagged and rushed from the room, with Eidstrun right behind her.
“I said that out loud, didn’t I?”
The rest nodded.
Aistrun had a stricken look on his face. “You’ve been seeing that all this time and haven’t told anyone about it?”
“What could you have done?”
“Shared your horror, your pain,” Aistrun cried. “It wouldn’t have made it better, but it would have lessened it. Is that what trapped you in your dreams on the way here?”
“Yes, and more,” Rizelya said, her voice flat. “She showed me people getting killed, children even, and as the monsters ate them, smoke and an oily-pus substance gathered wherever she is, forming those awful pearls. She sucked them down with relish.”
“Do you know who they are?” Jaehaas asked. “Is there some way we can stop them?”
“The Supreme knew,” Wisah said. “She called the woman a Malvers—”
“You were right, Riz,” Aistrun interrupted. “The monsters do belong to someone called Malvers.”
“It isn’t a someone, but a race of people,” Wisah said. “They are the people we fought in the Great War. Apparently, they weren’t all destroyed but exiled. The prophecy you had, Chariel, is a way for us to defeat them once and for all. These people are evil if they are eating the pain and death of others.”
“So what is this prophecy?” Blazel asked. “Leistral was starting to tell us when you came in. None of us men know what it said.”
“Let me try to get it right.” Wisah closed her eyes, then intoned, “New Talents appear. Unlikely travel companions. They find danger. A rogue guides them into the Deep Mountains to find long-lost allies to fight the ancient enemies coming into the light. A menace comes. If there aren’t allies, the enemy wins and we all die. All must go or none will return. Horse and hawk, fire and warrior, white and gray. Rizelya must lead. He will follow. We will follow.”
Wisah opened her eyes and looked around the table and her face drained of color. “It was us, all of us, in the prophecy.” She pointed to each person as she named them. “Horse is you Jaehaas, mage is you Rizelya, and warrior must be Aistrun, because the rogue can only be Blazel. You were right, Chariel, you and I are the Gray and White. Only the eagle is left.”
“We’re going on a quest,” Rizelya said, remembering the prophecy. “To find old allies to fight our ancient enemy.”
“The eagle must mean my friend Graak,” Blazel added. “He will help us.”
“He must,” Wisah said, “or we won’t win the fight. The prophecy said if we didn’t find our allies, the enemy wins and we all die. Not just us,” she motioned around the table, “but all Posairs.”
“Damn,” Blazel said, and pushed away from the table. “I wasn’t planning on leaving as soon as I arrived.”
“The Supreme hasn’t approved the quest yet,” Wisah reminded him. “It could be days or even a chedan before we leave.”
“Good. It will give me time to research our enemies,” Blazel said. “Now I know what to look for, I should be able to find the books in the library. When I was younger, I found several hidden caches the librarians knew nothing about. We need to know who these Malvers were and what they were capable of. It might not be true anymore, but it’s a start.”
“I’ll join you in the search,” Jaehaas said. “You did promise to show me the library.”
“I’ll go with you,” Chariel said, standing up. “I know the library almost as well as you.”
“Me too,” Wisah added.
Soon only Rizelya and Aistrun were left at the table. Leistral and Eidstrun hadn’t returned. Aistrun stood up and walked around the table and sat back down next to Rizelya. He put a hand over hers.
“Well, Little Red, you’ve stirred up a hornet’s nest again. We’ll be haring into the Deep Mountains in search of the Phengriffs.”
“You can’t blame me this time, Wolf. I didn’t have the prophecy. That would be Chariel.”
“But you’ll lead us, and we’ll follow.”
She stared at him. His words echoed the prophecy. Why is the Goddess so concerned with me? Where is destiny taking me?
* * *
The library was quiet. Sunlight fell in through the high windows, filling the cavernous room with warmth without touching the fragile books and scrolls. Long lines of shelves marched the length of the room, books stacked in neat order, scrolls in their cubbyholes. This section was reserved for the more modern works, those after the Great War.
The books Blazel wanted were older, hidden, forgotten. It had been over a thousand years since the Great War had ended, leaving the Posairs’ society in ruins, their once-great cities destroyed. Whether their people would survive had been questionable and all efforts had been put into that endeavor. The war and its cause were thrust aside as the few remaining people struggled to rebuild their world.
When he was a teenager, Blazel had found an ancient history buried deep in the dusty stacks, describing the struggle his ancestors had faced after the war and the horror of the first attack by the Malvers monsters. He remembered reading a personal footnote by the historian saying something about the Supreme’s choice to eradicate all memory of the enemies fought in the war. The historian had cautioned it would be a detriment, for one day their enemies would return. His words were proving true. Blazel was searching the stacks for the book, hoping it would give him clues of what they now faced.
He’d lost the others somewhere in the library’s depths as they conducted their own searches. After octars of searching, and with the light becoming dimmer, he wandered to the far back corner of the library. Dust covered everything, a patina of cobwebs laced the shelves, and the skittering of mice could be heard. In the gloom he saw a door.
Dirt encrusted the frame and the bar locking it was rusted with age. Blazel shifted into his warrior form, and with his greater strength wrenched open the door. A dark, empty hole lay behind it. Blazel shifted back to human and crossed to a nearby reading table with a lantern on it. He grabbed the lantern and went back to the door. Holding the light before him, Blazel stepped through the door. Steps led down into the darkness, a thick layer of dust showing no one had come this way for a long time. The air smelled musty with age. Blazel descended, the lantern held high with one hand, the other hand brushing the wall.
&
nbsp; Down and down he went until finally the steps ended. The light from his lantern formed a small circle around him, unable to penetrate the oppressive dark. Blazel discovered an old torch in a wall sconce and calling his fire to him, he lit it. There were more torches along the wall. He began to light them to reveal a huge room filled with old relics.
He touched an old staff and a weak pulse of magic thrummed from his hand to the staff. A fireball burst from it, sizzling for a moment before it disappeared. Blazel pulled back his tingling hand and the staff clattered to the ground. From the corner of his eye he saw a reflected light. A crystal ball pulsed with indigo-blue light. Mesmerized, he reached for it. It fit perfectly in the palm of his hand. Again he felt a weak pulse of magic pass from him to the ball. The blue light crisscrossed the ball’s surface, gathering into a swirl of snapping energy, until it was released with a crack like lightening. It hit the wall with a muffled boom, then the light fizzled out. Blazel dropped the ball which instead of breaking bounced twice before returning to an inert piece of crystal.
After that, he was careful not to touch anything—until he came upon a stack of books and scrolls. They were brittle with age and difficult to read because the words were different from modern language. He looked at the titles: Mordar’s Reign of Terror, Creation of New Species, Shandir’s Great Magic, The Malvers Rise to Power: A Treatise on Corruption. These were books from before and during the Great War.
Soft footsteps on the stairs disturbed the quiet, and Blazel whirled around to see the Supreme stepping into the torches’ flickering light. She was even older than he remembered. Her face was wizened with wrinkles and her back was stooped. She now leaned on a cane. But when she looked at him with her strange white eyes, he knew her power was undiminished. He hurried over to where she stood and made obeisance to her.
