Secrets of the Stonechaser (The Law of Eight Book 1)

by Nicholas Andrews

  “Nerris?”

  He released a heavy breath. “Rade. What are you doing here?” The old man held up a torch, which crackled as flame cast shadows upon his face.

  “Springing you, of course,” Rade said.

  “Did Qabala send you?”

  “No,” Rade said. “I am here on my own.”

  Nerris grunted. “I thought the Aeterna was your master now. She would have you flayed for this.”

  “You wrong her,” Rade said. “You of all people should know how much care she has for you. And yet, as with any one of us, we are capable of great evil, as well as love. Especially if we take up with the wrong crowd.”

  “The cult,” Nerris said. “What is it, really? I know you know something about all this.”

  Rade sighed. “The cult and the Tattered Man are but the representatives of the true horror known as Eversor. For thousands of years, he has been working toward finding passage into this world. If he were to do so, it would be the end of all as we know it. But the magicks needed to gain him entry are vast and complex. Even if his cult murders every man, woman, and child in Yagolhan, it will not be enough.”

  “Then if Qabala is convinced to conquer the eastern kingdoms...”

  “Precisely,” Rade said. “Years ago, your father, myself, and several companions sought to put an end to the Tattered Man’s machinations. We knew if we stopped him, we stopped the sorrow to come. But we failed. We only managed to seal him away temporarily. As long as he had followers, we knew he would return someday. Our quest cost your father his life, and I couldn’t understand why the prophecy of the faery queen had led me astray.”

  “But what is the Tattered Man? Where has he come from?”

  “Agent, herald, whatever you like. He is nothing but a manifestation of Eversor’s will, to prepare this world for his arrival.”

  Rade fumbled with a large ring and inserted one of the keys into the lock. It opened with a hollow click, and Rade opened the door to let Nerris through. He handed him his katana, still in its scabbard.

  “Thank you,” Nerris said. “So Eversor is from another world? He is not a god?”

  “Another world, of a sort,” Rade said. “It’s possible he comes from something beyond. His role in that particular plane remains a mystery. All which is known for sure is he wants to remake this world in his own image. And that involves destroying everything and starting over.”

  Rade beckoned him to follow, and they made their way through the corridors of the dungeons.

  “I realize now you’re the Catalyst foretold in the prophecy,” Rade whispered, “not your father. I thought Qabala was the other, the one to confront the Tattered Man and Eversor, the one to put an end to all of this and eject them from our world. But I believe I may have been mistaken there as well. That’s why you must go. If you stay, Qabala will never let you leave, and the cult will grow more powerful through her.”

  “I don’t know anything about prophecies,” Nerris said. “I’ve always believed men make their own destiny.”

  “True, prophecy should always be looked at as a guide,” Rade said. “But to the business at hand: Dume Lukas is not the only one who knows secret ways in and out of the Aeternica. I have friends in the city even after all these years, and they will hide you until Qabala gives up her pursuit. When that happens, you must make your way to the closest border as quickly as possible.”

  “But if I stay,” Nerris said, “I can talk to Qabala, reason with her—”

  “As I said before, you are not yet ready to believe in the prophecy of the faery queen,” Rade said. “You are too skeptical, Nerris. Your presence right now will play right into the Tattered Man’s manipulations. He will seek to use you and set you against Qabala, driving her further into his clutches. Besides, there is no reasoning with someone who considers herself invincible. You can help her most by leaving now.”

  “Where will I go?”

  “I am not without my own sense of the various realms and planes of existence which make up our world,” Rade said. “I’m not a prophet, but the time I spent in the shadow lands all those years ago left certain... voices in my head, as well. What they are telling me right now is that you should head home.”

  “Home?” Nerris scoffed. “Where is home to someone like me?”

  Rade shrugged. “You will find your way.”

  Nerris slumped against the corridor wall. “I don’t know what to do, Rade. For the first time in my life, I have no clear goal. Why don’t you come with me? We can figure it out together.”

  “I cannot,” Rade said. “I must stay with Qabala.”

  “Why? You don’t buy into this Eversor nonsense any more than I do. Why are you so adamant about serving Qabala?”

  Rade didn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, he turned to Nerris. “She is my daughter.”

  “What?” Nerris had not expected him to say that. He shook his head. “How... how is that possible?”

  “After your father died, I sought comfort with the one I loved,” Rade said. “We walked the shadow lands for many years, though it felt like such a short time to us. When we emerged back into this plane of existence, she was with child. The birth went hard on her, and she... well, unions such as ours were always going to be risky. We knew that. I attempted to take the baby back with me to my homeland. But when I crossed the border into Yagolhan, vagabonds fell upon me. My daughter was taken, and I was left for dead. I never knew what became of her until many years later, when I heard of a young woman uniting the various malcontents around Lhan Del into a political threat. She bore the same name as my long-lost daughter. I watched from afar until I was convinced she was the same little girl who had been ripped from my arms all those years ago. After she took Lhan Del, I joined her army as a common soldier, vowing to help her any way I could.”

  Nerris put a hand on the old man’s shoulder. “Does she know?”

  Rade shook his head. “No. How could I look her in the face and let her know I am the one responsible for the hard life she has suffered?” They came to a small alcove. Rade pushed on the wall, and a panel in the stone slid open, revealing a crevice. The air through the passage smelled dank and foul, and rushed out with a cold breeze. “This will take you down to the sewers. Follow the path until it comes out by the river. My people will be waiting for you.”

  “Thank you,” Nerris said. “I promise, I will return and get rid of this Tattered Man. I don’t know how, exactly, but he and I need to settle up as well. You just worry about keeping your daughter out of the crossfire.” He started down the tunnel, but turned back. “You should tell her, Rade. It might make a difference.” A thought struck him. “Wait, if she’s your daughter... that means she... and I... we’ve been—”

  Rade afforded him an amused smile before sliding the alcove back into place, leaving Nerris in the dark with only the torch to light his way. “You must leave. My time will be short before I’m missed up above. If circumstances had been different, I would have no objections to you as a suitor for Qabala. Given the situation, however, I’m afraid I must withhold my consent and end this courtship.”

  Nerris chuckled as he listened to Rade’s footsteps fade away. He turned toward the encroaching darkness, with only the flicker of a small torch to hold it at bay.

  PART TWO: XENEA DOLCHIN

  View High Quality Map Online

  Chapter Eleven

  NERRIS WOKE TO the steady tap-tap-tap of rain water. Not that he had been sound asleep in any case. He had sheltered under a large oak tree the night before, which kept him drier than the other trees of the forest. He resisted the urge to go back to sleep and sat up. The sound of rainfall intensified, and he figured he better move before a downpour caught him.

  He belted Noruken to his waist and grabbed his satchel before hurrying out in search of better shelter. This part of the world was known for its rapid shifts in weather, but he knew this oncoming storm was going to get worse before it got better. The morning mist made it difficult to see
the trail, and he found himself tripping over logs and roots stretching across the path.

  Nerris sighed. It had been too long since he had visited the Great Oak Forest. Woodland debris would have never hindered him back when he was twelve, when he knew the woods like an old friend. The forests of Faerna had not changed much since he left, unlike himself.

  As the rain picked up, Nerris used the satchel to shield his head. In times like these, it was easy to miss sleeping in a tent or a stuffy bed in some palace. A little breakfast, a mug of milk, and a warm body to share it with... but that had not worked out well for Nerris either.

  It had been almost six months since Rade spirited him from the dungeons of the Aeternica and out into the free world. His friends in the city proper had been true to their word; they sheltered Nerris for weeks while Qabala sent out patrols into the countryside, looking to bring him back. When she had finally given up, Rade sent a message for him to go. That was the last he ever heard from the old man.

  Nerris made his way north and then east, to the Raddonite border. He stopped in the ramshackle town of Coquimtal, a city which had been built for the purposes of trading Agossean slaves when Yahd the Enslaver had invaded the east thirty years prior. The town’s fortunes ended with the war and it was now a dump, caught between the Cosette Watershed and the jungle known as the Doni Zad with no reason to still exist.

  He wasted little time in hiring a guide to take him through the Watershed, a vast area of swampland surrounding the Cosette River and Lake Lilo. He journeyed north to Alicanos in time to get caught in a snowstorm, and waited until spring before continuing east. Rade told him to make his way home, and the Great Oak Forest was the only home Nerris had ever truly known. However, even the trees were not much of a solace. He had grown used to life on the march, listless nights before a battle, the Queen of the Yagols in bed beside him. He had not had a good night’s sleep since leaving Palehorse.

  The rain came down hard now, and Nerris made a run for the underside of an old beech. The main limb of the branch was as thick as two normal trees, having split off from one of the larger surrounding beech woods when it grew too long and heavy. A similar one stood on the outskirts of Haladast, he remembered, lying next to the huge tree it had fallen from, whose gray trunk bore carvings of their initials. He, Jhareth, and Dist used to play there as children, turning it into a fort, a house, or a castle, depending on whatever they imagined themselves becoming on a particular day.

  Though oaks were dominant enough to give the forest its name, the beeches were perhaps the most impressive looking. Some were so old it took two grown men to wrap their arms all the way around their trunks. Those ancient trees tended to shoot up a hundred feet into the air, and some went even higher. Returning beneath their familiar canopy was like being in the embrace of a long-lost parent.

  The squall soon moved on, and a few raindrops sprinkled down, dripping off leaves and bushes to fall to the moistened earth. Nerris trudged through the grass and mud, cursing the mess they made of his boots. It was not as if he could purchase new ones at his leisure. All the money he earned through his soldiering had been left somewhere back in his room at the Aeternica; no doubt Qabala had decided to requisition it back to her own treasury. He sighed again. It had been quite a hefty sum, too.

  As he reoriented himself, Nerris found he did not recognize this part of the wood. He knew the way to Haladast well, and should have been no more than half a day south of the village. But in straying from the footpaths and going cross-country, he had somehow gotten himself lost.

  He was about to turn back and find the path again, until the rain’s tap-tap-tap reduced itself to a whisper, accompanied by a stiff breeze. A new sound replaced it, a muffled sobbing. Nerris turned his head toward the sound, but when he did so, it seemed to come from another direction, though far off. Nerris trampled through the foliage, attempting to hone in on the location of the noise. A smell wafted into his nostrils as well, and he gagged in revulsion. The burnt homes of Gelnicka had emitted a similar odor.

  Looking around, Nerris found a stout beech to climb. The thick, evenly spaced limbs made it easy to get above the forest canopy, where the surrounding trees were more visible. A glance to the north revealed smoke rising from a clearing a short distance away.

  Nerris clambered down the smooth, slick bark as quick and safe as he could, and hit the ground running. He headed north, crashing through the bushes and emerging into the clearing. Toward the opposite tree line, he spied the remains of a ruined house. The walls were gone, replaced by ash and cindered wood. The roof had collapsed, though some thatch had been saved by the rainfall. The rest had burnt away.

  He located the source of the sobbing. Several feet from the rubble, a tiny girl, no more than a child, sat on a tree stump, her knees drawn to her chest, arms wrapped around her shins. She was soaked from head to toe, and her body shook as she wept.

  Nerris approached her. “Pardon me, miss.”

  The girl looked up. Her green eyes stared forlornly, and she stood. She was not a child, as Nerris had first thought, but a grown woman. She had long, blonde hair dampened by the rain and wore a light, plain dress. Much like her face, it was covered in soot.

  The girl backed away from him. “Please. Please, go away!” She turned and ran, and Nerris moved after her.

  “Wait,” he called. “I’m not going to harm you!”

  The girl’s ankle caught on a root before she made it to the trees. She fell to the ground with a surprised gasp, and Nerris closed the distance. He knelt before her, wincing at the fall.

  “Ow,” she said, her tone much more comical than the weeping from a few moments before. She rubbed at her ankle.

  “Are you hurt?” Nerris asked.

  “I am sorry for running,” the girl said. “You startled me.”

  Nerris held out his arms. “Let me help.” She considered him for a moment, but grasped his hands. Nerris pulled her to her feet and let go. “Your ankle—”

  “I am all right,” the girl said, wiping the tears from her eyes, “though I cannot say the same for my home.”

  “What happened?”

  She sighed. “A stray ember from the fireplace, perhaps. I do not know. I was asleep. I went down to the creek with my bucket to try and put it out, but...”

  “Do you live here alone?” Nerris asked. “What I mean is, was anyone in there with you?”

  She shook her head. “No, I was alone. My mother has been gone for a year.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that,” Nerris said. “My mother is dead as well.”

  “Oh, no,” the girl said. “She is not dead. Just gone.”

  “Really?”

  “She said she had things to do,” the girl said, “and that I would need to live on my own, and be brave. That was the last I saw of her.”

  Nerris frowned. It sounded like her mother had abandoned her. It didn’t make sense to leave a young woman out in the woods by herself. Though fully grown, she was a little thing, the top of her head barely clearing Nerris’s chest.

  “I am sorry,” the girl said. “I have not given you my name, or thanked you for your concern. I am Len-Ahl.”

  Nerris gave her a smile he hoped was encouraging. “It’s nice to meet you, my faermaid. My name is Nerris.” He sat on the tree stump. “So what are you going to do? Do you have any relatives you could live with?”

  Len-Ahl shook her head. “No, my mother and I were the only ones here. You are the first traveler I have seen in some time.”

  That was not a surprise. The girl’s speech was so formal and correct that it sounded like she had never had a real conversation with the outside world. Nerris frowned. He hadn’t been much for company these past few months, but he could not leave her here with nowhere to go.

  “I’m heading north a ways, to a village called Haladast,” he said. “Ever been there?”

  “No,” Len-Ahl said. “I have never strayed far from this clearing. My mother told me the outside world is very wicked,
and I should never let the light of home out of my sight.”

  Nerris rolled his eyes. It was one of those. The Great Oak Forest played home to all sorts of strange folk, if one probed deep enough. Still, he had seen enough wickedness in the last few years to last a lifetime, so her mother was not wrong in her own simple way.

  “Well, unless you’re going to wait for enough laborers to wander in here to help rebuild your home, you’ve got nowhere to sleep tonight.”

  Len-Ahl cast her gaze downward. “True.”

  “Let me take you to Haladast,” he offered. “It’s full of good people who have never turned away those in need. Someone there will give you a place to stay until you figure out what you want to do.”

  “I do not know,” Len-Ahl said. “A village... I cannot imagine living close to such a large number of people.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Nerris said. “Besides, humans shouldn’t live in isolation like this. Before you know it, you’ll start talking to the oaks and people will be spreading tales about the crazy tree lady deep in the woods.”

  Len-Ahl giggled. “Maybe it is time.”

  Nerris stood and offered his arm. “Then come with me.”

  Len-Ahl grasped his arm and they walked back into the forest. It was lucky for her Nerris had come along. Once she got past her initial shock, Len-Ahl was very trusting, and it could have gone badly for her if the wrong sort of man happened on her.

  He found he had to slow his pace, since Len-Ahl’s short legs could not keep up with his long strides. They stopped for the evening, and Nerris built a fire, though he was not confident he could strike a flame with all the wet wood. If Dist were here, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Ever since they were little, his friend had been obsessed with fire. He could have poured some of his magic fuel on the logs, which was no magic at all, but a concoction of chemicals Dist had devised. Nerris didn’t know the secret recipe, since Dist had always guarded it like a daughter’s chastity, but the wood would have burned.