Gifts of Vorallon: 02 - City of Thunder

by Thomas Cardin

  Lorace paused and smiled toward the elves as they stepped up to the extended chain. Dederon, in his forest garb and Harna-Ki in his red ribbons touched the chain with only slight effect, but Esrenar was staggered. A small black fire erupted through the loose blue silk of his shirt without affecting the fabric, then flowing into the chain.

  Esrenar released the chain, and crumpled to his knees with a sob, his smooth face expressing wonder and confusion, but not the pain Lorace expected from his physical reaction.

  The elf held up a hand as his companions rushed to him. “I am all right,” he said before turning to Lorace. “Many years ago I killed a fellow elf in rage and anger over a calamitous accident that claimed the life of my mate. I labored for many years in reparation to his family and to my people. I have been forgiven, yet it has been a constant shadow on my heart, over and above the loss of my wife,” Esrenar paused for a moment to wipe tears from his large eyes, “until now. What I feel now is fresh sadness over the loss of a fellow elf and remorse for my actions, but I no longer feel darkened somehow. I feel forgiven, truly forgiven to myself.”

  He knelt before Lorace and bowed his head.

  “Thank you,” he said while the dark expanse of his gaze sparkled with hints of sunlight.

  “You are welcome, Esrenar,” Lorace said, returning the elf’s bow. “I could feel the intensity of what the chain drew out of you. In the moment we were joined, two more links of Sakke Vrang. I could feel the corruption leaving your spirit.”

  Esrenar reached out to clutch the sleeve of Lorace’s robe. “You must share this blessing with everyone you can,” the elf implored him.

  “I intend to, the majority of the world lies in darkness which the chain and I can cleanse,” Lorace said. “It is my duty now, I cannot withhold this, but I must act first to fulfill the needs of Vorallon.”

  Esrenar nodded in understanding and smiled. “Vorallon has chosen his warden well.”

  Prince Wralka walked the end of the chain back as Lorace coiled it into his blue leather satchel. Once the dwarf released the chain, he turned to his warriors and led them with a fist through the repaired doors, out of their mountain home, and into the light of the morning sun.

  Lorace followed onto the narrow landing high on the shoulder of Kur K’Tahn. They stood beneath the towering sky as his warriors filed past at a march that took them down the steep road toward its first switchback.

  Prince Wralka bid farewell with a nod before turning to join the ranks of his marching warriors. “To Halversome, lads!” he shouted.

  With a thunderous cheer, the column of dwarven warriors quickened the pace of their march toward the thin blue ribbon of the Silarne River far below, their prince and warlord trotting rapidly to take up position at their head.

  Chapter 4

  THE TWO-WHO-ARE-ONE

  Twenty-Seventh day of the Moon of the Thief

  -on the heights of Kur K’Tahn

  Lorace leaned out and watched the column of warriors descend as they began a dwarven marching song, rousing them to even greater speed.

  “They sing of Elena,” Lorace said to Tornin who followed him like a shadow.

  “Can you tell me the words?” Tornin asked, clenching the pommel of his sheathed sword. “I would know this song of Elena.”

  Lorace smiled and began translating the sharp cadences of the dwarven song, though the words in man’s tongue did not match the same rhythm at all.

  “They sing of the hunt, tracking their prey. They see the rabbit bolt and the deer flee, but neither is as swift as the one who hunts them. Elena is quicker than the wind and faster than the wolf. She is Elena of the hills, and she runs down her prey.”

  Tornin grinned and nodded while Lorace continued. “Now Elena hunts for the moon, but Voradin hides behind the clouds. Voradin turns to darkness and flees beneath the horizon, yet the hunter is already there with her bow drawn. Elena of the hills has run down the moon.”

  His audience grew to include Oen and the elves. “Voradin cries that she is no rabbit to be pursued, no deer to be stalked. The hunter brags of her catch and declares the moon her prize, all the same. Elena of the hills runs around the moon.”

  The last words of the song rise up faintly from below, echoing up the craggy sides of Kur K’Tahn. “Voradin offers Elena the countless stars and the endless sky, if she will stay her arrow. The hunter agrees to this and accepts her new domain to hunt forevermore. Elena of the hills lets slip the moon.”

  Tornin sighed and scanned the clear blue sky, finding no sign of the moon. “Voradin has fled, indeed. They honor Elena well in their song.”

  “Voradin will rise tonight to renew the chase,” Adwa-Ki said with a gentle smile. “By then you will all be at the walls of Halversome.”

  Lorace turned back to the elven matriarch. “I gathered that we were not traveling with Prince Wralka, but how are we to arrive in Halversome by moonrise tonight?”

  “We shall travel in a way that very few who are not of our people have ever experienced,” Adwa-Ki said, indicating her elven companions with a fluid wave of her hand.

  She then gestured to the Keth forest. Its brilliant patchwork of gold and red fall colors extended from below the shoulders of Kur K’Tahn to lose itself in the misty distance of the western horizon.

  “We will use a ritual unique to our people; it allows us to step across great distances to specific grandfather trees of our forest. For each of the great trees there is a unique ritual. It is exhausting, and we will take turns for each leg of the journey. The sun must climb higher before we begin, and I would speak to you about the vision I received from the Voradin blossom long ago, the vision that directed me to meet you before the twin tree.”

  “I welcome whatever you have to say, my Lady,” Lorace said with a slight bow.

  “Do you want to know who you were, Lorace?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “Do you want to know what I could not tell you when I first met you before the Voradin tree?”

  “It cannot change who I am now, can it? My memories have returned. I remember the child I was, and the monster I became,” Lorace said with no hint of apprehension.

  “I am glad you are so certain. Since the blessing of your chain, I feel that certainty as well. It moves me to share something that would otherwise remain secret for eternity,” Adwa-Ki said. “Hold to that certainty, be the man you choose to be at all times—your spirit is that of the two-who-are-one.”

  “Tezzirax is no longer within me,” Lorace said with a shake of his head.

  “That must be true, but I speak of your lives before your birth to Fara and Veladis,” she declared. “The Voradin tree, where we met. It grows over the graves of the twin children Somera and Halverth, they who shared the same spirit. Their spirit is that which flows within you now, but its story does not begin with them.”

  Lorace nodded. “This is why I feel at home within the walls of Halversome, like I had returned to the hall of my parents, though that place lies far away and remote. And I know the two whom my spirit belonged to prior to that. Before I first touched Sakke Vrang, I could feel them battle for dominance within me, though I could not name them until we had seen the Hall of Heroes.”

  “You know then,” Adwa-Ki said her voice falling flat.

  “Yes, I saw the merging of Kvarrak and Gnarwa,” Lorace said, looking back toward the gates of Vlaske K’Brak. “In the final blow of Kvarrak’s hammer, Chokke K’Rak, he flowed into the being of Gnarwa using his gift. They merged in death—body and spirit become one.”

  “And their two spirits merged into one forevermore,” she mused.

  “That must be why Lorace has two gifts,” Oen said. “His power over air and his far ranging sight.”

  Adwa-Ki held silent, but gave the priest a slight smile of agreement.

  Lorace held up a hand to forestall their discussion while he searched through his memories. “That may well be, but something bothers me.” A dream pricked at his attention; words Bartalus had spoken of their gi
ft of sight, during his brief sleep at the foot of Kur K’Tahn. “Gifts are unique to a spirit, yet both of my brothers share my sight.”

  “There are more like you?” Adwa-Ki asked with a half-smile. “My vision told me nothing about them, only of you and your lineage—how very curious. Though some gifts may manifest very similarly, such as the Truthseeker’s and mine, there remain differences. If indeed your brothers share your sight, it marks it as something other than a gift of the spirit.”

  “What else could it be?” Oen asked.

  “If I am right, it is a very rare thing,” Adwa-Ki said. She reached out to touch Lorace again and her eyes narrowed in concentration. “Lorace, your sight is a gift of the mind. Your parents passed it on to you through their union. Though very rare, I have seen similar manifestations of purely mental abilities. Where gifts are driven by spirit, your sight is a working of your mind. To all appearances and purposes it is another gift, and would be seen by anyone as such.”

  “So a spirit can only have one gift,” Lorace mused.

  Harna-Ki interjected with a bow, “If I may—more than just gifts can be attributed to the spirit. Our spirits are what attune us. Oen, as a priest, you are attuned to the divine, readily accepting communion with the gods, and allowing Lord Aran to manifest his powers through your rituals.”

  “Ah, Lorace must be as well,” the priest nodded, casting a smile toward him.

  “There is more,” Harna-Ki drew their attention back to his red-beribboned form. “Our spirits may also attune us to sorcery, allowing us to wield the power of magic. Not everyone can do these things, only those whose spirits allow. Lorace’s soul bears two spirits who have been merged, each with their own inherent properties.”

  “Does this mean Lorace could have another gift which has yet to manifest?” Oen asked with his eyes wide. “But there is something that I do not understand. Gnarwa was an ogre, a creature of darkness and corruption, yet no portion of your spirit ever appeared to my gift as anything other than pure.”

  Adwa-Ki spoke beside her son, confirming another of Lorace’s suspicions. “Gnarwa and Kvarrak died many years before the death of the foul wizard Losqua and the ensuing age of demons that we find ourselves in. At that time, the cleansing of spirits within the realm of Nefryt was still complete. When the spirit of the two-who-are-one was reborn to Verth’s twin children it was pure. In the time since the twin’s death, that spirit has been in the realm of Jaarda, growing and strengthening.”

  Lorace nodded. “Gnarwa was gifted with mastery over storms, which my own control over air must have descended from. Kvarrak could become insubstantial, passing through walls and even other beings. Did you ever meet Kvarrak, Adwa-Ki?”

  “Yes, he was a very wise man who always knew the path he trod,” she replied as her eyes deepened in memory. “He described his gift as shifting. He could shift into a state that would allow him to pass through material things. He aspired one day to shift his way through the barriers that separate this realm from the other realms of existence, such as Jaarda where he wished to one day visit his departed wife.”

  “I hope he had that opportunity in his life,” Lorace said with a solemn lowering of his eyes as a fleeting image of his own raven haired mother came to his memory. “So my sight is a gift of my mind, while my control over air is a gift of my spirit, Gnarwa’s portion of my spirit. Kvarrak’s portion, if a gift has descended to me, remains a mystery that may not manifest the same way as his did.”

  “What makes you say that, Lorace?” Tornin asked, turning from his attentive watch over the descending column of dwarves far below. “Why would it not be the same?”

  “I am not sure,” Lorace replied while he focused on driving a slight eddy of air through their midst. “Something about how my gift of air feels to me when I use it. It wants to burst forth. The air around me calls out, eager for my commands, but I do not feel that the intent is to make storms of lightning and thunder such as the story of Gnarwa described. It is more refined than that—at least while I am in conscious control.”

  “You must practice your gifts,” Adwa-Ki advised. “Every time you use Sakke Vrang to cleanse someone’s spirit, you will gain in strength. If you are to keep the storm reigned in, you must master your conscious control. The abilities you know will improve with practice, and they will help in unveiling Kvarrak’s legacy to you.”

  Lorace noted a new sparkle of sunlight within the eyes of the elven matron and in the eyes of her companions. “It is time?”

  “You are very observant, Lorace. Elves are always aware of the position of the sun in the sky,” Adwa-Ki said.

  “Your eyes sparkle with its light, though your eyes, my Lady, shine with an additional light.”

  She bowed with a smile. “You see the glimmer of my previous sun. She too will always be with me. I will always know how she fares, though her light shines nowhere within this universe we live in now.”

  “This universe? What do you mean?” Oen asked, his bushy brows shooting up.

  Harna-Ki waved his arms wide with a flutter of ribbons. “The universe is everything. It is Vorallon. It is the higher and lower planes of Jaarda and Nefryt. It is all of the stars you can see in the sky and the many other mysteries hidden within the heavens. Imagine that our universe of everything is represented by just one of the ribbons of my robe.”

  “But there are countless ribbons in your robe!” Tornin burst out.

  “No, there are exactly three thousand and forty-four.” Harna-Ki said with a smile. “But the number of possible universes may be far more. They may truly be countless. All completely separate from one another yet woven together so that for the gods, it is possible to step across from one to the next.”

  Lorace was struck by the impossibility of Harna-Ki’s statement, but then he recalled that it was the work of several Old Gods, working in concert, to bring Adwa-Ki and a few of her kind to walk upon the surface of Vorallon. If Harna-Ki was to be believed, they had bridged this gap between universes.

  “Now it is indeed time for us to depart, before my son begins his complete discourse on time as well,” Adwa-Ki said with a smile before she turned and nodded toward the tallest of the elves in his motley garb of forest green and brown. “Dederon will begin. Stay close, for we all must step through quickly.”

  “Through?” Lorace asked as Dederon turned toward a distant spot in the forest below them, and began singing in a rolling, subtle tongue.

  “Watch, and be ready,” Adwa-Ki instructed them. “Open your mouths wide and take a deep breath of this thin mountain air when you step to the other side, for we will be descending many hundreds of lengths and the air below us is much thicker. There could be some discomfort if your lungs were empty.”

  Unlike the dwarven tongue, the elven words Dederon sang remained a mystery to Lorace. The cadence and intonations of the ritual called up forces and energies that flowed just beyond his senses. When the air in front of Dederon began to shift away, Lorace was acutely aware of the change. It made room for the shimmering and darkening that appeared in its place.

  A vertical wall of fluttering shadow and deep green took on substance and depth before them. It became an open, disc-like portal onto a shady glade underneath the forest canopy. The rim of the portal seemed to flicker with thousands of sparkling, shifting gems where it transitioned to the normal view of the high overlook.

  “Now,” urged Adwa-Ki, and they all stepped through together.

  -in Ousenar

  Marek woke gasping for air, his chest pounding against the withers of a galloping horse. His eyes squinted shut against a counter beat throbbing in his skull and an echoing hunger that was not his own. He strained his hands to reach for his temples, but could move them only slightly. They were tied before him down the flanks of a great white warhorse. Memory came flooding back in flashing images, a naked giant, Scythe, Andrigar!

  “Andrigar,” he croaked out, opening one eye to see a field of tall, yellowed grass.

  A hand clutch
ed his shoulder in a strong grip. No thought came to him with that steadying touch—it could only be Andrigar. Palla, his great destrier, broke out of his full gallop, dropping to a jostling canter before coming to a stop.

  “Are you with me again?” Andrigar’s voice was raspy with exhaustion, his breath matching the horse’s heaving chest. Marek could only turn his head enough to see one tall black boot, but there was no mistaking its owner.

  “Yeah,” he said, but there was something he had to know before anything else. “Scythe, is she all right?”

  Andrigar gave a dissatisfied grunt as he dismounted. “She is fine. Just fine. Safe and sound I am sure,” his friend said as he patted Palla’s muscular neck.

  Marek sighed his relief, but raised his fists to the limit of their restraints. “Why am I tied?”

  “The giant made everyone go crazy,” Andrigar said, turning to face him, his lips drawn in a hard line. “If you promise not to fight me, or run, I will free you.”

  He smiled at his friend, though it made his head throb. “Hey, it is me.”

  Andrigar nodded, but his face remained a severe mask as he went around the far side of his horse to undo the knots binding Marek’s ankles. “God’s man! You took no chances did you?”

  “No,” Andrigar said as he tugged him down from the horse’s back and held him steady while pins and needles swarmed up his legs. “I could not take any chances.”

  Marek held his bound wrists up to see his own baldric trailing from them. Andrigar worked deftly to loosen the knots and free him as the nagging hunger assailed his senses again.

  “Today we are a kingdom of two, Marek,” the tall red-headed man declared. “A foulness has come to Blackdrake that even I will not stomach, and I will be damned to Nefryt if I left you to such a fate.”

  Marek nodded mutely as he turned to survey the endless grassy plain. Cattle stood in the distance, heads raised rather than cropping at yellowed stalks. They seemed to be the source of the hunger he sensed. Hunger directed toward him.