Hokra crawled from under his pile and jumped to the ceiling, holding fast to the stone he found there, and crawling along it, hoping to keep Wynter off balance, staying just behind him, and dividing his attention. On the floor, Haustis and Lydria spread out, Haustis with her bow, strung and with an arrow ready. When Hokra saw the line of blue move from arrow point to feather, he pulled down a section of the ceiling hoping to bury Wynter underneath the weight of the stone.
Wynter moved forward quickly, away from the archer and the falling stone, toward Lydria, who had no weapon to hand. He lunged and dove to his right, his wrist swiping upward sharply and the force of the impact on Lydria’s shield throwing her across the room. An arrow loosed by Haustis at the same time, landed just in front of Wynter and sunk deeply into the stone floor, creating a razor thin wall that moved across the room, starting below the floor and rising quickly to the height of Dravud. The sword fell to the floor along with Wynter’s hand, having severed Wynter’s right arm at the wrist and missing his head by inches. By the time he cried out in pain, Haustis was on top of him, a plain steel dagger at his throat.
“The Haustis before me was told the world would be better off without you in it, and she made the mistake of mercy that cost her own life. As the last Haustis, I will atone for her mistake, avenge my brother, and I will rest easy knowing the world is happier for your absence.”
Whatever Wynter might have said did not make it through his lips as the blade of Haustis worked its way quickly into his throat until she felt the weapon’s tip hit the stone behind his neck, a pool of red soaking into the spaces between the stone of the floor, which drank his blood as quickly as it could be delivered. Wynter blinked once, closed his eyes and was no more.
Haustis placed a hand on Wynter’s shoulder and pushed herself up. In front of her, on the other side of the magic wall that was only just starting to fade, an enormous man was retrieving the Sword of True Death from the dead hand of Wynter. He winked at Haustis. “Thank you.” Then he walked through the door to the last room of the palace.
26-A Fine Gift
Haustis looked toward Lydria and Hokra and then toward the door where the sword had been taken. “Griffis?”
“It was.” Dravud said, moving from his place at the back of the room to stand over the still figure of Wynter. He closed his eyes and lifted his head for a moment before peering back down and turning to the others.
“Wynter will soon become the first person to set sail across the Placid Abyss for a second time. When we are finished here, he will arrive at the dock by the beach. Do you have a message for him?”
The three stared at each other in silence for a moment before Lydria spoke. “Only that we did not know about Ellaster, and we do not know where Sol is.”
Dravud smiled. “You should be careful, Lydria, or you may one day become the counterpart to Griffis’ evil. You take advantage of the Grey, but you walk always on the side of light.”
“Who was the woman in the cage?” Hokra asked, wiping himself off and retrieving his weapon.
“The woman in the cage was an apparition. She was no one. Only a spirit that Wynter might think was someone he loved once.”
“And the people at the statue?” Lydria asked.
Dravud smiled. “You are perceptive as well. One of those climbing the statue and filling the pail was Ellaster, yes. You see, she desired her husband to kill her to do her a mercy.”
“But her child had died, and she was dying. Why would she be here?”
“Because her child did not need to die. Her child was in no danger from disease – only the cold. But Ellaster knew she was doomed, and she was selfish. She did not want to die alone, so she talked herself into being ‘merciful’ to her child. She did not even notice as she road the boat across the Placid Abyss that the captain of that craft shared her eyes.”
“That was Wynter’s daughter?”
“Yes. He never noticed either. But few people do, you see. They do not look at people, they look at what people do, and based on that, they make their decisions. Certainly, Wynter thought, his daughter had done nothing to be here. And yet, he will be near her twice and never know. Unless you would have me tell him.”
Haustis moved forward about to speak, about to tell Dravud that she would like Wynter to know how close he had come to holding his daughter again, but Hokra took her hand and looked into her eyes. She stopped and knelt to hug the Chag Ca’Grae and cried into his shoulder.
Lydria, who empathized with her sister’s desire, wanted to cry for her, but she could not. There was still much to be done. “What about Sol. Why would Wynter think Sol would be here, in this place?”
“The sword and the work of several others who hoped to see you succeed. Wynter was correct in that the Farn’Nethyn sword built by the light of Wilmamen and designed by the darkness of Griffis, is very nearly its own being. It is the physical embodiment of the Grey. It will work toward its own ends and the first of those ends has been finding its way here, to someone who can wield it and make the best use of its power. The sword then, pulled Wynter toward this place. On Eigrae, you may recall, that Wynter thought his son spoke to him, and that is true. Wynter did think he heard his son, and because of his experience with Ellaster, Wynter was ready to believe his son spoke to him from beyond, and that was used to delay him.
“Now. I have spoken and you have prepared yourselves, I hope, to meet Griffis. My role as a guide ends when we cross the last threshold. I wait only for your decision to proceed.”
“Are you ready?” Lydria asked her sister and then Hokra. Both nodded. None of them knew how they would defeat Griffis. It took so much to defeat Wynter, a man who was being used by the sword. How would they defeat someone who could wield the sword as its master?
Lydria nodded and her collar filled the room with blue light. “Let’s go.”
The double doors to the final room were still ajar when they ran to the end of the room, and rather than announce their presence as they had done earlier, they gently pulled the door open just enough to squeeze through.
The room featured windows and a set of doors on the left leading out to the garden and the statue. The curtains were open and Lydria could see nothing of the those who made their endless trek. She saw only the face and open arms of Griffis, smiling with a beneficence that was surely the biggest lie in the Nethyn Plains.
There was no rug in this room, instead the floor was covered with a vast tile representation of the maps of the five paths and four kingdoms. The wall opposite the windows and doors was again filled with images of Griffis, images they could now compare directly to the man himself.
Griffis sat behind a great stone table, the sword laid across it like a complex piece of writing that he couldn’t translate. For a human he was enormous. About half again as tall as Keldon, and tremendously wide. His proportions Lydria thought, were distorted greatly. A man of some ten to twelve feet tall should be large, certainly, especially if they were fit and not proportioned like Abulet. And Griffis’ chest and arms were easily twice the size they should be. He didn’t look up at them, but he was aware of their presence, indicating with a single finger from his left hand that they should wait a moment while he finished what he was doing.
Lydria was struck at once by Griffis’ features. She had expected someone like Wynter, with sunken eyes and a shallow face, perhaps the same scars and burning. But Griffis was handsome, even for one so abnormally large. His hair was closely cropped and combed carefully to one side, his clothes fit well, showing some of the definition in his chest and arms, but not so tight that they would be uncomfortable for motion. His arms were bare up to the elbow, and what little hair he had was like that on his head, pale blond and barely visible in the light of the room.
When he looked up Lydria was sure it must be magic working on his behalf because his face was pleasant; a groomed beard and mustache trimmed like a well-manicured lawn, with his blond stubble just long enough to brush. When he smiled at them, it was a
generous, welcoming, and all together unsettling smile. The few lines in his face were turned up, suggesting he smiled more than he frowned, and he rose on tree-like legs to say hello, his voice soothing and mellow, floating across the still air to greet her ears.
The message he provided, however, made a lie of everything she saw. “You have done very well getting this far and you should be rewarded. But, of course, I cannot reward you because you are not dead.” He flicked his eyes quickly in the direction of Dravud and then back to them, Lydria first followed by Haustis and finally Hokra.
“Your power is impressive, and I hope I might discover how it is used, but the stone in this sword is reticent to tell me anything useful. I suppose I should discover it myself at some point, but it would be nice to have something fall my way for a change.” If he expected a sympathetic look from any of the three, he was disappointed and picked the large double-bladed weapon from the table as if it were a butter knife, rocking it on his finger and slowly moving his head back and forth. “Wilmamen was the greatest of her kind, you know,” he continued moving his head, not believing how well the large weapon was balanced. “It was difficult finding my way to one of the Eifen, especially one like Wilmamen who was both trusted and respected and had the gifts of both the warrior and the creator. She was a rare find indeed. But I did, and when I gave her the instructions, she thought I was mad. But I told her that the Spirit World was doomed to close. That a new power would find its way to Eigrae and that power would spell the end of her ways, the ways of the Eifen and their meddlesome Haustis.”
He turned his head slowly to Haustis, “How does it feel to be the last? I understand how you feel – really, I do. I was the first here in this place, so long ago. I spent what seemed like ages by myself, and one day, a dock rose from the water by the shore, and a boat arrived, and several people walked onto the dock and into my domain. You’d think that would have been a happy day – I had company at last. But no. No, you can never trust people, and so I thought they had arrived to take my place. So, I went to the wood and over time I remembered more of myself and learned how to control this place, and I made my kingdoms. People arrived and found their places. Occasionally, I would be challenged but those who did only made the mistake once.”
While he was speaking, Griffis sat down behind his table again, and looked at the stone held between the blades of the weapon and then reached out and held the stone with his palm, his face raising to the ceiling and bathing him in a blue light that held Lydria and the others at bay. When it receded, he looked up and smiled, pushing a chair with his foot and inviting Lydria and Hokra to sit.
“From Wynter I learned much about the stone and its power, but he did not understand even the smallest piece of what I have learned, despite the stone’s stubbornness against me. The stone left an impression on Wynter, and I have studied him more deeply than anyone but myself could, and from the residue of power he maintained – yes, he maintained some small power from his contact with the stone – I was able to deduce much. Having the stone with me answers more of those questions. Touching the stone, answered more. I’m sure wearing one will answer the rest.
“Would you care to know more about the stone you wield?” He looked carefully at both wielders and while Hokra seemed to be keen to hear more, Lydria forced herself to sneer at him, “I want only to be gone from this place, and take the sword with me, back to Eigrae where it belongs.”
“Oh, Lydria, pet.” Griffis pouted his lips and pointed his face to hers mocking her like a spoiled child. “You can’t get back. Hasn’t Dravud told you, the only way out of here is if I say so, and then, that will only get you back to the beach. If you can defeat that monster in the water, then maybe you can get back to the other side. Either way, you’re still here and not in Eigrae. And this sword is not yours, it is mine. I created it, and it found its way home to its true master, me. So, you want two things and neither of them are within your power. So sad. But my offer is open, I will tell you about these stones because I know that if you understand the power you had at your fingers, it will make this place even more miserable than anything I could ever do.
“First, the Haustis is correct, the stones should not be separated. Wynter told me that the Haustis’ brother believed she thought so. The stones should be collected. If someone controlled all the stones, he would be the master of the world.”
“What world would that be? The world of dead people? Aren’t you master of that already?”
Griffis laughed a small hollow chuckle that made Lydria feel young and foolish once again. “I am already master of this place, that is true, but with all the stones, I would be master of all worlds. But it is not enough to hold them, one must take them, as you two have taken one. You must compel your body to accept the stones, and the stones to accept your body and your mind. The more stones one has, the easier this power becomes. There is no reason to sit like a broken dog day after day to learn paltry tricks. With a half dozen stones I could rule my homeland easily. With a dozen, all of Eigrae, and with all of them there would be no place that would not bend a knee to me.”
Turning to Hokra, he smiled again, a real, honest smile that radiated up into his eyes. “Magic comes easily to you, does it not my small friend of the rock and dirt? There are people among those of Eigrae who can more easily master the stones. It costs you little to perform miraculous things, but I tell you, this power has its own price. For humans like Lydria, the stones grant a longer than normal life. She will see her great, great, great, great, great grandchildren perhaps – or she would, if she wasn’t going to spend eternity here. But for you, and the Eifen, and some few others, your life is shortened. The power is easy, but the cost is very much dearer than a bloody nose or broken bone. How much do you want to help the humans, when it costs you a portion of your very life?”
“So, what do you do now then, Griffis? Knowing all this, how does that help you? You can’t get to the stones. They are on Eigrae, spread far and wide, and you are here. Watching small lights on maps, and commissioning yet another portrait of yourself won’t be enough, will it?” Lydria rose from her seat, her neck blazing, and she kicked the chair across the room drawing Griffis’ eyes to his left as the wood splintered against the rock wall, and she reached out with a tendril of blue to grasp the hilt of the sword.
Before the blue light got within a hand’s length of the hilt, Griffis’ own hand lashed out and caught Lydria on the side of her head, sending her sprawling after the chair. He rose out of his seat, pushing the table with his foot, sending Hokra flying backward and under the stone slab, and forcing Haustis to jump to the side to avoid being struck.
“Enough! You and I both know the true power of this weapon, and I will be gone from here soon enough. But, as there are two stones standing before me, I would be a fool to leave without adding them to my collection.
“Two stones. He doesn’t know about the others.” Lydria silently shouted to Hokra who looked her way quickly before gaining his feet and brandishing his axe.
“You’re a big man, Griffis, but I know one thing,” Hokra said as he stepped across the floor and jumped off a leg of the over-turned table, “magic will kill something dead, and I’ll be happy to give up a few days of my life to do it.” Hokra’s weapon burned with a fierce blue that crackled along the entire surface, and when he swung it down toward the giant’s knee, he smiled, knowing he was going to connect, and he could already feel the sodden impact of the blade in the man’s flesh when he was whipped to the side, spinning wildly across the room to smash through a glass panel into the garden.
“Vermin!” Griffis bellowed, his rage was up and as he grew angry, he grew physically, lurching until his head nearly hit the ceiling. The Sword of True Death looked small in his hand, but he gripped it securely, and kept it still, the flickering blue light around its edges the only hint that it existed at all. “I will not kill you, because I want you here,” he said, casually pushing the table with his toe, hurling it at Haustis, and turn
ing his gaze to Lydria who was only just recovering from the blow.
Her head was numb, and her jaw was broken and lifting a hand she could feel blood pouring from her left ear. She was glad there were no mirrors, as she knew the side of her face, if it hadn’t already, would soon be a bloated black and blue mass. But she noticed Griffis was not swinging the sword, it was at his side, but only as a shield, so he must know that he could rip open the air with a stroke of the sword and be gone from this place, but he didn’t want to do that yet. He wanted their stones, yes, but he also wanted them to remain in the Nethyn Plains, and if he killed them, their spirits would almost certainly not return here. Lydria smiled and thought of Wynter.
Giant spikes of stone burst from the floor into the bottom of Griffis’ feet, puncturing his boots and protruding from the top of his feet halfway up his shin before his howls of anguish registered. Lydria moved quickly away from where he had last seen her, and in the few heartbeats that he was occupied with the pain, Haustis launched several arrows at his head that were blocked by the sword, and Hokra pulled part of the ceiling down on the giant’s head.
The pile of stone didn’t move for a moment before it became a volcano, stones firing out and raining down upon the whole room. Griffis stood, wincing with pain when he gained his feet, but the stone spikes were gone, and Lydria judged the wounds were as well, the sword glowing brightly and the point resting on the top of his boot.
“I don’t care if you stay here or not, I will pluck your stones from your corpses. Using the flat of the blade, Griffis swatted at Haustis, knocking her off her feet and more quickly than anyone should be able, swung the flat back against Hokra’s chest. Lydria heard the crunching of bone as the weapon penetrated his shield and crushed his side, throwing him into a door near the window-less pane he had been thrown through earlier.
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