Crystalyn kept her face smooth though she wanted to smile. The goad had worked better than expected. “Therein, your words are my dilemma. I do not know you, nor am I my sister. Jade is the trusting sort. I find it safer to hold new acquaintances a pike’s tip away until they’ve proven themselves. Now that you know where you stand, let’s talk about how I almost died. You called that creature a Dark Man, but what is it really? Where did it come from? Who sent it, if not you?”
“Broth, do you have a sense of the monk?”
Caven’s scowl deepened and then cleared. “I have failed at a proper accounting, it appears. Please accept my apologies. As the prominence for the Brown Recluse monks, I have had little experience with justifying my actions for many seasons. The position requires rigorous vows, bound with the Flow upon acceptance, that cannot be broken. Most on this world know naught of it. However, I would venture to say a goodly portion of the company you keep do. Nevertheless, this is not the place, nor have we ample time, for an in-depth discussion. The presence of another Dark Man in the city constitutes urgency.”
The floorboards creaked with the weight of Lore Rayna moving beside her. “Your vows do not release you from giving us an explanation for attempting to strike the Sarra’esiah after the destruction of the Dark Man. I am not happy to hear of it. Of all humans, you would come last for suspicions of treachery.”
Caven’s eyes rounded with shock. “Please do not think the worst of us, nature lore woman. Even though the dark shadow dispersed, Craight thought her lost. No one has ever survived a Dark Man’s touch that we have heard.”
“The human male exudes suspicion more than remorse, Do’brieni.”
“Have you not perceived the Vessel?” Atoi asked. Her small voice carried with distinction, perking every ear within hearing.
In the midst of a frown, Caven froze. Then his face smoothed, and he gave a slight bow to the little girl. “I must ask for forgiveness, Ancient One. Though the event happened fast, I should have waited for an irrefutable indication of possession before again raising the chair.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned to Crystalyn and lowered his head. “Forgiveness must come from you first, Vessel of Prophecy, I nearly destroyed the one chance of eluding destruction.”
“The human male’s remorse has increased, though for the thought of harming you, or nearly destroying prophecy I cannot say.”
Crystalyn grew irritated with the whole conversation, spoken and unspoken. “Or, more likely, you may have missed your chance of killing off the one who could possibly destroy your world. As long as we’re on the subject, don’t call me vessel. Atoi is the only one who uses that term. I don’t seem to be able to stop her from saying it.”
Caven stiffened as if she’d slapped him.
Crystalyn would have, if she thought she could get away with it. The monk was getting on her nerves. “Don’t look so surprised, Prominence. Though I hail from Terra, I’m aware how much of your so-called prophecies pertain to me. Please, keep in mind the codices are only cryptic words written inside dusty old tomes and a few scrolls. They all contradict each other in various little ways.”
One corner of Caven’s mouth rose with a sheepish grin. His smile was brief. “Pardon me, Lady Crystalyn. I did not wish to insinuate ignorance—”
The door opened. Craight backed inside it talking to someone beyond it. Crystalyn caught a glimpse of a nondescript man sporting a scraggly black goatee. Patrons sitting or standing at a bar filled the background. She caught a glimpse of RaCorren looking in, concern mirrored in his blue eyes. “Deal with it,” the blocky man said. “I have business. If you haven’t resolved it in half a bell, speak to me then.”
The man glanced into the room, his brown eyes hard. “What’s going on, Craight? There are plant people strutting about the tavern demanding food, and you say to let them, but Cook cannot keep up with it. Now you have personal business with one of the glow eyes. The townsfolk will talk; likely, the old women’s tongues are already wagging. What happened to Staunch the Flow does not serve Users?”
Lore Rayna made a move to step forward.
Crystalyn extended an arm out in restraint. “Wait. We don’t know all that is going on here.” The tenseness she felt from the woman pressing against her lessened slightly.
The muscles on Craight’s arm holding the door latch bulged. “How the townspeople react and who I serve is my concern. I will defuse the situation soon since you seem incapable of it,” he growled.
Closing the door in the man’s face, he turned to Caven. “I’m probably going to have to eliminate my longest-running barkeep; I hope we know what we are doing. How long are those from the Vale going to populate my tavern?” His agate eyes shifted to Lore Rayna. “The naturists are hard, if not impossible, for me to convince good folk they don’t use, particularly if one of them chooses to dress with ferns.”
Crystalyn dropped her arm to her side where it found her hip, matching the one already on her other side. “The Valens are in my care. I’ll leave them only when convinced they have a safe place outside your city walls. Your townspeople will find the cultivation and harvesting of fields has just become easier with more abundance of everything they grow. And, for future reference, Lore Rayna’s dress is morning glory leaves, not fern.”
Craight smiled briefly. “The dress is glorious whether morning or night. Please do not mistake my words, the dress has had my admiration since first sight of it, she certainly has the body for it. However, for simple-minded sharecroppers, merchants, tailors, beggars, and the numerous other people eking a living here, the beauty of it is lost to them. They see only the power of the Flow manipulating the One’s creation.”
As she glanced sidelong at her companion, Crystalyn’s face flushed. Lore Rayna’s hands had landed on bare hips before the distraught dress could cover the gap, long slender fingers and all.
If Lore Rayna noticed, her words had no indication of it, as she gently pulled her hands from under the leaves. “The Great Mother, in her infinite wisdom, has provided a way to converse with the sustenance of life to those who choose to listen.”
“Hold!” Caven said loudly. Taking a deep breath, he continued in a softer tone of voice. “As much as I would prefer it, we cannot afford a virtuous discussion; the ruling council of monks and the Order of Brethren await a report. Soon, they shall send runners to investigate the delay. What have you found with the second assailant, Craight? What knowledge have you of the Dark Man?”
Craight leaned against the wall, folding his arms at his chest. Leaving his hip pointed slightly outward, his longsword dangled within easy reach. Splotches of something burgundy stained the hilt. “The Dark Man’s companion was likely human though my network has little evidence to support it. He or it escaped after fleeing into the maze of the Sour Warrens which lies south of Brown Recluse for those who do not know. I failed to even gain a look under the cowl; it could have been a woman for all I discovered.”
“He was a man,” Crystalyn said. “The two of them were watching as we passed a street on the way here,” she added quickly when both men looked at her sharply.
Accepting her explanation, Craight went on speaking. “We know little of the Dark Men as they are called, only that they are vile creatures sent from the Dark Plateau, somewhere under the Dark Citadel. Even Caven’s Order of the Brethren, his supposed secretive ruling class of all monkish orders he freely mentioned, have limited experience with such evil.”
Caven continued when Craight quieted. “He speaks truly. After the attack on your sister, I poured much of the monk’s and the Order of the Brethren’s extensive resources into discovering all we could about them. Nearly a season of poring over old tomes, even meeting with dark monks in secret, provided little. Your sister herself discovered their only weakness, though it is a great one, of wood dispersing the darkness. That alone caused much of our research to focus on the Dark Citadel where wood is scarce and used only for the convenience of a
door lighter than stone. Only after painstaking research, and an infiltration, did we come to believe the Dark Man did not originate from within the Citadel.”
Crystalyn was almost hesitant to ask. “If not the Dark Citadel, then where?”
Caven exchanged a brief look with Craight.
The broad-shouldered tavern owner then gazed at each being in the room, one at a time, before his brown eyes came to rest on Crystalyn. “This one is puzzling, changing all that we have known. The brown robe and the warrior that got away were nomads, rovers of a desert they rarely, if ever, leave. Their garb and swarthy features mark them as the Shimmering Sands clan, a particularly remote sect.”
Crystalyn sputtered getting the words out. “But… but didn’t you say Darwin went there, may still be in this Shimmering Sands area?”
“Yes,” Caven and Craight said in unison.
Hastel whistled softly.
Crystalyn rounded on Atoi. “Is this why you want me to go there?”
Atoi gazed at her, her white face smooth and impassive.
“So that means—” Hastel started.
“Going there is likely a trap,” Crystalyn finished. “So why would they make the attempt today and show their intentions early?”
Only Broth had a response. “Perhaps the Dark Man had instructions to attack and possess at any opportunity.”
Crystalyn agreed. “I believe it so, Do’brieni.”
“What does it matter?” Crystalyn asked aloud to no one in particular. “Darkwind is up to something, I know it, and I’m the best hope of discovering what it is and putting a stop to him. There is another thing, I got a sense of the Dark Man’s desires, or at least the power controlling it. There is something moving in this world it is wary of, an alien power. The entity that sent the evil hungers for my ability along with an unknown factor in the desert. I must go there.”
“Huh? What would it want in the desert? The same thing Darkwind searches for?” Hastel asked.
“That is my guess,” Crystalyn said.
Caven’s silver eyebrows drooped. “I must send more stealth monks, this matter has just risen beyond high priority…” he said, trailing off.
Lore Rayna folded her arms at her chest to the consternation of her dress. Patches of white skin appearing and vanishing at odd places on her body testified to the fact. The big woman’s face darkened. “I do not trust this as a wise decision, Sarra’esiah. Darwin Darkwind has proven a fearsome foe in the past.”
“Precisely why he must be stopped,” Crystalyn said. “Now if only we had some way to get there quickly.”
Craight pushed away from the wall. “Come with me,” he said, moving toward the back office.
Crystalyn nearly stepped on his heels as he strode past the crude desktop to the object covered by a frayed rug.
Grabbing an edge, Craight whipped it away with a flourish. “Behold your access to Red Rock!”
“My respect for you monks and your capabilities has risen,” Crystalyn said, staring in wonder at the instrument offered to follow the pair.
“I am no monk,” Craight said. “Far from it.”
Crystalyn barely heard. A pair of beautiful red crystal obelisks awaited activation.
FAILING STRENGTH
Darwin loathed the heat bearing down upon his head and rising up in shimmering waves from the hostile terrain. He abhorred the abrasive sand rubbing against his body whenever he moved; it burned and itched the length of his mangled arm he dared not scratch, even inside. Without the protection of his black robes, his skin would blacken and peel even though he had always sported a natural tan.
There had been no sating his thirst after ordering the merchant Guail to whip the caravan bearers into entering the blazing heart of the desert after exiting the wind door, the way back through it easy. The cyclone twisted one way, sweeping him out the entrance, almost as soon as he stepped in it.
Now perhaps, enduring such hardships would pay off; the workers had discovered the entrance to another tomb. The discovery meant venturing outside the shade of his tent. Though nightfall would come soon, the heat before then would be crippling, but he would go out in it. Such trivialities could not keep him from the artifact.
Had they truly found the right ossuary at last? Grabbing a flask of water, he eyed a round-bottomed glass phial of torch oil. Lifting it from his makeshift crate table, he stuffed them both in the large inner pocket of his black robes.
The round scar prominently displayed in his forehead, Malkor stood at the tent’s outer foyer regarding him with expectancy, waiting for him to give the order. This time he would know some certainty. There was no for certain when it came to the artifact. “What makes this one different from the others? Are there words carved in the granite, perhaps above an access of some kind?”
Looking odd on his narrow tanned face, Malkor’s twisted smile did not reach his blood-streaked brown eyes; eyes that Darwin suspected were changing slowly to match the hourglass ones of Naa’thon’s. Darwin had not mentioned it to his servant, nor would he. Allowing the man to discover it himself would lessen the course of adjustment from the loss of his birth orbs. “Again, you surprise me, Master. Were you expecting this? There is… something chiseled above the entrance,” Malkor said, wiping drool from the corner of his mouth, which was a side effect of the drooping lips he had acquired from the Lore Stone, and likely temporary. Naa’thon had had no such problem.
His manservant’s lack of knowledge to some of the questions he had asked after the infusion surprised and suited Darwin greatly. Malkor’s gaps of knowledge meant the blasted lore masters did not know everything; they only knew what the Ancients had left behind in the Lore Stone. Even as advanced as they were, great wisdom still had limits with how much one could retain.
From Red Rock, Malkor had led them unerringly to an excavation site left behind by the Ancients, likely the same advanced race who had made the wind door, the Lore Stone, and perhaps, even the great gates. Yet they had not included all, leaving out the old scrolls written in a long ago forgotten language, which he had learned to decipher. Poring over the old and brittle papyrus in the vaults under the Dark Citadel had paid off, which made him smile inside; the less anyone knew of his intentions, the fewer betrayals. “What words have you found?”
“I do not believe they are words, only pictures: Two arms, vertical from the elbows with the hands raised toward the sky, a beautiful woman wearing a strange headpiece, and a cluster of stars.”
Darwin smiled, barely containing jubilant laughter. They were getting close, the words proved as much, and they were exactly that. Well, picture representations of them—Kai, Neferet, and Akhu—Malkor had described them well.
“You have knowledge of the meaning, Master?”
Darwin opted for a bit of fun. “Are you saying my knowledge is greater than that of a lore master?”
Malkor’s painfully bloodshot eyes reddened.
In a few weeks, Darwin suspected no trace of the color flecks in his servant’s eyes would show inside his corneas. Eventually they would darken to the color of blood in one’s liver, nearly black, when the infusion had fully set in, as Naa’thon’s had.
Malkor cringed. He glanced quickly upward and around as if searching for unseen eyes fixed upon him. A look of revulsion, or fright, flashed in them. Darwin couldn’t tell which. “Master is aware knowledge flows into my mind still. Interrupting it shall be as difficult as it was gathering the lore that brought us here. As then, I shall have the great risk of the flow of knowledge overwhelming my mind along with the empathies of countless others. Should you desire it, I shall make the attempt again.”
Not the reaction he expected, Darwin spoke quickly. “Nay, Malkor, the pictures have meanings, which are known to me. They state rather simply, ‘power of the sun,’ ‘beautiful,’ and ‘soul of divinity.’ At least, I have interpreted it that way.’” He did not want his servant to end a gibbering husk before the artifact was indisputably his. E
ven then, the man had his uses.
“What you seek is here, Master?”
“I believe so, though I am reluctant to say for certain. Once we break into a room of light absorption, I shall rejoice. Now, I wish to observe these carvings. Lead the way.”
Malkor pulled the canvas flap to one side, holding it open for him. The blazing light and inferno heat of the Shimmering Sands Desert, southeast of Grit Eye Oasis baked him, siphoning moisture from his exposed skin. The tan sands of the desert radiated heat, nearly strong enough to sear his lungs even though the sun drifted to the horizon. He pulled his black cowl farther over his face.
“This way, Master,” Malkor said, his voice drifting out from his hood pulled low, as he raised a bony finger and pointed. “Now comes a bit of a hike around that large dune. Do you wish a palanquin arranged to carry you?”
“No. Let the workers continue to dig, all of them.”
The red hood swung in Darwin’s direction. “Dig where, Master? The entrance is exposed,” he said.
Darwin prodded his servant’s shoulder, getting him moving. They could not stand around talking in this heat. “You decide. As long as no one sees what we do.”
Malkor shuffled forward without comment, the red hood now bowed.
Darwin followed, glancing out from under his hood. The glittering sand dune rose to the enormous monstrosity he had yet to view in any of his travels. Fortunately, they strode at the base of the wind-smoothed pile following a well-traveled path as it wound to the far end of the bank. The grand excavation swung into view.
Railee waited underneath the front shoulders of a huge carving of a warden, her face wrapped with a cloth—her shroudin—left only her eyes exposed. The woman had corrected him so often now for the Red Rock peoples’ name for it that the facial covering came to mind easily. He touched the one she had given him, hanging at his neck, reassured by the softness of its presence there. Had he thought about it, he would have pulled the shroudin to the bridge of his nose the moment he stepped from the tent, which may have helped keep his lips from cracking.
Beyond the Dark Gate Page 29
