The Children of the White Lions: Volume 02 - Prophecy

by R. T. Kaelin

  Clean, unadulterated excitement flooded Tandyr’s veins. He had finally found one of them.

  The aicenai moved deliberately, padding ever closer to Tandyr. Halting a dozen paces away, he fixed Tandyr with a sharp, intelligent stare and sighed. The long, weary breath sounded eons old itself.

  Tandyr tilted his head, observing, “You sound tired.”

  “I am,” replied the aicenai. His voice reminded Tandyr of a faint breeze rustling through a field of tall grass “Very…very tired.”

  With a respectful incline of his head, Tandyr said, “The years have been hard on you, have they not?”

  The parchment-like skin around the aicenai’s eyes crinkled. “Your concern is as false as it is unnecessary.” Each word was spoken with a drawn out deliberateness. “My plight does not matter to you.”

  Tandyr shrugged, saying, “Believe what you must.” He paused a moment, half expecting the figure to disappear at any moment. “What are you called?”

  “Batta Badukralda.”

  Tandyr glanced over his shoulder, back to where the boy stood in the longhouse entryway.

  “You are young Menet’s storyteller, then, are you?”

  Batta ignored the question entirely, his bright eyes locked on Tandyr, legitimate confusion etched in the lines of his face. Leaning forward as if trying to see inside of Tandyr, he asked, “Which of the nine are you?”

  Tandyr smiled.

  “Surely you know that your talent will not work on me.”

  Batta nodded slowly.

  “I am aware. That is why I am asking the question. Which of the nine are you?”

  The question gave Tandyr a moment’s pause.

  “What do you mean? Which of the nine what?”

  The ancient aicenai shook his head.

  “Do not patronize me. I know what you are, what is housed in that saeljul’s form.”

  Curious, Tandyr took a number of steps closer to Batta.

  “How could you?”

  Time—and many mistakes—had taught Tandyr it was best he keep his identities, both of them, a closely guarded secret. Only a handful of individuals throughout all of Terrene knew who he truly was.

  Batta held his ground against Tandyr’s slow advance and, in a voice wheezing like a late-Harvest wind, said, “We discovered what the Suštinata was.”

  “Did you?” asked Tandyr.

  The aicenai nodded, his eyes narrowing.

  “It was only a matter of time before your kind came looking for it.”

  Tandyr could not hold back the grin that sought to spread wide over his face. His mortal heartbeat quickened even as he tried to temper his excitement. He needed to keep control of his emotions, else his true nature might escape. He took a deep, steadying breath.

  “So one of them is here, then?”

  With a slow nod, Batta said, “It is.”

  Tandyr’s heart pounded harder, accompanied by a sudden surge of suspicion. This was too good to be true. Halting in the street, he stared hard at Batta.

  “What game do you play with me, aicenai?”

  Batta shook his head.

  “I play no game.”

  Tandyr did not believe him.

  “You know what the Suštinata is?”

  “I do,” muttered Batta. “I have for nearly nine hundred years.”

  Cocking a surprised eyebrow, Tandyr asked, “Why did you not fulfill your promise?”

  “It was best the stone remain lost.”

  “You broke your oath.”

  A flicker of grimace touched Batta’s thin lips.

  “Regrettable, but necessary.”

  Lifting his gaze to the sprawling pine forest, the towering Yaubno Mountains to the north, and the rustic longhouses, Tandyr asked, “Why here?”

  Sadness trickled briefly over Batta’s wizened face. “When the others perished, I continued our charge for a time. However, I grew weary of hiding.” Looking around at the forest and mountains, he said, “We had studied in this valley long ago, and it pleased me. So, I came back.” His gaze drifted to the villagers behind Tandyr. “The people here are kind and quiet.”

  Tandyr was almost disappointed. He had expected that when he found one of the stones, it would be protected by a thousand mages or the army of three nations.

  “How long have you been here?”

  Batta shrugged.

  “I have lost count of the years. A few hundred or so.”

  Tandyr’s eyes grew wide. His search had been underway for eons. To discover that one of the Suštinata had been sitting in one place for so long, unprotected, was terribly frustrating.

  “Where is it?”

  Batta lifted a bony arm and pointed down the street, further into town. Swiveling his head, Tandyr spotted four wooden poles in the middle of the street, arranged around a gray stone pedestal. Four more logs rose from the posts at an angle, meeting at a point and providing the frame for a roof that was not there. Unlike the red, treated wood in the rest of the village, these poles were gray. Years of weather had leached any color from the wood.

  “The shrine?” muttered Tandyr.

  In small villages like Nentnay, worship to the entire pantheon of Gods and Goddesses was done in a single shrine like the one in the street. Only cities had temples.

  “The stone is there,” answered Batta. “I assure you.”

  In disbelief, Tandyr asked, “You left it out in the open?”

  Batta shook his head, a slight smile gracing his lips.

  “No, that would be unwise.”

  Tandyr glared at him, confused.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It is inside the box.”

  Tandyr looked back to the shrine and, for the first time, noticed a small black box resting atop the stone pedestal. He was so close.

  “You are going to simply give it to me?”

  “I am.”

  After countless years of frustration, innumerable dead ends, and dozens of failed attempts to find the Suštinata, finding one like this was terribly anticlimactic.

  Tandyr stared at Batta and shook his head. Something was not right here.

  “You truly have no intention of stopping me?”

  “I am but a scholar and a simple mage,” replied Batta. “I was the least talented of the Daputa Devet. How can I ever hope to stand against one of the Cabal?”

  A number of nearby villagers drew in quick breaths.

  Tandyr pressed his lips together and strode closer to the ancient figure, glaring at him as the villagers’ quiet murmuring rippled outward through the street.

  “You fool. I have to kill them, now.”

  Batta inclined his head sadly.

  “As I expected.”

  The villagers’ murmuring was growing louder by the moment, more agitated.

  Glowering at the aicenai, he muttered, “You know far less than you think, Batta. I had no intention of hurting anyone today.”

  Batta’s eyes widened a fraction, an unusual display of surprise for an aicenai, as Tandyr began to reach for a massive number of Strands of Air.

  Shaking his head, the God of Chaos said, “But now…now I must. Rumors cannot spread.” He glanced up into the air, knitting the Strands together. “You might be interested to know that this is the first stone we have found, Batta.”

  The aicenai’s wise, ancient eyes opened wide.

  “No…”

  “Oh, yes,” said Tandyr. “These people were fated to live long lives, Batta. Menet’s great-grandchildren would have been long dead at the rate we are going.”

  Batta’s gaze shot beyond Tandyr to rest upon the souls he had doomed.

  As Tandyr pulled the Strands into a large and complex pattern, he kept a careful eye on the old figure, waiting for some sort of retaliation. When none came, none at all, he smiled. This was going to be easy.

  Looping one brilliant white Strand after another, twisting them into a massive, globed pattern, he said, “I had thought Nelnora brilliant for entrusting your kind with
the stones.”

  A steady wind began to blow through boughs of the spruce forest. His robes fluttered in the new breeze. The low-lying mist in the village began to swirl and twist. The villagers stared around them, wide-eyed.

  Raising his voice to be heard over the creaking trees, Tandyr said, “Yet, every plan has a flaw. And you, Batta, are this one’s.”

  The aicenai dropped his head and stared at the ground.

  Tandyr finished the Weave, held onto the completed pattern for a moment, and stared at the aicenai.

  “Give Maeana my regards.”

  With that, Tandyr expanded the Weave in all directions, quickly encompassing the entire village. The wind surged, whipping furiously through Nentnay as every last breath of air was sucked from inside the Weave and thrust outside the crisscrossing pattern. Tandyr ensured he kept a single pocket of air around him.

  Breath was ripped from the aicenai’s lungs as Batta begin to silently choke. His eyes bulged outward as if someone was poking them from inside his head. Disgusted by the sight, Tandyr turned to leave Batta to die and walked away.

  Scanning the village, he watched one doomed soul after another succumb to suffocation. Some tried to run, but only made it a few steps before collapsing to the ground. Dese rushed to Menet and tried to pick him up, but the pair tumbled to the ground in the doorway of the red longhouse. Dese’s ‘house brothers’ slumped against the red logs, grasping their necks. People’s mouths were open as if they were screaming, but Tandyr did not hear a single cry. Other than the sound of his own measured breaths, the world was utterly silent around him.

  Villagers who managed to reach the edge of the Weave found themselves prevented from escaping. Tandyr watched one young woman pound weakly on the Weave itself, her face twisted in confusion and agony as she stared at a lone, orange butterfly fluttering over a patch of violet flowers only paces from where she lay.

  Tandyr turned his gaze to the pedestal, away from the dying villagers. He had no interest in savoring their deaths. He was the God of Chaos, not the God of Misery.

  Stepping between the two front wood poles of the shrine, he stood over the black box and studied it carefully. A stray beam of sunlight poked through the clouds, lighting up the street and the shrine. The lacquer on the box glistened in the light.

  For a few moments, he simply stared at the box, hesitant to open the lid. Perhaps Batta had been lying to him. Perhaps there was nothing in the box at all.

  Frowning, he muttered, “Staring at it will not change what’s inside…”

  Reaching out a tentative hand, he touched the box. It was well crafted, made of ordinary hardwood. As far as Tandyr could see, there were no markings on it at all. No carvings, no inlays, nothing.

  Suddenly, he got the sense that someone was watching.

  Withdrawing his hand, he scanned the buildings and terrain around him. Dozens of bodies filled Nentnay, none of them moving. Wondering if a villager or two had been outside the scope of his Weave, he studied the trees and fields outside the white pattern. He saw nothing.

  Dismissing his feeling as simple paranoia, he released the Weave surrounding the village, while keeping the protective padding around him. The air outside rushed to fill the void, triggering a crack of thunder so loud that it rattled the box on the pedestal. As the rumble echoed through the valley and off the stark mountainsides, Tandyr dropped the last of the Weave and turned his full attention back to the box.

  With his heart thudding in his chest, he reached out again, gripped the lid gently, and tilted it back.

  An unexpected surge of effervescent, throbbing silver Strands of Soul exploded around him, filling the village street and sky. Startled, he shut his eyes tight and pulled back his hand. The lid dropped shut and the Strands disappeared.

  He stared at the box, wide-eyed. A quiet curse slipped from his lips.

  “Beelvra…”

  He stared into the sky and around the village, searching for any glimmer of silver. There was nothing. Looking back to the box, a few additional stunned moments passed before a slow, triumphant smile spread over his face. He reached out to touch the lid again, steeling himself before he opened it.

  “Finally, we can begin.”

  Chapter 1: Ebel

  16th of the Turn of Rintira, 4999

  The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky, bright and intense. Silas squinted against the glare, his right hand shading his eyes, his left gripping the handle of his buckler shield. A warm, arid breeze drifted idly from the west, rustling the dry grass of the hills and carrying with it the musky scent of unwashed dog. Winter was near, but that meant little in the Borderlands.

  Silas shook his head as he stared west, down the street leading from Ebel. He was having a difficult time believing what he saw. The creature in the middle of the uneven dirt road was straight from either a playman’s tale or a child’s nightmare. Silas had yet to make up his mind which.

  He marked the crest of the demon-man’s head a few inches short of seven feet, discounting the four thick, ridge horns that sprang from its head, spiraling a foot into the air. Shaggy black hair hung loose to its shoulders, wild and unkempt. Its skin, probably once dark like a Borderlander’s, reminded Silas of stained leather, but with an unusual reddish tint to it. Were it not for the horns and the leathery skin, the figure standing at Ebel’s edge could have simply been a man. An enormous, muscled man clad in black armor and carrying a wicked blade, but a man nonetheless.

  Silas had never believed the tales murmured in refugee camps. The stories were too wild, mad claims told by wide-eyed men and women. Horrible, twisted creatures of the Nine Hells were leading the Sudashian invasion, true demons. Yet, as he stood in the village center, he could no longer deny the truth. That was a demon-man. And the endless rows of mongrels standing behind him, hunched over and waiting, were his charges.

  An anxious, hushed voice cut the nervous quiet of Ebel’s center.

  “What are they waiting for?”

  Silas glanced over at the man who had spoken. Like every soul here, he had dark skin, wiry black hair, and eyes that were wide and unblinking.

  A man standing next to the first whispered, “Perhaps they aren’t going to attack? They could decide to just go around us?”

  Silas shook his head ever so slightly, a tiny frown on his face. The man was dreaming.

  Glancing to his left, he eyed Corporal Lurus. The afternoon sun shone bright on the Dust Man’s bald, scarred pate. Mismatched patches of skin—dark and light brown, some even an odd pink color—covered the right side of the soldier’s head and neck, old burns healed as best they could. A small, dark hole sat where his right ear should be, like a tiny cave entrance on a jagged cliff side. Like Silas, the corporal wore a brown tabard, trimmed with light tan ribbing, and emblazoned with a tan kite shield stitched across the right breast. He held no shield, however. Corporal Lurus never did. His maimed right hand prevented him from doing so.

  Silas expected the corporal to say something encouraging. The men here were clearly frightened and needed something on which to tie their hopes. Yet for a long, drawn-out moment, the corporal merely gnawed on his lip, a grim expression etched his face as he gazed at the demon and the mongrels behind it. Just when Silas thought he might remain silent, Corporal Lurus turned to the pair of frightened villagers and spoke, his voice firm and hard.

  “They will attack. To think otherwise is foolish.”

  Both villagers dropped their heads and stared at the dirt.

  Silas eyed their dejected posture for a moment before saying, “Eyes up and to the west, men.”

  As one, the pair lifted their eyes and stared west, their expressions still fearful.

  Frowning, Silas ordered, “Look brave. Give them a reason to reconsider.”

  The villagers drew themselves tall, threw back their shoulders, and glared at the invaders, setting their jaws.

  Silas nodded once.

  “Good.”

  He looked to the west as well and caught t
he corporal staring at him, the only eyebrow the man had—his left—cocked. The look on his face was plain. Corporal Lurus had lost hope weeks ago and had been slowly stomping out the tiny ember of it to which Silas still clung.

  With a frown and a sigh, Silas turned away and stared at the demon-man again, his gaze tracing the edge of the oddly curved sword at the spawn’s side. Silas wondered if the demon might attempt to take Ebel by himself. Only ninety-six men stood here, ninety-four of which had never lifted a blade against another soul. The mongrels could take a nap if they liked. In fact, some might be doing so right now. Half the creatures were lying on the ground, waiting.

  Leaning to his left and keeping his voice low, he muttered, “What are they doing?”

  The corporal shrugged his shoulders.

  “Waiting.”

  “For what?”

  The corporal sighed.

  “I have no idea, Silas.”

  Silas nodded in the direction of the demon and asked, “Think he likes our wall?”

  Corporal Lurus’ mouth twitched upwards a fraction.

  “He’s probably wondering why we bothered building it.”

  A crude, four-foot wall stretched north and south across the street. Broken chairs, tables, stretched-hide doors, clay pots, and any other object that they had scrounged from the village had been stacked together to block the main road. It and two hundred paces were all that separated them from the Sudashians.

  Finally, the demon-man moved, swiveling his massive torso around to speak to the mongrel lines. One of the creatures—draped in brown fur with a white muzzle—loped forward on all fours, stopped at the demon’s side, and rose to stand on hind legs. Once mostly upright—the mongrel still hunched over slightly—the beast stood a full foot shorter than the demon. White splotches of fur covered its chest and forearms, matching the white of his snout. Its ears remained pointed and alert, twitching as the demon-man spoke to it. For the first time, Silas noticed it had hands, not paws as he had expected.