The Unseen Tempest (Lords of Arcadia)

by John Goode

  It was a good save.

  “I am not entirely sure you erased her face,” Ruber commented after a few seconds of hugging.

  I looked up at him, realizing I must have asked Hawk that out loud. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean if you had done something to remove her face or to mar her features, it could have been reversed. Which is what Olim and I were trying to do, but there was no evidence that anything had been done to her.”

  Hawk let me go and glared at Ruber. “She had no orifices—how can you say that nothing had been done to her?”

  Ruber’s voice got a bit huffy. “I didn’t say nothing had been done to her. I said there was no magical evidence that anything had been done. When a spell is cast on someone, you can sense the change that was done to them, and most times you can reverse the effect. This is how casters dispel certain magical effects. I am saying that Kane did not magically erase her face. As far as magic was concerned, that was completely normal for her.”

  “How does that work?” I asked, more confused than ever.

  There was a burst of cold air around us, and Olim appeared in the middle of the room. “Well, my sister is resting. It seems you made your point.” She sounded way too satisfied for my taste. “Are you feeling better?”

  “Hungry,” I said, realizing I was famished.

  She nodded and waved her hand, creating a solid ice tray filled with a variety of different colored ice. “Eat and replenish yourself. You’re going to feel that way for a while.”

  “You talk as if you know what is going on with him,” Hawk said, getting up off the bed.

  “I do,” she said casually. “It’s a common side effect since he is pulling on his own life force.”

  My mouth was half-full with vague apple-tasting ice. “I’m pulling on what?”

  “We don’t have much time, and we have much to cover.” She gestured behind her, and an elaborate throne of ice formed for her to sit. “I’ve been waiting for you to arrive for a long time. You would think I’d be more ready.”

  I scarfed down the last of the ice and swung my legs off the bed. “You’ve been waiting for me? Why?”

  “Because, Kane, you are the start of the most important change in the realms.”

  Chapter 12

  “Everybody walks the same halting steps

  toward their destiny. The difference is most

  aren’t aware of where they are going.”

  The Dreamer

  KOR MATERIALIZED in his home in a flash of light.

  And instantly knew it was a trap.

  Magical tendrils shot out from the walls and encircled his limbs. His arms were spread far apart so he couldn’t draw an arrow. He’d seen this spell before. It was druidic in nature, which could only mean one thing.

  “You came back,” Nystel said from behind him.

  He couldn’t turn around, so he had to assume she had been signaled by the spell and teleported in. Though the chance of her just sitting in the dark waiting for him to return was possible also. “Did I give the impression I wasn’t?” he asked, letting his limbs go limp since there was no way he could break the magical vines.

  She walked around into his field of vision. “You fled with a criminal, attacked my guards. Honestly, Kor, what were you thinking?”

  It was a question he had been asking himself, but he ignored it. “What crimes has he committed?” When she looked at him, confused, he added, “What crimes has Ater committed?”

  “You both attacked my guards.”

  Kor shook his head. “No, that was after you were going to kill him. Before that, what was his crime?”

  She looked at him, disappointed. “You know what his crime was.”

  “Maybe I don’t. Explain it to me.”

  Sighing, she began to pace in front of him. “Crimes against Koran, of course. You know the punishment for that.”

  “Against Koran, the actual deity himself? So let me get this straight. If I choose another path, if I choose of my own free will to follow another way of life, then that is automatically a crime against Koran, and I should be put to death?”

  She looked at him like he was simple. “Of course.”

  He said more to himself than to her. “I had never heard it said out loud before. No wonder they hate us.”

  “Are you done?” she asked, turning back to him.

  “Almost,” he said, looking back at her. “You’re wrong. What we are doing, it’s wrong. What you did to that city was wrong. What you tried to do to Ater was wrong. And what you’re about to do to me is wrong. And you will be stopped.”

  She arched an eyebrow, giving him a sarcastic smile. “Am I? I have no idea what town you are talking about, but I assure you, everything I do is in the name of Koran. And if he has fault with it, then let him strike me down right now.”

  They both paused, waiting for an effect.

  Which was when a magical portal came bursting open and six floating ambers came flying in the house, all of them glowing with magical energies. Seconds later, Adamas came floating through, his voice laced with anger. “We are not done, elf.”

  Nystel looked around and exclaimed in outrage, “What is the meaning of this? I order you to submit at once in the name of Koran.”

  The diamond looked at her for a second and then said to his guards, “Shut her up.”

  The gems let out a honey-colored beam that encased the high priestess in a chunk of magical amber, freezing her in a perfect expression of fury. Her spell failed, releasing Kor, dropping him to the ground.

  “You struck me!” Adamas declared as Kor rubbed his wrists to encourage his circulation.

  “And you imprisoned me because you thought I had somehow attacked Ater and taken his stone. So we’ve both made mistakes.”

  “You’ve yet to prove that,” the diamond said, keeping his distance from the elf and his bow.

  “Then let’s find him, and he can tell you the truth,” Kor offered.

  “I thought you did not know where he was.”

  “I don’t, but give me a chance to restore my energies and I can cast a spell that will find him. Do you think you can hold off killing me for that long?”

  “And the female?” Adamas asked about Nystel.

  “Oh, she is perfectly fine there for now, trust me, perfectly fine.”

  “Then rest and cast your spell. My patience grows thin.”

  Kor took a deep breath, sat down in a lotus position in the middle of the floor, and began to meditate. He tried not to think of how much was at stake.

  He tried and failed pretty badly.

  ATER AND Titania made it to the fourth floor of the palace before they were discovered.

  They had been lucky so far, avoiding the patrols that were walking their normal route, when they literally bumped into a pair of guards entering the residence. It was hard to say who was more surprised, the guards or the escaping prisoners.

  What is easy to say was who ceased being conscious first.

  Ater slammed the hilt of his blade into the side of one guard’s temple while Titania cut through the other guard’s neck with her sword. The man grunted once before falling to the ground, grasping his throat.

  “Why did you kill him?” Ater asked as she wiped the blade clean.

  Titania looked confused at the question. “He is a traitor, and as queen, I can kill anyone I want. Since when is an assassin so squeamish about death?”

  Kneeling down, Ater pulled a cloth over the man’s throat and pressed it there, trying to calm the man as he bled out. “I am not squeamish about death. I simply loathe unnecessary killing. This man did not need to die.”

  “You put a dagger into a man’s eyes downstairs, and you slit the throat of one of your own men on Earth. What is the difference?”

  The man gasped once and stopped moving as the dark elf stood up and confronted the queen. “The difference was there was no way for me to get to the man before he could sound an alarm, so he needed to die. You could have shown
mercy.”

  “Since when do I know the meaning of that word?” she asked, a dangerous look on her face.

  That was when someone below them began screaming that the prisoners had escaped.

  “The time for debate seems to be over,” Titania said, giving him a snide grin.

  “Follow me,” Ater said, moving farther into the residence level.

  “YOUR MOTHER was not human,” Olim said, which by this point was pretty much “duh.”

  “What was she? A fairy?” I asked, hungry for information.

  Olim shook her head. “She was the same race as my sisters and I. She was a higher being.”

  Both Ruber and Hawk seemed to understand what that meant.

  “This starts to make sense,” Ruber said, sounding more like he was just thinking out loud than making a point. When I stared at him, he added, “Your abilities are warping reality, a gift the higher ones possess, each to some degree.”

  The ice queen nodded. “It’s true; our abilities, no matter how simple they may seem, actually change reality around us. If one of my people can create flames, in fact they are altering the reality to make fire out of air. Your mother was one of these people.”

  “She could make fire?” I asked, more confused than when we started.

  Hawk grabbed my hand. “No, she could change reality. She was a god.”

  “No,” Olim said sharply. “Higher beings are not gods. They simply possess abilities that make them stronger than those of the lower realms. Our realm, Tokpewa, is the closest mortals can get to the Source. Because of that, we are born able to manipulate reality in different ways.”

  My mom?

  “She was one of the first beings to escape the realm. In fact, her success gave me and my sisters the idea of leaving. Somehow she knew that sooner or later Tokpewa would be cut off from the lower realms, meaning that not even the gods could intervene.”

  “You mean to say, with the world tree moved, there are no higher beings?” Ruber asked, stunned.

  “No, they are still there, but they simply have no access to the other realms anymore. The tree acts like a conduit, allowing energy to flow throughout the Nine Realms, bringing life to all. When my sister convinced Titania to move it, she knew it would cut off the flow of energy, making the higher realms unable to fix things.”

  I was literally forcing myself not to just sit there like a block of wood. “My mom knew all this? How?”

  “Where the three of us could catch glimmers of the future and how it can unravel, your mother could literally see future events in great clarity. Where the three of us were known as Fate, she was known by another name to the lower realms. A name that creatures everywhere fear and respect.”

  She said nothing more, and I gestured at her to spill it.

  “Destiny—she was known as Destiny.”

  I could sense Hawk’s mistrust instantly. “What exactly is the difference between fate and destiny? It seems they are very much the same thing.”

  She gave him a smile that made it pretty clear what she thought of his intelligence. “Fates are given and avoided every day. They are dependent on several different factors than can be changed in a second. But destinies are not so easily shaken. When one has a destiny in the world, I can assure you, no matter how far you run or how much you resist it, you will find it waiting for you in the end.”

  I was torn between fascination and being just plain pissed. “So my mom was some kind of super fortune-teller who, what? Left heaven so she could meet my dad and then die? She sounds like a pretty lousy gypsy.”

  Olim got up out of her chair and slapped me right across my mouth. Hard.

  “Do not ever speak ill of your mother. Ever,” she raged at me. “She gave up everything she had to save the Nine Realms! You are part of a greater plan that she laid her life down to make happen, and I will not let you sit there and sully her sacrifice.”

  I was crying now, but I didn’t care. “You think I care about your fucking plan? Do you think for a second I wouldn’t rather have wanted a mother there to raise me instead of some idiotic plan? I just wanted to be normal, to just… I just wanted….”

  After that it got ugly because I broke down blubbering.

  Hawk put his arms around me. “Strike him again, and you will pull back a stump,” he warned her.

  I don’t know what she did next because my head was buried against Hawk’s chest as I cried for my mommy like I was six and lost at the mall. All I knew was that seconds passed, and Olim’s voice was much kinder when she spoke again. “Kane, I know this is a lot to take in and that you miss your mother. But you have to understand, what is about to happen will change the Nine Realms for the rest of time. You need to be ready.”

  “I just want to go home!” I said, sounding like the biggest crybaby in the world. I felt Hawk’s mind hovering over mine, wanting to make things better, knowing at the same time he couldn’t. This was about me and manning up and there was nothing he could do about it. It was about me.

  No matter how much I thought it sucked.

  I pulled away from Hawk and dried my eyes. “Okay, fine. What is going on, and what do I have to do?”

  Olim smiled at me. “You have your mother’s courage. That will come in handy with what’s about to happen.”

  “And that is?” Ruber asked her. The complete lack of fucks he was giving about her encouragement was all over his voice.

  “He is going to have to decide where the next world tree is to be created. And no matter where he chooses, it will start a war among the realms like no one has ever seen.”

  Yep, she cheered me right up there.

  IT TOOK Kor the better part of an hour to feel ready.

  He had traced the runes carved into his bow silently, picking and choosing what spells he was going to need for the next few hours. His mind ached. He was pushing the limit of his abilities, and he knew it. Normally it took days to rest up after using as much arcane energy as he had, but there was no choice. He had no time to rest because he was the only one who could save Ater.

  Standing up, he felt his knees twinge with age. He was pushing the better part of a thousand, which meant he was no longer a young elf. If he stayed comfortable and safe, his kind would live to be twice that and more easily. But he knew “comfortable” and “safe” were not words that described his world anymore.

  “Are you ready?” Adamas asked.

  “Almost,” he answered, turning to the pillar of amber in the middle of his living room. “She and I need to have a conversation.”

  “You want the guards to remove the spell?” the diamond asked, a little shocked.

  Kor pulled back his bow and a pale blue arrow appeared. “No need.” Pointing the arrow at her head, he said, “Relier” and released it.

  There was a burst of colors and then nothing.

  “You have some nerve!” Nystel’s voice raged at him.

  He looked up and found them both standing in the middle of a vast white space.

  “You come in here and invade my thoughts like some common—”

  “Shut up,” he snapped, and a cloth rag appeared and bound itself over her mouth. Her eyes went wide in outrage and she tried to claw it off. “You can try all you want, but the spell is mine, which means it stays until I say it doesn’t.” Her arms dropped to her side. “You ready to play nice?”

  If looks could kill, he would have been dead three times over.

  Waving his hand, he undid his spell. The gag vanished, and she gasped as if it had been cutting off her breath.

  “We are on the mental plane, dear priestess. Do you really think you’re breathing air?”

  “What do you want?” she snarled, ignoring his question.

  “To show you this,” he replied quietly. Suddenly, they were in Stygian. The filth and decay were evident everywhere as children barely clothed in rags ran by. “These were your enemies. There are the people you hunted down and killed in Koran’s name. I thought you might want to look at them, since
I know you would never dare step foot onto a battlefield.”

  It was impossible for her to mask her horror and sorrow at what she saw. The spell allowed them both to see each other’s thoughts, so there was no hiding. He could feel her revulsion, but at the same time the realization that these people were not the monsters she had imagined; they were just people.

  He could also feel that she had no idea what he was talking about.

  “I never attacked these people,” she said truthfully. “Do you honestly think I would slaughter children?”

  “Yes,” he replied somberly. His memories of a thousand years of dogma about how dark elves were the bane of Koran’s existence, and each one of them should be put down like the abomination they were, flowed into Nystel’s mind. A millennium full of vitriol and loathing that light elves were taught by priestesses. A lifetime of hatred and loathing that was excused as being simply the way the world worked. Koran was about life, and those who took life in murder or wasted life in carnal pleasures outside of procreation were sinners. Sinners of the highest order who deserved nothing but death.

  He felt her wilt away from her own words when faced with what those sinners looked like and what they truly were.

  “But if it wasn’t you, then who attacked the city?” Kor mused, moving the memory around to right up until Ater and he had reached the front gate. “I was so sure it was our troops… I just assumed….”

  Even though she didn’t say a word, he knew it hadn’t been her.

  “There is another player on your board,” she said, skimming his thoughts as he tried to reason out what had happened. “Someone else was after your dark elf friend, and whoever they were took him.”

  She was right, which meant Ater was in more trouble than Kor had suspected.

  “If I free you from the amber, I need you to swear to me that you will not attack me or the gems. I assure you, that is a fight you cannot win.”