Beneath the Vault of Stars (The Daybringer Book 1)

by Blake Goulette

  As the inhabited corpses pressed in all around them, tightened their collective grip, their polluted fetor clung to Kalas’ nostrils: Is this what death smells like? he wondered.

  For a moment.

  A huge, black paw reached out of the darkness and ripped one of the shosayedhu into pieces, each shred evaporating in a rancid cloud of stinging smoke. A rudzhegu, larger than any Kalas remembered from the attack on Lohwàlar, bounded into the light, caught the boy’s gaze, then turned against another assailant and, with slashes, barks, and growls, spilled its viscera on the ground, then another, then others, until all were dispatched.

  “No! Not—what are—who do you think you are?!” shouted Marugan, his whispery voice cracking with fear. He’d readied his next arrow during the scuffle; now, as the wolf turned on him, he loosed it. The creature yelped, collapsed, as the arrow struck him on the ruff of his neck. Within an undulating splash of…void, Marugan blinked out of sight.

  The noise attracted the queen-regent’s soldiers: their distinct voices had to be within a few yards.

  “I’m sorry, friends,” Nashmur sighed, his sword hanging limp at his side.

  “Why did you help us?” Kalas wondered as pointed his sword at the collapsed zhàrudzh.

  The wounded beast held him with his yellow stare, his breaths fast and shallow. Before he could respond, however, guardsmen filled the opposite end of the long and narrow hall.

  “Over here! You there! Stop!” one of them shouted.

  Behind Kalas’ shoulders, a faint purple luminescence began to glow, growing ever brighter and changing from a thready flicker to a blinding violet wash. The approaching soldiers held their positions, raised their arms to block its glare. Kalas turned and, for a moment, saw Falthwën holding Hàfilrifar aloft, raking it through empty space in a pattern of repeating letterforms: every stroke left a strand of brilliance that hovered like tangible phenomena, built upon the last.

  “It was her! She is here!” the cleric exulted.

  The lights expanded, swelled with energy from some other spacetime and mixed together until they enveloped Falthwën and the others in a burgeoning sphere of amethyst radiance. What Kalas could only describe as a wedge of music welled up from within the sphere. In one instant, they’d been in Ïsriba’s dungeons: in the next, a place unlike anything they had ever seen.

  Chapter XIX.

  Beyond the Reach of a Dark Star

  K

  alas! Did…did you do that?!” Zhalera whispered, her voice almost inaudible and laced with fear.

  “No! I—where are we? Falthwën, who’s she? Where is here? Falthwën? Falthwën?!”

  The unbearable fire from the cleric’s sword had been extinguished, and Kalas’ voice echoed through a cold, lightless environment. Aside from the physicality of the floor onto which they’d been deposited, nothingness was all around them. Subtle wind seemed to swirl within the empty-feeling space, acted as an amplifier for the rising apprehension poisoning the atmosphere.

  “Here, my child,” coughed the cleric at last. “Is everyone here? Everyone all right?”

  Each voiced his or her status: other than sudden confusion, none had experienced any misfortune.

  “Zhalera: your hand, please?” he said. Kalas felt his fingers flex against the darkness as Falthwën reached for the young smith.

  “I’m here!” she said, taking a few steps toward his voice.

  “This belongs to you—for a time, at least. Here’s your family’s sword. There’s no longer a need to keep it secret. Not here!”

  Kalas imagined the cleric reaching into his remarkable robes and retrieving Zhalera’s blade from whatever impossible dimension in which he’d hidden it. As he brought forth the object, waves of soft, yellow light rippled across its surfaces, and in their faint illumination he smiled at Zhalera’s radiant features.

  “Thank you,” she said as she accepted the heirloom from his knotted hand.

  The weapon’s subtle radiance caught in the facets of Falthwën’s ring, frolicked from stone to stone.

  “Where did you get that ring!” queried Pava, seizing the latest opportunity to press him about it. “I’ve been meaning to ask you that ever since I woke in the back of your cart!”

  “Ironic—or providential, perhaps—that you’d choose this moment, this place, to raise that question!

  “Where is ‘here?!’” Rül wondered on everyone’s behalf.

  “Falthwën, the rudzhegu from the dungeon!” Kalas exclaimed. “He’s here! In this place with us!” He’d taken a few steps of his own and felt his shins brush against something coarse and wiry.

  “Is that so?” said the cleric with an odd quality to his voice. Something between disbelief and curiosity. “That’s…unusual,” he admitted.

  “Where are we, Master Rül? We’re within the Wànuk pïn Erume—the Vault of Stars. This place, my children, is where I’d intended to come so many months ago: this place is where I’d hoped to confer with my colleagues with regard to that prophecy into which all of you—yes, all of you!—have been thrust. We’re miles beneath what is now considered Ïsriba.”

  “The ‘Vault of Stars?’ Nashmur mumbled. “Beneath Ïsriba? But none of Ulobir’s records mention a place like this!”

  “Nor would they,” nodded Falthwën. “The Vault predates Ïsriba by many hundreds of Sevens! It even predates the ashes of the three kingdoms from whom Ulobir’s golden falcon first ascended!”

  “Three kingdoms!” the commander muttered. “Knew it!”

  “No one knows about this place? this Vault?” Zhalera shivered. The absence of light and the ever-present breezes robbed the warmth from their bones. “Wouldn’t someone have found if after all those Sevens?”

  “It’s not exactly beneath Ïsriba,” he conceded.

  “Loshar shusa, Sharuyan!” intoned a voice that made the room shake. A woman’s voice, sweet and pure and emanating from somewhere above them—no! all around—no! right beside them! Kalas whirled and, next to Falthwën, a spark no larger than a pinprick popped into view from some separate existence. It hovered in space for a moment before a familiar crack of violet light blinded everyone again.

  “Well met indeed, Loradan, ilmazhasahal!”

  “Sharuyan?!” gasped Zhalera.

  “Of course!” Kalas laughed. “Oh, so many things make sense now! Tzharak had you figured out, didn’t he?”

  “To be fair, he had an almost nine-hundred-year head start!” the cleric winked.

  “What do—wait! You mean Falthwën is—?” blurted Rül.

  Pava dropped to her knees, bowed her head in reverence.

  “Ilbarsh pïn alasdra: aswanthit paramahal-sulumme!”

  “Please, my child! None of that! I’m the one who should be seeking forgiveness. From all of you! So much is changing: so much as happened so quickly—from an erudas perspective, at least! Oh! My manners! Friends and fellow-travelers, allow me to introduce to you Loradan, my—”

  “‘Beloved,’” interjected Kalas. “That’s what you called her, right?”

  Falthwën—Sharuyan—offered him a knowing smile, and with a gesture, he willed light to fill the room.

  “Loradan, I have a gift for you,” he said as he held out Hàfilrifar. “I’ve searched for it for…well, you know!”

  The eru accepted her old weapon with awe, ran her finger along its light-cleaving edges.

  “So that’s how you made all that racket! I heard my name, like someone shouting from a great distance—through an even greater fog. When I turned to look, I saw the light…I knew—I just knew it had to be you!” she exclaimed, “but where—when—did you ever find this?!”

  “Lohwàlar, of all places! Trapped within a fragment of the Arch! Some might consider it a coincidence: you and I know better! I’m glad I was finally able to return it to you,” he said as she held him tight.

  “Falthwën, I’m—should we call you Falthwën? Sharuyan?” stammered Zhalera. “I said some things on the way here that I’d like to take
back. I didn’t know…didn’t understand…”

  Sharuyan cupped her downturned chin and raised it up. He held her gaze for a moment, then swept her into his embrace and said, “All is forgiven, my child.”

  “Oho! What’s this?!” said a new voice as another spark—tinted blue—winked into view before assuming human form. “An egu inside the Vault?”

  Other lights split the darkness, adding their respective hues to the room’s increasing brightness. Now Kalas saw that it had seven faceted sides, similar to the Temple beneath Lohwàlar’s Sanctuary yet immeasurably greater. Each face appeared to have been cut from some kind of otherworldly stone, ground and polished to mirrored perfection. Looking up, he could see neither ceiling nor stars: just black where the lights’ power waned. Seven arcane symbols, each constructed of inlaid gemstones, radiated from an eighth, jewel-less symbol at the Vault’s center. Between these seven walls, Falthwën introduced the arrivals:

  “Loradan you’ve met. This is Sifuran, Peradan, Yayan, Heshradan…Where’s Valaran?”

  Silence.

  “You don’t know…” someone soothed.

  “An ekume singularity,” Loradan explained. “She and Peradan were observing the signs and portents when it happened…”

  “Both of us might have been undone had she not expended all her strength to save me,” said a morose-looking figure. The spessartine eru. Peradan.

  Sharuyan nodded, wiped at the corner of his eye. “I knew a day like this would come,” he sighed, having permitted himself a moment. “Still…I’d hoped to reacquaint her with—Zhalera, would you show these erume your sword?”

  Puzzled, she held the weapon aloft. The assembled stars murmured and nodded. Some smiled.

  “Beautiful work, as always!” someone said. Yayan? The ruby eru?

  “I was taught that my ancestors forged this sword,” she frowned, assuming she understood Falthwën’s intent.

  “Oh, one of them most assuredly did, young lass!” Sifuran was quick to affirm. “Valaran—o shelu fîe ëth nir—made something of a name for herself assisting skilled artisans and makers, helping them improve their art and science. Sometimes, she’d suffuse a piece with a portion of her essence: what you might perceive as patterns of light coming from within.”

  “Oh!” she said, now smiling. “But I’ve only ever seen the lights when Falthwën held it…”

  “You’ve a number of Sevens ahead of you: I wouldn’t let it bother you just yet,” the eru said with a wink.

  During this demonstration, the eru Heshradan had kept a close eye on Kalas. When Zhalera lowered her sword, he approached the boy.

  “Two Sevens,” he said, his eyes far away. “Tell me child: Màla? Tàran? Are they well?”

  “They’re dead,” said Kalas. “Rudzhegume.”

  Heshradan reacted as though struck.

  “Kalas! I’m so sorry!” he wept.

  “You knew my parents?”

  Through his tears, the eru offered him a subtle nod and a sad smile. Kalas’ eyes opened wide: “You’re the one who left me with them!”

  “I am,” he nodded again.

  “Does that mean you know where I come from? Who my birth parents are?”

  “Yes and no,” said Heshradan with a guarded tone.

  “Oh, right,” Kalas remembered. “Falthwën—Sharuyan, sorry!—says he couldn’t tell me, either.”

  “Rül,” said Sharuyan as he approached the farm boy. “These represent the Kel Erume—the Kathin Sâash that your grandfather told you about! I thought you’d be pleased to know his stories had their roots in truth!”

  Rül smiled, nodded as his grin threatened to split his ruddy cheeks. “Wish I could tell him about meeting you all, that’s for sure,” he said. “The Great Swath! I wonder what other stories of his were true?”

  The zhàrudzh stirred at last, Marugan’s arrow still protruding from his matted fur. A thin trickle of that black, oily substance dripped onto the polished floor.

  “In the dungeon, he helped us,” Kalas repeated, addressing the assembled erume. He poked it with the tip of his sword. “No idea why.”

  Falthwën knelt, the creature’s eyes following his every move. Gingerly, he placed a hand over the exposed portion of the shaft so that his index and middle fingers straddled either side. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, frowned as he opened them.

  “I can’t…see,” he said to the wolf. “You understand?”

  The beast nodded, yelped as the movement triggered new pain. “Do what you must, cleric,” it growled.

  Falthwën traced familiar shapes in the air while Loradan whispered phrases from the Song.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. The wolf nodded again, closed its eyes and howled as Falthwën ripped the arrow from its chest. Its eyes flew open as viscous filth and black fumes spurted from the wound. The cleric held up a hand for Kalas to keep his distance as he harmonized with Loradan. After a few moments, its howls became sobs, and its massive shape seemed to shrink: its furred skin shriveled, and split as the haunting yellow light in its watery eyes dimmed, leaving them with the appearance of clouded glass.

  2.

  “Is he—?” Kalas wondered, asking the question on everyone’s mind.

  “I think he’ll be all right, but honestly, I don’t know, said Falthwën. “His music is changed…I’ve never done this before!”

  “Nor should you have,” said Sifuran as he jabbed a toe at the smoking, crumpled heap. It shivered from the contact, but the egu remained where it lay, covered with the macabre blankets that had recently been its skin. “Egunàm have always lorded their position over us. Would have been better to let the ekudas arrow unskin it, I say.”

  “Perhaps,” allowed Falthwën, “but, as the boy said, he did help us. I’d understand his reasons before returning him to the shosathesh.”

  “Hmmph! I’m not convinced,” Sifuran dismissed as he stepped away from the spectacle.

  “He’s waking!” said Yayan, who’d been keeping an eye on the fallen figure. The others stopped their conversations and surrounded him as he righted himself and the last vestiges of his former skin fell away. There, arms and legs wrapped around his shivering, naked frame, sat Nïmrïk.

  “Again?!” Kalas exclaimed.

  “You…you know this rudzhegu?” said Peradan, his eyebrow arched.

  “No, not really—not as such, anyway! Nïmrïk! What are you doing here? How did you—no, never mind: how long—why— have you been following us?!”

  “Looks like you were right about the man in the next cell, Kalas,” said Pava, a hand on Rül’s forearm.

  As Nïmrïk continued to shiver, Falthwën whispered something to Loradan. She nodded and seemed to shimmer for no more than a fraction of a second: when she resolved, she held a simple robe which she draped around Nïmrïk’s shoulders.

  “It was right where you thought it would be,” she told Falthwën. “I…moved it to a safer place. I’ll show you later.”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Kalas said, addressing the egu. “Singing the other night?”

  “Aye, lad, that it was…maybe someday, I’ll get it right. That’s my hope, at least, unlikely as it seems.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You asked why I was following you. For how long. I heard the emerald thunder—its music—when it fell, just over a month ago: that had to mean that others of…my kind…had stepped out of the shadows enough to rouse the ire of Sharuyan. I tried to find you then, but…I failed. The Song…

  “Now, I’ve been searching for elume for millennia: my estranged brothers and sisters would have nothing to do with me, and, really, I don’t blame them at all. With nowhere to go, nothing left to lose, I decided to approach the erume. Most suspected I was up to something, which came as no surprise. I knew I’d need an opportunity to prove my worth.

  “Sevens came and went with little progress. Perhaps a handful of erume came to view me with a touch less suspicion than at first, but it wasn’t enough: my music stil
l clashed with Zhi Helimi, sounded like fingernails on slate in my mind. I lost hope. Assumed the best I could attain was a life among edhunàm attired as one of them. I forswore my otherform and tried to blend in as best I could.

  “For Sevens, I wandered from kingdom to kingdom, watched some fall and others rise as I attempted to unmake my ancient sin. In Kësharan, on the Night of Falling Skies, I hoped I’d find the opportunity I sought, but I arrived too late. That’s where I first saw you, Sharuyan, as you walked among its rubble. I kept my distance, watched as you rescued that child. I followed you for a while after that, kept an eye on the boy: I thought maybe I could protect him somehow when you departed…I forget the name of the town where you left him. Doesn’t matter: other erume chased me away, assuming, no doubt, that I intended to visit evil upon him. None was interested in an explanation, and so I walked away.

  “I wandered the earth for dozens of Sevens until I ended up in Thosha. It seemed a nice enough place. Until Liro, proprietor of that…ill-reputed place of his, started pursuing darker things. I’d become something of a regular there—no, not for that!—as unsavory as its reputation was, its customers provided a wealth of information. As someone who knew all too well the end of the road Liro traveled, I felt compelled to do something. I pictured notes in my mind. Notes remembered from under Kësharan all those Sevens ago, and willed them into music. I didn’t know if it would work, but not long after, Sharuyan and Loradan came to town. Maybe they’d had business in Thosha all along, but inside, I felt a spark of something I hadn’t known for a long, long time.

  “When you left, while Mbirin crafted something new from the wreckage her father had wrought, Liro returned. I’d offered her my services as something of a hired hand, and I happened to be there when he tried to…

  “I killed him. There’s no other way to say it. Maybe it wasn’t my place, but I couldn’t stand by while he tried to murder his daughter!

  “After that, I fled. Stayed away, wandered the countryside until I heard about Mbirin’s passing.