by Giles Carwyn
The fleet would return to the Opal Empire tomorrow. The Night Market was full tonight, packed shop to shop with the white-faced soldiers as they enjoyed their last night in the Free City.
The cowled woman lingered a moment in the shadow of a fountain next to a café. She knew she should move on, but she was reluctant. She watched the children for a moment longer, listening to the conversations of café patrons sipping their drinks.
“I heard that King Celtigar is going to sign a treaty…”
“The Summermen aren’t meeting much resistance in Physendria. They’ve already taken the eastern shore. They’ll go after Physen next, and who’s to stop them?”
“It’s true then. She gave birth to twins! Two baby boys.”
“Yes. Old Jayden’s granddaughter, Tara. She delivered twin boys last night. Happy and healthy as you please. They’re the first new Nephews in more than a decade. The Flowers will bloom again.”
Yes, the cowled woman thought, all save one. She looked up at the Wheel. A single torch burned atop the Hall of Windows.
Breaking away from her shadow, the woman made the long trek up to the Wheel. Recent rains had washed all of the blood from the stairs, but the stone was still scarred and pockmarked from the battle.
Trading ships had begun to trickle back into the city, and makeshift tents and shops were erected along the Dock Town quays. The Long Market had not been reopened. It still bore the memory of the dead. The entire island had been laid with a mile-long pyre to burn the bodies of those who fell in battle. The hundred-foot logs from the invaders’ rafts had been dragged ashore, dried, and used for fuel. The flames reached higher than the walls and burned for two days. The ashes had been given back to the sea, but no one had suggested reopening the Long Market yet. The grief was too fresh.
The cowled woman’s husband had been somewhere in that pyre, but she had no idea where. The bones of the corrupted had burned with all the others. Friend and foe alike shared the same grave.
The battle had not been between Physendrian and Ohndarien at the end. It was man against beast, the saved against the corrupted. All those who escaped the child’s influence fought together for their lives. Ohndarien, Physendrian, Farad, and Ohohhim banded together to destroy the inhuman creatures spawned that day.
The woman reached the top of the steps and passed a short, half-carved pedestal at the top. She had heard that it would soon hold a memorial to Scythe, the Kherish warrior who held back the entire Physendrian army before the Nightmare Battle. He’d fought like a man possessed. Unstoppable.
She crossed the flat plateau to the Hall of Windows. Coppersmiths had set up scaffolding all around the amphitheater, already repairing the damage to the stained glass.
Two weeks ago she had attended the joint funeral of Sister Hazel, Brother Krellis, and Scythe. She had not been back, though council meetings had been held every day since. All were welcome to attend, and there was still much to discuss.
She entered through the Autumn Gate and sat at the back of the amphitheater. The council had just ended, and a cluster of people hovered around the Sisters, waiting for a word with the remaining Ohndarien leaders. A line of three Ohohhim broke from the group and headed up the stairs toward the cowled woman. She recognized the Emperor. Young and fair, he had directed his men with grace and civility during their stay. He became an instant favorite of the people and promised to return every year on the anniversary of the battle, so Ohndarien and the Opal Palace would forever follow the same sleeve.
The young Emperor was quick to flash that bright, charming smile, but his eyes were old. People said he was heartbroken by the horrors he had seen during the Nightmare Battle.
An old man and a woman carrying a baby trailed behind His Eternal Wisdom, clinging to his robes. The cowled woman watched the sleeping baby as the trio passed. Some said she was the three-hundred-year-old baby from Efften, the one who held the corruption inside her dreams. Looking at the sweet little thing, it was hard to believe that she could have caused such destruction.
The trio passed the woman, and she turned her attention forward again, waiting a long hour until the last of the petitioners left the Sisters alone. The Sister of Autumn, Baelandra, started up the aisle toward the Autumn Gate. When she drew close, the cowled woman stood.
“Sister, may I have a word?”
The petite Sister paused, turned a weary smile on the cowled woman. “Of course,” Baelandra said. Her lustrous auburn hair shone like copper in the lanternlight. The little woman seemed taller than she actually was. Her fierce dignity towered over them all. Her hands and forearms were still bandaged in stiff clay, but she seemed even more elegant for it. It was said that she had broken both of her hands fighting the corrupted.
“I know you are tired,” the woman replied. “But there is a question I must ask.”
Baelandra nodded. “Please do.”
“I was one of those who saw the eyes of the child. I heard the roar, and I was…changed by the magic within her.”
Baelandra’s gaze softened, and she took the woman’s hands. The clay casts were stiff and awkward, but the Sister’s fingers were warm.
“I am so sorry for your pain,” she said, “but you are not alone. Everyone in Ohndarien was changed in the same way. I, too, would have changed, were it not for the heartstone I carry.”
“I remember everything,” the woman said. “The memories are stronger than any others I possess. I liked it at first, wanted it. I loved the strength, the power.”
“Power can be very seductive, especially to those who have never had it.”
The woman hesitated, slowly nodded. “My husband was corrupted beside me. I…I killed him. I ripped him apart with my bare hands.”
The Sister of Autumn pulled her into a soft embrace. “I’m so sorry.”
The cowled woman began crying. Baelandra’s hand stroked the back of her head through the hood.
“It was not you,” Baelandra murmured. “It was centuries of hate and cruelty working through you.”
Slowly, the woman pulled back, and Baelandra let her go.
“No.” She swallowed. “No, you are wrong. It was me. I wanted to kill him. He deserved to die.”
Baelandra cocked her head, peering into the woman’s cowl, but the woman turned her face away.
“I’m sorry, Sister. This is not what I came to ask you.” The woman wiped the tears from her face. “I did not mean to cry. I just want to know why. Why did I return to normal when so many remained corrupted?”
With a gentle hand, Baelandra brought the woman’s chin up again. “Because you have a good heart. You are a woman who loves more than she hates.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When the black emmeria was released, it sought a home. Hate is drawn to hate, and everyone keeps some locked inside themselves. Everyone was corrupted. But when the Brother of Autumn and I used the Heartstone to draw the power back, everyone who had been infected was given a choice. Those who loved the evil, who reveled in their newfound power, kept it. They remained corrupted. Those who recoiled at what they had become rejected the black emmeria, and they fought for their true selves. They helped us remove the corruption.”
“But Sister, I am not one of those people. I have done such—”
Baelandra touched her shoulder, and the woman fell silent. “It does not matter what you’ve done in your past. When the moment came to choose between love and hate, you chose love.”
“But I…”
“Remember that,” Baelandra said. “Some people think themselves fair, yet they stain the world with their touch. Some think themselves ugly, yet they fill the world with all the beauty of the Seasons. Always remember that you chose love at the moment when it mattered most.”
Baelandra kissed the stunned woman on the cheek and continued up the aisle toward the Autumn Gate.
“Sister!” The woman called after. “Please, wait. One more thing.”
Baelandra turned. “Yes?”
; The cowled woman hesitated. “May I…” She faltered.
“Go ahead.”
“May I see him? May I look upon him just once, the boy who saved us all?”
The Sister of Autumn smiled sadly. Her eyes glistened, and she blinked. “Follow me,” she said, turning and walking through the Autumn Gate.
Baelandra led her up the steep staircase along the curve of the Hall of Windows. They stopped as soon as the top landing came into view. A blue-white marble gazebo had been built at the apex of the dome. A single torch burned on its roof. A handsome young man lay on a stone slab in the middle, his arms crossed upon his chest and a long sword in his grip. The blade glimmered with the red light that came from the giant stone in its pommel. A pretty young woman with long black hair cradled the boy’s golden curls in her lap as she sang to him.
Baelandra and the cowled woman paused in the distance, listening to the beautiful words.
“We keep him here because he always loved the view of the city from atop the hall,” Baelandra said.
“He holds the corruption in his dreams now, just as the little girl did?”
Baelandra nodded. “Yes.”
“And if he should wake, would the corruption escape again?”
“We considered removing him from the city for the safety of all. We discussed this at length in council, but we agreed to take the risk. For his sake. No one wished to expel him after his sacrifice.”
“That woman, she is the Zelani, Shara-lani.”
“Yes. The Zelani take turns watching over him, but Shara-lani is here more often than not.”
The cowled woman hesitated a moment. “May I go to him? I want to see his face.”
Baelandra nodded. “Go ahead.”
The woman walked up a few steps. Baelandra’s voice stopped her.
“Ossamyr.”
The woman froze. Slowly, she turned. After a moment’s hesitation, she pushed back her cowl. Her dark eyes were lined with red, her short, black hair hung in disarray. She bowed her head and took one reluctant step away from the gazebo.
“Talk to Shara while you are up there,” Baelandra said. “I think the two of you have a few things in common.”
Ossamyr paused. “I—”
“The Zelani school will reopen soon,” Baelandra continued. “Perhaps they could use your help in caring for him.”
A single tear started down Ossamyr’s face. “Yes,” she murmured. “Yes, I will do that.”
“Good.” Baelandra gave her one last tired look and smiled. She turned and climbed out of sight below the curve of the dome.
The Queen of Physendria turned and walked up the stairs toward the sleeping Brother of Autumn.
acknowledgments
THANKS TO OUR lovely wives, Lara and Tanya, for always being first readers (even at three o’clock in the morning). We could not have done this without their unwavering faith, support, and all those extra hours they put in while “the boys” were off fighting in the pits of Nine Squares. Thanks to Ray Bartlett, Aaron Brown, Megan Foss, and Chris Mandeville. Without your insight, guidance, and support, this book would not have become what it is. Kudos to Langdon Foss for the fantastic drawings of Ohndarien, Physen, Nine Squares, and the Cinder and to Eden Dench for her talented hand at lettering. A big thanks to our agent, Donald Maass, for his powerful influence on the book’s ending and for being our champion in getting this story in front of a larger audience. And most important, our overwhelming gratitude goes out to Nimue, who gave her life to make this book possible.
about the authors
GILES CARWYN and TODD FAHNESTOCK met in high school sixteen years ago. Within an hour of meeting, they started a philosophical conversation they haven’t yet been able to finish. Their nomadic lifepaths have crisscrossed again and again. Through the years they have dated the same women, been best man at each other’s weddings, and attended the births of each other’s children. They currently live five blocks from each other in Englewood, Colorado, with their lovely wives, Lara and Tanya, and their precocious daughters, Elowyn, Liefke, and Luna.
www.carwynfahnestock.com
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Credits
Jacket design by Ervin Serrano
Jacket illustration by Thomas Thiemeyer
Maps and drawings by Langdon Foss/langdonfoss.com
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HEIR OF AUTUMN. Copyright © 2006 by Giles Carwyn and Todd Fahnestock. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.
PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Microsoft Reader January 2006 ISBN 0-06-114092-9
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carwyn, Giles.
Heir of Autumn / by Giles Carwyn and Todd Fahnestock.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-06-082975-9
ISBN-10: 0-06-082975-3
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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