by J. F. Lewis
Yavi fitted another arrow as she turned, releasing it in surprise. The newcomer, an Aern wearing smoked lenses, bone-steel mail, and carrying a warpick, took the arrow in the chest. He reached up and pulled the arrow free, with no more sign of anger or pain than a raised eyebrow. “That sort of greeting, I’d expect from the Oathbreaker.”
“Bloodmane,” Yavi gasped.
“My warsuit; not me. I’m Kholster,” he handed her back the arrow heedless of the near-orange blood that stained its tip, “but you already knew that.”
“You have to help Dolvek,” Yavi said. “He was . . .”
“Bitten by a Zaur in rut.” Kholster circled the fallen Eldrennai twice before kneeling to examine his wounds. “Pulled its tongue out. Almost impressive.”
Dolvek blinked furiously, trying, Yavi thought, to focus on Kholster. After a few moments of trying, the prince coughed once and slumped to the ground, unconscious.
“He’ll be dead by morning.” Kholster spat on the prince and sat down, his back against the central obelisk, warpick resting across his knees.
“You can’t help him?” Yavi asked.
“Won’t.” Kholster closed his eyes, a smile crashing against the edge of his lips and dying there, unsuccessful.
“What?” Yavi demanded. “Why not?”
“I want him dead. He’s an Oathbreaker.” His eyes flicked open. The amber pupils glowed dimly. “I want them all dead.”
“Is it something I can do?” Yavi took a few steps closer, kneeling down in front of Kholster.
“A cure for Zaur venom is our birthright, but no Aern would lift a finger to help an Eldrennai, much less this one . . .” He let the rest of his explanation die on his lips and shook his head before continuing. “If you want to help the Eldrennai, you should go back to Ammond and tell Grivek his son is dying. Tell him to send out the eldest one,” he gestured absently, “Rivvek. No. Wait. He’s one of mine now. Tell the old king to come himself. If he’s lucky, he’ll die before his child. That’s what parents want. I’ll be here when you get back. I might even leave them something to bury. Do you think I should eat him now or wait for the poison to kill him first?”
That someone could hate another people so much was almost beyond Yavi. She stared at the Aern, half-hoping it was some cruel jest but knowing it wasn’t.
“One of yours?” Yavi asked.
“Aiannai. My own scars, for that one.” Kholster’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not that surprising to have found a few hundred Eldrennai who weren’t really Oathbreakers.”
“Explain that,” Yavi ordered.
“If I have to explain it,” Kholster said softly, “then it has no meaning.”
CHAPTER 43
FIGURES IN THE CLOUDS
Kilke chuckled at Kholster’s words, scratching absentmindedly at the stump between his two remaining heads, the sound of blue talons on his deeply purple flesh like a tiger rending a burlap sack. Peering unseen into Kholster’s angry gaze, Kilke’s eyes thrummed with a subtle silver glow, casting strange shadows on his brow.
Those same shadows occasionally withdrew from his face completely as if needing to be refreshed by the chimerical garb of living shadow he wore. Then, suddenly, he was clad in full plate wrought of blackest pitch covering every inch of him, even going so far as to encase the massive horns adorning his two remaining heads, the next moment, the plate gave way to voluminous hooded robes.
“Are you sure I can’t choose him as my champion, Torgrimm?”
Kilke knew the answer already, but goading the Harvester of Souls was one of the dark god’s favorite hobbies.
“You know the answer, Kilke.” Torgrimm materialized next to the god of secrets and shadows, clad in bone armor reminiscent of an Aernese warsuit.
“Still wearing the warsuit?” Kilke’s laughed boomed. “Decided to give Dienox a good thumping, or did my sister ask you to play dress-up?”
Ignore the bait like a good little god and spell out the rules again, Kilke thought. You know you want to do it.
Kilke had memorized the speech. It was the same every Conjunction. Kilke would ask if he could make Kholster his champion. Torgrimm would say, “Other than myself and my wife Minapsis, any deity may choose a mortal soul as champion, but it must be one I have delivered into a being and that in time I shall collect and deliver to her . . .” He would pause, wave his hand to the statue of his goddess wife standing beside him, “. . . safe keeping. The first One Hundred Aern may not be chosen. Their souls are the creation of the Eldrennai wizard, Uled. I am not required to collect them nor am I required to accept them as candidates in the competition.”
Kilke waited. The speech did not come.
The Harvester? Up to something? How interesting.
“No lecture?” Dressed in plain brown robes with a golden book tucked under his arm, Aldo appeared in the air above his statue, choosing to appear as a noble Eldrennai rather than sport the empty-socketed visage which Kilke knew to be his more true self.
“None.” Torgrimm shook his head. “You have chosen to play games with the souls of mortals once again. Another grand game. I merely hope the souls of those involved will not suffer too greatly. Whenever you all do this, I have to reincarnate half of the players.”
“Calm yourself, Harvester,” said a golden-haired goddess. Sunlight and starshine radiated from beneath her eyelids, the eyes themselves unseen.
“I am quite calm, Shidarva.”
“Majesty.” Kilke bowed. Usurper! he thought, struggling to mask his hatred of her. He longed to cleave her head from her neck and cast it down to the ruins of Alt for the fish to worship—if Queelay would allow such a thing.
“I see Dienox’s new champion has been laid low,” Shidarva said, stepping past him.
“He should have sided with me.” Kilke turned to speak directly to Aldo, giving Shidarva his back. “Dienox spent all that time cloaking the Zaur from the Eldrennai and the Vael to make sure the war was large enough . . . I will never understand the desire for a drawn-out victory.”
“So you’ve chosen a Zaur as champion? This Xastix, perhaps?” Shidarva asked.
“Aldo knows my choice, as required.” Kilke brought the talons of his right hand together in a point, the shadows wrapping around them to form gauntlets, resting against his lips. “I have no desire to ruin the surprise when you meet them.”
“Them? If you have broken the rules—” Shidarva began, but her voice was cut off by a roar. Xalistan, lord of the hunt, master of wilderness, emerged from the clearing’s edge, tossing back his massive irkanth head in a second roar, his tremendous leathery wings spread wide in a threatening display.
“I may quake with fear eventually,” Kilke yawned. “I wasn’t ready. Try a third time.”
Xalistan bared his leonine teeth, an expression Kilke met with an indolent smirk.
“No one is cheating,” Aldo said with all the emotion of a bored schoolmarm. “I would know.”
You should know, Kilke thought. In the past, I would have gone so far as to be sure you would know. But do you? Do you really? It would be almost worth it to test you.
“What did you do to him?” Dienox appeared in a burst of flame, soaking wet and smelling of the sea. He crouched over Dolvek with a snarl. “Get up, fool!”
*
Dolvek could hear many voices arguing over his body. Words slid through his head with little impact as he flowed in and out of consciousness. He had an impression of Yavi arguing passionately with the Grudgebearer. Warmth flooded him. She’s fighting for me.
“Kholster, please,” Yavi laid the back of her hand against his shoulder. “Compared to you he is just a child. If you won’t help him yourself then surely you can help me to help him.”
“If I must,” the Grudgebearer said slowly. “I will tell you how to make the antidote to the Zaur poison, but you must make it yourself, and you must promise . . .” Other voices rose up, obscuring the Grudgebearer’s next words.
“Ha! He’s going to help him. I s
till have a chance!” one voice shouted over the murmurs of the others.
“Perhaps you will at that, Dienox,” said an oily-sounding voice, “but you can’t rely on the Aern to rescue him every time he . . .”
“On the contrary,” interrupted a cold, distant voice. “The Aern are reliable to a fault. If the Eldrennai manage to enlist their aid . . .”
“ . . . All right,” a soft, warm voice said. “Will these risaberries do?”
“Yes, Yavi,” Kholster answered. “Crush them with the helva root. You want to blend them gently until they’re very purple, but if the mixture is too dark you’ll have to start over.”
“How dark is too dark?”
“Stop. Let me see what you have. You want it a few shades darker than that, but not . . .”
The words of the Aern drained away to silence, once more replaced by other, more insistent, voices. Strange beings appeared at the edges of Dolvek’s perception. One of them stood in better focus than the rest, an Aern in bone armor. He crossed to stand directly over the feverish Eldrennai and said nothing, but Dolvek knew him instantly.
“Are you going to collect him, Torgrimm?” asked a scholarly voice. “Is it time?”
“Lord Torgrimm,” Dolvek muttered weakly. “Harvester of Souls.”
“He’ll either die here or take the first hammer blow of his forging,” Torgrimm answered, his eyes locked with Dolvek’s. “It is not up to me, I simply collect them: the fulfilled, the unlucky, the unwilling.”
“Unwilling?” asked someone impatiently.
“Yes,” Torgrimm continued. The Harvester bent low, his breath surprisingly cool on Dolvek’s fevered brow. “The fulfilled are those who die having accomplished all that they meant to do. Some are old, some are young. But they welcome my embrace. They miss their world, but they are ready for me to take them to the next one.”
Hot jagged pain lanced through Dolvek’s entire body and he screamed.
“It’s hurting him.” Yavi’s voice echoed in the distance.
“There is a final ingredient,” Kholster said, sounding to Dolvek as though he were somewhere deep beneath the ground. “Without it, the antidote is a poison more deadly than the venom itself.” Or perhaps it was simply that Dolvek now seemed to soar above them. A man in bronze armor coalesced next to him. Other figures sprang in focus as well, a woman, regal and dressed in white, a two-headed monster, a human girl with flaming hair . . .
“I can see them,” Dolvek gasped. “I can see the gods!”
“The unlucky are many,” Torgrimm continued, bending even lower so that his weight bore down on the prince’s chest. “The murdered, those who die in accidents . . . they had no choice in their own deaths. When I come for them, they are bewildered and confused. It is different for the unwilling.”
All of the gods faded away, except for the Harvester. His callused hand, warmer and more comforting than Dolvek had expected, touched the Eldrennai’s forehead, and the god seemed to apply gentle pressure. As the pressure increased, Dolvek felt himself propelled downward, back into his pain-wracked body. Yavi’s and Kholster’s outlines returned and snapped into sudden definition, though he could still see the form of the Harvester bending over him.
Do you want to come with me now? Torgrimm’s eyes asked him.
“No.”
Very well, an eyeblink seemed to say.
Yavi shook her head as Kholster offered a knife to the Vaelsilyn. “I can’t,” she protested, pressing her knuckles against his wrist, pushing the knife away without entrapping his arm. She is in awe of him, Dolvek thought, his mind drifting. Why can’t she treat me that way? “A Vael would never . . .”
“It is the only way that he can live,” the other said firmly. “The blood of an Aern is the final ingredient. I will shed none for an Eldrennai, but for the Vael, I will offer it gladly; you have simply to collect it.”
“No!” Dolvek protested weakly, “I will not . . . I cannot allow myself to be . . .” His skin grew paler and his breath more ragged. The thought of being saved with the blood of a Grudgebearer was unacceptable.
The Harvester of Souls leaned closer to Dolvek’s face, the god’s mouth almost touching his lips. As Torgrimm spoke, Dolvek felt himself begin to lose hold of his own body. “The unwilling come to me full of emotions: hate, fear, loathing, despair. They try to lecture me, to protest that it was not fair, to blame anyone but themselves.”
Torgrimm sneered at Dolvek as if he were a loathsome thing. “The unwilling die because they are not willing to live. They whine and mewl, but their deaths are on their own hands, not mine. I kill no one. I deliver. I collect.” Torgrimm rose in one motion as Yavi took the knife from Kholster. As she drew it free, Dolvek saw Kholster tighten his grip on the blade, causing it to slash his palm.
Drops of orange blood fell from the wound, hot and scalding on Dolvek’s cheek, bitter and peppery in his mouth.
“There,” exclaimed a distant voice. “Aern’s blood. The antidote is complete! Was it soon enough, Torgrimm?”
“That is not up to me, Dienox,” Torgrimm said acidly. “As I’ve explained before, I do not choose. I could, but I have never done so. I collect only upon death. I am never late, but neither am I early.”
“I want to live,” Dolvek whispered.
You have not stopped living, the god’s gentle voice echoed in Dolvek’s mind.
Hovering over his prone form, Yavi looked into the young elf’s eyes, then back to Kholster. “Will he live?”
“Not if we’re lucky,” the Aern answered dryly. “A warrior has to fight to survive. The only fighting blood in this one is what he just swallowed.” He clenched his fist again over Dolvek’s face, and one last orange droplet struck the prince’s cheek.
Darkness crept in around the edges and his vision began to fade, but Dolvek fought, raging voicelessly against the Zaur, against Kholster, and most of all against that part of himself which thought it would all be easier if he simply gave up and went with Torgrimm to the next life.
“Not yet,” he murmured feverishly as he drifted from semiconsciousness into healing slumber. It was not a restful sleep, nor did he dream. He had no time for dreams. Dolvek had accepted the first hammer blow of his forging; he was too busy fighting.
CHAPTER 44
THE THREE RACES
OF ELVES
Yavi watched as Kholster slammed together two fist-sized blocks of obsidian, each carved with sharply chiseled runes. When they met, the stones merged and the runes blazed red. Kholster set the combined block on the ground near the fallen Eldrennai and sighed.
“That will keep him warm.”
Yavi felt the heat from the stone even where she stood, several feet away. “Is that a Dwarven Hearth Stone?” she asked.
Kholster smiled broadly, revealing his doubled canines. Combined with the light of the Hearth Stone it lent a demonic cast to his features. “No,” he answered softly. Yavi marveled at how gentle his voice sounded, so different from the cold, angry tones he had used when helping her make the antidote for the Zaur venom. “It’s an Aernese Hearth Stone, but yes, Dwarves made it.”
He pointed to the top of the glowing Stone. “A Dwarven Hearth Stone would have an indentation on top.”
“What for?” asked Yavi, coming closer to inspect the Stone.
“To deactivate it. It would cool and then separate.”
“So Aernese Hearth Stones are only good for one use?”
“No. We pick them up and pull them apart to turn them off,” he answered, miming the action with his hands.
“That sounds painful,” Yavi said, blanching at the thought.
“It can be,” Kholster said glibly, then chuckled. “To be honest, most of us just use our warpicks.” He lifted his and swung it in a careful arc. As its tip struck the exact center of the Hearth Stone, a small line appeared and the blocks began to separate. Withdrawing the tip before the two stones completely parted, Kholster slung the weapon on his back once more. “It’s an excellent test of pr
ecision and muscle control.”
“I can see that,” Yavi acknowledged. “What about Dolvek? Will he live?”
Kholster walked over to Dolvek’s prone form, crouched to inspect the wound on his shoulder, and then dug his fingers sharply into it, eliciting a loud groan from the slumbering Eldrennai.
“It seems likely,” Kholster told her. “It’s hard for me to care.” He showed Yavi his palm where she had cut him. The wound was already closed; only a thin orange line marked the cut, and as she watched even that faded to match the surrounding bronze skin. “Eldrennai heal too slowly for me to be sure, but if he can feel pain and react to it, then he might recover.” He shrugged. “If not, you can always get a replacement from Port Ammond.”
“Don’t be so callous,” Yavi admonished. “I could have been dead without him.”
“No,” Kholster disagreed. “I would have interfered if you’d been alone.”
Yavi glared at him, then turned away and walked to one of the ancient ehmar trees. Its leaves were broad and round, and from beneath its bark the tree spirit peeked out at the three humanoids.
“How long did he stand there?” Yavi asked. “Did you see him, Ehmar-ama?”
A round, fat head pushed out from beneath the bark. “See?” it asked. “I see him, that one, many times, Pretty One, but for how long which time? Too many times is he here, that one. Always arguing and fighting, but never with fire. Heats rocks, that one. Puts out fire, that one. Never brings it.”
“Thank you,” Yavi said politely, then she stomped her foot and looked petulantly at Kholster. “It doesn’t know.”
“Then why don’t you ask me again?” Kholster asked as he walked past the obelisk and the statues of the gods, out onto the pier. Formed from the same material as the obelisk, it extended out into the water of the Bay of Balsiph. On the end of the pier, the same words floated, written in all the known tongues of Barrone, including some which were no longer recognized. On Kholster’s back, the spirit within his warpick flowed up its hilt and perched on his shoulder like a bird of prey. The same bright orange as Kholster’s blood, the spirit watched Yavi with amber-colored eyes. It looked away from her and shrieked angrily at the obelisk. Kholster laughed.
