Joined at the Hilt: Union (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 1)

by Caleb Wachter

  I believe Tavleros would have said, Dan’Moread said casually after Phinjo had left, something to the effect of ’what a bitch.’

  Randall snorted in agreement. “Sound about right,” he muttered, “let’s get out of this place.”

  Agreed, the sword replied.

  After climbing into Storm Chaser’s saddle, they soon found themselves riding past the guardsmen manning the main gates and heading north.

  As unlikely as it seemed, and as impossible as it sounded, Randall and Dan’Moread were fast becoming allies and, more than that, he knew that their bond of friendship was one he was unlikely to find again in the cold, heartless world they called their own.

  They were, for the time being, truly joined at the hilt.

  Epilogue II: The Mountain’s Restless Heart

  Mid-morning, 1-1-6-659

  Phindaerylolatzinjo entered the tower and the door closed behind her with little more than a silent thought from her calculating mind. She had protected the boy as much as she dared—and had already done more than the others would have allowed. If he could not survive what lay ahead of him, then he would be of no use to her or the Nation.

  The staircase wound upward set against the wall to the left, but she made her way to the center of the room and stood in the absolute blackness as she summoned the words to the ancient, silent song which would open the way before her.

  After a few moments of concentration and silent recitation—which Phindaerylolatzinjo, called ‘Phinjo’ by those few outsiders who knew her, knew would be impossible for any non-Ghaevlian mind—the flagstone before her slid down and away to reveal a winding passage which she had used every day for as long as she could remember.

  She descended the stairs, counting the seventy three steps as was her ritual, and the further she went the louder the echoes at the edge of her mind became. They had grown stronger in recent weeks and she knew that it would not be long before they could no longer be silenced.

  Phinjo came to the doorway at the bottom of the tight, winding stairs, and with little more than a wave of her hand the solid stone wall broke into a hundred small pieces. Those pieces floated gently to either side of the doorway and hung there, suspended in mid-air, permitting her passage.

  Inside the chamber she once again had her breath taken away by the sight before her. The chamber itself was some thirty feet high and twenty feet across, with a dazzling, blue light cascading across the alcoves which ringed the walls of the cylindrical room.

  Each alcove held a Ghaevlian occupant, and each Ghaevlian was chanting a beautiful, haunting part of their ancient, complex song. The secrets of such song magic had been lost to all but a handful of those who remained in this world, and Phinjo was one of the only living True Ghaevlians who could instruct others in its use.

  But the chanters did not sing for beauty, or love, or loss; they sang to sooth the mind of the one at the room’s center. Looking up and down its radiant, dazzling surface, Phinjo once again marveled at the sight of it. Shaped like a column of crystal, with protrusions and formations growing on its surface without apparent rhyme or reason, she knew that it would not be long before the soul within awakened—and when that happened, not even the Ghaevlian songs could be guaranteed to control it.

  Circling the walkway along the bottom of the chamber, she noted with satisfaction that the star metal binding rods which encircled the giant, glowing crystal appeared to have been finished, and with their completion they would soon be able to proceed to the next phase of their plan. Those rods extended outward and connected at regular intervals with the solid stone walls of the chamber, and the energy of the mountain itself pulsed in perfect rhythm with the crystalline Heart at the center of the chamber.

  Stopping for a moment, she joined the twenty eight chanters in their song as they made their ancient lullaby for the increasingly restless Heart of the Mountain. She knew that its slumber would soon draw to an end, but every moment they bought with their ancient, nurturing song was another moment she could use to lay the groundwork needed to ensure the success of their plan.

  Phinjo became lost in the singing for longer than she realized, and somewhere in the pulsing light of the Heart she felt its mind cry out in anger much as a child might while experiencing a terrible nightmare. The chamber shook around them and Phinjo raised her soothing voice as she sang the song while the others followed her lead. Before long the Heart was once again resting quietly, but Phinjo knew there was a limit to their ability to quell its anger and she dearly wished they would not be forced to change the mood of their chant to a darker one.

  Feeling a familiar presence at the edge of her consciousness, she decided to leave the chamber. A year ago she might have risked telepathic communication in the Heart’s presence, but to do so now was to invite disaster.

  Exiting the chamber the way she had entered, she closed the door with a wave of her hand as she reached out with her mind to connect with the one whom she had been expecting.

  “Greetings, sister,” came the man’s words, as clear to her mind as if he were standing beside her, “I am told you received an interesting guest recently.”

  As she ascended the staircase, one would have never guessed she was conversing with another as she sent her thoughts in reply, “It is likely an inconsequential matter, but one which I will see to in due course.”

  There was a chuckle on the other end. “Worry not, my dear sister,” he assured her, “I do not spy on you. But news of a twisted one’s appearance within Greystone’s walls takes wing on whatever winds happen to be blowing. In this case, they blew my way.”

  “They are not the only things to be blowing your way, brother,” she replied as she ascended into the blackness of the tower’s ground floor. “My ‘guest’ is also coming your way.”

  There was a pause. “Is it Tavleros?” he asked hopefully. “Did he return to us after these years of silence?”

  “Tavleros has returned to the sea,” Phinjo said with a note of sorrow. She knew that he and her brother had shared a bond not unlike that of brothers, which was a rare thing—especially between a True Ghaevlian and one of the star children. “I am sorry, my brother.”

  “How did it happen?” he asked, his voice a mixture of resignation and anger.

  “I am told it was of his own design,” she replied quickly as she ascended the winding staircase. “But by a stroke of what the humans might call ‘luck,’ he has done our people a great service by sending one to us who may yet play an important part in the events to come.”

  “Tavleros was always stubborn,” he said absently. “Still, his abilities were rare…he will be difficult to replace.”

  “He will be impossible to replace,” she said bitterly. Only in the privacy of her own thoughts did she dare allow her emotions to express themselves in their raw, primal fashion, and her brother was one of the few people who she allowed into that inner sanctum. “But we must move on; he was unwilling to do that which must be done to safeguard our people’s future.”

  There was silence as she ascended the final flight of stairs, coming to a flat panel of stone which served as the doorway to the tower’s roof. The panel swung open with little more than a thought, and she made her way to the edge of the roof.

  The city of Greystone was truly remarkable, and even beautiful in its own way. The buildings which had been erected by the humans over the past thousand years were among the finest examples of human architecture and engineering in the known world, and if one had lived there for as long as Phinjo had, the subtle differences which marked the advance of human construction techniques could be plainly seen.

  The palace was the oldest of the structures, being little more than a small mountain peak riddled with shafts connected to each other within, forming a labyrinthine fortress in which the ruling family and their loyal retainers had lived for a thousand years.

  The city spread forth from there in an almost perfect chronological record; the further one went from the palace, the newer the buil
dings became. There were, of course, three exceptions to this rule.

  The first exception was the city gate. The narrow passageway leading into Greystone was flanked by huge, sheer cliffs which created an impassable neck through which one had no choice but to pass in order to gain entry to the city itself. The gate was built of massive, stone blocks and reinforced with grey iron straps, some of which were as thick as a warhorse’s neck and as long as the largest human seagoing vessel’s keel.

  The second exception—which could technically be the second and third, if one wished to argue technicalities—was the towers themselves. The Towers Grey had not existed for as long as the palace, but the Ghaevlians had built them not long after the first King of Greystone laid claim to the valley which would become the finest human city north of the blue sands.

  “The humans are untrustworthy, sister,” her brother said, seemingly reading her thoughts—which in all likelihood he had done. “To include them in our plan is dangerous; they are deceitful and without honor.”

  “Their honor is different,” she retorted icily, “but in no way is it less worthy of respect than our own. You must understand them, brother…they do not have the luxury of our perspective. Besides,” she looked out toward the gate, and her sharp, Ghaevlian eyes easily picked out Randall atop his comically large warhorse as he exited the gates, “it is already done. The King will support us when we move against the defilers, and in return we shall uphold our agreement with him.”

  “There has not been a human king in twenty Illuminations, sister,” he reminded her.

  “That will change,” she promised him. “When a forest walks upon the land and the mountain cries out for vengeance…that will change.”

  There was a lengthy, tense pause after which he said quietly, “The forest already walks, sister.”

  This took her by complete surprise, and she swore under her breath in the ancient tongue. “How long?” she asked after collecting herself. This would accelerate their plans even more than she had feared…and she was now uncertain she could make the rest of the necessary preparations before their foe discovered her plan.

  “Two days,” he replied. “Our chanters were unable to ease its troubled soul…I am sorry.”

  Phinjo straightened herself and stood tall as she looked out on the city of Greystone with a pang of regret. She had spent most of her life trying to defend everything the Nation stood for, and now it seemed the hour of judgment drew near. “It was inevitable,” she said, more than a little disappointed at her brother’s failure, but she also knew that there was no longer any turning back. Fate had decreed that they would soon march on their enemies…and when they did, the ground would tremble at their passage.

  A tear rolled gently down her cheek and landed on her hand. “Carry out your mission, brother,” she said before turning her back on the city and making her way to the winding staircase. “The Nation’s future depends upon it.”

  “To restore the land,” he said emphatically as he echoed their new, as-yet unspoken, creed.

  She nodded in agreement. “To restore the land,” she replied before severing their connection.

  Phinjo knew that they still had time before they were discovered, but there was still so much that could have been done. So many plans must now be discarded, and so many potential allies must be abandoned to preserve their only real chance at freedom.

  The others had fled in the face of change, but Phinjo and her allies had refused to do so. Quietly they had worked, clinging to the shadows as they laid the foundation of what would be the greatest war this world had ever seen.

  The entire world had been theirs once, but now those who the humans called ‘elves’ hid like frightened children in the darkness. Very soon they would no longer need to hide…and though she knew the price would be great, Phinjo relished the thought of casting the invaders out.

  It was the only way. More depended on it than any human could possibly know.

  Epilogue III: Sins for the Flesh

  Smoke rose in great, puffing coils from the two dozen raging infernos scattered before Glu’Rada. The Glu stood out among the black-skinned humans with pale, almost translucent skin and white, iris-less eyes. He thumbed the hilt of the massive, grey weapon slung at his side contemplatively as he recalled that each of those fires had, mere hours earlier, held the sleeping families of the hamlet located not far north of the White River.

  Despite his disappointment in the night’s catch, Rada knew that the attack had been executed flawlessly by the Rotting God’s faithful servants. Each of the houses were subdued in a simultaneous attack which saw the denizens dragged from those homes and brought to what passed for a town square in the pitiful settlement.

  But it truly was a pitiful target, and the lord of the tribe which were called ‘Fleshmongers’ by those they hunted knew that he would never fulfill the Rotting God’s mandate by raiding such pitiful settlements.

  Rada’s second in command—and first of his wives—approached carrying a basket which marked the tally of the captured.

  “How many, Yu’Londa?” he asked, his voice sounding like nothing so much as a strong wind. His throat had been damaged long before and the wound had nearly taken his ability to speak, but none would dare mock him for it—or make him repeat himself, which had cost more than a few of his tribesmen their heads.

  His first wife, who was a tall and lean woman with proud, defiant cheekbones and eyes not unlike a serpent’s, laid the bushel at his bare, white feet. “We have captured eighty three slaves fit for the pits, mighty Rada,” she replied as she clasped her fist over her heart. He looked down and saw mixed ears, mostly black of skin but some paler with pointed tips and scowled.

  “Do not try my patience, woman,” he warned, his voice a harsh whisper. “I care not for the humans; how many of the Blooded?”

  Yu’Londa cast her eyes to the ground respectfully. “Fourteen, Glu’Rada—only ten of which are of age for sacrifice,” she replied more meekly than was her norm.

  “Ten?” he rasped as he looked over to the scout that had recommended the pathetic hamlet as a ripe target. “You guaranteed twice that number, Tol’Harren.”

  The Tol stiffened. He was a thick, muscular man who had only been a member of their tribe for a short while but had provided reasonable reconnaissance to this point. “I saw no fewer than thirty of the Blooded here, Glu,” he said in a raised, defiant voice. “The gatherers must have failed you; the star children were here.”

  “Yes, they were here,” Yu’Londa snapped, drawing her demon-metal blade from its scabbard and stalking toward the man, “but fewer than half the number you said. Perhaps your mind is as weak as your eyes!”

  While nothing would have amused Rada more than watching his first wife toy with the Tol, he knew they had little time before the sun replaced the moon which the natives called ‘Wanderer’ in the sky above them.

  Drawing the massive, grey blade from its loop at his waist, he turned on the Tol. “You have failed me, Tol,” he hissed. “You know the price of failure.”

  Tol’Harren drew his twin daggers and squared off against the hulking, albino lord of the Fleshmongers. “I’ve not lied, Glu,” he grated.

  “It matters not,” Rada assured him as he gripped the hilt of the massive, wicked weapon, “the Rotting God must be appeased…with flesh.”

  In a desperate attempt to seize the initiative, Harren lunged at Rada. He was clearly going for the Glu’s throat with the first swipe, but Rada easily batted the attack away with the broad, grey blade of his eldritch weapon. The second knife came in low, and as it did a red, baleful eye snapped open at the base of Rada’s blade.

  Seeing the man’s second attack echo through the time-stream—to which the grey blade, Ahsaytsan, was inextricably connected—Rada reached out with his left hand and easily grabbed the Tol’s wrist with his free, left hand. Ahsaytsan narrowed its eye hungrily as Rada brought it down into the man’s arm, severing it cleanly at the shoulder in a shower of blood
.

  Harren fell to the ground, screaming in agony and the albino Glu of the Fleshmongers held the arm out before him. “Were you of the Blooded, this offering might suffice,” he rasped as he threw the bleeding limb to the ground. “But the Rotting God requires more from mere humans.”

  Bringing Ahsaytsan up to cleave the man in two, Rada smiled in savage amusement as the grey blade showed him the man’s intent with its gift of foresight: the Tol meant to plunge his remaining knife into Rada’s chest.

  “Go on, then,” Rada urged, rather than bringing the grey blade down on his fallen scout. “Take my flesh…if you are able,” he commanded.

  Tol’Harren leapt forward, plunging his remaining dagger into Rada’s chest over his heart and twisting the blade with a bloodthirsty look on his face.

  “Good,” Rada urged, pressing his chest forward until the blade was buried to the hilt. The pain was negligible, and he watched with great satisfaction as the other man’s expression changed from one of glee to one of terror, “No…it would seem you are not the chosen of the Rotting God this night.”

  Grabbing the man’s remaining wrist in his massive, albino hand, he crushed it and felt bones splinter and ligaments tear between his fingers. He brought the grey blade, Ahsaytsan, into the air and cleaved down on the other man’s shoulder, severing his other arm cleanly at the bicep and sending the Tol to his knees.

  Knowing the Tol would die within seconds and wishing to make an example of him before he did, Rada dropped the powerful, eldritch sword and grasped the man’s head between his hands. Harren screamed as his skull cracked, and Rada drove his thumbs into his former scout’s eyes as the man’s screams intensified.