Sharani series Box Set

by Kevin L. Nielsen

  Gavin undid the ties, though he eyed Lhaurel and Khari more than once with open curiosity. Lhaurel let go of Khari’s hand and almost recoiled from the smell of rot and putrefaction that assaulted her nose.

  “Someone get me a waterskin,” Lhaurel said, then looked over at Khari. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to manage this. Things haven’t been the same since the Oasis. I’m not sure if I’ll end up unconscious again, like last time, or what.”

  “Revered Sister,” Samsin said, his voice catching slightly.

  Lhaurel looked over Khari’s shoulder toward the massive Orinai. Samsin licked his lips, but kept his eyes downcast in deference. No, Lhaurel amended, in fear.

  “What do you want?” It was Khari who answered, though Lhaurel knew Samsin had been addressing her and not the Roterralar Matron.

  “Sister,” Samsin continued, ignoring Khari, “Nikanor is an Earth Ward, as you know. Surely one of these here could act as a vessel for your powers, should you deign to heal him. He would make an excellent Bondsman, if you do not already have one.”

  “A vessel?” The question slipped from Lhaurel’s lips before Khari could ask.

  Samsin flinched. “A bleeder then, if you prefer.”

  Bleeder?

  One of the men walked over with a waterskin and handed it to Lhaurel. It was the man she had broken. She took it with a slight nod of thanks which he didn’t return. With a small sigh, Lhaurel unstopped the skin and took a long drink, feeling her body respond to the additional fuel. Khari reached out and took the waterskin from her and also took a drink.

  “I’ll help you, if I can,” Khari said softly. Lhaurel nodded her thanks and reached for her powers.

  * * *

  Gavin watched Lhaurel steel herself as she looked over Nikanor, studying the massive, infected wounds in his chest. He’d felt a brief moment of panic when Khari had argued against healing him, but that had passed when the Roterralar Matron had finally relented. Though the woman was, at times, harsh and devoid of anything that looked like mercy, she was an honorable woman at heart. All the Roterralar were, even if the average Rahuli refused to see it.

  When Gavin had broken the surface of the sand earlier and realized they were not at the Oasis, it had taken him a few minutes of careful study to realize where they had ended up. Samsin had cursed him for making him wait down in the tunnel, but once Gavin had figured out that they were in one of the older plateaus the Aeril had once used as their Warren, he’d bent back down and widened the opening in the sand for Samsin and Nikanor to get through. They’d pulled Nikanor through together. Gavin was surprised at how much the Orinai had weighed. There was something so vastly solid about the man.

  Anyway, once Gavin had gotten his bearings and figured out which way they’d needed to travel they’d set off across the sands toward the stoneway pillar they’d left behind. Gavin had no way of really knowing how long they’d been in Kaiden’s grasp or if Farah had already come back to find them missing or not, but he figured that returning to the place he’d last seen her was the wisest thing to do. As they’d walked, Gavin had tried to puzzle out the mystery of the scrolls and similarities to the Aeril Warren and the Oasis caverns to the accompaniment of Samsin’s grumbling complaints.

  Khari and the others had found them before Gavin had come to any sort of a conclusion. Now, watching as Lhaurel prepared to try and heal Nikanor, his only thoughts rested on Samsin’s strange reaction to Lhaurel and whether or not Lhaurel could actually heal the stout Orinai.

  Some of the others who had come with Khari shifted uncomfortably as Lhaurel placed her hands on Nikanor’s chest and the red of her hair and nails seemed to darken. Gavin recognized some of them as members of the various clans. Why had Khari chosen to bring them along? Hadn’t she been the one most vehemently opposed to non-Roterralar riding her aevians?

  Lhaurel suddenly gasped and her eyes went wide. Samsin took a step forward, head coming up slightly, then dropped back toward his toes again as the two men on either side of him grabbed his arms. Lhaurel’s head arched backward and the color drained from her face, leaving it pale and white. Gavin looked down at Nikanor’s chest. Skin crawled there and the blood seemed to be seeping out of the open wounds. No. It was seeping back into the wounds, taking with it the scabs, crusted, dried bits of blood, and torn flesh with it. New skin, pink and fresh, formed at the edges of each wound, growing toward the center.

  Lhaurel shuddered. Khari hissed something that sounded like a curse, then put her hands on Lhaurel’s bare arm and closed her eyes in concentration. Lhaurel’s shudders stopped, but the paleness of her skin didn’t fade. Nikanor gasped and his eyes snapped open. Before he could move, Gavin was there, holding him down.

  “You there,” Gavin ordered at the two nearest men. “Help me here. Keep him still.”

  They hesitated for a moment, awe and confusion at what was happening rooting them in place, then they snapped into motion. They grabbed onto Nikanor and tried to hold him down as he struggled to rise.

  “Get over here, Samsin!” Gavin growled as Nikanor continued to rise despite the four men trying to hold him down.

  The massive Orinai didn’t hesitate, though he kept his eyes downcast as he sidestepped around Lhaurel and shoved one of the other men aside. He grabbed Nikanor by the shoulders and easily pushed him back down into the sand. Gavin felt the slight tug of energy Samsin drew upon for the added strength and did the same, feeling the odd tingling spread through his limbs.

  Lhaurel gasped and moaned and then fell back, hands coming off Nikanor as she fell. Khari caught her before she hit the sand. Gavin looked down at Nikanor. The wounds were still there, but they were minor now, looking like little more than shallow scratches from rocks or thick thorns. Nikanor’s lungs heaved and the muscles across his chest worked up and down as he struggled to sit up again. This time Gavin and the others let him rise to a sitting position.

  “Nikanor?” Samsin said, voice quiet. “Are you alright?”

  Nikanor replied in the other language, though Gavin wasn’t listening close enough to translate it. He looked beyond them to Lhaurel and Khari.

  One of the men rushed over as well. “Is she going to be alright?” the man asked before Gavin could ask the question himself.

  “I’m fine,” Lhaurel replied thickly. Gavin hadn’t realized that she was still conscious. “I just need some rest. Can you fetch me the waterskin, please?” Her voice was weak, but her breathing seemed steady, if somewhat shallow.

  Khari sat back as well, licking her lips as if they were dry.

  Gavin stood up and retrieved the waterskin from where it had fallen in the sand. Part of the precious liquid had spilled into the sand, but no one had noticed in time. He walked over to Lhaurel and handed it to her. Her hands shook, but she was able to lift the skin to her lips and take a deep drink. Some color returned to her skin, though her hair and nails retained the deeper red shade. She took another drink before passing the skin over to Khari.

  “Are you ok?” Gavin asked. Though he’d been the recipient of her healing once before, he still marveled at her power. According to what he knew of the mystic abilities, healing powers were typically limited. Khari herself had said that Nikanor’s wounds were beyond her abilities when she’d found them, but Lhaurel had healed him and had saved Shallee a few days earlier. Her powers were beyond what a normal wetta was supposed to be able to do. Sort of like how Samsin’s powers were similar to Gavin’s, but greater. Gavin blinked, coming to a sudden realization, and completely missed Samsin calling his name.

  “What was that?” he asked, shaking his head and trying to focus as his mind raced with the implications of his sudden realization. Was Lhaurel one of the Orinai? She couldn’t be, could she?

  “Nikanor would like to speak with the Sister,” Samsin said softly. “If that is permitted.”

  Gavin looked over at him with a frown.

  Khari interrupted before Gavin could reply. She’d drained the rest of the waterskin and had gotten t
o her feet, though Lhaurel remained seated in the sand.

  “We will have plenty to talk about when we arrive back at the Warren,” Khari said. “Gavin has some explaining to do as well, I think. Lysand, you stay here and gather the others, then return to the Warren. I’ll send scouts out to let the other clans know what’s gone on once we have all the stories straightened out.”

  The man who had rushed to Lhaurel’s side nodded, glanced down at Lhaurel as if to assure himself that she was ok, then headed for his aevian. Samsin started to protest, but Gavin walked over to him and laid a hand on his arm. The Orinai’s eyes were still downcast though, oddly, Nikanor was staring at Lhaurel with open-eyed wonder.

  “Hold your questions for now,” Gavin said. “I’ll make sure you get your time to talk later.”

  “Who is that woman?” Samsin asked, venom in his voice. “She acts as if she were the head of one of the High Families, yet even the Sister listens to her. You Rahuli really are barbarians.”

  “Thanks,” Gavin said dryly, then turned to some of the other men. “Make sure they find rides back to the Warren. They both have powers, so watch yourselves.”

  The men nodded, but shot nervous looks at one another as Gavin pushed past them and made his way to Nabil. The aevian greeted him with a soft, dignified click of his beak.

  “Come on then, Nabil,” Gavin said. “Let’s go home.”

  * * *

  “He’s dead,” Gavin repeated, leaning back against the back of the chair. He hadn’t realized how terribly exhausted he was until they’d made it to the Roterralar Warren and he’d had a chance to sit down. For a moment, he thought about drawing in some energy, but dismissed it. He’d spent almost his entire life without the ability. There was no point in becoming dependent on it now.

  “Are you sure?” Khari pressed. She sat at the other end of the council table next to Lhaurel, who had recovered enough that she no longer looked like she was going to fall at any given moment.

  The other aevian groups hadn’t returned yet, but Khari had wanted to hear Gavin’s story anyway. Samsin and Nikanor sat back against one of the walls, hands and feet bound by thick rope as a precaution. Samsin had protested the treatment, but had quieted when Lhaurel had addressed him. Nikanor bore it all without a word, expression a troubled mask.

  “Not even Lhaurel could have saved him,” Gavin said. “Samsin killed him.”

  Khari’s eyes flicked over to where the two Orinai sat, then back to Gavin. They were bound, but Khari still had a half dozen guards standing just outside the door.

  “What was he after?” she asked. “You said he was in the Aeril Warren. What was he doing there, planning some sort of coup?”

  Gavin shook his head. “He was after scrolls down in the underground lake. He seemed to think they were vital to the survival of the Rahuli people, though I don’t know why.” Gavin noticed Lhaurel shift and look at Khari with a concerned and confused expression, but they didn’t say anything, so Gavin continued. “There were similar scrolls hidden in an exact replica of that Warren in the Oasis walls. I read some of those when I had a chance.”

  “There’s another one here,” Khari said. “Lhaurel and I have been studying them.”

  Gavin arched an eyebrow. “Why would there be scrolls hidden in three different places?”

  Nikanor stirred in his seat, but didn’t say anything. Gavin looked over at him as Lhaurel and Khari both shrugged.

  “The scrolls talk about the mystics and hint at a lot of things, but there are no clear answers,” Lhaurel said. “It’s a frustrating mess. Every time I think I know what’s going on, new questions crop up.”

  Khari raised a hand and Lhaurel fell silent.

  “They do mention the Orinai, though,” Khari said. “You two. Who are you and how did you get here? The Forbiddence is thought to be impassable.”

  Samsin opened his mouth, but Nikanor laid a bound hand on his leg and Samsin snapped his mouth shut, turning to look at his companion. Nikanor didn’t look over at Samsin, instead looking to Lhaurel and Khari.

  “I will explain, but you must promise me you will give heed to my words,” Nikanor said. His voice was far less accented than Samsin’s, though it carried a slow deliberateness to it which dripped of sincerity.

  “Speak,” Khari said. It wasn’t an affirmation, but it seemed to suffice for Nikanor.

  “You appear to have lost much of your heritage here.” Nikanor spoke as if he were choosing his words carefully, though his expression was earnest. “I will explain so that you may understand me later. If this is something you already know, I apologize, but knowledge is key to understanding, and I would have you understand me.

  “The Orinai are a people who love their games and rules. They are a people steeped in symbolism, propriety, rules, and struggles for political and religious power. At the height of their power, they ruled from the great Steinacker Ocean in the south to the Felurian Sea to the north of here. Yet there were some who broke the rules, there were people that were conquered and enslaved, and a means of forcing evolution to higher Iterations was sought. To this end, the Seven Sisters, they who preside over the Orinai religion, commissioned an Arena be built high in the mountains to the north inside the crater formed by an ancient volcano.”

  “What has this got to do with us?” Khari asked, interrupting him.

  “Please have patience,” Nikanor replied, continuing in the same tone as before. “You will soon see. The Seven Sisters and the government of the time decided to send to the Arena those of the slave people they deemed dangerous and revolutionary, along with those of the Orinai who violated rules, traditions, and laws. Within the Arena, these people were pitted against one another and it became a great game, enjoyed by everyone within the Orinai Empire. It united the factions, gave the High Families something in common, and cemented the power of the Seven Sisters and their religion until intense violence between the prisoners in the Arena broke them and forced them through the initial Iterations.”

  Gavin glanced around, seeing the same blank looks on his companion’s faces he knew showed in his own expression.

  “I believe you would call them ‘mystics.’”

  Gavin felt a growing nausea rise in his stomach. Hadn’t Samsin been calling him a slave since he’d first encountered the Orinai? Samsin’s expression was blank, but his posture was stiff, back rigid as Nikanor continued. Gavin saw some flicker of his own emotions reflected on his companion’s faces yet again.

  “All was well in the Empire. But something changed within the Arena. The people there, even those who had been Orinai, began to form into alliances and groups over the years, developing into clans much like the High Families of the Orinai. A group of mystics formed who were possessed of the first Iteration in each element. They plotted and planned, trying to figure out how to escape their captors, though the Seven Sisters kept a careful watch over everything there. It wasn’t until one of the Sisters, a blood mage called Elyana, betrayed her Sisters, that the war began.”

  Lhaurel gasped and held a hand to her mouth at this, color draining from her face faster than it had when she’d healed Nikanor. He looked at her then and his eyes narrowed, mouth twisting into a fleeting frown. Samsin made a noise, but Gavin was too preoccupied watching Lhaurel and Nikanor to look over at Samsin.

  “The details are unimportant, but over several years the Orinai fought against the slaves, who had started to call themselves the Rahuli people. Elyana bolstered their strength, fought with them, and trained some of the mystics who would allow it. Her bondsman helped lead the people as well. He’d once been one of them, in a prior incarnation, and was accepted more readily than Elyana was.”

  “Beryl,” Lhaurel said.

  “That was one of his names, yes,” Nikanor said. “Though Eldriean was what the Rahuli called him, I believe.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Khari interrupted. “Beryl? Beryl?”

  “Let him continue,” Lhaurel said, and edge in her voice. No, it wasn’t an
edge, it was fear. Terror. Horror.

  The nausea in Gavin’s stomach grew. The Eldriean? No, it couldn’t be.

  “Elyana created monsters to drive the Orinai armies out. She died in the process. Enraged by this, her bondsman led the Rahuli people in a final battle and slew one of the Sisters atop the central viewing platform where our Storm Wards had created an oasis in which the Orinai observers, come to watch the fights in the Arena, could be comfortable. But by then the monsters had turned against their creators. The other Sisters retreated, taking comfort in the knowledge that the Rahuli, in fighting them, had destroyed themselves. Their own creations would be their undoing.”

  Gavin remembered the skeleton there atop the Oasis walls, greatsword through its chest. It was easy to think that Nikanor was making this all up, but too much of it made sense, too much of it rang true. What strange nightmare was this? The Oasis, the genesauri, the strange legends the outcasts had told one another and passed down from generation to generation, even the language, it all began to make sense.

  “Get to it then,” Khari snapped. “If we’re to believe this pile of goat leavings, why are you here now?”

  This time, it was Samsin who answered.

  “We’re here because someone sent a message to the Orinai telling them the threat was over and Nikanor had to see this for himself. Your story, that ‘pile of goat leavings’ Nikanor just told you, is a legend among the Orinai. It sparked several hundred years of civil war and unrest. The Seven Sisters finally regained control about a century ago. It’s been long enough now that very few believe this place even exists anymore.”

  “What do you mean? Someone sent a message to the Orinai how?”

  Samsin opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again as noise sounded from the hall outside the door. It sounded almost like someone was arguing with the guards outside the door.

  Gavin turned to look at the door just as it banged open. Everyone jumped as Farah dashed into the room, flight harness still on. She crossed the room in a few quick bounds, ignoring the stunned onlookers and the bound Orinai, heading straight for Gavin. Seeing her expression, Gavin wondered what was wrong, but then she reached him and stopped a foot or so from him, hands shaking.