The Riven God stood by her side. “Sometimes my dreams hold little joy.”
Rhinne didn’t respond. Her heart hadn’t calmed from hearing Adder shout her name. More startlingly, it meant that Carmaenos had told the truth when he implied Dore had staged her lover’s death.
“What is your warrior to you?” the Riven God continued. “He will bed you for a while, until he tires of you and finds another. A man such as he lusts for things that fade: women, conquest, battle—of which you are but a prize.”
Rhinne gazed upon the wasteland of a god’s bad mood. Wulfgar had given her a similar lecture about getting involved with warriors. She had listened to that with the patience of wind, but the truth was, though she loved Adder, she couldn’t cage him when she didn’t want to be caged herself. You are a warrior, Wulfgar had told her. Perhaps that was truer than she had realized at the time.
“Love and war have pain built into them,” she said.
The landscape shimmered with cool sunshine as it changed into what it had been before the armies of the Riven God destroyed it: vibrant, lush and teeming with life. Light shimmering in his hair, Carmaenos said, “That does not have to be so.”
Rhinne stepped from the outcropping and moved into the forest. Above, something fluttered into the trees with a croak. A raven. Rhinne froze as she noticed a white feather in its tail.
She turned around. The god stood on the rock like royal statue, pure, immortal and shining cold. His strategy was clear: if Rhinne didn’t return his love, he would destroy the world she knew and everything in it, including Adder. Perhaps he already had.
The forest changed again. Nightshade swooped from the acrid air where a bough had hung a moment before, and landed on a nearby patch of earth untouched by fire. Carmaenos didn’t look at or acknowledge the bird, as if he didn’t see it.
“You will not know your mortal or immortal lovers when I bring the world under my hand,” he said, his pale blue gaze freezing the blood in her veins. His voice sounded like an incantation. “But you will know me as one who loves you truly.”
Love. This entity’s moods spread war like a winding sheet on the time-space matrix. He didn’t wield the grid to heal or integrate, but to hide by manipulating the mortal world to his will. Rhinne considered Nightshade, her feathered messenger from the Otherworld. Carmaenos didn’t see the bird, no more than he could perceive Ascarion. What the gods didn’t see was often more important than what they did.
Ascarion appeared to her because the heart transcended space and time. The Old One held all the boundaries. No matter where Carmaenos dropped her, Rhinne wouldn’t love him.
She closed her eyes and opened her heart to Ascarion, who did love her truly, across the Void. She focused on the shadowy, impossible place where he existed and yet didn’t exist; she opened to her disbelief and to the love of something she didn’t understand. Trust the water. At last, she knew what it meant. From the seas of Void, she spoke a name.
“Ealiron.”
Lightning broke from the heavens and tore through her body and mind as the sound of the Source’s name passed through the cloaks and spells shrouding the realm, including the will of the Riven God, who whirled around in astonishment.
They stood inside a ring of standing stones towering up from a windswept, rocky plain. Two moons shone above, casting long shadows. A great fire burned in the center of the ring. Shining war gods surrounded Carmaenos like impassable mountain crags, fully aware, their faces grim, their minds blocking him in all dimensions. Eusiron stood among them, his gray eyes shining as he nodded to Rhinne in acknowledgement.
The Aenmos stood on the other side of the fire, his black hair moving in the wind. On one arm he held a raven with a hint of white in its tail. Ealiron raised his voice to the sky and spoke in the tongue of the gods. The words rent the grid like a raging river, rough, beautiful, terrible.
Trembling, Carmaenos lowered himself to one knee and bowed his head. Still as the stones, the Pentacle of Ealiron bore witness as the Dark Warrior stepped forth, raised his sword and struck.
The Old Ways
The sun descended slowly behind the bright clouds of a cool evening, its golden light beaming over the sea. The tide crashed, swirled and hissed on the shore beneath the western corner of the North Tower of Tromblast Keep. Seagulls and cormorants filled the sky and perched on the rocks. Out in the surf, shining gray seals lounged on a mass of rock protruding from the low tide.
Lorth sat in a comfortable hollow in the brush, wrapped in his Raven’s cloak. The wind carried the smell of smoke and the sounds of revelry in the keep. Some distance away on the north beach, the people of Tromblast had built a great pyre on which they laid the Eldest Sentinel, in the full dress of their ancestors. They had placed carven artifacts on the pyre to honor the king and queen. After Bjorn, Wulfgar and Rhinne, the people came to the water in silence to pay their respects to the fallen rulers of their broken realm. As the night wore on and others poured in from the towns and villages, they would celebrate.
Ragnvald’s body had disappeared. When Carmaenos had removed it from Rhinne’s presence in the gathering hall, he had made an odd little tear in the threads of the grid. Lorth wondered what else had changed. They would never know.
They had found Rhinne unconscious in the gathering hall, alone but for Dore’s body cooling in a puddle of blood. After bringing the princess to Wulfgar’s room in the South Tower, Lorth had bid Adder and Wulfgar to hold her hands and then ventured into Void to find her. He knew where to go. Ealiron, Eusiron and the war gods in the Pentacle of Ealiron had already departed when Lorth arrived between the setting moons. He found Rhinne by a dying fire beneath the standing stones, with Nightshade perched on her arm. The earth keeps secrets, she said with a priestess’ smile.
She awoke to the joy of those who loved her, and quietly told them what had happened. As news of the Riven God’s demise spread through the keep, the halls erupted into cheers.
In the last few days since the armies of Ealiron had taken back the realm, the people of Tromb had cleaned the halls of the keep, opened it to the light and received supplies from the other isles to replenish their war-drained stores. Interestingly, they had looked to Rhinne, not Lorth or Eaglin, to tell them when the seas were safe. Rhinne had confided in Lorth that Eusiron had allowed the priest on the Winterscythe in order to send her a message concerning the Old One’s sovereignty over that of gods. Now wiser of the ways of such beings, Rhinne had forgiven the Dark Warrior. But Lorth knew the entity had paid heavily for his message. That he had allowed Rhinne to hit him in the face said much.
It now fell to Bjorn, the Sentinel of the East, to assume the throne of Tromblast. The worldly prince considered this with the dignity of his bloodline, but his heart remained with his crew, the Eastfetch and the sea. As for Wulfgar, the next in line, he had decided in Willowfae’s cottage with Elspeth in his arms that he would return to Eyrie after the war and enter apprenticeship to the Eye. He was even considering taking the priestess’ sensitive daughter to wife. Lorth could only imagine Willowfae’s expression on being presented with that proposal.
And Rhinne? Lorth smiled. She could easily have remained on this isle, taken the throne and had her pick of men to share it with her. After losing their queen, these people now looked to the Fourth Born for wisdom of the old ways. But Rhinne was not her mother. A Web, yes—but also a warrior with a tomboyish distaste for the idea of ruling a court or bearing children. Laegir had earlier claimed that Rhinne swore her blade to him. Lorth had thought the captain was joking—but Rhinne had done exactly that. Lorth had a recurring thought that the Dark Warrior himself might take on her training. The entity had trained others for more mysterious reasons.
Had the history of Tromb not been steeped in a fourfold spell that had dampened the power of the Circle for nine centuries, Ragnvald’s children might have had the heart to rule. But things had changed. Now the people of Tromb needed a new kind of ruler.
Ealiron had lifted his tre
ecloak, freeing Lorth and Eaglin once more to their arts. Lorth had projected to a gathering of the Aenlisarfon with a grim report that the Master of Wychmouth had drowned along with his son and a large company of Albatrosses and Raptors. Eaglin had projected to Wychmouth to get answers as to why Sedarius had defied orders and landed on the north coast of Tromb instead of making port in Whitebeam. But Sedarius hadn’t been one to share his plans with subordinates.
Lorth could guess. The Guardian of the Gray Isles had most likely embarked upon his own line of attack and had either misjudged the timing of the moon or refused to believe the Mistress had cursed them. But he couldn’t know for sure. One more sailors’ tale involving the Mistress of the Sea.
The incident put Lorth in a difficult position. Now there was a void not only in Tromblast but also in the ruling seat of the Gray Isles. The Aenlisarfon, of course, wanted to restore the Eye to its place in these backwater isles, preferably with wizards obedient to the Council’s authority, not born of centuries of rulers who had become comfortable in their ways. The Council saw the prevalence of ancient magic in these isles as a threat to balance. Among other things, the rise of the oborom justified their concern.
Lorth was not convinced. To his mind, the rise of the oborom indicated something more than the laxity that often occurs with isolation. Old magic ran deep, and whether out of respect for the old ways or a visceral understanding of how difficult it would be to root them out, the Masters of Wychmouth had learned to turn a blind eye over the centuries. The Eye had found a way to live comfortably with stranger things, here. It made the Gray Isles what they were, mysterious and as difficult to decipher as the sea itself.
Change played a necessary part in the expression of consciousness, renewing and expanding it. Carmaenos’ violation of the grid under Ealiron had to be balanced. But the old magic preceded the Riven God’s reach. It was here before and while Carmaenos had used it to his own ends, it still had a place. Lorth, unlike most of the Aenlisarfon, would not see it pulled like indigenous weeds in a relatively new field. It reminded him of something his lover Leda had once said: The strongest and most mysterious weeds often have things to teach us.
His scalp prickled with a cold-brine rush as a presence touched his mind. On the rocks beneath the tower wall stood Aelfric, in a green cloak, his red hair shining in the fading light. Lorth raised his arm and waved. As the warrior started down, a hooded crow swept from the tower in his wake.
Wulfgar called Aelfric a warrior, a spy and his closest friend. According to Adder, the warrior had found a way to poison the king and rout the oborom inside the east gate using a whistle. But there was more to Aelfric than that. He had enough old magic in his veins to move the island rock.
“May I join you?” Aelfric said. Shadows passed overhead as three more crows flew down. They landed in the surrounding brush with a clatter.
Lorth smiled. “Please do.”
The red-haired warrior settled into the brush at Lorth’s side with the grace of a fox. He gazed afar at the sea, his fine energy spiraling out to touch every plant, rock, bird, seal and fish with the love of a god. If Lorth didn’t know any better, he would swear he felt Hemlock’s presence.
“Fair evening,” Aelfric said.
Lorth drew a breath of the fresh, tangy air. The setting sun broke through a low cloud and beamed orange-gold on the horizon. “Aye, ’tis.”
One of the crows rose up and landed in the warrior’s lap. Aelfric brushed his fingers over the creature’s wing. “They follow me everywhere, now.” He breathed a laugh.
“Eaglin says the crows are the reason the oborom surrendered. Apparently they have more respect for the birds than they did for the king.”
“The hooded crow is an emissary of the Mistress. No islander disregards her, whatever side he’s on.” He sat amid the birds, calm as a passing cloud.
“Your energy is familiar to me, Aelfric. Powerful. Tell me, have you seen anything strange, in your dreams...in the water?”
The warrior startled him with a laugh. “You feel Hemlock.”
Lorth tilted his face to the sky. Hemlock. “You know of him, then.”
“You could say that.” He hesitated. Then he told an extraordinary tale that raised the hair on Lorth’s neck and made his heart thump with excitement. A river and a fish. A dead hermit. Healing. Murder. Crows. It explained much. Somehow, Hemlock’s touch had connected Aelfric to the Otherworld.
Moved, Lorth said, “Hemlock is not one to get involved in things like this. The Mistress wouldn’t have bid him to it. And he didn’t seek the fall of the Riven God, since Ragnvald’s death wouldn’t have guaranteed that.”
Aelfric let the crow in his lap grasp onto his fingers, and held the bird in the air with a thoughtful smile. “He likes animals. ’Tis a strange thing. He cares for them. Didn’t like the way the oborom feared and misused the beasts on this isle. I think he intended to restore the balance.” The crow lifted from his hand and rose into the sky. The others followed it.
“Hemlock was mortal once. I knew him then, for a short time. He did love animals, and cared for them on Urd, where he lived. He must feel it still.” He watched a crow as it landed on a rock and began to preen. “The beauty of the heart is that it adds an element of the unpredictable to things. At some level, it was love that threw the course of this war into balance and not destruction.”
They sat in silence for a time as dusk breathed upon the shore. Aelfric said, “Wulfgar is proposing to set me up as warden, here. They are considering dissolving the monarchy.”
“I know. Do you desire to govern the affairs of Tromb?”
“Not really. But for some reason people are looking to me. I serve the Mistress and killed the king—though in truth Adelan gets credit for that. He’s good, you know.”
Lorth hissed a laugh. “Aye, they don’t call him ‘Adder’ for nothing.” His heart skipped a beat as his dilemma began to shift beneath the surface of his mind. “I know a wizard named Eadred, Raven of Nemeton. Two suns past, he helped me to guide Hemlock to become the creature he now is. Eadred is fey, in his way, and likes to stand on the edge of rule without stepping over. He trained Adder.”
“He trained him well. Has the Eye chosen a new Master of Wychmouth?”
“Not yet. I will be involved in that decision. Why?”
“Sounds like Eadred would serve.”
Lorth lifted his brow. Intuitive. Putting Eadred in Wychmouth would satisfy the Council’s desire to supplant the old guard, while satisfying Lorth’s desire to have someone tolerant of the deeper forces rooted here. Had this idea not involved Sedarius’ death, Lorth might have laughed at the irony of it: Eadred’s behavior in Wychmouth had forever banned him from the place.
“Eadred’s roguish ways cost him his cloak,” Lorth said. “Based on circumstance, I had him reinstated to the Order.” He leaned back, cast a pointed glance at the keep and then regarded Aelfric with a smile. “Would you be willing to meet with him? He could help you with this.”
Aelfric flashed a smile. “Aye, I will. Come, my friend. It’s getting dark and my crows have left me.” He rose and pulled his cloak around him, stepping lightly over the rocks.
“Adder told me you can see in the dark like a cat,” Lorth said, joining him.
“Aye, but I miss the crows when they fly off. Besides, if we wait overlong, Wulf will drink all the whisky.”
“If he does, I’ll feed him to your crows.”
Laughing, they returned to Tromblast Keep to join the celebration.
Glossary
Aenmos (EN mohs): In Aenspeak, “creator.” Cast in the male sense. Used as a formal title and address for Ealiron, or for any Formation entity. See also Ealiron, Formation entity.
Aenlisarfon (en LIS arvon): A council of nine wizards of the Order of Raven who watch over the patterns of human and immortal energies in the higher spheres of consciousness that permeate the world of Ealiron. See also Keepers of the Eye.
Aenspeak (EN speak): An ancient lan
guage used by wizards to invoke and focus power. Comes from the word aen, which roughly means, “the primary fire” or “the source of sound.” Aenspeak is informally referred to as the wizard’s tongue, and is a higher, more structured form of the Dark Tongue, which is differentiated from it. See also Dark Tongue.
Albatross: A Keeper of the Crafts trained in the arts of seafaring. Holds limited powers of the Eye pertaining to working weather and elemental forces. See also Keepers of the Eye, Keepers of the Crafts.
Apparition: A perceivable thoughtform consciously created from a wizard’s essence to perform a certain task. Apparitions are able to pass between dimensions of consciousness, including the physical.
Ascarion: A war god who was worshipped in the ancient civilization that existed on Tromb nine centuries ago. Also the name of that civilization. Lover of Eifin, a high priestess. Murdered by Carmaenos. See also Carmaenos, Eifin.
Asmoralin (as MOR ah lin): A large, rugged, arid realm southeast of Sourcesee.
Aspect: A self-aware portion of an entity’s essence, focused on the time-space matrix to express that part of the entity’s nature. Aspects are a part of the creator, yet also possess individuality and free will, including living things such as humans, animals, plants, trees, and immortal creatures such as sioros and loerfalos. Term also refers to the perceivable manifestations of the Old One, such as the Destroyer. See also Entity, Old One, Source.
Bjorn: East Born of Ragnvald and Sentinel of the East. See also Ragnvald, Tromblast.
Carmaenos (car MAY nos): A war god marked by the Old One for violating a priestess of the Circle in another timeline. Creator of King Ragnvald and the driving force behind the powers of the oborom. See also Circle, Old One, Ragnvald, oborom.
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