The Blackened Yonder: Planar Lost: Book One (Planar Lost (Standard Edition) 1)

by J. Gibson

  “I suppose there’s an irony in your becoming the Scribe Officiate alternate.” He chuckled.

  “Indeed,” she said, a smile dimpling her face. “What of your parents, if I may ask?”

  “Long gone. Father passed of a malignancy in the liver when I was fourteen-yeared. My mother went soon after I made my priesthood and became guardian of Erlan.” The name of the village rolled over his tongue like a foul taste. “Mother fell prey to what the healers call drowned lung during the winter. Persistent fever, pain in the side, shortness of breath, a gurgling cough. That sort. Didn’t take it long to subdue her.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, Father.”

  “She lived her life well.”

  They began their ascent of the hall’s stairs, which led up to the front doors of the circular structure, its façade shielded by eight marble pillars. A stone and glass dome capped the building as a helm, many feet tall, with a statue at its peak in the likeness of Aros, the First Woman.

  The steps themselves, stone laid high and wide, were a daunting climb for one as eldered as Garron. Sister Halleck experienced no similar difficulty, and kept pace in a considerate manner. Youth still blessed her, after all, and elves were known for their natural athleticism.

  “If I may,” he said, “have you any notion why they’ve asked you to accompany me? Not that I object.”

  “Archbishops Mallum and Delacroix believe I have a gift, though I’m not quite sure in what.” They came to the top of the stairway. “I’m interested in materialism. That’s all I know.”

  “We may hone our craft, but ultimately, we’re each limited to what is lent us, I’m afraid.”

  “I suppose it so.”

  They entered the grand main floor of the hall, passing the young man at the front desk, who had the stature of a leaning weed. He greeted them as they walked by with a grin, his black eyes crinkled at the corners. “Welcome to the Hall of Knowledge of the First Woman and Undermother,” he said.

  The open center of the structure exposed the rounded ceiling, which depicted across its curvature the All-Mother in Vreosiqar, Her golden plane in the Overrealm. Lit lanterns hung from columns above guidon banners of crimson, adorned on their fronts with the Overcross in white. Between windows around the walls, sculptures of archbishops and imperial sovereigns of the past gazed down to the black and white marble floor.

  “If I may ask a question,” Sister Halleck said.

  “Certainly.”

  Her orange-red eyes traced the shelves as they walked toward the back. Symmetrical beneath her pointed nose, her mouth remained at a semi-regular smile. “What are we doing here?”

  He studied her countenance, the subtleties of her expression, then spoke forthright with her. “I seek texts beyond the Blest Writ which discuss Vor-Kaal and the Patron of the Undead, as well as necromancy. Reanimation, in particular.” He had concluded her trustworthy, but kept his voice quiet.

  “Have not such texts been banned by the Vicar?”

  “Abessa Alamanor’s Obsidian Manual and her other works,” he corrected, gentle and precise. He turned toward a nonfiction section ranging from A to J. “There are more.”

  “Do you not agree these works are heretical?”

  “We may not always concur with the assessments of our betters, Sister. I serve the Mother first.” He came to a shelf and searched from one spine to another, across codices bound in leather, reads in paperback, written by hand and printed, of conditions new, hardly used, and worn. “The Vicar decrees what is willed right by the Ennead, yet my circumstance, as so, means that I require knowledge of heretical matters. Alamanor’s work represents a seminal text of a theological subdiscipline.” He put a finger to his lips. “If the Vicar believes her a proponent of necromancy rather than an objective narrator, so be it. I’ll seek my learning elsewhere.”

  “May I assist you in finding anything?” The desk attendant had appeared behind them.

  “I know what I seek,” Garron said.

  The man smiled and left without another word.

  After a few minutes of sifting through texts, Garron slipped a finger over the top of one of the books and pulled it out, loosening filth in a small cloud with it. “Tales of the Blackened Yonder.” He held the book up for Sister Halleck to observe. “By Xiressa Venlee, a magus in her time.”

  “Have you read this?”

  “Heard of it. By the grime, no one else has read it in a while.” He blew on the cover, sending up a puff of dust. “These are the things they don’t teach in the institutes or the Priory.”

  “It says, A Collection of Folklore and Myths on the Land of the Dead,” Sister Halleck said. “What good is a book of falsehoods and fables for getting at truths?”

  He strode toward the back of the hall, past rows of stone tables and white chairs wrapped in red leather and ornamented with carvings and rubies. “We’re looking for kernels of truth among half-truths and tall tales.” A statue of Aros, handsome and graceful, stood at the farthest end of the room.

  “You mean, confirmation of your experiences?”

  Garron stopped and gazed at her, his lips taut and downturned. “Aye, confirmation of my experiences.” He seated himself at one of the tables, opening the book.

  “Forgive me, Father Latimer.” She sat across from him. “I meant no offense.”

  “I took no offense, Sister. Call me Garron.”

  “All right, Garron. Call me Amun.”

  He chuckled through his nose. “All right, Amun.”

  A particular passage caught his eye. He read its contents aloud: “‘Following a great struggle between humans which resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, Korvaras came to the world. From those many slain, he created Vor-Kaal, and imbued her with his power. She is obedient to her Master and will not hesitate to carry out any command given to her.’” Garron paused, his eyes moving ahead. His next words carried greater emphasis: “‘Vor-Kaal has the ability to raise the dead as well as steal the spirits of the living. Referred to as the Keeper of Death in ancient writings, few have witnessed her physical body, which the Rotter’s Tome states bears resemblance to a mortal woman with black horns as those of a ram. Some claim that she comes in the night to draw spirits from their sleeping hosts, leaving the bodies to decompose or, if she wills it, to walk as empty shells.’”

  “The Rotter’s Tome?” Amun said.

  “The Mythosian version of the Blest Writ.”

  A woman with horns as those of a ram. He sat back in his chair.

  “She raises the dead and steals spirits.” Amun sounded excited. “This confirms it.”

  Garron ran a hand over his beard. “It makes no mention of any instance in which this has occurred. I’ve neither heard nor read any credible stories which speak of such events.”

  “You saw it, firsthand.”

  How could anyone know this unless it has occurred before?

  Amun echoed his considerations in a whisper: “Could the Church have concealed a previous attack?”

  He scanned the room and saw no one. “With just cause, if they have.”

  “Do you think the Ennead knows?”

  “Couldn’t say. We best not speculate.”

  Amun wallowed in her seat. “Perhaps a harvester disguised itself as Vor-Kaal?”

  “Theologians claim harvesters are mindless creatures, a force of nature. They lack the necessary cognizance to perform mimicry or sophisticated trickery.”

  He let his mind wander through a mental index of likelihoods. A few minutes passed before Amun pulled him back to the present. He had not heard what she said.

  “It could have been”—he rubbed his chin—“a necromancer.”

  “A necromancer?”

  “Not the mortal practitioner as those of Mythos. A higher being in service of Korvaras, from Eophianon itself.” He grew pensive. “Archbishop Delacroix reckoned no mortal necromancer could’ve accomplished what I experienced within the wards. She may be right. A true necromancer, however, could have.�
�

  Amun looked at him and down at the book. “What could it mean?” Her voice had lost its enthusiasm.

  “Couldn’t say,” he answered in earnest. Nothing desirable.

  Garron stood. “Amun, will you allow me time alone?”

  “I am meant to stay with you.”

  “Fear not.” He tapped a finger at his temple. “I’m protected.”

  “As you will.” She sounded more conciliatory than cheerful. “Thank you for allowing me to accompany you.”

  With a bow, she left.

  Garron returned the book and departed the Athenaeum by the light of a late midday sun. As he navigated back to the Crescent, he found a roadside boarding stable. There, he rented a horse for a few hours with coin given to him by the Ennead as a stipend for his needs. He rode out in robes, not ideal wear for a saddle.

  Despite having only made annual visits to Aros since his appointment as guardian of Erlan, he had lived there beforehand for ages and knew the layout of the capital and broader countryside well. He knew the maps of the Empire and Imios beyond too, having studied them at length during his tenure in the underlands. Witnessing locations in the flesh presented an altogether different experience than reading descriptions of them or seeing them drawn from the memory of another on parchment, but the maps had portrayed the land with decent accuracy.

  The further he ventured from the market district into the neighborhoods and the lines of stone and wooden houses, the calmer the world became. Energies and noises of the excited activity and movement of the city gave way to the chirping of birds, the rush of the wind, the scurrying of forest creatures. Houses grew sparser. Streets, road signs, and businesses became rolling flint hills, their grass spotted green, brown, and yellow with winter’s touch. The road beneath the hooves of his horse shifted from cobbles to soil and rock.

  He traced his journey from the night of the incident, when the Beast had flung him beyond the city walls, leaving him to traverse the distance on foot. With trees at every side, in differing shades of oak, pine, and cedar, he proceeded west. His surroundings looked more familiar the further he rode. He had arrived nowhere close to Outmore Loch, which meant he had not traveled as far as he had surmised. A couple hours passed, and the Mother’s Eye descended lower to the horizon, but not out of sight. He still had time.

  Finally, the house floated into view. The unassuming home where he had committed his terrible wrong. A light emanated beyond the front window, that oil lamp.

  He had hurt her.

  She and he alone knew, for he had been too much a coward to confess before Aramanth or the others of the Ennead. He considered knocking on the door, offering her the remaining gold on him, but he did not.

  Any knock, even the faintest and kindest, would likely be loud and unexpected in her present state, if she suffered as one likely would, enduring a harm as she had. The inquisitors should hunt down anyone who would cause another such pain. He did not want to dwell on this for fear he might jeopardize the work of the archbishops on his mind, but he must find a way to right his offense, in any fashion possible, if any prospect existed.

  The woman emerged from her home and sped off on foot, not spying him. Her hooded cloak of dark green snapped in the wind as she rounded the bend down the road and vanished out of sight like a specter into the evening.

  He would not forget, and no matter the external compulsion he had been under, he would not forgive himself. The woman persisted as a measure of his former agony and affliction. He would not, could not, let her go unremembered. In any manner, he would find a way to help her, without traumatizing her anew by the view of him, if she might recognize his face and regress in her mind’s eye to that night.

  Turning on his horse, he set off down the lane. His gaze did not leave the woman’s lonely abode until it faded too far to observe without straining. He made his way back east, toward the capital and the Priory, every step of his mount a conscious stride into the future.

  CHAPTER XI: PRIEST

  Athenne

  In the distance, they heard dissonant music. The sound hung in the air like a bird in flight.

  Having exited through the door to the right of the chamber, they beheld a twisting hedgerow, larger than either of them. The hedges cast shadows over the path. Light peaked over the crowns of the vegetation from an array of unknown sources. A cool, moist murkiness rippled against her skin. Small particles of water suspended throughout the air in clusters, only moving as they passed, as if repelled by their presence. The pull of the world and the flow of time did not maintain normal function here.

  Following twenty or thirty feet, they came to a crossing. At their right, a route faded into mist. To their left, another led into fog. Every direction looked the same.

  “Which way?” Bhathric said.

  Athenne went right, and Bhathric accompanied.

  They walked. And walked. They had been walking for a while, perhaps miles. A grey void with no beginning or end stretched off into the white gulf in either direction.

  “In my girlhood.” Athenne needed a distraction. “I used to wander the Hinterlands of Reneris for hours, sometimes with nothing more than pauper’s boots on.” She chuckled. “Nearly lost my toes to the frost once.”

  Bhathric smiled. “I’m sure that pleased your mother.”

  “I thought she would punish me when I returned and saw her waiting. She embraced me instead. Called me a foolish child. Said to never do something so daft again. She was a good woman.”

  “What happened to her?”

  The question set Athenne into a sentimental longing. “Taken by the pox. Healers couldn’t save her. I lived with my aunt for a time after that. Kind person, well-natured. No interest in being a mother. It wasn’t her fault. She did the best she could.”

  “I’m sorry. That must have been difficult.”

  “I had a fair childhood.” Athenne pulled her hand through the stems of the hedges. “I would live it again, if I could.” To be free, to run, jump, play, to swim through quick rivers, to climb trees and slick rocks until her fingers and face went numb from the cold. She studied the bushes in a half-absent way. “In Orilon, there’s a hedge maze within the gardens at the base of the Mother Sentinel. Titan Spring. Similar to this, though with cobbles of granite, basalt, limestone. When you’re a child, the rows rise so high. Higher than you’d ever expect to reach. My mother and I used to walk the maze together. She’d tell me stories, sing to me.”

  “I suppose you trained for this.” Bhathric gave an inward laugh.

  The corner of Athenne’s mouth lifted.

  Bhathric untied the waterskin from her waist and drank of its contents, extending it to Athenne.

  Athenne’s lips split and cracked. The water tasted as sweet as red wine pouring down her throat, and nearly choked her. When she finished swigging, she returned the pouch and Bhathric restrung it at her side.

  “I know you didn’t trust us,” Bhathric said with an apologetic tone. “You still aren’t convinced.” Her fingers brushed long black hair from her face. Their eyes met. The pair of them walked slower, as if on a stroll. “No matter what transpires, you are my true friend, so long as I live.”

  Athenne couldn’t recall the last time someone other than Uldyr had spoken to her so. She had never forgotten her life before Uldyr. The world outside Reneris, where choices overwhelmed like so many pleading poor, terrified her. She had no one to which she could turn, until he came along.

  “Yes,” Athenne replied, after an interval. “And I, you.”

  As the minutes passed and the sameness as far as her vision carried did not abate, discontent rose in Athenne. It took all of her will not to turn back. The dissonant music grew louder, as if in response to her fluctuating emotions, bouncing between the hedges. It sounded as every instrument Athenne had ever heard, and none of them; a foreboding droning, filled with sorrowful tones and nervous, piercing harmonics. In the next measure, the noises were joyful and soothing, then flipped once more.

&nb
sp; Nausea overcame her.

  The sound. Second after second, rising and moving through them, unwavering and steady, panning from side to side. The noise would drive one mad at length. She put her hands over her ears. Bhathric did the same.

  “Mental illusion!” Bhathric yelled. “It’s not real!”

  Vekshia was a mental god.

  Such sorcery conformed to her nature.

  For what purpose, Athenne did not know.

  Perhaps, bare amusement.

  Athenne did not recall collapsing to the ground, but as she opened her eyes, she found Bhathric drawing her to her feet. Bhathric’s strength exceeded her appearance.

  “Don’t succumb, sister. We will leave this place, together.”

  Sister.

  Athenne’s heart fluttered. She regained her balance, grasping the shrubbery as she fought illness.

  “Can you walk?” Bhathric placed a hand on her shoulder. “You look pallid.”

  “It’s the music.” Athenne’s words were thick with the saliva in her mouth, swept up by the sick sensation at the back of her throat. “It’s making me ill.”

  “If Eclih were here,” Bhathric murmured.

  “It’s nothing. I’ll endure.”

  Emptiness filled the path ahead, except the fog and endless straightness. Ever so many feet and yards, Athenne expected a turn. Any turn. Right, left. A curve. A trick. A dead end. None came. Perpetual nothingness unsettled her more than hindrances might have. The soil and rock beneath them shifted into white sand the further they traversed. What is Vekshia’s play? After an hour or more, she heard singing in the distance, an elegant, musical reverberation, echoing as sound might through a cave.

  “When I arise, when I arise

  I’ll see thy face

  When I arise, into thy light

  Monsters and martyrs, their Matron is mine

  Death into death, nestled somewhere in time

  O’ Matron, O’ Matron, no warnings or signs

  Judgment in judgment, despair and despair

  Hope and god arrive, hope and god arrive

  When I arise, when I arise