The Realm Rift Saga Box Set

by James T Kelly

  He found Kunnustenn outside too, and the dwarf looked embarrassed to have been spotted. "It seems my sleeping arrangements remain uncertain."

  “You're still arguing with Jarnstenn?”

  The dwarf let out a sad little laugh. "He is arguing with me,” he said. "But yes.” He hugged himself against the freezing wind. "It is not easy, when the one you love does not value your work."

  "Is that what you’re arguing about?"

  "Isn’t it?"

  Tom hadn’t thought so. But he knew very little about the pair. "You came because of Caledyr.”

  "Yes."

  "And Jarnstenn came because of you."

  "Yes."

  Tom shrugged. “He believes in what you have. Does he need to believe in anything else?”

  The dwarf said nothing and stared into the growing darkness for a long time. He was struggling with something.

  Tom remembered the hunger he had seen when he had asked the dwarf to tell him about Orlannu.

  He opened the flap to his tent and said to the darkness within, "I’ll take first watch."

  "Fine." Katharine sounded tired and irritated.

  Tom didn’t need to see the sword to find it. He could feel it waiting in the dark. "Call for me if you need anything."

  "Fine."

  His first thought was to leave her alone. But he thought better of it. He stepped carefully into the tent, picked his way to the source of her voice. Bent awkwardly to place a kiss on her head.

  She reached up and placed a hand on his cheek. "I’m sorry," she whispered.

  "For what?"

  But she didn’t say anything else, just curled her fingers in his hair. "Your beard is getting long." She was right. There was enough for her to get a handful of it. "I like it."

  He took her hand in his, squeezing it. "Sleep," he told her. "I’ll be back soon."

  The light was almost gone when he emerged, the wind still high, the faint stars blotted by dark clouds in the north. "I don’t like the look of that," he said to himself.

  "Do you think it’s a storm?" Kunnustenn was still stood outside, now staring at the wagon but making no move to get inside.

  "Maybe." Tom glanced about and spotted a hollow in the mountain that offered a good view whilst providing shelter from the wind. “If you’re not ready for sleep, I’m always ready to learn more about the glarn.”

  “From me?”

  “Of course.”

  Kunnustenn nodded and followed Tom up the mountainside, squeezing into the alcove alongside him. It was a tight fit for two, but perhaps warmer for it. “What do you want to know?” the dwarf asked.

  “Whatever you can tell me.”

  Kunnustenn’s sigh was almost lost to the wind. “Where to begin?”

  With Orlannu, Tom wanted to say. Tell me how it will save Katharine. How it will save my daughter.

  But he was here for Kunnustenn. So he said, “Begin wherever you would like to.”

  "Very well." Kunnustenn cleared his throat, and when he spoke again his voice was a little deeper, a little slower and clearer. His speaking voice. Tom didn’t get the feeling it was deliberate. More like a habit formed long ago that he now had little occasion to lean on. "Caledyr’s first name was Ymellith.” So he wanted to talk about the sword. That was fine. Tom could turn the conversation to Orlannu soon enough. “An old children’s story tells that it was forged by the giant Taneto, who dwarfs know as the Smith Before Time, thousands of years before the time of King Taranau, who you call Emyr. That same story also tells that Taneto forged another sword, Hemyleth."

  Hemyleth. Emylt. The sister sword borne by Melwas. The sword that gutted Emyr.

  "The swords were used in a great war against the invaders, but alas the giants fell and created the land."

  "The invaders?" Tom asked.

  "The first people." Kunnustenn spoke as if it was plain and carried on. "The children’s story ends there. There is mention in Eystenn’s Codex of two bronze blades displayed by the Drowned Cities in the south. And, of course, we know that Uran bore two bronze swords in his war on the dead."

  Tom shook his head. Did everyone know about this Uran except him? "The man who made the monoliths."

  The stars shone just brightly enough that Tom could make out the dwarf’s frown. "I haven’t read that."

  "Emyr told me."

  "Interesting." But from his tone, it was plain the dwarf didn’t believe it. "The swords go separate ways after that. Various lords and leaders claim to bear one or the other, but Jokuvinn’s Incomplete Bestiary of Tir has an unusual passage in her entry on the fish folk that claims Caledyr, at least, returned to their lands until their queen was kidnapped, along with the sword as well."

  Kidnapped. Nimuë. "When did that happen?"

  "Not long before King Taranau took the throne."

  "The fay. It had to be."

  Tom hadn’t realised he’d spoken aloud until Kunnustenn replied, "Dead-bane."

  "What do you mean?"

  “That is the translation of the sword’s first name. The name that Malvis sought to purge from mortal memory." The dwarf was quoting something. "No thing did the Black Knight fear save the name of the weapon borne by King Taranu."

  "Why?"

  "I suppose because it tells you their secret. And a secret known is a weakness shared."

  Tom could feel thoughts and words and memories coming together in his mind, pieces of a puzzle he had never tried to solve. He tried to push it away, but the sword pushed it back at him.

  Dead-bane, it told him.

  Nothing can die in Faerie. When you walk in Faerie, you see glimpses in the corner of your eye of friends and family long gone. Nothing can die in Faerie. They are made of magic. Magic uses up part of yourself. Everything living must die. "The fay are dead."

  "The dead become the fay," Kunnustenn corrected. "Or so Gellvinn’s Memories of a Time in an Undead Realm would have us believe."

  "The dead become the fay." It didn’t make sense, yet he believed it. It was true. Well, of course it was. If he could say it, it was true.

  "You seem troubled?"

  Tom nodded. "I need to speak to Ambrose." He needed answers. He could feel the world around him tipping. The foundations he’d thought unchangeable stone were instead mist and fog. He pushed himself to his feet, clutching Caledyr to his chest. Anchor me, he told the sword. Keep me here.

  Ready.

  Somehow that made things worse, the sword’s quiet patience clashing against the unsteady sensation of slipping beneath these terrible thoughts. He scrambled down the mountainside, staggered to Emyr’s tent and pulled the flap aside.

  "Ambrose," he said. He was out of breath. He took a gasping gulp of freezing air. Tried to hold onto the feeling of the stinging breath in his chest. "The fay. The fay are the dead."

  "Of course." Ambrose’s voice came out of the dark, ominous and lacking in comfort.

  "You knew."

  "At one time."

  "My king?" Tom asked. Did Emyr know too?

  Emyr grunted. And Tom heard him stir and take a deep breath. "What’s the matter?"

  "This is the moment Tom learns the nature of the fay." There was no movement from Ambrose’s side of the tent. Tom expected he wasn’t even blinking. "It is a difficult time for him now."

  "Ah." Emyr shifted in the dark. "Yes. It’s a difficult thing to come to terms with."

  "My king?" He knew. Why hadn’t he said anything?

  "To know that the energies of those you miss and mourn have become part of the fay. That your loved ones fuel the forces arrayed against you." There was a very great sigh in the dark. "There is a part of my Eirwen somewhere in the fay. Amyr. Ganed and Cei and Lyr. And when I die, I’ll become part of them too."

  Dizziness twisted Tom to drop to his backside, cold wind tossing the tent flap against his head. Elaine. Degor. They were fay now? No. The fay were unreal creatures. Woodkin and brownies, not dead people.

  Except the Cauld Lad was a drowned boy, wa
sn’t he?

  Was there a fay that looked and sounded like Siomi? "Are you saying we become fay when we die?"

  "No." There was no comfort in Ambrose’s voice. "It is all energy. You pulled the fire from the twig. When we die, the fay pull the elements from our bodies. Just as the fire used the twig for fuel, so do the fay use our bodies."

  "They feed off us."

  "If the analogy helps you."

  The fay ate the dead. So they had consumed Siomi. Elaine and Degor.

  "It’s not like eating a pig," Emyr added. "They consume the soul, and all that comes with it. Your memories, your knowledge, your heart. They know everything the dead knew."

  Tom felt naked, exposed. "They know what the dead know."

  "Yes."

  The fay were the dead. The fay ate the dead. The dead became the fay.

  He had lain with a dead thing.

  He felt bile rise in his throat at the memory of the things he had done with Maev. It was like he had done them with a corpse.

  Fight.

  That was the wrong thought at the wrong time. Tom struggled to his feet, dropped the sword. He wanted no more of it. He had been lied to, deceived. Played for a fool. And it was plain to see, now that he knew. Nothing lived forever. So the fay weren’t alive. Obvious, really. He almost laughed as he staggered across the camp.

  The tent was warm and so was Katharine. She woke as he pulled back her furs, and if she was surprised by his advances, she quickly became rougher than he did.

  When they were spent, she pulled the furs over them and held him as he fell into a dreamless sleep.

  If anyone noticed that Emyr rode with Caledyr the next morning, they said nothing. The old king had risen with even more vigour and purpose than ever, giving orders and almost leaping onto his horse. He made no attempt to hide the sword at his hip, and Tom made no attempt to take it back. He had been too busy talking to Katharine, words pouring out his mouth seemingly of their own volition. He’d talked about Rose, where she would be born, he knew Katharine wanted to continue her work as a Pathfinder but shouldn’t they stay in one place at least for a little while, maybe one of the cities, she could sell maps, he could find some work, they could make a home, just for a time.

  In the end Katharine took him by the shoulders and told him, quite forcefully, that she was happy he was so excited, but that listening to him was exhausting. Then Six had helped her climb into the wagon. Her absence opened a space in his mind, a space which unpleasant thoughts could invade and occupy, a space that couldn’t be filled by the tasks of breaking camp.

  So he wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or dismayed when Emyr asked to ride with him. Conversation would distract Tom from his thoughts, but he was sure Emyr would want to talk about the fay.

  He was right.

  "It’s a hard thing to learn, son,” Emyr said. “It took me many years to come to terms with it."

  Tom tried to think instead of his life to come, of Katharine and Rose.

  "Maev changed when Eirwen died." The old man dropped a hand to Caledyr’s pommel. An old habit, one he didn’t seem to notice. "Maev tried to seduce me once, when I was still king. Her efforts felt clumsy compared to Eirwen’s. My lady had a dark glance and a smile that could suggest worlds. But, after she died, Maev seemed to have learned her art. She looked at me, and smiled with my lady’s smile, and my breath quickened the way only Eirwen could quicken it."

  Tom felt his stomach tighten. It had been Maev’s smile that had ensnared him. A smile stolen from a dead woman.

  "They used to say Eirwen bewitched me." Emyr had a fond smile on his face. "Perhaps she did. I always felt I loved her more than she loved me."

  “Many of the stories say that Eirwen was devoted to you," Tom said, to make Emyr feel better.

  "I know what the stories say about her," Emyr said, the cheer now gone from his voice. "They say that she lay with one of my knights."

  Tom didn’t want to ask if it was true. So he said, "An Easterner once told me that story was only in the mind of Sir Picell. That he saw Eirwen, imagined a great epic romance between them, and loved her so much he died of it there and then." Siomi’s eyes had smiled when she told the story, like it was a balm to hear even if she didn’t believe it.

  "I didn’t knight anyone called Picell."

  "So she wasn’t unfaithful?“

  "Oh, she was unfaithful." Emyr was grinning again, staring into the distance. "Did I never tell you how she came to wear the Tanatei?"

  The necklace of the dwarfs, an exquisite piece of jewellery charmed to protect the wearer from magic. "You didn’t. But I’ve heard the story. Is it true?"

  "Oh yes."

  Tom frowned. If his wife had lain with four dwarfs for a necklace, he wouldn’t be grinning about it. "You don’t seem to mind."

  Emyr bowed his head a moment, his grin growing soft, wistful. "Son, they called me a warrior and a king. But that woman had a fiercer heart than anyone I have ever known." He patted Caledyr like a faithful hound. "I had my weapon. She had hers."

  Weapon. Tom felt uncomfortable thinking about it like that. "She used her body to get what she wanted."

  The old king lifted his head and frowned. "Is that so different from using a sword?"

  The carrot and the stick. Maev and Melwas. The dead played games with the living. "No."

  Emyr’s brow softened and so did his tone as he said, "Our loved ones become weapons to use against us," he said. "The fay learn our weaknesses. Learn the tricks they need to make us do what they want. It’s what makes them so dangerous."

  "You could have told me."

  Emyr nodded, looked down at his hands. "Would you have listened?"

  "All I could do in Faerie was listen," Tom pointed out. He’d had no voice with which to argue.

  "But perhaps you wouldn’t hear." Emyr fiddled with his reins. "I’m not a fool, Tom. I know why you came back to Faerie."

  Tom felt his cheeks redden and a flush despite the cold wind. He looked away, stared at the horizon as if he’d spotted something interesting. But there were only mountains and dark clouds.

  Emyr cleared his throat. "Still. Now you know."

  "Now I know." He knew he’d been seduced by Eirwen’s smile. What else had Maev stolen from the dead? Did pieces of Elaine and Degor look out from behind her eyes? "How?" he managed. "How do they do it?"

  "I don’t know."

  The plod of the horse beneath him, the weight of the packs, the soft sounds of conversation, the creak of the wagon. Everything seemed so small and fragile and mortal. Now the fay had the strength of the dead behind them.

  What had happened to Siomi?

  "You spent your reign looking for these glarn,” Tom said.

  "I did."

  "You found two."

  "Yes."

  "The same two we’re looking for now."

  "You’re wondering what has changed. If we couldn’t succeed with a kingdom and nineteen years behind us, what hope do we have now?"

  "Exactly."

  "We have things we didn’t have then." Emyr raised his chin to the people behind them. "Ambrose. Dank. A thousand years of advances. You."

  "Me." Tom looked at the clouds again. They were moving fast. He tugged his fur tighter at the throat. Bad weather was on the way. "I don’t know what help I can offer."

  "You once said you would call me a friend.”

  Because Emyr had asked him to. And Tom could still feel the pride and responsibility the request had given him. But now they seemed emptier. As if the dark pebble inside him had somehow drawn the colour from them. Just a little. But enough to make Tom grimace.

  "I need a friend, Tom,” Emyr said. “Mine is lost to me. I am alone amongst strangers."

  It was easy to forget that. Emyr always seemed so at ease with everyone, as if he had known them for years. But he had known them for a matter of weeks. He relied on Tom to know them on his behalf. And even though it felt like another responsibility, another burden to bear on top of bur
dens, Tom said, "I would be honoured to serve as your friend."

  "I don’t want you to serve," Emyr growled.

  And Tom couldn’t help but smile. "My king."

  "I’ve changed my mind. You’d make a terrible friend."

  "If my king says so."

  "A king can take off your head."

  "That would make the horse’s load lighter."

  Emyr roared with laughter, and if it seemed he laughed a little too hard, Tom didn’t say anything. With so little to laugh about, the old king could be forgiven for making it count. His laughter ended as pain pinched the corner of his eyes and he put a hand to his gut. "Do you ever look back on your life and wonder how you got to this moment?"

  "Often."

  Emyr just nodded. "We’re a long way from where we want to be."

  Where they wanted to be. Tom turned in the saddle, stared back at the wagon and imagined what life would have been like if he’d run away with Katharine.

  The wagon blurred and faded, and Tom saw it overturned and burning in the dark.

  The mountains echoed with a screech. A cry. Someone was crying.

  A woman’s voice said, “Sir Beduir knew that movement clears all paths and unlocks all doors."

  The present returned with a gust of cold wind that made Tom shiver.

  "Tom?" Emyr had hold of his arm. Perhaps he had swayed in the saddle.

  "The air." It was thicker. He felt a sudden surge of energy, as if he’d been half-asleep for weeks. Magic. He shook his head, disgusted by the sudden alertness that rushed through him.

  "I feel it too." Of course. Emyr has spent centuries in Faerie. He would know what magic felt like.

  "Is it the fay?" Tom couldn’t face them. Not when he knew what they were, and what he had done.

  "I don’t know." Emyr had Caledyr in his hand. "Draw your sword, son."

  Tom reached for an iron blade at his waist, but his hand was stayed by a voice that seemed to bellow from the mountains themselves. "Blades down!"

  It wasn’t hard to find the source of the voice. He was stood atop a ridge, no more than a tall, broad shadow with the sun behind him. "Dismount," he told them.