Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  As with the last, Elyana was alone as she strode through the long stone corridors, though she held aloft a lamp which lit the way. The light bobbed and danced against the walls, swinging in accompaniment to Elyana’s quick pace.

  Where was she going?

  Ahead of her in the passage, more lights appeared. Elyana’s pace quickened. Sounds drifted down and Lhaurel was able to pick out angry voices, arguing back and forth. Elyana slowed suddenly, walking with a calm, demure step as the lights drew close and those carrying the lights came into focus.

  A handful of large, muscular warriors surrounded another massive man in their center. A woman with blood-red hair and nails walked to one side, shorter than the men, but with far more presence. Elyana raised her lantern and the prisoner’s face came into view.

  Beryl.

  “What has transpired, Sister?” Elyana asked. Lhaurel marveled at the dead calm in her voice, though Lhaurel watched Elyana’s gaze flick to Beryl twice before she met the other woman’s eyes

  The other woman raised a hand and the procession halted. Beryl raised his head, chains clinking, and looked Elyana in the eye for a brief moment, then returned his gaze to the floor.

  “Your Bondsman has been aiding the slaves and spreading blasphemies against the Sisters,” the woman said. “I do not blame you for being blind to this, Sister. He is quite skilled at what he does, something he learned under your care, I imagine.”

  “How has he been helping them?”

  The procession started walking again and Elyana fell into place alongside the other woman.

  “He had been providing them with weapons.”

  “Isn’t that what we charged him to do?” This time the confusion in Elyana’s voice was plain.

  “We charged him to arm them, yes,” the woman said, voice cold. “Not to provide them with greatswords or other weapons we cannot manipulate.”

  “No, we did not charge him with that.” Elyana’s voice was pensive. Thoughtful. Elyana’s eyes roved to the side, though all Lhaurel saw was a stretch of wall.

  “You will need a new Bondsman, I’m afraid,” the other woman said. “He will not be around to serve you much longer.”

  Elyana nodded. “As it should be, Sister.”

  How could Elyana be so heartless? Lhaurel had thought she loved Beryl—at least that’s what she’d gotten out of the dreams so far.

  The rest of the procession passed in silence until they reached a long set of stairs leading upward. They stepped up them and one of the soldiers hurried forward to open the door, allowing sunlight to stream down into the tunnels with blinding brightness. They walked out onto the plateau above, the soldiers fanning out on either side of the Sisters and Beryl. Lhaurel recognized the tops of the Oasis walls and the lush greenery below, though the walls were far smoother than she remembered, like they’d been in the other dream.

  Elyana’s gaze fell over one of the soldiers. Lhaurel noticed the greatsword at his waist and the bow slung over one shoulder. Elyana looked down to Beryl and then back to the soldiers.

  Elyana’s companion stopped and moved to one side, allowing the soldiers to push Beryl forward to the edge of the plateau. Ropes and chains hung from his arms and neck.

  “He is your Bondsman, Sister,” Elyana’s companion said. “His execution is your responsibility.”

  One of the soldiers stepped forward and unshouldered his bow. He drew a stone-tipped arrow and drew it back, sighting at Beryl.

  Elyana stepped up alongside the archer. Beryl raised his head and looked Elyana in the eyes. The archer released. The arrow hissed through the air and hit Beryl in the arm. He started to bleed.

  “Take him, Sister,” Elyana’s companion hissed.

  Elyana hesitated. Her eyes dropped toward the ground.

  One moment Elyana was watching Beryl, the next, Beryl had freed himself from the ropes and there was a greatsword in his hands. One of the soldiers lay on the ground clutching a gaping wound. Two of the other soldiers battled the remaining three.

  “What are you doing?” Elyana’s companion demanded as Beryl rounded on her. Before she could move, before Elyana reacted, Beryl ran the other Sister through the chest. She fell, eyes going wide, as Beryl slammed the blade down into the ground. Lhaurel heard the grating sound and the tip dug into the stone beneath the Sister’s body.

  “What have you done?” Elyana gasped.

  Beryl turned to look at her. “You know what your Sisters are and what they’ve done. It’s time you chose a side.”

  For one brief moment Lhaurel existed in two places at once. Her real self, the one inside the Roterralar Warren, started and recoiled from the face which sat a few inches away from her own. Her other self, the one still lingering in dream, strode down a dark passage of dreams. Then the dream shattered, like a sheet of glass breaking on stone.

  “Khari,” Lhaurel gasped, rocking sideways away from the woman. “I—um—well, I . . .” Lhaurel trailed off. How was she supposed to even begin to explain the dream? Lhaurel herself wasn’t sure what they were. If she spoke to Khari about them, Lhaurel knew the Matron would only think her daft or crazy. Or, perhaps even that it was a lingering effect from her ordeal in the Oasis. Lhaurel chewed on her bottom lip, not entirely sure herself that those assumptions wouldn’t be true.

  “You shouldn’t be up and about like this, Lhaurel,” Khari scolded. “Not if you fall asleep simply leaning against a wall.”

  “I’m fine, Khari,” Lhaurel lied. “Though something seems off with Beryl.” Lhaurel quickly recounted what had happened between her and Beryl earlier that day.

  Khari’s expression darkened as Lhaurel finished, brows coming together over the bridge of her nose. Lhaurel breathed an internal sigh of relief that Khari did not press the sleep issue, now that she had been told about Beryl.

  “He’s always been an odd one,” Khari admitted. “Even back when I first met him decades ago.”

  “Well, he does seem a little odder lately, doesn’t he?”

  Khari frowned, an expression which aged her already lined face. “He does at that. I’ll talk to him. First, though, tell me about the scrolls you’ve been reading.”

  Lhaurel told what she knew about the Schema and the Seven Sisters, highlighting the few points she was sure of and then continuing into some of the more speculative information she actually had some confidence in. She knew she was completely unprepared and untested when it came to the mystic arts in general, especially since one of the scrolls she’d read had stated that she wasn’t a mystic at all, but something far greater than that, far greater than just about everyone else. Still, she recounted the facts as clearly as she could remember them, which, by most everyone’s standards, was as best as anyone could hope for.

  “Maybe Beryl will know more,” Khari mused. “I will speak with him. I assume the old fool headed down to his forge?”

  Lhaurel shrugged. Beryl hadn’t announced where he was going, so any speculation was altogether meaningless. Besides, Lhaurel had a feeling the man would be difficult to find.

  “I’ll go speak with him,” Khari said, turning to leave.

  “Wait. I’ll come with you.”

  Khari shrugged, but didn’t argue. Lhaurel, honestly unsure why she wanted to go along, was glad Khari hadn’t pressed for more information.

  Since the Oasis, everyone had been a little different. Some people had grown more subdued and introspective. Others had decided to take the opposite route and become much more outspoken, blunt, or belligerent. Khari, who Lhaurel had found to be as hard as steel, had softened. Some of the fire within the woman had gone out. Lhaurel wasn’t sure if she liked it or not, but at the moment, she was grateful for the change.

  “About what you did earlier,” Khari said as they walked. “Do you think you could do it again?”

  Lhaurel gnawed on her bottom lip. With everything else that had happened since then, Lhaurel had almost forgotten about how she’d managed to break the man without his even having to be a willing
participant.

  “I—I think so,” Lhaurel said. “But I don’t know if I really want to. How many more were you able to help break by themselves?”

  “One.”

  “So three total.”

  Khari nodded. “There won’t be enough.”

  “For what?” Lhaurel asked, though the nausea she felt in the pit of her stomach already told her the answer. She couldn’t put a name to it, couldn’t form it into a cogent thought, but she knew it was there. Change. Danger. A storm on the horizon.

  “For anything,” Khari replied, kicking a loose stone across the passageway floor hard enough to send it bouncing off the wall and then skipping back across the ground. “For the scattered clans, for the rough time we’ll have ahead of us finding the supplies we need, for anything at all.”

  Lhaurel recognized the hidden meaning behind the words, though the reasons she’d given were all good, solid ones. She too felt the helplessness and worry gnawing at the edge of her consciousness.

  “I—” Lhaurel hesitated, remembering that fateful day at the end of the battle for the Oasis. “I’ll think about it, Khari. I do owe you something, but I’m not sure this will be it. Can we rest here a few moments, please?” Her legs, still not fully recovered yet, were threatening to give out on her.

  Khari slowed and then stopped, allowing Lhaurel to lean against a wall for support. Lhaurel had left her cane behind, but was now regretting that action. For whatever reason, she wasn’t recovering nearly as well as she would have liked to, nor as well as Khari had hoped she would, but at least she did see some progress. She’d been able to make it this far without the cane. That was something to be proud of, at least.

  “Are you doing alright, Khari?” Lhaurel asked, looking over at the woman. “After—after everything in the Oasis? I never asked.”

  Khari’s entire posture stiffened for a moment and Lhaurel worried that she’d misjudged the level of friendship the two of them had started to develop, but then the tension eased from Khari’s body and she ran a hand over her face.

  “I can’t even begin to describe the pain of losing my husband, Lhaurel,” she finally said. “Makin and I didn’t start out loving one another. Our marriage was partially arranged. True, mostly by us because we had similar goals, but it was still an arrangement. I guess, looking back on that now, that’s what love really is—a union of goals, understanding, and hopes. We were never given the gift of children, Makin and I, but we were able to see so many of the Roterralar grow from childhood into adulthood. The Roterralar became our family, in a very real sense.”

  Lhaurel smiled to herself.

  “These last few years were good to Makin and I,” Khari continued, staring off into the distance. “It wasn’t a child’s love, not the kind girls talk about with one another, but this was a true love of unified dreams for our children, the Roterralar, and—to a lesser extent—the Rahuli people as a whole. He and I, well, we made a good team, together. Without him, I feel incomplete, somehow. Maybe that’s why I feel so close to you now. Maybe I’m just trying to find someone to fill that void.”

  Lhaurel felt an overwhelming wave of sympathy wash over her at Khari’s words. She pushed off the wall and walked over to the older woman and put her arms around her, pulling her into a hug. Lhaurel held her there for the space of several long breaths, then Khari shrugged out of the hug and strode out into the hall.

  “Are you rested enough?” Khari asked, voice returning to her normal emotionless snap.

  Lhaurel shrugged and pushed herself forward.

  * * *

  The smithy lay in darkness except for the dull, reddish glow which permeated a small area around the forge itself. Beryl worked the bellows of the forge with a single-minded determination. It wasn’t the heat he needed, that was simple to get if he wanted to give the vulcanist a little more sway within the discordant battle of voices within his mind. No, he needed the work. It cleared his mind.

  He used to work with wood as often as he worked with metal. Part of his abilities from a prior Iteration as an Earth Ward allowed him a certain capacity with wood. That capacity granted him the ability to revitalize and mold the wood, almost as he would stone or earth, but that no longer placated the voices.

  The clamoring voices in his head started shouting as their argument escalated and Beryl had to heave so hard on the bellows to quiet them that the metal arm bent. Beryl growled and, almost without thinking, reached out to his powers and straightened it back out. It was still Lhaurel’s fault. As a blood mage, she would be one of the Seven Sisters.

  Beryl froze and color drained from his face. The pale skin highlighted the dozens of flecks of metal embedded in his skin.

  Where had that memory come from? He’d thought memories of the Sisters were buried deep, beneath the voices even. Even the most powerful of the voices, the part of Beryl’s past that was a vulcanist, feared the Sisters. That same fear trickled through the voices, silencing them all, and latched onto Lhaurel. She was one of them.

  Beryl found himself suddenly sitting, his crippled leg twisted awkwardly to one side. He’d sent a message to the Orinai. He’d sent a message to the Seven Sisters, the Guardians of the gates to the Seven Hells and the Seven Progressions. He’d sent a message to the Seven Sisters.

  “What have I done?” Beryl growled.

  Images from all corners of the Dominions washed over him. Memories of family, friends, politics, and wars assaulted his mind and tore through him, as piercing as flaming arrows. He cried out and the earth shook in response to the powers, emotion, and pain that flowed through him. Only a small circle of earth around Beryl remained motionless.

  More memories flooded through him. The Seven Sisters at the head of armies, destroying the slave rebellions with ruthless efficiency. He saw, as if reliving the experience over again, the rise and fall of political houses, the crushing of the extant neighboring kingdoms in the Southern and Eastern Dominions, the death of Elyana at her own hands.

  The forge flared with a white-hot heat, ash and coal spewing out onto the sand. A few landed on wooden bins and supplies Beryl had scattered about and flames leapt up in a dozen different places.

  Beryl remembered the creation of the Sharani Arena, back before it was a desert, remembered the volcano half a dozen vulcanists forced into existence, and the work of tens of thousands of slaves making the stoneways connecting the viewing platforms the Rahuli now used as warrens. He remembered a time when he’d worked alongside the slaves as one of them. And he remembered Elyana reminding him of his past when he’d been reborn.

  The Rahuli. They would be scattered like grains of sand in the storm if the Seven Sisters came, and they surely would. And they’d bring armies with them, pitiless armies who would kill and destroy. If the Rahuli were here when the Seven Sisters arrived, they would not survive. The Seven Sisters would kill every single one of them, they’d take Lhaurel and torture her until she served them, and then they would begin using the Sharani Arena to punish those who deserved execution once more. At least, that is how it would start.

  If the Rahuli were here . . .

  The rumbling, jostling earth calmed around Beryl, though he only barely noticed.

  If the Rahuli weren’t here when the Sister’s arrived, maybe they would stand a chance out on their own. Maybe . . . Beryl remembered a time when another people, the Amberdal, hid from the Sisters for centuries as they moved about in the area above the Northern Dominion. This area. Could Beryl get the Rahuli to leave?

  The question bounced around inside his mind, which was surprisingly empty now with the quieted voices. Then one of the voices spoke, a quiet pragmatic one Beryl heard from infrequently at best.

  Remember the look on Lhaurel’s face.

  Beryl growled. The girl thought him crazy. They all did, at least a little. He would sooner be able to hold back a sandstorm with his bare hands as convince them they needed to leave their home.

  “What would Elyana do?” he whispered, as if to himself.
<
br />   The voices swelled with responses. Force them to understand. Make them listen. Push them out. FORCE THEM!

  The last was almost a scream and Beryl winced at the sharp mental pain that accompanied it. The ground heaved beneath Beryl, tossing him about with more force than any of the previous earthquakes.

  He couldn’t force them, could he?

  If you don’t, they’ll die.

  Beryl wrapped his arms around his head, trying to stop the pain, stop the voices. The Rahuli were like children to him, the only family he’d ever known. He and Elyana had done what had to be done in order to protect them. He’d thought his job was done, but then Lhaurel had appeared. The genesauri drove the Sisters out the first time, them and Elyana’s self-sacrifice, but now they were gone.

  Beryl let his head slip out of his hands and hang. He had to force the Rahuli to leave. For their own good. Their own good.

  Chapter 19: Guilt and Justice

  “A thorough look into the subject of the Seven Sisters must include millennia of horrors, atrocities, and a religion bordering on tyranny. However, there is neither time nor space in this text to include the necessary information. Suffice it to say, they are the controlling force among the Orinai and without them, the Schema would not exist, nor would the Orinai Empire function as it does.”

  —From Commentary on the Schema, Volume I

  “By all that is sacred and holy,” Samsin shouted, “open this door at once.”

  He fell silent and the lingering echoes of his words died a moment later. In contrast to the almost deafening bellows, the silence was equally harsh.

  After a long moment, the only sound their respective breathing, Gavin broke the silence.

  “Are you happy now?” Gavin hissed. “I don’t know where you come from, or what you want here, but you’re not some high and mighty god. People won’t just bow to your whims just because you yell at them. Now get out of my way while I figure out how to get us out of here. Unless, that is, you can think of something actually useful to do.”

  For a moment, the darkness was the only accompaniment to the silence which greeted Gavin’s barbed response. Then white light burst into the room as crackling energy appeared in Samsin’s hands, illuminating the Orinai’s face. Samsin’s face was tight with suppressed anger. The energy danced up Samsin’s arms, then seemed to pool in his hands.