“She’ll swoon, I declare with a swear.” The Touched turned to Solineus, bent and planted a kiss on his forehead, making the man blanch. “For you a gift, a kiss, from pellucid blue dreams. I jest! Ha ha ha!” He pointed to the desk and chair. “Note the laughter, be sure.” He removed the swords from his belt along with a leather harness, knelt and handed them to Solineus. “These are for you, perhaps I borrowed them from you already, I don’t recall. The Twins, the Twins, never long shall they part, but part they will the Shadows of Man. But beware the words of singing Latcu.”
Before Solineus could thank him, the skeleton leaped to his feet and waltzed to stand before Lelishen. “You, inhuman, you I cannot gift with what you want, your gift you must select but one only one. To the tomes, off with you now.”
Lelishen didn’t hesitate, she walked to the shelves and perused their spines.
The Touched took a smooth dancing step to stand before Eliles. “And for you, my little girl with eyes of blue, cousin mine, with eyes more colors than mine own, who’s end I cannot see. Will we see, speak, hear again? Will we dance before or after eternity’s end? For you and you alone a gift with name unearned.” The Touched cupped his hands, and when he opened them a blinding light emanated, forcing Ivin to avert his eyes. When the intensity faded he turned to look, and in the man’s bony palm rested a crescent moon, like a ten inch blade of a curved knife.
Eliles touched it, tracing its shape. “What is it?”
“It is a truth among falsehoods, a thing of hope and hopelessness with name unearned. A shard of that which blinded mortal and immortal with all they wished to see. Better they’d seen darkness than hope, for darkness was the truth, the Creator in the black. For you it is summer the eternal glow, for you, sweet soul of innocence and Dame of Fire, it will earn a name not given by false eyes and tongues cast in pathetic, prophetic, and false visions.”
“This is what the Shadows seek?”
“Did I not just say that? Once gone it will always be here but to never return. It is my most precious gift, the Craven Raven rues I give it to you now, because he yet did not know it exists. He watches us now, or rather then, when? No matter. So you see, girl, I give my greatest gift to you, and I receive the only gift ever given me: being rid its light and fright. Better to live in the dark with happy worms than in the light with angry dragons.”
Ivin watched as she took the crescent from the Touched’s bony hand, expecting something. They stood and watched, even Lelishen, with a book tucked under her arm.
Nothing happened.
ELILES GAPED at the treasure in her hands, it glowed as a moon on the darkest night, warm to the touch, and vibrated with a cat’s gentle purr she could feel, but not hear. When she blinked, a wild brocade of light flashed through her mind, and she opened her eyes to stare at the skeleton’s emotionless face. Her mouth opened, but instead of speaking she closed her eyes and held them shut. The hues were brilliant, shifting and flowing in waves, a spectrum unimagined before now, and when she opened her eyes again, the light of the real world too had changed. Subtle, maybe ghosts from within her mind, but before she grasped its intricacies the vision faded.
She inhaled a shuddering breath. “Will this destroy the Celestial Gate?”
“Oh dear, oh fear, yes, and no, and maybe, depends on whether what you intend to destroy exists for first in the real place, and whether you find destruction an end, or prefer defeat in creation of the destroying fire defeating. It is capable of more and it is capable of less, aren’t we all? What you really want is how, not just will, and that is an ages old truth only you can question into answers, not me, not lowly me, he who awaits the worms only to find the flaming breath of dragons in your tower’s spire.”
“Dame of Fire? What tower? I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
The Touched sighed and strode away, sullen. “I keep forgetting which time this is we speak. It’s tricky not to confuse when yourself are confused. A tower, a tower, an autumn flower, read the oracle’s bones and find your tower, the first, the second build in kind. Find. In kind. Tear-blind build. I love fish soup, do you?”
Eliles scrunched her eyes, trying to focus on any clues within the babble. Meris read her future beneath the Tower of Sol, she’d been named priestess of Istinjoln. If he spoke of another tower, she couldn’t conceive of it.
Ivin’s finger stretched toward the artifact, and she slapped his hand with a warning smile.
“The Dame of Fire is right, no other should touch that of unearned name. Fire the renowned destroyer.”
Eliles brought the crescent to her breast, the warmth immediate through her clothes, before she slipped it into her bag.
“Always a joyous day when the eternal repetition comes to taunt the Craven Raven, but a sorrowful day, too. Parting with this treasure is like parting with one of my own ribs! Ha ha ha! Note the laughter, damn you! So sorry, I fear the Raven knows your faces, the squat good it will do him, he won’t remember, like me, until many days after yesterday.”
It sounded as if they had another enemy, and Eliles couldn’t resist. “Who is this Craven Raven?”
“A name unearned, dame not yet, but fear no fear not, the Craven Raven too knows his name not yet, the ebony feathers and black blood and green eyes, the multicolored lies he will tell himself have just begun.” The Touched settled into his chair. “Rest with me, yes rest, sleep as you haven’t slept in days, safe and full, as you’ve never slept backward before. I will bid you awake when you should leave and impart a final gift on the morrow not. Good night.”
His chin slumped to his chest, and his bones relaxed. If Eliles hadn’t seen him moving, she’d swear the Touched had been dead in that pose for centuries.
Ivin asked, “Did anyone understand what the hells just happened?”
“Bits and pieces,” Lelishen answered. “If the Touched can be believed, we hold the Sliver of Star, and we know our enemy.”
Eliles glanced at the woman everyone now knew to be a foreigner and a liar, and her tone growled her suspicions. “And who the Twelve Hells are you?”
The woman glared, but her eyes softened. “Lelishen Emedwer. I sailed from Eleris Edan to observe the Eve of Snows.”
“The Edan? How’d they know of the Eve?” The Edan lived in forests across the Parapet Straits, hundreds of leagues from where they stood, an immortal people who never left their homeland if rumor were true.
“I am not Edan, so I’m not privy to their means. But this was not the only ritual being performed for the alignment of the Eye of the Fire Lion. By my prayers, I hope the other fared better. The Edan feared the twelfth star, but if they had known… they would’ve sent someone to stop it, not observe.”
“I was sent to stop it,” Solineus said. “I failed.”
Ivin said, “Enough with pity and mistrust. What did you mean ‘we know the enemy’?”
Lelishen meandered to the writing desk, and Eliles followed on her heels. “The Shadows of Man.”
The pages that were blank when they entered the mausoleum were covered in flowing script written with calligraphic precision. Eliles gawked. “Everything he said is written, but nothing we said.” Impossible, and yet there the words sat. Eliles flipped a page, but something, someone, turned it back. She did this three times with the same result.
Rinold asked, “A ghost?”
Lelishen started to sit in the chair, but moved to a bench. “We’re not in a place for mortals, so it’s possible. As I was saying, I’ve heard of the Shadows of Man, but I don’t know much about—”
“Son of a bitch!” Solineus jumped, but Eliles couldn’t tell why. “Sorry. Nothing, don’t mind me.” His eyes glanced from the hilt of one of the Twins to the other.
“The Shadows of Man are mentioned in tomes dating to the God Wars. They were summoned to fight, to destroy humans. They were powerful then, but in that time, the gods and the elements were far more powerful. The Shadows were a small piece in many wars.”
Ivin said, �
�Zwinfolkum, the Colok mentioned the Shadows having a master, or lord. That’s what the Colok are most worried about.”
The woman’s eyes twitched back and forth before settling on the ceiling, and she sighed. “Another name for Winfoldin, Rifoldun, maybe, which means Great Mother or something close to it. It would make sense if it’s true the gods bred these Shadows.”
The God Wars were real. Eliles had always thought these fables were more lies of the priesthood. If even half the tales were true, the ramifications disturbed her. “If Ulrikt summoned the mother of these creatures, what do we do then?”
Tokodin burst in. “No! No, whatever this is, it’s an accident. A mistake. The prophecy speaks of bringing the Word of Sol to the world, the power of the Pantheon, not some mother of Shadows. I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know this.”
Rinold took a step toward Tokodin but Ivin barred him with an arm. The tracker glared. “That son of bitch lord priest of yours got my brothers killed.”
“And many more of mine, but it doesn’t make it any less a mistake,” Tokodin retorted.
Eliles turned to the monk, quoting the Book of Leds. “‘Only the gods may judge by a man’s intentions; mortals must judge by results.’”
Tokodin threw his hands in the air and wandered to a corner, pulling the stopper on his bottle.
Lelishen said, “If Winfoldin made it into the world? There’s no way to say what would happen. The Edan imprisoned a Celestial Being in the Age of Warlords… enough to say this Zwinfolkum would be very bad.”
Eliles turned back to Lelishen. “How do we destroy these Shadows? Stop this mother?”
“I don’t know. The gods banished them once. The elements are able to kill them, but so long as the Celestial Gate is open… Our hope is the crescent in your hand.”
Everyone looked to Eliles; her face burned and she wanted to hide. “Me? I’m no god. I’m not even a priestess!” She caught the strange look on Tokodin’s face as he took a pull on his liquor, but she ignored him, tears welling in her eyes.
Ivin walked to her side, addressed the group. “Let’s take the skeleton’s advice. Relax, sleep if we can. Neither Shadows nor Taken have made it here, so I trust the Touched’s promise of refuge.”
He put his arm around her, and grateful for his support, she allowed him to escort her to a cushioned bench.
“Lie down, rest. We came here for hope, and we have it now. Let’s enjoy the moment while we can.”
She took a seat, smiled, but it was forced. “Thank you.”
Lelishen and Tokodin meandered to the bookshelves while Solineus tinkered with the harness to his new swords. They rode on his back until with a click of a latch they dropped to either hip. She pushed her senses toward the man and listened. “Gods be damned if the belts don’t fit without adjusting a notch.” And Rinold chuckled nearby, but the more curious and disturbing feeling came from the swords themselves: They felt alive, aware of her watching.
Eliles wanted no more surprises today and was too tired to care about swords. She stretched along the bench, resting the bag with the crescent on her bosom, and smiled at Ivin again, more sincere this time. “Thank you for everything.”
His smile was warm, gentle. “Anytime, always.” He leaned in and kissed her on the forehead before sitting beside her.
She took his hand, a warmth and chill conflicting her spirit. The Dame of Fire was nothing more than a girl with fiery friends, without a clue of what to do. She eased into the cushions of the bench, propping her head on the hood of her cloak, and closed her eyes.
SHE AWOKE in the middle of the night and turned with sleep-blurred eyes to see a vision that a few days ago would’ve made her wonder whether she was dreaming. The Touched paced the room, the man the skeleton had once been, his mismatched eyes wide, impassioned, evocative, as they glanced to and fro. He was larger than life, a performer on a stage, not a mere giant, and beautiful in his own gaunt, sallow-faced way. His mouth and his hands gesticulated as if in the middle of a debate, but there wasn’t a sound, not even the steps of his feet. The skeleton still sat in its throne, unmoved, and in the far corner sat Lelishen, a book in her lap as she watched the scene.
Eliles slipped away from Ivin as he slept, creeping to sit with the woman, and spoke under her breath. “What’s going on?”
Lelishen grinned. “I don’t know, but isn’t it amazing?”
Bizarre and downright creepy. “How’s it possible?”
“I don’t know, not exactly, but… You are a child of Fire, this is a place of Time, maybe more. As the Element Fire is a part of your nature, so the Element Time is part of this tomb’s nature.”
She’d never heard Time called an element. In Istinjoln they spoke of the Ten Elements of the Universe, the Ten Winds. Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Heat, Cold, Life, Spirit, Light, and Dark. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Time is an Element just as Fire, or Light, and Dark.” She held out her hand and a tiny luminescent ball appeared without words of prayer. Unlike Eliles’ little friends, this Light was not alive. “How do you know this is Elemental Light?”
Eliles smiled, feeling a sudden kinship. The woman sat in a shadowless halo. “It envelops, it doesn’t cast shadows.”
The ball turned to flames, and shadows danced on the wall. “Light or Elemental Light?”
“Fire gives off normal light.”
“Until it doesn’t.” Her shadow disappeared, but the change in the Fire was so subtle it was hard to notice: A radiance of Light hid in the edge of the flame’s flicker. “A blend of Elements, Fire and Light. Elemental Fire burns without fuel, even without air, it doesn’t even necessarily produce heat. Dark cannot be penetrated by light and instills an unnatural fear. All Elements have something that sets them apart from their more common cousin. Time is no different. The time we live in travels in one direction, more or less constant. Elemental Time produces flashes, déjà vu, small twists in reality that may travel forward or backward. It may give us memories, our own or even those of others.”
“My Fire is different.”
The woman stared at her, making Eliles uncomfortable, forcing her to question herself even before the woman spoke. “How so?”
“The Fires aren’t mine. Since I was a child, they come from my little friends. Or, sort of, it’s part me.”
The woman’s nose wrinkled, then she smiled. “The little flames you summon? Ah, my dear, the flames aren’t your gift, they come because of your gift.”
“I’m defiled, cursed—”
“Hush, don’t let the words of your priests slip from your lips. The Vanquished Gods are just that, gone. To connect to our world again would take something more special than even you. Maybe that thing in your bag?”
Eliles’ chest constricted. “And Istinjoln’s killing all those like me, another mistake?”
“The holy and common folk around the world don’t understand, and therefore fear those like you, and what people fear, they often try to destroy.”
Eliles shook her head, memories of so many children marching to their doom flashing through her mind. She needed a change in conversation quick. “The fires, what you said about me and the fires?”
“The same cut on one man festers, on another it heals in a week, a third in a matter of days. Life is all around us, running through us, for the lucky Life pools, healing. The truly fortunate will find they can heal others even if they don’t fully grasp their ability. You are one of these people, except yours is more rare, with Fire.”
“And Spirit. I… influence people often times not knowing it.”
“And Spirit? Spirit is more common. Mortal peoples are beings of Life and Spirit. Fire and Spirit may explain the fires that follow you. The Edan call them te-xe, ‘Elementals.’ They are everywhere, but passive, invisible—”
“Alive.”
“Yes, alive. It is rare a child is born so attuned to an Element. The te-xe are attracted to them, but it’s not unheard of. And when you harness the power of Fi
re, they’re attracted to your energy, as they are with natural fires. If you look close, you might find one in a campfire at night.” Lelishen stifled a giggle. “They can be playful and dangerous, too. The Kingdomers—you’ve never heard of them, I suppose—who live in the Dragonspan Mountains far south on the continent, have a powder which flames, and they fashion explosive sticks of the stuff they call stonebreakers. They handle these stonebreakers sparingly and store them away from each other, to make sure a te-xe doesn’t set off the whole stock. A mine came down at least once because of your pesky friends.”
It didn’t sound funny, but still she grinned: She’d always figured the little things held a streak of naughty. “They help me. I don’t necessarily ask, they seem to know what I want. I can’t say for sure.”
“If you influence people without knowing, it’s likely you have an influence over them, too. It’s remarkable, however it works.”
A cork popped from across the room and Eliles jumped to her feet, startled to see Tokodin staring as he took a drink.
Lelishen continued, ignoring the monk. “The Edan would understand more; my knowledge is small in such matters.”
Eliles tore her gaze from the monk, conceding the loss of her secret, but still, she figured a change of subject was due. “This Sliver, what is it?”
The woman’s mouth crinkled and her shoulders shrugged. “What do you think it is?”
Eliles thought on it, her mind focusing on the warmth it brought, and on the words of the Touched. “A shard of which blinded mortal and immortal with what they wished to see? It isn’t alive, not like the flames, but I feel a life, a presence, a connection to something… I don’t know. And when I close my eyes while holding it, there’re colors I can’t describe.”
“The colors I can’t explain, but, well, it is no doubt a reservoir, then.”
“A what?”
“Your priests teach diamond as the stone of Life; this isn’t coincidence, it is the same around the world. The Elemental energies are everywhere, passing through everyone and everything, but diamonds are apt to trap Life. This crescent sounds like it catches Life and Spirit, giving it the sense of a living presence without being alive, and its harnessed energies can be unleashed, as with a diamond.”
Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One Page 35
