by E. J. Godwin
His teeth clenched until his jaw ached. He sat erect, his fists in knots, squeezing the blood from his wounded arm. Pain was nothing to him. His arms trembled violently, and even Telai backed away, her instincts quicker than her grief. Then a cry started deep inside him, one so fierce that he choked and coughed as it tore through his throat.
He leaped to a stand. The handle of an axe stuck out of the debris. Screaming with rage, Caleb whisked it up in his hands and stumbled toward the windows.
Glass shattered and fell to the floor. He jumped through and ran down the street, his cries echoing between the buildings like the wailing of a demented ghost. Out beyond the town he sped, out over the snow-covered fields, until there was nothing but the desolation of a moonless winter night.
He dropped to his knees, utterly spent. Even the wind had died, like his hope. Caleb stared down at his hands. He was still holding the axe. He had been swinging it around like a madman during the entire run. Now his arms shook with exhaustion. Blood running down his left arm dripped from his fingers, darkening the snow. Then he flung the axe away, crouched down, and poured all his strength and love into a mighty shout.
It didn’t even surprise him when specks of blood flew out from a throat torn raw by his relentless cries. His own flesh meant nothing to him. There was no pain, no wound, no regret that would ever compare to the agony ripping through his soul.
A voice called out his name. A woman’s voice.
“Caleb!”
He shuddered in horror. Karla? Help me!
Telai, her breathing hoarse from the long run, collapsed beside him. She threw her arms about him, as if to protect him from the pitiless night.
“Caleb, Caleb—please don’t—please—”
Her lips moved silently. She could no longer speak. She hugged him closer, weeping where he could not, for he was beyond tears.
Caleb bared his face. Her eyes widened in terror at the sight, and she gripped him by the shoulders.
“Caleb Stenger, you listen to me! He’s still there—I know he is! But he’s trapped. We’ve got to find a way to get him back.”
“My boy!” he cried in a shattered voice. “Why did this have to happen? Why? How can we ever—”
She shook him furiously. “I don’t know!” she screamed. “But I’m going to do it. Do you hear me, Caleb? If it costs me everything, I will find a way to save him!”
A quick crunch of footsteps, and a dim silhouette stood against the sky.
“He’s going into shock, Telai. We have to get him out of the cold.”
“I know.”
Soren crouched beside her. “First I need to hear it from the Grand Loremaster. Has Heradnora returned?”
Telai looked into Caleb’s eyes. The Falling Man waited for one last shred of hope. Then she answered, and the stars went black.
♦ ♦ ♦
Here ends the second part of The Silent Tempest. The third and final part, Fate Defied, follows Caleb, Telai and Soren as they help defend Ada against the coming storm.
Map of Ada
What Has Gone Before
In part one, Rite of Exile, Caleb Stenger flees with his son Warren to begin a new life far from Earth. But when his ship crashes on an unknown world, Warren is injured, condemning the boy to a slow death before his twentieth birthday.
Telai, Grand Loremaster of Ada, is the first of her sword-wielding race to meet these strangers from the sky. Her loyalty to her people demands caution, yet she cannot ignore the plea in Caleb’s voice, or the desperate longing in Warren’s eyes. A connection takes hold, a bond even her clairvoyant powers cannot explain.
Caleb embraces their noble cities and unhurried lifestyle, and swears an oath of loyalty. Finding no help for his son in their primitive medicine, he discovers a passage in their archives about an ancient talisman called the Lor’yentré that could cure any disease—but was so powerful it sent an entire race to the brink of destruction. This Lor’yentré was once used by the evil sorceress Heradnora to enslave Ada’s ancestors, and her rule ended when the ancient hero Grondolos seized the device during battle and snapped it in two. Afterward he buried the broken Lor’yentré at Graxmoar, a hidden island in a lake far to the west near the ocean; yet an older device of unspeakable power named Kseleksten was lost, and has never been found in all the years since Heradnora’s defeat.
Now Caleb faces a terrible choice: Seek this power in defiance of his sworn duty and growing love for Telai ... or watch his son wither away until he dies.
He vows to reach Graxmoar, hoping to discover clues to Kseleksten’s whereabouts and heal his son. The island is guarded by many perils, and his only hope to reach it is with the help of the Raéni, whose highest duty is to find and destroy Kseleksten to rid their world of its last evil. Knowing he would be banished or perhaps even killed if his true motives were ever discovered, Caleb takes their sacred Oath and begins his military training.
Afterward he travels with Soren, Master Raén of Ada, to the fortress of Udan. There he unwittingly reveals that he has been carrying the Medallion of Yrsten, which Warren found near his ship. The Medallion is the long-dreaded symbol of the Yrsten Prophecy, which foretells the return of evil through Kseleksten and the Bringer of Evil who wields it. Soren’s elderly father performs the Rite of Exile, banishing Caleb from from Ada. Soren, believing Caleb to be innocent of any malicious intent, defies the ancient rite and flees with Caleb and Warren into the wilderness.
Now the only duty left to them is to find Kseleksten, and they begin the long ride to distant Graxmoar. But Soren discovers it was Warren, not Caleb, who first spied the Medallion in the grass, and he begins to doubt who the foretold Bringer of Evil truly is, fearing a child might be easy prey to the whims of fate. He also learns of Caleb’s advanced weaponry, for Caleb uses his hidden laser pistol to escape capture by the Hodyn, Ada’s enemy. Meanwhile Telai, determined to follow her heart in defiance of her position as Grand Loremaster, leaves Ekendoré in search of Caleb.
Soren and Caleb meet Rennor, a man claiming to be Telai’s assistant. Rennor tries to gain their trust by helping them face many challenges, such as the barrier of madness surrounding the vast forest Tnestiri, as well as a monstrous stone giant that destroys Caleb’s laser.
At last they reach Graxmoar, where Warren finds the Lor’yentré as if by chance, and though it is broken he is unexpectedly and miraculously healed.
There are no stronger chains than the chains of love.
For we are all willing prisoners.
Allera, second Underseer of Spierel
