Fighting against the fear and horror rising in his throat, his thoughts, his every fiber, Kalas made a grab for the object, willed it to produce the same fire his departed mentor had summoned from it. Failed.
“Heshradan’s right!” Loradan insisted as she swatted away her own tears. “There are too many of them! Sharuyan was right, too: it’s up to you to protect her! Protect them all!”
Before Kalas could defy the amethyst star—before he could insist he and the others remain and help avenge Falthwën’s undoing, she hurled everyone from the Vault in a dazzling blare.
5.
“You’re here!” whispered a familiar voice. “When Loradan returned Rül’s coach to me, I had a feeling I’d be seeing you soon: but that was almost a month ago!”
“Yëlisha!” Zhalera said and wrapped her arms around the innkeeper, careful not to upset the single lamp she held aloft.
“Hish, child! And it seems you’ve made some changes to your party?”
Kalas hadn’t moved. Hadn’t said a word as the lavender fronds of Loradan’s push flickered into nothingness. Still holding Falthwën’s staff, he looked around, recognized the room in which he and the others had stayed almost a month ago, according to Yëlisha. It seemed to him like she’d heard the noise of their arrival and had come to investigate.
“Falthwën—Sharuyan!—is…dead. Gone. I don’t know,” he mumbled. “An eku tore him apart right in front of us. Loradan’s the one who sent us here…”
“De! De! It can’t be!” she insisted as she collapsed upon one of the beds.
“Loradan and the others were still fighting. I don’t know…I hope they got out in time.”
“Kalas, I’m so sorry,” she wept. “All of you, I’m so very sorry! Please: consider this place yours for as long as you need.
“Thank you, shâu,” he said with a bow. “This is Abarandal. Commander Nashmur, and—”
Nïmrïk had landed behind the foot of one of the beds. Still resembling a wolf, he stood, shook himself out.
“An egu followed you!” she bristled.
“No, it’s all right!” said Zhalera, whom Yëlisha had thrust behind her. “Nïmrïk’s not like any other!”
“Nïmrïk?!” the buxom woman exclaimed. “You don’t mean…”
“She does, Yëlisha,” he answered for himself, and he told her some of the story he’d already told the others.
“For Sevens? Really?” she marveled. “And Grandmother had no idea?”
“None, I hope.”
“It’s former Commander, actually,” said Nashmur as he sheathed his sword. “I can’t imagine the Queen—uh, regent (that’ll take some getting used to!)—would suffer a traitor in her midst!”
Abarandal made a low curtsy, her shimmering vestments casting myriad, multicolored sparkles along the walls.
“That’s a lovely dress!” Yëlisha winked. Abarandal smiled, looked to Kalas, and uttered a few bars.
“And your voice!”
“She can’t talk,” Kalas explained. “Only sing. She says thank you for your condolences: Sharuyan was…something like a grandfather to her.”
Yëlisha waved the young woman to her side and held her for a moment.
Kalas tapped Falthwën’s staff on the floor with a few absent- minded clicks, wracked his brain in search of some idea of—
“What do we do next, Kalas?” Pava asked him. In spite of their disastrous circumstances, he smiled.
“Great question,” he conceded. “I…have no idea. I need to protect Abarandal—that was Falthwën’s last instruction to me. From what, he didn’t say. Maybe he didn’t need to.
“We need information. We need education. Loradan said we roam the detritus of a broken world: Yayan said they had an opportunity to prevent the world’s cracking but didn’t take it because of fear. We can’t let that happen to us: we can’t let fear paralyze us like it did the erume.”
“But we’re not erume!” insisted Zhalera. “We—”
“That’s exactly the point!” Kalas shook his head. “I’m barely past my second Seven, but I—all of us, I’d say!—have experienced fear enough to last us a thousand Sevens! I can’t help wondering if the erumedas experiences over all those millennia might have made them second-guess themselves. I don’t know the extent of what their ‘opportunity’ might have been, but if it was in accordance with their prophecy—the one from before the world was cracked…the way they were talking, I think Abarandal had something to do with it then, too. Would have, anyway, had they…summoned her like they did beneath the Vault.
“We know she can’t speak—not with words. If Valaran had been there, perhaps she would have been able to provide a voice for her. It’s doubtful we’ll ever know for sure. But she can sing! There’s meaning in her song—which, I’m certain, is a brand-new movement within The Song! Falthwën and the others knew it: Nïmrïk, you know it too, don’t you? I saw the way you listened when she first opened her mouth!”
“I do,” he growled. Not in anger nor malice: in his otherform, his voice retained its darker attributes.
“‘The music of Creation.’ ‘The cord of Ilun’s intent.’ That’s how Falthwën described The Song. He never explained why most people never hear it—or why some do—but we all hear Abarandal when she sings. That’s important. That’s new. And that’s what we have to understand.”
“But with Falthwën…gone, with the other erume fighting against the ekume, who can possibly explain these things to us?” said Pava.
“I have someone in mind,” admitted Kalas.
“Back in Lohwàlar!” Zhalera supplied with a knowing grin.
“You’re talking about Tzharak, aren’t you?” said Rül. “He’s old, he’s been around for more than a hundred Sevens, sure, but will he know how to help us?”
“Tzharak?!” said Nïmrïk, ears turned forward.
“That’s right!” Zhalera realized. “You said you’d kept an eye on the boy Falthwën rescued from Kësharan, but couldn’t remember the name of the village where he left him. It was Lohwàlar—our home!”
“And this Tzharak is still alive?! How is that possible?!” the egu marveled.
“Maybe you can ask him that yourself,” suggested Kalas. “Yëlisha, if you’ll permit it, I think we all could use a few days to get some rest. To come to terms with what’s happened—and try to anticipate what happens next.”
“You know I will, young man!”
“I’d warn you that we have no way to pay for anything, but I’m sure you remain aware of that fact and wouldn’t accept our money if we had any.”
“You learn quickly!” she teased with a wink.
“Thank you. Now, Nashmur: I hope you’ll come with us? Something tells me we’ll run into Shosafin sooner or later—or he’ll run into us! And Nïmrïk, I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t see Dzharëth in you—the rudzhegu who killed my father—while you look…like that. But you helped us escape the dungeons under Ïsriba—and I saw you save Sifuran: I watched you bite through an eku when it would have been simpler—and safer!—to protect your own skin. I can’t promise any other Lohwàlarrinme would understand—should they ever learn your true nature, but I think Heshradan had the right idea about you. You’re welcome to accompany us along the way.”
“Do you mean it?” he panted, his tongue lolling from the side of his mouth as he adjusted his ears: almost like he wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly.
“I wouldn’t have said so if I didn’t,” said Kalas. “In a few days, we’ll set out for Lohwàlar—”
“Dancer! Runner!” Rül interrupted. “The horses!”
“The what? Oh! Of course! Yes, your horses are fine! Loradan brought them with your coach! Your boys seemed to remember this place: in fact, they seem to think they own it!” Yëlisha chuckled.
Kalas continued, “I have no idea what we’ll find along the way. Maybe I’ll remember how to use The Song. Maybe I’ll learn how to use it in other ways. Maybe I won’t. I’ll worry about that later. If Iln
ëshras’ allies are stepping out of the shadows, if other kingdoms have their own ‘Marugans,’ who knows how long it’ll be before everything comes undone. Again. The egume know the prophecy. They hear The Song. Parts of it, at least, and we’d be naïve to think they—and the kingdoms they’re steering toward Ilnëshras’ ends—remain unaware of Abarandal’s presence: she is the great power fallen upon the realm of men. They’ll be coming for her. I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but we need to be prepared.
“In all but the most insignificant ways, I’m still just a child who misses his mom and dad, and, as much as I’d like to believe this prophecy we’ve heard so much about refers to someone—anyone!—other than me, I’ll trust Falthwën. I have no idea what he—what the others—expect me to do, but we’ll figure it out. We’ll try, at least. For whatever reason, it’s us who’ve been entrusted with Abarandal’s—maybe the world’s?—fate.
“Let’s return to Lohwàlar. Let’s talk to Tzharak, figure out what it is we can do to prevent another cracking of the world. We have a living portion of The Song no one—neither elu nor eru—has ever heard before! Maybe it’s not much. Maybe it’s more than we could ever imagine. Either way, it’s a start, sàmeyahal. It’s a start.”
Blake Goulette
October 2017
Holly Springs, North Carolina
Beneath the Vault of Stars Page 39
