by ML Spencer
Chapter Eight
Someone had once told Sergan Parsigal that he bore a striking resemblance to a tarantula hawk wasp. The more he thought about it, the more Sergan agreed. The sting of the tarantula hawk was considered to be one of the most painful insect stings in the world. The finger-length wasp used its venom to paralyze its prey before dragging it back to its nest, where the tarantula was kept alive to feed the wasp’s larva. Sergan knew he could be just as insidious as the wasp, and the people he preyed upon were just as unfortunate as the tarantula, for they were also kept alive and in torment the remainder of their days. He was very good at what he did, though he took no pleasure in it. Unfortunately, it had been years since he’d last had the opportunity to administer his sting, because those with the blood he hunted had become exceedingly few and far between.
Sergan dismounted stiffly then paused to stretch his legs before collecting his saddlebags and handing the reins of his black destrier to a stable boy. He tossed one of the bags over his shoulder and passed the other to his companion, Nahim a’Mahz, a burly Abadian man who had served as his Shield for the past six years. They had spent the entire day in the saddle, and it was well past nightfall by the time they had found the town’s only inn. The roads through the lowlands had been wet and boggy, slowing their passage. His back ached from too many hours in the saddle, and he was in need of a good meal and a good bed.
The inn that awaited them was a two-story building made of river rock with a steeply sloped, wood-shingle roof. The glow of lanterns could be seen through windows covered with opaque slices of horn that were not as expensive as glass, yet thin enough to admit light. It looked like a decent establishment, perhaps owned by a well-to-do merchant or a local official. The odor of roasting meat drifting from the kitchen chimney smelled promising, at least.
Nahim at his side, Sergan crossed the yard and entered the inn’s dim and smokey main hall. It was quiet, by all appearances a distinguished establishment. There were only a few people occupying the tables, all speaking in hushed voices. It was the kind of inn that drew a better clientele: merchants and government officials, perhaps even minor nobility. Good inns were far more than just a place for wayfarers to shelter overnight. They were places to do business, providing services and storage for merchants and travelers.
Approaching the innkeeper, Sergan nodded at Nahim, who withdrew a silver coin from his purse and moved forward.
“We will take two rooms,” Sergan said without bothering to ask if the innkeeper had two rooms available. “One for myself and another for my companion. As well as food and stabling for our horses.”
The bald innkeeper looked up, his eyes widening at the insignia on Sergan’s silk tunic. “Of course, Exilar,” he said with an exaggerated dip of his head.
“We will take our meals in our rooms,” Sergan continued in a lowered voice. “Send up your best wine and a pretty face to serve it.”
He waited while Nahim paid the innkeeper, then made his way across the common room toward the stairs. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the customers staring at him. He doubted that the citizens of this village saw many sorcerers. They were days out from Telibak, the largest city in the province, and the village of Bandin was off the major trade routes.
He entered the dim stairwell and mounted the steps. About halfway up the second flight, he stopped and stood still, every hair on his body suddenly standing on end.
The world jolted violently beneath his feet, forcing him to his knees right there on the stairs.
Gasping, Sergan brought his hands up to clutch his temples, his mind screaming. He felt Nahim’s hands on his shoulders, steadying him, which was probably the only reason he didn’t fall down the stairs. The inn rocked and lurched beneath him like a boat caught in a winter squall, and his head felt like a ball of lightning had ignited within it, searing his brain from the inside out.
Then it all just stopped.
With a gasp, Sergan fell forward, catching himself on the step above him.
“What is it?” Nahim asked, crouching at his side.
“A rupture…” He could scarcely get the words out. His hands scoured his temples, trying to scrub the pain out of his head.
“Where?”
“Somewhere close.”
Pushing himself upright, Sergan regained his feet, though he had to lean against his companion for stability. His legs shook, and his whole body was weak. Quickly, he reached down and pulled out a small glass vial, one of many that were fixed to his belt. Unstoppering it, he raised the vial to his lips and took a sip of its contents. The potent liquid he swallowed immediately filled him with a euphoric bliss that even opium could not rival. It awakened every nerve in his body, sharpening them into acute focus. His vision squirmed, every aethereal fiber bleeding together before finally separating, revealing a world that looked very different than it had just moments before.
“Power,” he gasped. “Whoever it is … so much power.”
It was overwhelming. Nothing had ever hit him with that much fury. Bringing the vial back up to his lips, he drank down a thirsty gulp. The feeling of euphoria intensified. The filaments that saturated his vision trembled like the threads of a spiderweb that had captured an insect.
His companion helped him climb the rest of the stairs to the second floor and find his guestroom. Anticipating his need, Nahim sat him down on the bed and brought him two cups filled with water from a pitcher on the nightstand. Sergan drank all the water in both cups then leaned forward over his knees, gasping to catch his breath.
“I’ve never felt that kind of strength in my life.” He shook his head in astonishment. “I can hardly believe it.”
“Can you tell who it was?” Nahim asked.
That was a good question. He had to know. Sergan raised the vial to his lips and took a few more sips of the liquid inside. Again, he could feel his mind and vision sharpen. This time, he cast his focus along the threads of aether in the direction of the rupture, applying all his great will to the effort.
“It was someone young,” he said at last. “It feels like a boy.”
It was hard to tell. Every person left a signature imprint on the world around them, which told a story about them. It was much easier to read that story standing in a room with the person, growing exponentially more difficult the further away they were. It was only because of the intensity of the soul in question that he could sense anything about him at all. Whoever this boy was, the strength of his imprint was far beyond anything in Sergan’s vast range of experiences.
“He’s a Savant.”
“Are you sure?” Nahim asked, his eyebrows pressed together in disbelief.
“I’m sure.” There was no other explanation for that kind of power—the kind of power that could tear the very fabric of the world.
“When was the last time we found a Savant?”
Sergan tossed the spent vial onto the bed. “Daymar Torian. Four centuries ago.”
Torian had been the last Auld Champion the Exilari had defeated. It had taken a dozen sorcerers to bring him down, and even then, they had lost four of their own in the process. Torian’s essence had been so potent that there were still vials of him left in the cellars when Sergan had begun his apprenticeship. Unfortunately, the last drops of Torian had been swallowed before he’d reached his own mastery of the craft, though he’d heard from others that Torian’s essence had been divine, the purest and most potent soul to ever pass their lips.
“Can you tell where this boy is?” Nahim knelt in front of him, one hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Within a day’s ride to the north.” Sergan was certain he was right. His head still ached from the ferocity of the boy’s assault on the fabric of the Veil.
“That close? The only village within a day’s ride of here is Anai.”
Sergan smiled, a faint thrill shivering down his nerves. If he was right, then this boy might be the next Daymar Torian. And with one so young, they could spend decades filling vials wit
h his essence. Excitement coursed through his veins, for a find so rich might mean the salivation of his Order, a turn of fortune that couldn’t have come at a more desperate time.
“Then I suppose we’re going to Anai,” he said. “There’s a garrison in town. We’ll stop there on the way out and ask for an escort. Go tell the innkeeper that we won’t be needing his accommodations after all.”
Nahim scowled. “I was really looking forward to that meal, you know. Not to mention the woman.”
Sergan snorted. “I’m sure they have plenty of food and women in Anai.”
Chapter Nine
Esmir Revin stood at the edge of his eyrie’s terrace, which overlooked the Shar River above the falls where its waters plummeted thousands of feet into the Pyranthian Gorge. The roar of the falls was a constant thunder that he was used to, so much so that he rarely noticed it. The spray, borne by the wind, wet his face and dampened his thinning gray beard. He raised his liver-spotted hands before him, spreading fingers gnarled by arthritis and age. His skin, once a vigorous golden-brown, was now thin and translucent, knotted with veins. As his body slowed and his bones grew brittle, he felt an increasing sense of urgency. He had already seen twelve hundred summers, and he doubted he had another dozen left in him.
The wind blowing down off the mountains ruffled his hair, smelling of sulfur from the gorge and thick with the portent of rain. It was also too damn cold for old bones. Esmir tugged his fur overcoat tighter about himself and was about ready to start back inside, but then he paused, his gaze drawn to the unlit stone brazier perched like a gargoyle at the very tip of the terrace that jutted out from the cliffside. Such braziers had once been lit throughout the Heights, glowing from terraces all along the walls of the long canyon.
The eyrie where Esmir made his home was one of the highest in Skyhome, for he had come to live there with Daymar Torian and their dragons four hundred years before, when the Great Ones had ruled the sky. He lived there still, even though Daymar was long dead, and their dragons lost to the void, for no one had had the audacity to tell him to leave. Nor would he, for this was his home.
For three hundred years, Esmir had fought beside Daymar as his Warden. Together, they had defended Pyrial from enemies both Above and Below. Until Daymar had fallen, and so, too, had fallen hope. Daymar had been the last Auld Champion, and in the four hundred years since his passing, there hadn’t been another born with the ability to succeed him.
Since Daymar Torian’s passing, Pyrial’s defenders had made do with far less. Through luck and innovation, they kept the Anchors of the Earth intact, despite Araghar’s unceasing assault. But now they were losing ground. Recently, they had lost too many of their best. The Anchors were failing, and when the last Anchor fell, so too would their world come undone.
Esmir gazed sadly at his eyrie’s unlit brazier, which had stood cold since his dragon had passed from the world. The lights of the eyries that once glimmered like stars in defiance of the night had been replaced by stillness and shadow. The great fires of the Heights had gone cold, for they had all died with their dragons, each and every one of them.
Down through the centuries, Esmir had maintained fresh wood in the beacon of his eyrie, feeding it with fuel and hope, on the off chance that Faranth or Agaroth would return to the world. Now, he questioned why he had. There would never be another Greater Dragon in the world, just as there would never be another Champion.
Esmir sighed bitterly, turning away from the edge. It was time to let the last of his hopes die, and himself along with them.
But as he started walking away, the entire mountain trembled.
Esmir staggered, every hair on his body standing on end. The eyrie’s beacon fire sprang to life with a tentative, pale flame that looked feeble and sickly.
To Esmir, the color of the fire didn’t matter. Something—no, someone—had torn a rent in the fabric of the world. His arms dropped limply to his sides, and he gaped at the beacon whose faint, quivering light cast back the shadows of the eyrie for just heartbeats before succumbing.
Somewhere in the world, a Greater Dragon had made its presence known, if only for just a moment.
Esmir walked to the brazier and peered down at the smoldering kindling within, feeling his hopes rekindle for the first time in four hundred years.
Chapter Ten
After Mistress Dayslin finished bandaging him, they carried Aram back to their room at the Flanters’ Inn and laid him on the bed. He was still pale and clammy, the shadows beneath his eyes darker and deeper than they should be. But he was alive, and for that, Markus was grateful. While he waited at Aram’s bedside, the bard went downstairs and procured a meal from the kitchen. There was bone broth for Aram, served in a wooden bowl and heated with a hot stone from the fireplace. He also carried up two trenchers, round slices of bread soaked in sauce and covered with roasted pork.
Markus sat on the floor and ate hungrily, as he hadn’t had a bite to eat all day. He even ate the trencher, which was stale and hard, though made more palatable by the sauce. Master Ebra, sitting on the room’s only stool, chewed his food slowly, his eyes distant with thought. He hadn’t spoken the whole time they ate, and he set the trencher aside without finishing it, as was customary, to save the stale bread for the poor.
When the bard was done eating, he sat upon the bed and propped Aram in his lap, waking him enough to spoon a little broth into him and get some water down his throat. The boy didn’t open his eyes but swallowed the broth compliantly. After that, Master Ebra settled him back down in the bed, covering him with a wool blanket and tucking it in securely.
“I’m sorry,” Aram whimpered, cracking his eyes open just a bit. “I was trying to find my father. I’m so sorry…”
Master Ebra pushed the boy’s damp hair back from his face in a compassionate gesture. “Aram. The spirits of those we love go to a far better place. You will not find your father in the void.”
“I thought … maybe … he might be still alive…”
The bard’s eyebrows bunched together. “Beyond the Veil?”
Aram nodded weakly.
“What made you think that?”
“Your ballad,” the boy whispered. “You sang of the Auld, and a world beyond the Veil. I thought maybe…”
“Ah. I understand now.” The bard’s lips pursed. “If your father truly were capable of such a journey, don’t you think he would have returned home by now? I’m sorry, Aram, but your father isn’t there either. Get some rest now, please.”
Rising from the bed, Master Ebra returned to the stool and sat, looking deep in troubled thought, his gaze remote. Markus sat with his back against the brittle slats of the wall, his knees drawn up against his chest. He ran his finger over a circular knot in one of the floorboards that had cracks at the edges and seemed on the verge of popping out. He listened to the soft whisper of Aram’s breath, the only sound in the room, thanking the gods he was still breathing. He had truly thought they would lose him. If it hadn’t been for Master Ebra’s quick intervention, he knew they would have. But Aram wasn’t out of danger yet, and the threat of the Exilari nagged at his nerves.
“How long until we can leave here?” he asked the bard in a lowered voice.
“A couple of days,” Master Ebra replied. “The therling opened an artery in Aram’s leg, and I don’t want it to start bleeding again. I’m also concerned about the wound festering if we move him too soon.”
Markus was terribly worried about his friend. He didn’t want the wound in Aram’s leg to reopen, but he didn’t want him taken by the Exilari, either. “What can we do to help him heal faster?”
“The bone broth will help. Cow or pig liver would do him good, I think, if we can scrounge up some tomorrow. And we need to change his bandages often to ward against infection.”
Markus lay down on the floor with his head pillowed on his arm, wishing he had brought his cloak from home to wrap up in. The night was cold, and he couldn’t stop shivering. He didn’t think he cou
ld get to sleep, especially without a blanket or something to cover with. He lay there long minutes while the bard sat upon his stool, elbow on his knee, head cradled in his hand.
“Why do you think Aram’s father is dead?” Markus whispered, rolling onto his back and staring up at the rafters of the ceiling. “Everyone in the village thinks he just ran away.”
Master Ebra paused before answering. He leaned forward, studying Aram’s face, probably making sure the boy was truly asleep. “After I met Aram, I made some discrete inquiries around the village. It seems that his father shared many of Aram’s unique traits. And I think it’s very possible that he shared some of his unique talents as well.”
Markus sat up, leaning back against the wall. “Do you think Aram’s father was a Savant?”
“Perhaps. At the very least, I think he had the affinity. Did you notice how no one who saw Aram’s wounds questioned the color of his blood? It was almost as though they expected nothing different.”
“That’s true. So … what do you think happened to Aram’s father?”
The bard’s frown deepened, and his gaze flicked toward Aram again. But the sound of Aram’s breathing was a soft and even whisper. “There is a good chance he was taken.”
Markus stiffened. “By the Exilari?”
Master Ebra nodded.
“But … if he was taken by the Exilari … isn’t there a chance he’s still alive?”
The bard let out a heavy sigh, and the muscles in his jaw bunched. “Unfortunately, yes. I hope not, for Aram’s sake.” He rubbed his eyes wearily. “There is no reason to mention my suspicions to Aram. The knowledge would only bring him pain. I’m only telling you this because I think it’s important that you have an understanding of the danger the Exilari present to Aram. In the coming days, I may be forced to make some difficult choices, and I can’t have you questioning me. Understand that everything I do is in his best interest, no matter what it seems.”
