The Elder Stones Saga Boxset: Books 1-3

by D. K. Holmberg

  Lines were tossed from each ship to the other, and they were tied up.

  Daniel glanced to the ship on the left. There was nothing special about it that he could discern, nothing other than the fact it was captained by a brown-haired woman, tall and slender. Her height made her nearly the rival of anyone from Elaeavn, though he could See that she had deep blue eyes, not the green of those from Elaeavn. She was dressed in dark leathers, and she strode forward, standing at the railing for a moment before jumping on board the ship.

  “Carth?” the woman asked, her voice a sharp snap that split the air.

  “Alana,” Carth said. “It’s been too long.”

  “You were supposed to be dead.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  Alana glared at Carth. “You know I’m not. It’s just that—”

  “I know what it’s just,” Carth said.

  “Why have you come looking for us?” Alana asked.

  “What makes you think I came looking for you?”

  “We detected the pull of shadows about a day ago,” Alana said. “At first, we weren’t sure what it was, and we wondered if it might be from the Reshian, but we haven’t encountered any in years.”

  “No, I think most of the Reshian are gone,” Carth said.

  “Keira suggested that it was Rayen,” Alana said, nodding to a shorter mousy-looking woman. She had flat gray eyes and a sharp nose, but she seemed to take everything in with one sweeping glance.

  “Rayen is with me,” Carth said.

  Alana’s breath caught. “She’s with you? Has she told you what she’s done?”

  “I’m well aware of what she’s done,” Carth said.

  “And you approve?”

  “It’s not a matter of approving or not. It’s a matter of unifying. The Binders need to remain stable.”

  “We’re stable, Carthenne.”

  “No. There’s a fracture, and it’s being used against us.”

  “How could it be used against us?”

  “The Ai’thol have begun to make their play.”

  Alana frowned. “The Ai’thol? Not the Forgers?”

  “The Forgers were nothing but an arm of the Ai’thol, the same way the Hjan were an arm of the Ai’thol. The same way the Calow were an arm of them. We can defeat the arms, or we can go after the body.”

  “Are you ready to attack them like that?”

  Carth breathed out in a heavy sigh. “I don’t know that I am, but again, I don’t know that I have much choice. When it comes to the Ai’thol, we simply have to protect ourselves.”

  “We have been. We’ve been patrolling the seas, and we haven’t uncovered anything that would suggest the Ai’thol have been active.”

  “And yet, the Forgers continue to spread throughout the southern continent.”

  Alana looked over the deck of Carth’s ship before her gaze settled on Rayen. “Where have you been?” she asked, turning her gaze onto Carth.

  “I have been preoccupied.”

  “You can’t simply return and claim you were preoccupied. We deserve answers from you, Carth.”

  “I’ve been trying to secure as many of the Elder Stones as I can,” Carth said.

  “By yourself?” The hurt in Alana’s tone was clear to Daniel, even from where he stood.

  “It was something only I could do.”

  “Was it? After everything we did together on Keyall and with the Collector and—”

  Carth settled her hand on Alana’s shoulder. “None of that is diminished. Some of these things have been tasks that only I could complete.”

  “Then why find us now?”

  “Because it appears that I failed.”

  Alana frowned, and Daniel felt himself stepping forward, curiosity compelling him to get closer. What was Carth revealing? She had been trying to secure the Elder Stones, but now she didn’t think she had been successful? Had something happened to the Wisdom Stone? That should have been safe, protected by the C’than within the university, but then, it was supposed to have been safe before, and somehow the C’than had decided to bargain with it, to use the stone as a way of gaining favor with the Ai’thol.

  “What happened?” Alana asked.

  “A’ras with far more power than they should have attacked in Asador.”

  Alana scanned the deck, her gaze briefly settling on Lucy and then Daniel before turning back to Carth. “You still have enough influence within the A’ras to ensure that any attack is blunted.”

  “It’s not a matter of influence. It is not a matter of being able to overpower them. What concerns me is that someone has discovered something they should not, and I suspect they think to use it against the Ai’thol.”

  Alana laughed, a dark sound. “Should we be offended by that? Let others throw themselves at the Ai’thol. It only delays them, and it buys us time.”

  “If they have taken one of the Elder Stones, they will have weakened our position. The Ai’thol will know how to reach it, and they will know what to do when they manage to secure it. I have no doubt that Olandar Fahr will find some way of obtaining it if it has been moved.”

  “That’s why you’re here. You came to see if it’s been moved?”

  “I came to see what I could discover,” Carth said.

  “Why us?”

  “Because I need people I can trust.”

  “What if we can’t trust you?” Alana asked.

  “That’s fair,” Carth said. “But I would hope that the years we spent together would allow you to still trust me.”

  “Those years were a long time ago, Carth.”

  “They were, and I understand that quite a bit has changed in that time, and yet here you are, still sailing the way I taught you, still exploring, and still keeping the fleet together.”

  Fleet? Daniel had seen only two ships, but as he stared out into the water, he realized that there were more. In the distance, two other ships approached, and then, to the south, there were three more.

  How many ships did Carth have at her disposal? How many of the ships would side with them? And how many would turn around at the first sign of problems?

  “What choice did I have? When you abandoned us, I could do nothing other than keep the fleet together.”

  “You’ve done well,” Carth said. “You’ve done everything I imagine you would be able to do. And now I’m going to have to ask you to do even more.”

  “What if we refuse?”

  “I would never try to overpower your command, Alana.”

  “Your coming here subverts my command,” Alana said.

  “And you know that is not my intention. At the same time, I need your help.”

  Moments of silence passed before Alana nodded. “What is it that you need?”

  “I need an escort into Nyaesh.”

  “Why Nyaesh?”

  “Because the city is more dangerous now than when I was there before. We could pass through, but for what I need, I fear that a significant presence might be beneficial.”

  “How significant?” Alana asked.

  “Significant enough that the fleet might help.”

  Alana stared at Carth for a moment. “How much danger will this put us into?”

  “If everything goes as I plan, perhaps not that much danger.”

  “Perhaps?”

  “Only if it goes as planned.”

  Alana pressed her lips together, frowning deeply, and then she nodded. “The fleet is yours, Carth. It’s always been yours.”

  “It’s not always been mine, but I thank you.”

  Alana jumped back onto her ship and started barking out commands. Lines were untied, the ships separated, and Daniel marveled at how quickly everything happened. The women were all incredibly skilled, and the ships peeled off, separating from theirs.

  “That went far smoother than I was expecting,” Daniel said.

  “There’s something Carth isn’t revealing,” Lucy said.

  “Is that something you can see in her posture?
”

  “No,” she said, her frown deepening. “I Read it, but why would she have wanted me to have Read it?”

  “What makes you think she wanted you to Read it?”

  “Because she didn’t hide it from me.”

  Daniel stared at Carth as she returned to the helm, grabbing the wheel. Everything Carth did had a purpose, but what was her purpose in this? “You think she’s trying to use us in some way?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get that sense, and what I was able to gather from her was little more than a flash.”

  “What was that flash?” Daniel asked.

  “It was of a great, bright light. Heat surrounded us. It was warm and painful, but comforting at the same time. I’ve never known anything like it, and I have a sense that Carth doesn’t want us to find it, but at the same time, it seems as if she thinks we need to.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Lucy shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense, which is why I wonder why she revealed it to us.”

  One of the other Binders shouted something, and Lucy turned before heading off toward them. Daniel remained where he was for a moment, debating what he would do before deciding to go and speak with Carth. If there was something she was after, he would try to figure out what it was. And if she wasn’t trying to keep it from them, there had to be a reason for that, too.

  “So you have a fleet?”

  “I didn’t always have a fleet,” Carth said. “I’ve found that having access to the seas provides some benefits. Not all of us can Slide, and traveling in a more traditional manner doesn’t raise the same questions.” Carth stared straight ahead.

  “All of these women are Binders?”

  “All of these women have worked with me for many years,” she said.

  “I get the sense that they are displeased you disappeared for a time.”

  Carth glanced over at him. “How would your friends feel if they believed you dead, only to have you return from the grave?”

  “I suppose they would be both pleased and upset.”

  “And how would they feel if this wasn’t the first time you had felt the need to disguise yourself in such a way?”

  “You pretended to be dead before?”

  “There are answers that can only come from absence,” Carth said.

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “The Ai’thol fear me. Well, as much as they can fear anyone. I’m not entirely sure that they truly fear anything, so perhaps respect would be a better way of phrasing it.”

  “What about Rsiran?”

  “I think they respect Rsiran Lareth as well, though for a different reason. And it’s possible that they fear him, certainly more than they would fear me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Rsiran has shown them ruthlessness. It matches what the Ai’thol have shown over the years, so I think they recognize a kindred spirit. They worry that Rsiran would do the same things they would do. And they fear just what that might involve.”

  “What is this about an Elder Stone?”

  “When you and Rayen shared with me what you faced, I realized something was off.”

  “And you didn’t want to share that before now?”

  “Would it have mattered?”

  “We are here with you.”

  “And yet, you and your friend are the only two who can simply leave. You aren’t stuck here, Daniel Elvraeth. The moment you decide this isn’t the journey you want to be a part of, the moment you decide that you want to escape, you can. All it takes is for you to imagine where you’d like to go.”

  “There are limits.”

  “Only within your mind.”

  “I don’t believe that. Distances matter.”

  “Again, only because you let them.”

  “You don’t Slide.”

  “And yet I’ve held the Wisdom Stone.”

  Daniel frowned. “You retained that knowledge?”

  “Not all of it, but while I held the Wisdom Stone, I understood what it took to Slide. I can’t anymore, but I remember that feeling. There was a certain sense of ease in knowing you could simply escape the moment things changed. I imagine that when you have that ability stripped from you, you feel the same as the rest of us do all the time.”

  “You intend to take us to Nyaesh?”

  “If we can. It’s possible that it won’t be safe for us to reach it.”

  “But you have a fleet.” There were at least eight ships, though Daniel suspected there could be twice as many that he didn’t even see. They wouldn’t have any reason to fear with that many ships.

  “We have a fleet, but we also have people that I don’t want to sacrifice, not on a task like this. Besides, the fleet is merely a diversion.”

  “A diversion?”

  “You really should play Tsatsun with me.”

  “I still don’t understand why that would benefit me.”

  “Only because you haven’t played.”

  “What would it help me with?”

  “The fleet will serve as one move. In this case, I’m preparing for the possibility of a dozen other moves that would cascade from that. The presence of the fleet will raise attention within Nyaesh, and it will motivate their fleets to mobilize. Once the Nyaesh fleet is mobilized, many of the A’ras will go with them, wanting to protect the borders. Doing so will instigate a more pronounced response within the city itself. And it’s that pronounced response that we need.”

  “You want to raise the alert within the city? I don’t understand why that is beneficial.”

  “Consider the fleet merely a distraction. When your homeland was attacked twenty years ago, what did you experience?”

  “The city was attacked, but the forest was the target.”

  “Very good. The attack on the city was a distraction. A diversion. It was merely a way of drawing Lareth away, knowing he was the most dangerous one to the others.”

  “Then what’s the point of the attack on the trees this time?”

  Carth studied him, a smile parting her lips. “That’s the kind of question you should have been asking all along.”

  “We have been asking it.”

  “Have you been asking what other purpose they might have?”

  “I haven’t been in the city in a long time. I haven’t spent any time there to consider what other purpose they might have, but if they used the attack on Elaeavn as a diversion for what they were after in the forest, what purpose would they have in attacking the forest this time?”

  “Think about what’s happened since they attacked.”

  “We went after them.”

  “No. You went after Lareth.”

  “We went after Lareth. And rescued him. But if we hadn’t, the C’than intended to trade him to the Forgers.”

  Carth’s eyes narrowed. “Not the C’than. One of the C’than. Do not make the mistake of conflating the misdeeds of one person with the desires of all the C’than.”

  “Fine. One of the C’than intended to trade Lareth, but that doesn’t change the fact that we rescued him.”

  “And what do you think he’s done?”

  Daniel didn’t have to think too much about what Rsiran would do. He would have fortified the protections around the city. He would have tried to save the Elder Trees if he could. And they would have begun to prepare.

  “And think about what the Forgers might be able to do with that,” Carth said.

  “You think they want Lareth back in the city?”

  “I think there is a benefit to him being there, at least for whatever purpose the Ai’thol have for him. Lareth is bright enough that he has likely considered it too.”

  “If he’s considered it, then does it matter?”

  Carth shook her head. “There are times when you are forced to make certain moves. They might not be the moves you would like to make, or that would be your strongest play, but when facing a skilled opponent, you may not have any choice. It’s like that with Lareth
. Regardless of what else he might want to do, I doubt that he has much choice in the matter. He has to play this out. If he doesn’t, he runs the risk of exposing your home, Elaeavn, to a danger that he would be unable to protect it from.”

  “How does that have anything to do with where we’re going?”

  “I’m using the same strategy,” Carth said.

  “You intend to force Nyaesh to make a certain move?” Daniel didn’t completely understand, but the more he heard Carth talk, the more he realized she truly did have a way of planning that he couldn’t completely fathom.

  “I intend to force the A’ras to take action, but whether that action will result in the outcome that I anticipate remains to be seen. I’m willing to attempt to force it in one direction, and if it works, then we will achieve what we need. If it fails, then we will be thankful that we have you and your friends with us.”

  “Because of our ability to Slide.”

  Carth nodded. “The people of Nyaesh have faced others with the ability to Slide. The Hjan were often descended from your people.”

  “I’ve heard that.”

  “I’m sure you have. Several of them were powerful, augmented as they were by the arcane knowledge acquired by Venass over the years. We struggled when we faced them.”

  “How long were you here?”

  “I lived in Nyaesh for longer than I lived in any other place. It was home,” Carth said.

  “Why didn’t you stay?”

  “Because I was forced away. The Hjan made a similar move, but ultimately, it was the wrong one.”

  “Why?”

  “Because by forcing me to take action, they opened themselves up to failure. They made an enemy out of me. And I’m not the kind of person that anyone wants as an enemy.”

  Daniel watched Carth as she continued to steer them. Shadows swirled from her, stretching out into the water, pushing the ship forward. It wasn’t only their ship that she pushed; though he couldn’t see the connections between the shadows and the two ships on either side of them, the fact that they kept pace suggested Carth was using her ability on them as well.