The sound of footsteps approaching in the snow broke Wyand’s concentration, and he opened his eyes to glance towards the narrow crevice. Nothing moved there other than the constant flow of the river, however, so he scanned the slopes next and found only the glowing eyes of the Guided on all sides. Confused, he turned back to the Vision Pool, but the sound of shuffling snow began once again, this time from directly behind him. Wyand spun to face the noise and, to his alarm, spotted a pair of glowing eyes moving amongst those of the dead. A ripple of fear leapt up his neck when those eyes spotted him, but even more terrifying was the look of recognition in them.
“Thank the Kingdom, I finally found you,” the man said with a tired sigh, and Wyand suddenly shared the sense of recognition. Though he now wore a tan robe like one of the Guided and his face was mostly obscured by a dark, week-old beard, the voice undeniably belonged to Silax.
“Wh-why are you here? How are you here?” Wyand stammered as Silax trudged closer.
“It’s good to see you, as well,” Silax answered sarcastically as he walked to the edge of the pool. “The Council Guide sent me to find the Cult of the Guided after my assessment. Evidently, my grasp of the Visions was too strong for me to remain in Cynmere.” Sadness flashed across Silax’ face as he spoke, and when he looked away for an instant, sunlight glinted off of the first traces of the crystalline film in the corners of his eyes. “Seeing all of them”—he swept his arm towards the rows of Guided—“and finding you here tells me I must be in the right place at last.”
“This is the Cult of the Guided,” Wyand admitted slowly as he peered uncertainly from one part of the valley to the next. “Did anyone else come with you?”
“I traveled alone, as all Guided do when called to this place,” Silax answered with a note of pride as he took a seat on a stone by the edge of the pool. “It was a difficult journey, but the Visions revealed the way. They revealed something else as well, but I need your help to truly understand the message. Do you still have the Thoughtcaster with you?”
“I do,” Wyand nodded, his uneasiness growing.
Silax leaned in close. “May I use it?” he asked eagerly. It was a simple request, one that Wyand had fulfilled hundreds of times before, but something felt wrong this time. As Wyand reached for the Thoughtcaster, his sight blurred and a deafening ringing filled his ears. In the next instant, he was staring at Silax’ back from a viewpoint a few strides away.
The Feller was hunched over the Vision Pool and breathing heavily, then he stood and backed away awkwardly. Wyand shouted when he noticed the Thoughtcaster around Silax’ neck and the glowing Stormheart in his hands, but no sound came out of Wyand’s mouth. Silax turned towards him with a victorious sneer, but within a stride it was as though the deranged Feller stepped right through him. Wyand tried to follow him, but his attention was instead drawn back to the Vision Pool. To his horror, he spotted a body floating in the churning waters, its eyes staring into the infinite distance of death. That body was his own.
The Vision faded, and Silax reappeared where he had been at the edge of the pool, his brows raised in expectation as he extended his hand towards Wyand to take the Thoughtcaster and the Stormheart. In the echoes of the ringing in Wyand’s ears, a voice as hollow and powerful as thunder filled his mind with an urgent plea. RUN. Wyand instantly began edging farther downstream in the hopes of avoiding the terrifying future he’d just witnessed. His face must have betrayed the fear he now felt, though, because Silax’ expression darkened suddenly when he noticed the momentary hesitation.
The Feller looked at the surface of the Vision Pool and chuckled to himself. “I’ve waited so long for this day,” he said with an astonished shake of his head. “I truly hoped you would give me the Thoughtcaster willingly, just so I could savor the surprise in your eyes when I finally stole the light from them.” He leapt into the pool and landed with a splash less than three strides from Wyand.
Panic-stricken and vulnerable, Wyand slogged downstream as fast as he could before Silax got any closer. “Help!” Wyand screamed desperately, his voice reverberating on the rocks and the snowy slopes that trapped him with a madman. “Help!” He knew if he could make it to the path before Silax reached him, there was a chance he could sprint back to the Vestry—without some sort of weapon, Wyand knew he stood no chance against the enraged Feller if it came to violence.
A surge of hope fueled Wyand’s muscles as he took hold of the stone ledge that lined the narrow path. Just as he pushed his waist up to the stone, though, Wyand felt a hand take hold of his ankle and drag him back into the water. Before he could resist or even cry out, his head was submerged by a second hand that gripped the back of his neck. Wyand flailed, clawed, and kicked, but nothing he tried could surpass the strength offered to Silax by pure murderous anger.
As Wyand’s lungs began to burn, Silax’ fingers suddenly found the chain that held the Thoughtcaster. For an instant, Wyand’s head broke through the surface of the water as Silax pulled back fiercely on the chain, but the moment of regained breath was quickly lost when the chain itself began to choke Wyand. Blood pounded against his face and behind his eyes, but Wyand clung to consciousness and continued to resist. Thoughts of freeing Dism Slyde and Aldhagen fueled his resolve, as did the desire to see his friends again: Keltin and Edan, Ryna and Eyrie. He would not die here. He couldn’t.
Silax tugged the chain until he brought Wyand’s face beside his own. “This is for Hirst,” Silax declared through clenched teeth as he pulled a final time with all of his strength. Wyand saw a ring of darkness expanding from the edges of his vision; his muscles grew weak and he felt his remaining energy drain away with each painful heartbeat. Then the Thoughtcaster’s chain suddenly snapped and the Feller stumbled backwards. Wyand gasped, at first unable to believe the sensation of air once again filling his starved lungs.
“Silax!” Hirst shouted from the crevice in the rocks, and the Feller’s rage was replaced by a look of shock and fear. Wyand would have laughed with joy if his aching throat had been capable of producing such a sound, because evidently his cries for help had been heard. On the path beside the river stood Hirst, with Keltin, Aemetta, and Carnan just behind him.
“That’s…no. You died! He killed you!” Silax stammered. Wyand coughed and wheezed, still trying to regain his breath fully. Something bumped against his foot, but through the rippling water and the tears in his eyes, Wyand couldn’t see what it was.
Hirst shook his head furiously. “No, you fool, he helped free me. I told you of my plan for you, of the Visions’ plan for you. How have you strayed so far from the path for your life to come to this?”
“You said that we had the most important task in Aldhagen. That we alone—your Woodsmen—could make Kingdomturn mean something,” Silax insisted.
“Kingdom be found, I didn’t mean the task of being Woodsmen!” Hirst exclaimed. “I meant the task assigned to the group of you who followed my example by no longer eating the tainted food. You were supposed to start the silent resistance in Aldhagen, not provide something as trivial as the Kingdomturn offering.”
Silax was stunned. “He cast you out. He killed a Venerate, then the filthy liar blamed me for it!” His mouth twitched as he lifted the Thoughtcaster above the water and watched it rotate at the end of the chain. Wyand felt something brush against his leg again, but this time when he looked down he could clearly distinguish what lay beneath the water. An isen rocked back and forth in the current, the tip of its blade caught on the edge of Wyand’s nightclothes.
“Actually, Silax, if I sought to hold anyone directly responsible for my Casting, it wouldn’t be Wyand—it would be you,” Hirst replied as he slowly walked closer and lifted the cloth from his eyes. “You misconstrued my instructions and belittled Wyand’s entire task. The Venerates held me responsible for your actions and cast me out without even allowing me a chance to speak. So, thank you, Silax. Thank you for helping me grow stronger and become what I am now.” The Pathshaper’s eyes flar
ed with light as he neared the ledge closest to Wyand. As slowly and carefully as possible, Wyand lifted his leg beneath the water until his left hand found the isen’s handle. He continued to cough and wheeze, but it was only to maintain the image of being in a weakened state.
“To find you among the Guided is the saddest outcome I could have imagined for you, Pathshaper,” Silax said with a pitying frown. “For all the wisdom, all the strength you claim to possess as one of the Guided, the ‘path’ your Visions reveal is but one facet of an infinite number of possibilities that comprise reality. They are only showing you what they want you to see!”
Everyone stared at Silax in confusion. “Who?” Hirst asked.
Silax smiled darkly and his head suddenly and violently twitched to the side. When he looked up, his eyes not only flickered with the usual blues and greens of the Guided, there were moments where the colors were engulfed by swirls of pure, black emptiness. At times, Silax appeared to have no eyes at all, only endless voids that swallowed all nearby light. Then a voice spoke through him—a deep, resonating hum that scraped words through his throat and caused pain in the ears of all who heard it:
The way is winding, deadly dark,
The arrow finding true its mark,
Shadows blinding, cutting keen,
Chaos binding eyes unseen.
There was a moment of stunned stillness as the colors—and the blackness—faded from Silax’ eyes. “None of it matters now, anyway,” the Feller said in his normal voice as he began moving towards Wyand again. “You can’t comprehend the truths I’ve seen, so they are pointless to try to explain. Here is what happens now: I have the Thoughtcaster. I’m going to take the stone, but I think…no, I’m certain that you need to die first.”
An isen flashed in Silax’ hand from the interior of his robe, but as he swung for Wyand’s throat, his blade instead met unexpected steel with a resounding clang. The force of the impact was strong enough that the two isen repelled away from each other; Wyand was prepared for this result, but Silax was caught by surprise and lost his grip. He turned his head away just as the isen flew towards him, but the end of his blade still made contact with flesh. By the time the isen disappeared into the Vision Pool, blood poured from a gash that encircled the outer half of Silax’ right eye socket.
In a daze, Silax stumbled to the far edge of the Vision Pool as Hirst and Keltin lifted Wyand to safety. The injured Feller clawed his way out of the water and retreated towards the southern slope of the valley, pushing through the deceased Guided and leaving a trail of blood in the snow behind him.
“He still has the Thoughtcaster!” Wyand shouted hoarsely, and Stonebrother Carnan immediately charged through the red snow in pursuit of the Feller. Carnan was fast, but somehow—even injured—Silax was much faster. As he scrambled up the peak with remarkable speed, Silax turned back to face the group a final time.
“We know you. Soon, you will know us,” the unnatural voice boomed, then Silax climbed higher and was lost a moment later in the billow of snow that the ceaseless wind curled over the top of the mountain.
“We have to follow him!” Aemetta cried, hurrying after Carnan.
“Not that way,” Hirst called after her. Aemetta slowed, as did Carnan, then they both stared at the Pathshaper impatiently. “There’s a reason this valley has remained safe from intruders since the time of Taerius. Beyond those mountains is nothing but snow and ice vipers. Injured as he was, Silax will not make it far on foot, I am pained to say. We must hurry back to the Vestry and then I will continue to Crolun Raigh—I will send out scrid patrols to search for him. Hopefully, they will recover him alive and with the Thoughtcaster.”
“Hopefully?” Keltin repeated incredulously.
“As I said before, the Guided do not know everything,” Hirst explained as they began walking the narrow path back to the Vestry. He frowned and shook his head faintly. “Still, I saw nothing about Silax’ involvement in all of this—no one in the Cult of the Guided saw anything about him. His arrival here was…unexpected, as though he was hidden from the Visions somehow.” To hear one of the Guided admit that something was a complete surprise was bad enough, but to hear that confession spoken with the quiet fear that had crept into Hirst’s voice was terrifying.
Wyand’s thoughts were moving too quickly for his exhausted mind to grasp as he tromped through the snow. The Thoughtcaster was gone. For now, he reassured himself. Silax hadn’t been cleansed; if anything, he seemed even more mad now than he had been before. He almost killed me, Wyand realized, though not for the first time. He shuddered, then he suddenly understood why they needed to go to the Vestry instead of returning directly to Crolun Raigh. With everything that had happened, Wyand hadn’t noticed that a thin layer of ice was beginning to form on the outside of his soaked nightclothes; once again his concept of ‘cold’ was redefined.
Warm air embraced Wyand’s skin as soon as the door to the Vestry was opened. He could see light from a fire shining on the walls of the main chamber and hear logs popping occasionally over the dull roar of a respectable blaze. “Just leave the nightclothes on the floor. Change and then go rest by the fire,” Hirst instructed, with no argument from a shivering Wyand.
Keltin, Aemetta, and Carnan followed Hirst into the main hall and Wyand began removing his sopping garments before the door had even fully closed. In the span of less than a minute, he was back in his Sreathan plate and marching towards the comfort of the fire. The others had pulled several benches close to the fireplace, leaving one vacant for Wyand, onto which he graciously collapsed.
“Hirst has gone to alert the other Guided to the situation with Silax,” Keltin said grimly as soon as Wyand sat down. Wyand nodded tiredly but didn’t reply. “Did you at least receive the Vision you needed to see how to free Dism Slyde?” Keltin asked a moment later.
“The only Vision I received showed me that Silax was about to attack,” Wyand answered. “I didn’t see anything else. Besides, how are we going to free Dism Slyde without the Thoughtcaster?”
There was a moment of heavy silence as each person realized the truth in what Wyand had just said. “It was for nothing, then,” Carnan said glumly as he stood and walked to one of the windows that faced the direction of the Vision Pool. “I don’t understand how he made it here alive.”
“He claimed the Visions led him safely to Crolun Raigh, but I’m not sure if any of the things he said were actually true,” Wyand replied. Carnan clenched his fist angrily and stalked across the room to one of the eastern windows. His frustration subsided when he peered north and squinted at something in the distance. “What is it?” Wyand asked as he suppressed a yawn.
“Come see for yourself,” Carnan said in an intrigued tone. Wyand sighed—he was just beginning to feel warm again, but his curiosity outweighed his desire for comfort. Carnan stepped aside when Wyand reached the narrow window and gestured towards the horizon. “What is that?” the Stonebrother asked.
At first, all Wyand could see were mountains and valleys covered with snow, but then he spotted what Carnan must have been referring to. Between several of the mountains, a dark blue line was visible that appeared to merge with the sky. In certain spots, it reflected the morning sunlight and Wyand thought he could distinguish ripples or distortions of some kind on its surface. “It looks like water,” Wyand said with a shrug. “Too big to be a river or a lake, though.”
Keltin’s bench suddenly toppled backwards with a loud clatter as he leapt upright and turned to face Wyand and Carnan. “What did you say?” he breathed.
“It…looks like water?” Wyand repeated uncertainly, his heart pounding from the unexpected commotion.
Keltin’s eyes grew large and a look of excitement swept over his face. “And it’s to the north, correct?”
“Correct,” Carnan answered. “Why is that important?”
“I’ll explain, I just need some time,” Keltin said hurriedly. His eyes darted from one corner of the main hall to another, then he smiled and r
an to the fireplace. After removing a long stick that was only burnt on one end, Keltin blew out the flames and began dragging the charred section across the floor with a loud scraping sound.
“Keltin, what are you doing?” Aemetta demanded, but he didn’t respond. Aemetta then turned to Wyand for answers, but all Wyand could do was shrug, shake his head, and share in her confusion. The scraping soon stopped and Keltin lifted the stick to inspect its sharpened black point. Satisfied with what he saw, he stepped to a section of the floor that was clear of soot, lowered himself to one knee, and drew a series of curving lines in a pattern that Wyand didn’t recognize. No one spoke as he worked—there was an air of urgency to his movements that conveyed the great importance of whatever it was he was drawing.
Keltin stood after several minutes, muttering to himself as he reviewed the large, elaborate drawing. He nodded, then turned to face the group. “Forgive my silence—I’m ready to explain now,” he panted, his eyes beaming with excitement.
Aemetta looked at the charcoal lines again. “I recognize this!” she exclaimed. “That’s the map from the High Conduit’s chambers.”
“Exactly!” Keltin laughed. “That single sheet of fabric held more information than I ever imagined possible, until accessing the Thoughtcaster, of course.” He pointed to the drawing. “These are just the details that I could remember, but if my theory is right, these are all that we will need.”
Wyand stared down at the lines. A map, he said to himself, but he still couldn’t make sense of any of the details Keltin had drawn. “What’s your theory?” Wyand asked, hoping to better understand Keltin’s revelation.
Keltin pointed with the stick to a small circle near the lower left edge of the drawing. “The High Conduit’s map captured two main points: Aldhagen and Dism Slyde.” He tapped the first circle, then moved the stick to another point near the top of the drawing that was separated from Aldhagen by a large expanse of emptiness labeled ‘Plateau Desert’. “Thanks to me, unfortunately, the location of Cynmere was added.” He moved the stick once again to a circle on the right side of the drawing. “These were the only known permanent settlements until now, with the discovery of Crolun Raigh.”
Kingdomturn Page 88
