Wildmane

by Todd Fahnestock

  She glanced at Ethiel, then Kikirian. Both were still frozen.

  “They will remain as such until we return, if we hurry,” the man said.

  Pushing past the prickles of doubt, she lay down, let her spirit rise from her body and followed the man. Together, they flew through Ethiel’s constructed walls, flashed past rooms and hallways to Daylan’s Glass at the center of the Fountain. She saw the spiderweb cracks across the indestructible glass, but the floating, cold blue eyes didn’t stop there. Instead, they turned down, following the tube into the ground. This was farther than Harleath Markin had taken her. He’d showed her only the top of the Fountain, where the cracks were thin.

  This new man took her down, down, down. The open air around the cylinder became red granite, and down they went. Red granite became sandstone, and farther down they went. The sandstone became dark, black stone. Finally, the icy blue eyes stopped, deep underground, where the cylinder of glass widened into a bulb half the size of Ethiel’s throne room. The GodSpill surged and crashed against its prison. He guided her around the bulb until they came to the largest crack she had seen yet. A thick red thread covered it like an open-mouthed eel, sucking every wisp of the GodSpill into itself.

  “That is Ethiel’s unending source,” the blue eyes said. “This is what makes her invincible. Come, make a similar attachment, and you will be as large as she is.”

  Mirolah studied Ethiel’s spell, found another crack, not nearly as large, and duplicated the eel-like suction, leading it straight into herself.

  The GodSpill surged into her, and a vibrancy filled her from feet to fingertips, like she’d been struck with a lightning bolt. It pounded at her, wanting to give more, more, more! She could barely hold it at bay, moderate it so she wouldn’t fly apart. The GodSpill wasn’t vengeful; it didn’t want to tear her apart, but it was eager. It longed to be free, and it rushed at the freedom she represented.

  “By the...gods,” she gasped as soon as she brought it under control.

  “Pure nectar,” the ice-blue eyes said.

  “Oh...yes...”

  “Come now, young weaver. My weaving is about to unwind. Your death—or your victory—is at hand.”

  Black rock, sandstone, and red granite flashed by them, then they were back in the throne room. She dropped back into her body and stood up. The man’s constructed image, with the ancient clothes and tidy goatee, bowed to her.

  “Good luck, young weaver.”

  “At least tell me your name.”

  His smile turned strange. She could see that cold fire flickering in his blue eyes. “Great weavers are never friends,” he said. “So I will spare you the burden of my name.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When you learn my name, you will not want to be in the same room.”

  She swallowed and raised her chin, feeling suddenly vulnerable. She’d thought he was another displaced ghost like Harleath Markin, fatherly and protective.

  “I’m useful to you,” she said.

  “Of course, young weaver.”

  This spirit’s real fight was with Ethiel, and he saw that Mirolah could fight that fight for him. “You helped me to help yourself,” she said.

  “Remember that lesson, young weaver.” The man’s image bowed with a flourish. “And now, farewell. May we never meet again, for your sake. If we do, it will certainly mean your death.”

  The black haze encompassing Ethiel’s throne room faded, and the man in black vanished.

  Mirolah pushed the blue-eyed spirit’s insidious threat to the back of her mind. She had to focus on the fight. Whether the spirit was her ally or enemy, he had saved her life when she surely would have died. She wouldn’t waste the opportunity.

  Time began. Ethiel’s cloud hissed like a snake, obviously noting that Mirolah had apparently vanished. Kikirian’s arms snapped together where she had once been. They both whirled and spotted her.

  The GodSpill from Daylan’s Glass coursed through her. Even when Harleath had guided her to sip from the tiny cracks at the top of Daylan’s Glass, she had felt like a giant. Now she felt invincible.

  Ethiel’s cloud roiled, agitated. She didn’t know how Mirolah had gone from having her neck broken to standing in the center of the room, a good twenty feet from Kikirian. She hadn’t seen any of the threadweaving that had accomplished it, and it had to have her worried. Weavers liked to know things. Mirolah understood that.

  “Let’s try this again,” Mirolah said.

  Kikirian charged. She saturated the threads of the air and twisted them, making them as solid as the stone table she’d made in Denema’s Valley, but still as transparent as the air. Kikirian hit it head-first, rebounded, and crashed to the floor.

  Ethiel tried to invade the threads of Mirolah’s body again, but Mirolah repelled her. She had so much GodSpill at her disposal, it was easy. The extreme infusion of the stuff cleared her head, swept away her fear. She saw what she needed to do, and how to do it.

  Ethiel’s cloud billowed, growing larger. The Red Weaver grabbed her throne, raised it into the air. It split, cracking into a hundred sharp shards that flew at Mirolah like stone daggers.

  Mirolah stopped them with another air wall, then divided her attention to work on three fronts again. One to parry Ethiel’s attacks. One to stop Kikirian, and the third to spot anything she didn’t expect. She could not afford to be caught off guard again.

  Ethiel tried one thing after another, relentless. She sent physical attacks, chairs, chunks of rock; she even tore a curtain from one of the tall windows and tried to wrap Mirolah in it. At the same time, she kept trying to get her hooks into Mirolah’s body.

  Mirolah repelled them all. She had more concentration, more power at her disposal, than ever before.

  The huge double doors of the throne room slammed open, and a dozen darklings loped into the room on all fours. Kikirian, recovering his senses after almost knocking himself out against her wall, stood up and jogged forward cautiously, one gauntleted ham hand in front of himself. He found the wall, then shouted and slammed his gauntlets against it. It shattered, and the backlash hurt Mirolah like a knife to the forehead. Those damned gauntlets! What were they?

  She gasped and created another wall, stepping back from the dramath’s advance. The darklings hit the wall, then spread out like cockroaches and looked for a way around it. The never-ending energy of the Fountain cycled through her, but when Kikirian found the next barrier, those monstrous gauntlets shattered it again.

  Mirolah’s mind raced. All this power, and yet she was still outmatched.

  “Die, you little bitch,” Ethiel growled.

  Suddenly, a thunderous roar boomed through the throne room. Ethiel and Kikirian spun around. The darklings crouched, mewling and scraping the ground with their claws as they looked up at the top of the dais.

  Medophae stood there, wreathed in golden fire and completely awake. The godsword glowed in his fist like a shaft of spitting lightning.

  “Ethiel!” he boomed.

  51

  Vaerdaro

  Vaerdaro stalked out of the dilapidated house into the streets of Denema’s Valley. He glanced at the dark corpses sprawled on the stones, slowly rotting. They stank like tar mixed with shit. Vaerdaro had ridden over many battlefields filled with the stink of the dead, but this smelled worse. It was unnatural, and it coated the insides of his nostrils like oil. He felt as if he’d been infected by a disease. He wondered if he had been a fool, leaving his brother’s band to follow the promises of a dark spirit. The Vessel Men told tales of dark spirits who possessed the hearts of warriors, turned them into puppets.

  He despised feeling vulnerable. That was what drove him here. It was what made the company of his brother insufferable. Gilgion was the only man in this cursed northland who could kill Vaerdaro at will, and the knowledge of it was like a dagger in the thigh, twisting, hobbling him. It was why the dark spirit’s offer was impossible to leave unexplored.

  But he had waited in t
his damnable, damp, squishy city for days now, and for what? The dark spirit promised him the power to take his rightful place among the Sunrider leaders of history. Not only would Vaerdaro have his brother’s head, but he could also supplant his father, the Voice of the One Sun, the leader of the entire Sunrider people.

  The dark spirit filled Vaerdaro’s head with the Legend of Raegilan the Mighty, the first Voice of the One Sun, the warrior who had united the clans of Sunriders into one mighty force. Raegilan the Mighty was descended from the legendary Golden God, whose blood ran in every Voice of the One Sun since the time of the Three Mothers.

  Long ago Raegilan had crossed the Ocean of Teeth and landed upon the blood shores of the fabled Kingdom of Calsinac. There dwelt the legendary Golden King, a shining god who pulled power from the heavens and ruled with even-handed justice. Raegilan came to test the mettle of this king and, if he proved false, declare war on Calsinac for its blasphemy.

  Raegilan and the Golden King met in the Circle of Bare Hands. It was said their battle lasted three days and three nights, during which none of the riders ate or slept. In the end, the Golden King overcame Raegilan, and Raegilan bent his knee. In addition to his hundred mounted warriors, Raegilan brought twelve of his most promising daughters, each from a different wife, and each more beautiful than the next. He offered them to his new liege to seal the bond between the Sunriders and the kingdom of Calsinac. The Golden King lay with three of them. The Three Mothers returned with Raegilan to the Neverending Plains and gave birth to three children: two boys and one girl. Those descendants of the Golden King became the speakers for their circle of the Sunrider force, reporting only to Raegilon. And so the authority of the Voice of the One Sun and the Sun Speakers were created, and the everlasting host of the Sunriders was made.

  The blood of the Golden King still ran in the veins of the Sun Speakers. It ran in Vaerdaro’s blood. He was born to rule, not to be subjugated by his brother.

  Now the dark spirit had confirmed the prophesies of the Vessel Men, saying the Golden King, thought lost to the lands centuries ago, never truly left. The signs that had brought Gilgion and his Wind Ring were true.

  The dark spirit said that the Golden King had run, had hidden away like a coward and hoped to be forgotten. Such a man did not deserve the power he possessed. It was time for the divine power of the Golden King to pass to another.

  And Vaerdaro was that one. The dark spirit promised to give make him the new Golden King.

  But, after lingering in this stinking city of the dead for days, Vaerdaro was beginning to doubt the dark spirit’s words. There was no Golden King here. There was nothing but the stench of evil. Malevolent creatures crept through the moss-ridden city at night, seeking prey. Vaerdaro could hear them, could sense them. This was no place for a warrior of the sun, for a descendant of one of the Three Mothers.

  A footfall caught Vaerdaro’s ears, and he swiveled, one hand on his short sword, the other on his battle sword. The creepy tall man who attended the dark spirit turned the corner. Vaerdaro frowned. Wherever the dark spirit was, this tall, gaunt man was not far behind. Whenever the dark spirit was away, the man named “Sef” also disappeared.

  “The master is near,” Sef said in his deep voice. He wore no emotion on his face. He never did. “We must prepare.”

  “Prepare for what?”

  See said nothing, just turned and began walking as though Vaerdaro was supposed to follow him.

  Vaerdaro ground his teeth and reluctantly fell in line behind the half-wit. They wended their way through the mossy streets until they came to a broken house. Vaerdaro had explored a bit of Denema’s Valley while he had been forced to wait, but had given up early. All the buildings were the same, and most of them were filled with items he did not recognize or northlander books.

  But this was not a house Vaerdaro had entered before, and when they went inside, he was surprised to see another man there besides the monotonous Sef. He was trussed up and leaning against the wall by the corner like a rabbit ready to be spitted.

  “Who is that?” Vaerdaro asked.

  “That is for the master to say,” Sef replied. Vaerdaro’s hand twitched over his short sword. He swore that once he was ruler of this land, he would kill Sef first. Sef inclined his head toward a raised bed in the center of the room. “Lie down there.”

  Vaerdaro looked at Sef with contempt, then ignored him. He walked up to the man lying in the corner and crouched down.

  “Who are you?”

  The man’s brown eyes burned with defiance. Vaerdaro could watch him calculating even as he answered.

  “My name is Orem.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  Orem’s eyes glinted. “Waiting for my horse to be groomed.”

  Vaerdaro kicked the insolent man in the gut. Orem doubled over, gritting his teeth. He did not cry out. Vaerdaro cocked back his leg to kick him again when the dark spirit spoke from behind him.

  “What, exactly, are you doing?” the spirit asked.

  Vaerdaro turned to face the dark-haired, goateed visage that the dark spirit chose to present, though Vaerdaro knew it was an illusion.

  “I grow bored, Spirit. This graveyard stinks of rot.”

  “I asked you a question, Sunrider.”

  Vaerdaro darkened. “I am not your lackey, to be ordered around by a brainless servant and taunted by prisoners. You promised me power, and, so far, all I have reaped are empty days and disrespect. I am blood of the Voice of the One Sun. I am blood of the Golden King!”

  “You will do as I say. Or you can return to your brother’s band and reap a deserter’s welcome.”

  “I want what you promised me.”

  “Soon, Vaerdaro.”

  “Now.”

  The dark spirit’s eyes glowed blue, like deep ice caught in the sun. Vaerdaro’s short sword shot from his scabbard as though an invisible hand had yanked it out. Vaerdaro made a grab for it, but it slashed his hand, flew across the room, and clattered in the corner.

  Vaerdaro drew his greatsword and attacked the dark spirit. The blade passed through the thing’s body and sparked on the stone floor. With Vaerdaro’s fist through his insubstantial chest, the dark spirit grabbed Vaerdaro by the chin. Though his body was mist, the dark spirit’s hand was as solid as granite. He lifted Vaerdaro off the ground and flung him across the room next to the sword. The tribesman hit the stones and scrambled to his feet, breathing hard.

  “You dare,” he bellowed.

  “I have need of you,” the dark spirit said in a low voice. “We can both benefit from our arrangement, or you can die, and I will choose your brother to fulfill my plans. If you cross me again, I will swipe the life from your rabbit’s heart like a scythe cuts wheat. If you can muster a sliver of will and cage your foolish anger, you can be the Golden King. If not, then you die here, unknown and unlamented. When you are the Golden King, then you may pick the path that suits you, but until that time, you listen to me. Do you understand?”

  Vaerdaro felt as if he were in the Ring of Bare Hands with Gilgion again, outmatched. It drove him mad with fury. But he was his father’s son, and with an effort, he controlled his anger. He let the fire burn deep, and it did not show on his face.

  “Very well, Spirit,” he said.

  The dark spirit nodded. “It will be necessary for you to recline on that table.” He pointed. “You will be restrained. Sef will strap you down.” The dark spirit indicated the bed in the center of the room.

  “I will lie down, but if your idiot servant touches me, I will gut him.”

  “The power I will introduce to your body will be a shock, and it will hurt as if someone was roasting you over a flame. You will thrash. If you fall off the table, all is undone and you will not be the Golden King.”

  Vaerdaro breathed hard. This was the moment. This was the test. If he walked away, he was a coward.

  He growled and went to the table. Sef secured each of his wrists and ankles with iron manacles to the four i
ron legs of the table.

  “Now what?” Vaerdaro growled.

  The dark spirit ignored him. “Sef?”

  “Yes, my master.”

  “Bring the rest of what I will need. Events are culminating at the Fountain. It is time to begin.”

  “Yes, my master.” Sef walked into a shadowy corner of the room. Vaerdaro could hear him gathering items at his slow pace, but couldn’t see him. He could see the dark spirit, however. The insubstantial man stared upward at the roof as though he could see through it and was counting clouds.

  “I said ‘what now,’ Spirit?”

  “Now, Sunrider, it’s time to kill an immortal.”

  52

  Mirolah

  Medophae came down the steps, glaring at Ethiel’s bunching red cloud.

  Mirolah wanted to weep from relief. It was a chance. She wouldn’t have to face them all alone anymore.

  Ethiel transformed into the young woman again, svelte and vulnerable. She held her hands up in a gentle gesture. “My love, I knew you would be angry with me—”

  “Bring her back, Ethiel.”

  “There is much to discuss, Medin—”

  “Don’t call me that. I’m not your ‘love,’ and I’m not Medin to you. There’s only one thing I want from you. Undo your spell. Free Bands from the gem.”

  “Sweet Medophae...” she said, and Mirolah was stunned that the deadly Red Weaver suddenly seemed like a lovesick girl. “I love you. Can’t you see how much I do?”

  “You’re a murderer. A torturer. You’ve ruined countless lives, killed people like they were hogs for slaughter. You stole everything that mattered to me.”

  “Because I love you. All I ever wanted was for you to see that—”

  “You don’t know what love is.”

  “You saved me from death. You showed me love at that inn in Gorros.”

  “I never touched you, except to cut the ropes that bound your hands and feet.”