The stars played their music as someone came from behind. “Who are you talking to?”
Eliles’ senses reached out, finding Temeru. The woman in front of her face was no more, gone as if never there, and she turned to see the priestess walking her way. If her senses felt the woman, she was the priestess Temeru. But she’d felt Temeru with the other woman too. “You. I thought.”
“I caught Meris talking to no one up here several times in her final days; the stars have a history of driving people mad, though it usually takes far more years.”
Eliles shook her head. She’d figured herself crazy more than a few times in her life, this wasn’t one of them. “She was you, from another time in the stars?”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing. I don’t believe it’s even possible.”
Another mystery on top of mysteries. “Do you know Fedenu of Ulmor?”
“Fedenu of Ulmor? Know her?”
“She brought the grapes to the Watch a decade ago.”
“She was High Oracle of Skywatch more than two hundred years ago.”
Eliles’ mind spun. “Two hundred years?”
“Mmhmm. Why do you ask?”
First the woman on Januel’s Way, now a couple hundred-year-old twin disappearing after a pleasant chat. “Because, she may have solved our problem in the garden.”
Temeru stared. “What’s wrong in the garden?”
Eliles laughed. “The other you pays better attention.” Was the woman in the stars the same as the woman in the street? They shared a skill for disappearing without a sign. “When you caught Meris speaking to someone, did she say who she was talking to?”
“The first time she didn’t answer, after, she would laugh and say: ‘to my wiser self.’ She’d walk away without another word.”
To her wiser self. Leave it to an oracle. She gazed straight up into the sky, pushed her senses, but felt no one but Temeru beside her. Yet somehow, she knew someone watched. “Who are you?”
The sky didn’t answer.
68
A Casual Stroll
Grand Master Qudron released a blackbird into a room filled with Dark and sent his disciples to catch the bird. Shinfang captured the bird with pride. The Grand Master next had them close their eyes and released the blackbird in a room of Light and sent his disciples to catch the bird. But no one could find the bird no matter how hard they tried. Shinfang pointed at the Grand Master’s stomach and became Qudron’s successor.
–The Oxeum Codex
The Roemhien Pass bore little in common with how Ivin remembered the Oemindi of the Estertok Mountains. The Roemhien was broad and lush, more a valley than a canyon, instead of freezing to death, one was more liable to drown in their own sweat. At these altitudes, at least.
Kinesee strolled two feet to his left with Maro hovering behind them both to protect her life and virtue. More her virtue, considering three dozen guards scattered around them.
She was a beautiful young lady when Tedeu begowned her in fine satins, braided her hair, and colored her eyes and lips, but Ivin couldn’t look at her without seeing the sad little girl sailing on the Entiyu Emoño with a tear-stained face. A girl more in love with her goat than men and filled with fanciful dreams of the queens and kings in stories. The black beast might be the thing to break the ice between them.
“Where’s Tengkur today?”
She kept her poise, and her voice came steady and mature, more Ravinrin than the fisher’s daughter he’d met months before. But that didn’t mean they lacked a hint of venom. “In Tedeu’s prison with other goats. But she is pregnant, so I guess…” She shrugged, keeping her hands twined in the small of her back.
“I like goats.” He preferred eating them to making pets of them, but the little black goat was cuter than most. “The Kingdomers raise mountain goats for milk and cheese, did you know that?”
“And meat.”
“You don’t eat goat?” Her silence brought regret, until a guilty giggle.
“Only big, mean goats.”
“I have it on good word all their goats are big and mean.”
Kinesee raised her eyes, nodded toward the pass’ horizon and Ivin’s gaze followed hers. A broad-shouldered man with a long beard braided with rings of silver and brass strolled over the rise. He carried a shepherd’s hook, and if he had a weapon, he hid it well.
Ivin stood still, waiting for the man to approach; if the armed guards made him nervous, he hid it as well or better than any weapon. “Morik of Highstone?”
He smiled with broad teeth and raised his hand in greeting. “Ivin of the Choerkin, it is good to meet you. And this lovely girl is?”
Ivin bit his tongue, wanting to ask how he knew who he was. “Kinesee Mikjehemlut, my intended. You speak Silone well.”
“I’ve a way with words, and with new neighbors, I made a point to study. I walked with your people for a while now, the best way to learn a new tongue. But more of this girl… daughter of Solineus? I was sorry to hear that the stonebreakers brought his end.”
Kinesee stood resolute. “He’s not dead.”
A solemn face as the man leaned back to judge her. “You are so certain?”
“No question.”
And the dour expression slid into a smile. “He told me you would know, but I didn’t believe him.”
Kinesee clapped her hands, bounced, and pointed at Ivin: “Told you so!”
“I never said he was dead, just not to… Twelve Hells, you told me so.” Ivin drilled his gaze into the Kingdomer. “No horseshit?”
“I reckon so, seeing as I said it.”
Ivin smirked, he should’ve recognized the Emudar accent to the man’s words right off. “Then tell him to get his ass back here so he can be warlord.”
“I fear our friend has other plans. But he told me to tell this girl…” He looked at Kinesee with an arched brow.
“He’ll be back when I need him.”
Morik brought his gaze back to Ivin. “Solineus knows his girl well. But, we have more to discuss.”
“Aye. My people are safe, but no one can say for how long. With your permission, the permission of your king, I’d like to move my people south over the Dragonspans.” The next proposal was as important, but more controversial. “If allowed, I’d like to build towered walls in the Roemhien to defend future attacks by the Tek.”
Ivin studied the man’s dark eyes as he rubbed his beard. “Solineus anticipated your desires, and my king sees fit to allow this crossing. Once you deliver the whiskey you owe, the wall is possible.” He grinned and licked his lips. “There are prohibitions and provisos to hammer before a deal is forged and quenched.”
“Understood.”
“Do you? Tell me, Choerkin… What do you know of what’s beyond the Roemhien?”
Forest. Rivers. By the maps the lands spanned a thousand horizons in every direction. “Nothing. But sitting here is waiting for doom at the hand of the Tek. With the Shadows of Man and the Taken, we knew our enemy. But the monster’s heart which beats in the breasts of men are hidden.”
Kinesee said, “The Tek proved to be monsters.”
Ivin nodded, he meant the Tek, but his mind wandered to the memory of Tokodin and his father frothing on a table before dying. His hand wandered to the hidden pocket in his cloak where the monk’s black die rested; weeks since he’d bother think of the murderer and the trinket he left behind. But the pocket rattled at his touch.
“I heard the tale of the demons.” Morik sighed with a nod, tugged a silver ring in his beard. “Massive woods lay beyond yonder mountains, places the Helelindin fear to tread, things my people tell our children of to keep them in bed at night. You warred with the Malstefne, you call them monsters… But they are people not so unlike any other. South! South is where the true monsters lie.”
Ivin pulled his hand from his pocket and opened his fingers. The night die rested in his palm alongside three white dice, all ones, the four-eyed snake. Ice prickled his skin and his heart went
numb: And sometimes a monster lives right beside you, and you don’t know it until too late.
Flood, blood, a flood of blood.
Demons haunt the night, the fright, the sight,
nightmares with reality’s bite,
the screeches, the screams, the call of wilder things.
In which world do you walk?
To which world do you talk?
Listen to the voices intense,
Listen to the voices you missed,
Listen to the voices never clear.
Wings wild and wings tamed,
Wings of the Child and wings of the Shamed.
What do you know of trials and pain,
you who is always Guilty but never Blamed?
–Tomes of the Touched
Solineus: Sundering the Gods Book 2.5
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The Edan Calendar
The Edan calendar is not the only one in the world of the Sister Continents, but for simplicities sake, it is the only one used in the novels. The calendar is twelve months, each month being thirty days, and the weeks are ten days long. The New Year Holiday is five, with an extra day on Leap Years. 365 days, just like Earth. In the novels these details aren’t gone into in depth, but here they are, for those who want to know.
The Months:
Tolpol
Merran
Sonduwe
Movedu
Kelevra
Beldren
Mizjulu
Melkobo
Yistole
Livrotu
Denlile
Velobra
* * *
Days of the Week
Amelu
Sentecu
Eleve
Jinbelu
Ilisto
Vuelo
Belsu
Ivwe
Beu
Dolo
* * *
Days of the New Year
Linamelu
Linsentecu
Lineleve
Linjinbelu
Linilisto
Linvuelo
About the Author
Having lived in his own world for many years, L. James Rice decided he might as well share that world with folks otherwise trapped in reality, and got serious about writing. He has made enough wine to no longer enjoy wine. He has not eaten enough steak or pizza to no longer enjoy steak or pizza, but is working on it. “Challenges are good,” he maintains.
Having managed to graduate high school only rarely turning in homework, he moved on to a university to find it even more forgiving of lax study skills. He celebrated with copious amounts of beer. With scant few memories of either educational facility or anything they reputedly taught him, he refuses to confirm or deny their usefulness. Probably because he is wishy-washy, but I'm not sure of that. 98% sure... or maybe only 50%. Hell if I know.
Born and raised in the midwest, US of A, L. James Rice has a lovely wife and two beautiful daughters, the names and birthdays of whom he remembers most of the time. Plus, two dogs, an unknown number of chickens (always in flux with predators and other natural causes), and a gosling he assumes will someday be a goose who lays non-golden eggs... stupid goose anyhow.
Trail of Pyres Page 67
