The Realm Rift Saga Box Set

by James T Kelly

  He blinked and found himself again. Fenoderee had pulled his hand from the stone, strong and sodden fingers around his wrist.

  “Are you well?” The fay sounded like he was in incredible pain. He was too close to the monolith. He must be in agony.

  “Yes.” Tom nodded. “Yes.”

  “Then let’s go,” Brega said. “We’re losing the night.”

  Fenoderee fled from the stone, and Tom tugged the reins, letting his horse follow the others. But he couldn’t help glancing back. He knew he could have touched that magic if he’d had a moment longer.

  “What was it like?” Dank asked. He spoke with his own voice, and Tom couldn’t see his face. But he had the sense every fay was waiting behind his eyes, waiting to hear the answer.

  It felt like Dank was asking him something personal. Not quite private. But something he had no right to know. “Confusing.” That was true enough. “I’m not sure.”

  Dank nodded and seemed like his old self. “You wouldn’t see us try that.”

  “Why does it hurt the fay?” Tom asked. But Dank just shook his head, and before Tom had a chance to ask Fenoderee instead, the path took a turn and the city lay ahead.

  “We will stick to little-used alleys and roads,” Gravinn told them. “Do not draw attention to yourself.”

  “We will happily cause distractions if need be, lady dwarf,” Puck promised.

  “Why do I think that would only draw more attention to us?” Brega said. “If you want to see my veins emptied, Puck, do it yourself.”

  “Vain?” Puck gazed at himself in an imaginary hand mirror and ran an appreciative hair through his fur. “We suppose we are vain. After all, we are rather handsome. Don’t you think us handsome, lady elf?”

  There was a smirk in Brega’s voice when she said, “Something in that vein.”

  “Ho ho! Ho ho ho!” Puck leapt from Stoorworm’s back and pranced around Brega’s horse. “We like this one, Tom, we like her very much.”

  It was ridiculous to feel a stab of jealousy. Ridiculous and vain.

  The streets were dark, narrow, cobbled and worn. There were sounds of voices and revelry a few streets over, but no-one trod these uneven roads. There were just rows of narrow, boxy homes, all old and crumbling. Tom half-expected an avalanche of roof tiles any moment. But Gravinn rode off into the streets without a care. As if they weren’t fugitives from the law. As if the Kingdom wouldn’t be happy to throw them all into rat pits.

  “Silence here, Puck,” Tom warned as they trotted over the cobbles. “It won’t be as amusing to betray us as you think.”

  “Amusing?” Puck didn’t whisper. In fact he was louder than usual. And he grinned as he spoke. “Think you that we care only for amusement?”

  “Yes.”

  Puck peered down a well. “Well well, what have we here? Are you well?”

  He would have to ask Mab why she had thought Puck would be an aid.

  Firelight caused them to divert their path. A gathering of homeless elfs, Gravinn said. Tom peered down the street and could see them sitting around a pile of detritus and refuse. He wondered if they might be allies, but thought better of it, and followed Gravinn’s detour. Finally, without ceremony, they found the Records Office. Larger than the other buildings, but no younger and no grander, it was a mere box with elfish daubed on the walls, the gilded lettering over the door now faded and plain.

  “Dank,” he whispered.

  Already the boy was hissing through gritted teeth as his tattoos writhed, and his sprite was free a moment later. They waited while it flew up and over the building to find the crack in the old window shutters that Gravinn assured them could be found. Waited in shadows and hoped there were no watchelfs on patrol. Tom kept his hand on Caledyr for some sort of comfort or calm, but his heart still hammered in his chest. He wondered if he should put on the mask.

  As if reading his thoughts, Gravinn whispered, “No-one comes through this area at night.”

  “Why not?” he asked.

  “They fear cutthroats. And the homeless.”

  As if they were the same. But he asked, “Is there a danger?” Would a desperate elf accost four figures in black?

  “You carry a sword.”

  “Thank Angau we have you to protect us, Tom.” Brega’s words were dry and he could imagine the smirk in her eyes. It made Tom feel like a fraud, like a boy holding his father’s sword.

  But before he could say anything, Gravinn asked, “Do you make sport of him? Has he no skill with a blade?”

  And Brega said, “He does.” She sounded surprised. And suspicious. And why not? He didn’t understand it himself. How had he wielded Caledyr so well in that cellar?

  And then Brega said, “How did you come by that?”

  He didn’t need to ask what she was talking about. He reached to his waist where he had tied Siomi’s mask to Caledyr’s hilt. “Neirin gave it to me.”

  “And you will use it to inspire fear.”

  “Um.” He cleared his throat. After hearing Neirin talk about the masks, his use of it felt crude.

  “It’s a good idea,” she said.

  “You don’t think it’s disrespectful?”

  She shrugged. “It’s not your tradition. We may as well get some use out of it.”

  He nodded. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  For not being angry with him. For not judging him. For being nicer than she had been. He pulled the mask free and tied it to his face. It felt heavy. Cold. It narrowed his vision, blocked out all but what was in front of him. He felt cut off. Distanced.

  The door clicked. The sprite had unlocked it.

  The Records Office was nothing more than a solitary desk and rows and rows of shelves, filled with scrolls and codices and books. It reminded Tom of Regent’s map room, except for the complete lack of artistry or comfort. The place was crammed full of paper, threatening to burst at the seams. Tom picked up a roll of parchment, crumbling with age. How old was it? What was it for?

  “Looks like a deed,” Gravinn said, peering under the sprite’s glow. “Someone bought a house a hundred years ago.”

  She spoke casually, disregarding the document. But Tom knew what he held. History. When this was gone, the people of Cairnabren would lose more than just paper. They would lose something precious.

  He thought of Katharine’s maps, sitting in Cairnalyr. Her history. Lost to her. Stolen. No doubt reduced to another decoration on Gerwyn’s garish walls.

  “Burn it,” he whispered.

  Gravinn unstoppered a tiny bottle and pulled a stick out of the liquid inside, which sputtered into flame the moment it touched air. Tom held paper to it and watched the fire consume that history, turning it to floating grey ash. Before it could burn him, he placed it on a shelf, and watched the flame spread.

  The alarm was raised before they had fled very far, but Tom galloped down the very alley Gravinn had avoided before. Half a dozen elfs in rotten, stinking blankets were gathered around a pathetic fire. They raised their arms, cried out in incoherent noise as Tom hauled on the reins, letting his horse rear and whinny.

  “Do any of you speak my tongue?” he roared, as deep and booming as he could manage.

  One elf nodded, his hands raised, backed up against the wall.

  “When you hear of the fire, you tell them of us. Tell them what you saw. And tell them that we want Idris to have a taste of the fire he spreads over our lands.” He leant forward in the saddle, letting a wild grin spread over his face. “Tell them we do this for the king.”

  Ledden was a day’s ride from Cairnagwyn. Once it had been a fishing village, in competition with another on the other side of the lake. When it had lost that struggle, the people of Ledden built log cabins and rented them to the elfs of the capital who sought sanctuary from city life. Now there was still fishing, but it was for the pleasure of the Kingdom’s elite.

  The Faerie Circle had left them on a small rocky outcrop in the middle of the lake. Tom had take
n one look at the black water and his breath had frozen in his lungs. But there was still energy in his limbs and no space for fear. So he had swum to shore, burning away the excitement. By the time he stood shivering on the sand, he felt calm. Ready.

  It was just him and Brega. Dank waited on the outcrop for them. They couldn’t operate the Circles without him. The others remained in the foggy Between.

  “Which one?” Brega whispered. Tom had been panting, hands on his knees. Now he looked up, scanned the tiny beach. There were half a dozen log cabins, small affairs with porches like the abandoned farmhouse, all with little wooden boats tied to them. All dark.

  He counted from his left. “That one.” Gravinn had named the target and Dank had named the right cabin. Tom wondered why the fay so readily knew where the elf was.

  Their steps were soft on the sand but they had to tread carefully on the porch. It was made of good wood, treated against the water, but it threatened to creak. Caution. These elfs came with bodyguards, as well as a watch house within earshot, according to Gravinn. A cry for help would bring a dozen swords down on their heads. These guests were important elfs, after all.

  The door was unlocked. Important, but foolish.

  There was no light inside so they left the door ajar. By a sliver of moonlight, Tom could see the floor was covered in rugs, covered in turn by bottles, glasses, platters, the detritus of revelry. There were chairs, a lounge, and a bed against the wall. A bed with two elfs in it. Sleeping soundly.

  The journey across the floor seemed to take all night. The wood floor threatened to betray them, the mess threatened to get underfoot. Any step could creak or crack or shatter. Brega moved like a cat, picking her way over the floor. It reminded him of Katharine. Brega found a path through the debris the way Katharine found a path through Tir.

  Then she was at the bedside. She cast an eye over the sleeping forms and waved him forward. They had no weapons. Tom got into position at the end of the bed.

  She was quick, one hand in the hair, the other over the mouth. Before the elf even knew what was happening he’d been dragged from the bed, kicking ineffectually at the floor.

  The other elf stirred, rose, and Tom pointed Caledyr at his throat. “Don’t say a word.” The elf nodded. “Tyhen, isn’t it? Secretary of the Peace?”

  He was old, the oldest elf Tom had seen. He raised skinny wrinkled arms, skin sagging, and his jowls shook as he nodded. His eyes glittered with fear.

  “Who’s that?” Tom nodded his head at the struggling elf in Brega’s arms.

  “Whoever it is, they’d better stop fighting,” Brega said. She’d got a firmer hold, one arm pinning a wrist behind his neck, the other holding her knife to his throat. “Or I’ll cut his throat, and then I’ll cut Tyhen’s.”

  Her captive stilled but his eyes roved the cabin. Searching for a weapon, or an advantage. He was young, muscular. “The bodyguard?” Tom asked. He couldn’t keep the amusement from his voice.

  “I’ll do anything you ask if you promise not to hurt him,” Tyhen said.

  “I’m sorry, but my name is Thomas Rymour.” It was a thrill to reveal himself. He felt untouchable. “I can’t tell a lie.” He gestured with the sword. “On your feet, my lord.”

  Tyhen set his jaw, every inch the lord until Tom said, “We don’t need him alive if you don’t cooperate.” Then the old elf sagged and clambered from the bed, as naked as his bodyguard.

  “Will you kill me?”

  “Only if either of you cause trouble,” Tom said. “Now tie his hands and feet.”

  It was awkward. Brega refused to let go of the guard and Tyhen’s hands trembled. But, eventually, the bodyguard was trussed on the floor. Brega inspected the knots.

  “A poor job. They won’t last ten minutes.”

  “We won’t need longer,” Tom replied.

  “Shall we clothe him?” she asked.

  Tom didn’t much enjoy the elf’s nudity, but, “No. We’ll take him now.”

  Brega nodded. “I’ll get the boat ready.” She turned to the guard on the floor. “If you move, my friend here will make you watch your perverted old lover die. Do you understand me?”

  The guard said nothing. He had a rag stuffed in his mouth.

  Brega slipped out onto the beach. They had done it. Tom allowed himself to grin. They hadn’t quite bearded Idris in his den. But a day’s ride from his door? It was good enough.

  For now.

  “I have money,” Tyhen said. “I have land. Power. I can give you anything.”

  “Quiet.”

  “Please. Whatever you want, I can make it happen.”

  “Would you like a gag of your own?” The Secretary of the Peace was in charge of every watchelf, every judge, every aspect of law and order in the Kingdom. There was a thrill to threatening such a powerful elf.

  Brega returned and lifted the guard onto her back. Tom followed her out of the cabin, edging Tyhen forward, careful not to harm him, careful not to let him think he was safe. Then they all climbed into the little fishing boat, and Brega began to row. She was good, quiet, and they slipped away over the lake. The boat shook and rocked beneath them and Tom had to hold the edge of the boat to prevent from falling. His arm was getting tired; Caledyr’s point wavered, drifting close to Tyhen’s throat.

  The elf murmured something to himself. Some little prayer, perhaps? If the Easterners prayed, perhaps the Westerners did too.

  The guard didn’t pray. He glared at Tom from the bottom of the boat.

  The outcrop was too small to land, so Dank held the boat as Brega disembarked. Then she hauled Tyhen out, leaving Tom with the guard.

  Tom leaned closer. “When they ask you about what happened here, tell them this,” he said. “Idris takes our friends and family from us. We will take his. But we are merciful. So we will give them back.”

  Tom grinned at the guard’s confusion and climbed out. Once on firmer ground, he turned back to the dark, sleeping shore. “For the king!” he cried.

  He kicked the boat. The waves took it, rocking across the water.

  “For the king!”

  A few lights flared in the cabins, a few doors opened.

  He held Caledyr aloft for them, twisting it to catch the moonlight and gave one final bellow. “For the king!”

  Orfatyne was a backwater, unremarkable, unimportant. Gravinn said it was the furthest you could get from a city within the Kingdom. And it was hundreds of miles south of Ledden. That was where they left Tyhen, without a stitch to his name.

  Heulomar was one of a string of towns running down the west coast, the last places in the Kingdom from which to see the setting sun. Many of these towns were host to great monuments built in the days before Emyr, hollowed hills that admitted light only on Calmae, or stone circles that predicted eclipses. But Heulomar was Idris’ favourite, Gravinn told them, home to a great obelisk that acted as an enormous sundial. It wasn’t the greatest of these solar monuments but, being the king’s favourite, breaking it would get his attention.

  The night was beginning to fail when they stepped out of the Circle onto a beach. The wind off the ocean was freezing, but Tom didn’t feel the cold. He had thwarted the Kingdom. Twice. There was a fire in the east and a naked courtier in the south. He had done those things. He was bearding Idris and no-one was throwing him in a rat pit now. He felt mighty.

  Fight the enemy.

  He would. He would bring the fight to them. He whipped the reins. “We must ride quickly!”

  The enthusiasm seemed to take them all. He and Dank raced their horses, laughing and whooping in the dark. Mester Stoorworm slithered ahead, back, and ahead again, Puck on his back, the pair digging under trees and sniffing at fences. Only Fenoderee was quiet. Fenoderee and the mortals.

  Heulomar was dark and invisible, but the obelisk was a blotch on the night sky, a dark lantern. Its size was staggering, blunting Tom’s breathless excitement. To have stood so tall and so long spoke of staggering craftsmanship. Was it right to bring down s
uch a work simply to weaken Idris? Doing so would rob future generations of the chance to stand at its base, touch the stone and touch their history. Gaze up at the tip, dizzy and in awe of what their ancestors had achieved.

  A dragon had broken the statue over Lyr’s Ford. It felt only just to return the favour.

  This task fell to the fay so Tom waited with Brega, Gravinn and Dank. Puck dug at the obelisk’s base like a loyal hound while Fenoderee and Mester Stoorworm fetched enormous boulders. Puck’s efforts were pointless, but the stronger fay would break the stone and tip it over. Fenoderee was the first to strike, the crack of rock on rock like a thunderclap.

  “Do you think we can do it before the elfs come?” Gravinn asked.

  “Let them,” Tom replied. What would they see by torchlight? Four figures in black, and mighty boulders flying through the air, as if by magic, the Faerie hands unseen. It would seem like sorcery. He smiled as he imagined their confusion.

  There. Sure enough, lamps were being lit, windows and doors winking in the village below. Mester Stoorworm had added his own efforts to Fenoderee’s, creating a rhythmic assault, a cacophony of crack-crack-crack. But beneath it Tom could hear voices. The elfs were coming.

  “Take the horses over the hill,” he told Gravinn. He dismounted, watched Brega and Dank do the same. Brega drew her knife, Tom drew Caledyr. Was the crackling excitement he felt coming from the sword? “Ready, Dank?”

  “Ready.” There was a grin in the boy’s voice.

  Torchlight. A crowd of elfs, walking the path from town to monument. And the two fay still worked at the stone. Not tiring, not even out of breath. Unstoppable. And immortal. Tom felt a shiver of the fear they hoped to instil in the crowd running up the hill.

  No time to worry about that. Fenoderee dropped his boulder and Stoorworm aped him, slipping around the obelisk and pushing from the other side. The stone groaned under the pressure.

  Too late to go back now.

  There was a crack, so loud it hurt the ear, and the obelisk twisted and fell. It was so tall its arc through the sky seemed almost lazy, the tip shining in the torchlight before it crashed to the ground, obliterating the sundial beneath with a boom that rang in ear and bone.