Realms of Stone
Book Four of The Redwing Saga
By Sharon K. Gilbert
Realms of Stone – Book Four of The Redwing Saga
By Sharon K. Gilbert
www.theredwingsaga.com
Published by Rose Avenue Fiction, LLC
514 Rose Avenue, Crane, MO 65633
First Print Edition May 1, 2018
Kindle Edition May 1, 2018
All Content and Characters © 2018 Sharon K. Gilbert
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 0-9980967-4-1 • ISBN-13: 978-0-9980967-4-2
Table of Contents
From the Author
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
About the Author
Other Books by Sharon K. Gilbert
From the Author
It’s been such a thrill to spend time with these characters once again. Many of you have written to me, telling me how you’ve read the books again and again, even taking notes, and it both humbles and encourages me. The first three books of the series laid out the basics of the plots and characters, and so this next trio of books will further develop those relationships whilst unveiling some of the mysteries of the hidden realms.
I’ll not spend more than a few lines in this section, for I pray you’re anxious to delve into the meat of this installment, but I would like to quickly remind everyone that the English used in all my books employs 19th century British spelling. I’ve learnt a great deal about the differences during the course of the first three novels, and I’m learning still. I use the Oxford English Dictionary as reference.
I’d originally hoped to release this book on the 8th of April, which is Elizabeth Stuart Sinclair’s birthday, but life got in the way (imagine that), and I was unable to finish the manuscript in time. Thanks for your patience, dear readers.
Now on to the story!
Sharon K. Gilbert
23rd April, 2018
For my wonderful readers.
It’s your love for
Elizabeth, Charles, and Paul,
for their continuing stories,
their many challenges,
and their victories,
that keeps me going.
You have blessed me beyond all measure.
For I have a word that I would say to you,
a message that I would repeat to you
a word of tree
and a whisper of stone,
a word unknown to men,
and which multitudes of the earth do not understand:
the coupling of the heavens with the earth,
of the deeps with the stars.
I understand the lightning which the heavens do not know:
come, and I shall reveal it
in the midst of my divine mountain Saphon,
in the sanctuary, in the rock of my inheritance.1
—Baal Cycle
He setteth an end to darkness, and searcheth out all perfection: the stones of darkness, and the shadow of death. – Job 28:3
But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcass trodden under feet. – Isaiah 14:19
By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. – Ezekiel 28:16
Prologue
Somewhere, in a Timeless Land
Charles Sinclair had no idea where he was, nor precisely how long he’d been in this very strange place. His head ached, and his eyes felt painful and dry as he wandered, lost and alone, through the dreamlike landscape. He stood upon a broad road, paved in stones worn smooth by fierce winds and heavy use. The sides of the path were littered with ancient armoury: swords, helmets, shields, spears, bows and arrows—all lying upon a field of shattered, human bones.
I must be dreaming, Charles reasoned, though a part of him doubted that conclusion.
He turned to look behind, hoping to discern his location, but a dense fog descended without warning, as though a curtain of grey muslin fell across the haunted realm. This phantasmagoric mist clung to the skeletal trees like iridescent spiders’ webs. Here and there, the mist swirled upon the rocky ground, rising up into a legion of vaporous ghosts exhaled by an invisible dragon, slumbering beneath the cairn of bones.
These faceless apparitions climbed along leafless branches and up ropey bark like translucent, undulating snakes of smoke. Beyond the sentient trees, lonely rings of oddly shaped, standing stones congregated into rock choirs painted in living haze. The sharp-edged silhouettes bore an eerie resemblance to petrified humans with vague approximations of heads, trunks, and limbs. Each weathered face was transfixed into a rictus of pain, and the arms and legs splayed into impossible stances portraying a variety of actions. Some looked as though they’d frozen in mid-stride, whilst others appeared to recline or slumber fitfully upon the intransigent land. A few stared upwards, their stony profiles gazing hopefully towards a starless, midnight sky.
This unyielding firmament grew even darker from time to time, as thousands of ravens and raptors flew past the indifferent moon. One by one, the birds gathered upon knotted branches within the humanoid trees, and one particular bird, larger than all its brethren, watched the newcomer with curious, blinking eyes.
No sound penetrated the adamantine fog, not even the dull tapping of the visitor’s footfalls, but as he continued through the nightmare landscape, Charles Sinclair slowly began to notice a welcome and rhythmic pulse within his ears.
It was the soft whisper of his own breathing.
“At least, I’m alive,” he spoke aloud.
“Are you?” the watchful raven asked from a thick branch, just over his head. “Alive, I mean. What makes you so certain?”
The marquess looked up at the impertinent blackbird. “Logic tells me I am alive. I’m material, solid. Neither ghost nor spirit,” he argued, slapping at his arms, thighs, and midsection to prove the point.
“Log
ic is somewhat unreliable hereabouts,” the creature answered. “Life is death, up is down, black is white, and grey—well, grey could suddenly choose to portray itself as any colour or anything it wishes. If you trust only in logic, then your adventure here will fail before it even begins.”
“I see,” Sinclair remarked politely, though he hardly saw at all. “Tell me, Creature, do all birds speak here, or are you unusual?”
The bird flapped its glossy wings proudly and fluttered to the ground near the human’s feet. “I am most unusual, but talking is hardly the accomplishment you might think. After all, you are talking, and I rather doubt you could stake claim to anything beyond the ordinary. Although, there is something decidedly different about you,” the bird mused as it made an anticlockwise circle ‘round its prey. “A different look and smell from all the others. Those who failed, I mean. Why is that?”
“I cannot say,” Charles answered.
“Cannot or will not?” the bird squawked in irritation.
“That remains to be seen. Just who are you?”
“That, also, remains to be seen,” the bird replied in an oily voice. “I’d give you my name, but it’s against the rules. However, I might offer a hint in exchange for a small favour. I’m trapped here, you see. Have been for ages, but not for anything I’ve done. It’s all a misunderstanding, I assure you. Perhaps, you’ve come to free me.”
“I rather doubt it. If you are innocently trapped, then how did you arrive here in the first place? And where, precisely, are we, if you please?”
“Telling you is not permitted.”
“Telling me what?” Charles asked. “Where we are, or how you came to be here?”
“The latter. Each of us has a tale regarding our presence in this place, human.” The bird stood nearly as tall as Sinclair, and it moved to within an inch of his face, staring at him most curiously. “You are human, are you not?”
“Yes, of course, I’m human. What a ridiculous question!”
“Caw! Stupid human! No wonder you’ve been sent here. No doubt, one of your relatives decided you’re simply too dense to allow at family gatherings. It is often the way amongst your kind. Useless uncles, conniving cousins, and malicious mothers-in-law; they all end up here eventually.”
“Nothing you say makes a whit of sense.”
“So you might think, but I assure that everything I say makes perfect sense. You simply lack the wisdom to comprehend it.”
The creature shook its wings as though preparing to perform a conjurer’s trick. “Now, let me see if I remember how to do this,” the disagreeable bird said as it stretched even taller. The avian form slowly elongated into a man’s silhouette—or rather a partially humanoid shape. His head was dotted in feathery spikes, and his back, also. The creature’s eyes remained an unsettling amber yellow, and the sharp nose protruded outward in a curve like a bird’s beak.
Gazing down at himself, the peculiar bird-person frowned in dismay. “It’s been over a thousand years since I last wore these skins. It seems I’ve forgotten how to arrange them. What am I missing?”
“Clothes for one thing,” Sinclair wryly observed, then pointing to the chimera’s perplexing feet, added, “shoes, for another. However, I’m not sure any cobbler makes footwear to fit three-toed feet.”
“Three toes? Ah, I see. Do I require six, then?”
“Five is the usual number, actually.”
“Only five? How very dull. Well, then, how is this?”
The birdman shook its legs vigorously until a pair of five-toed, human feet emerged, quickly followed by black boots, which popped onto the newly formed feet from out of thin air. The chimera reached up and felt along the crown of its head, and noticing the errant feathers, snapped its fingers, and before you could say Tom Thumb, transformed the thick plumage into spirals of raven black hair. Clothes of green and black silk wove themselves onto its transformed body, although of a fashion from many centuries earlier. A sable cloak, trimmed in matching plumes, fell across the birdman’s broad shoulders. The final picture was almost handsome, if one found yellow-eyed humans attractive, that is.
“Oh, this is quite nice. Particularly, the cloak,” the creature said, admiring the new clothing and boots.
“Yes, I suppose it might be, if one lived in the seventeenth century,” Charles observed. “Why a thousand years?”
“What is the seventeenth century? Is it a place?” the creature asked. “Wait. A thousand years, you say? Surely not! Have we been talking for so very long?”
“You’re the one who mentioned it, not I,” the human answered.
“No, you’re quite mistaken. You mentioned it, but you’re wrong. We can’t have been talking for a thousand years, as you arrived only a short while ago. Do you like it thus far?”
Charles had grown weary of the inquisitor’s methods. “Not particularly. I might find it more interesting, if I knew just where I am, assuming this strange land has a name.”
“Of course, it has one! Every place has a name.”
“And every creature as well, I suppose,” Charles probed. “And yours?”
“I have already told you; I am not permitted to reveal my name to the uninitiated.”
“And this place, then?”
“It is Sebet Babi,” the chimera replied. “The Seven Gates, entrance to the Seven Realms. Do you know nothing, human?”
“I suppose not,” the marquess muttered, his left brow arched in defiance.
“Then how did you get here? Did someone bring you? Thanatos perhaps? Or Hypnos, his traitorous brother? Those two are always making trouble for me! I shall have to call a meeting. Disobedience and surprise visitors, no matter how pleasant the conversation, must be dealt with immediately, you know.”
“That is your own problem, I suppose, but I’m not sure how I came to be here,” Charles answered, glancing down at his hands as though he might discover an answer written there. Though the dismal world had little illumination, he beheld the gleam of a shining, gold band encircling the fourth finger of his left hand.
“A ring?” he asked aloud. “I don’t recall wearing a ring like this... Wait, I know what this ring means. It means I am married. How could I have forgotten that? Forgotten her?”
“Forgotten whom?” the birdman asked greedily.
“Elizabeth,” Charles whispered, closing his eyes to shut out the oppressive gloom so that he might picture her sweet face. “My Beth. This ring is the token of our promise. She is my wife.”
“Apparently, this wife makes you happy. You say her name is Elizabeth? That is a very odd name,” the birdman observed, cocking its head to one side. “Who is this Elizabeth? Is she a bird? Is that why she is able to make you happy? Does she fulfill your wishes?”
“All of them, but she is a woman, the great and everlasting love of my life. Our wedding was—it was today,” he realised. “Or, at least, I believe it was today. How could I have forgotten that? Where is she? Why isn’t she with me? Did we come here together?”
“I cannot provide answers to questions that makes no sense,” the creature complained, growing bored. “What is your name? Do you have one, human?”
“Yes, of course, I have a name. It’s Charles Sinclair. You say this place is the entrance to Sebet...”
“Babi,” he finished. “It is the ancient tongue. You speak it, of course.”
“I’m afraid not. By ancient tongue, do you mean Egyptian?”
“Hardly!” the bird creature cawed, the feathery trim of its cloak ruffling in irritation. “The pharaohs are latecomers by my reckoning. I refer to the oldest of all tongues. The original. The one spoken at the dawning of time, when these realms were born. And with them, the Seven Kings, who sleep beneath the living stones.”
“None of that makes any sense,” Sinclair muttered. “Seven realms containing living stones? You speak nothing but babble!”
“Hardly,” the birdman stated, grinning. “That place was abandoned long ago.”
“Very droll,” the marquess said, “but as I’m speaking with a nonsensical bird creature, I must also assume these realms are equally nonsensical. Ergo, I am dreaming, which explains why Beth isn’t here.”
“Dreaming is but a journey taken through a door within ourselves. If you think you are dreaming, then try to awaken.”
“It cannot be done,” Charles declared. “Sleepers do not wake themselves.”
“Nor do they perceive that they dream. Your previous logic attested to your own substantiality. If I told you that you are truly, materially in this land, how would you feel? Angry? Curious? Dismayed?”
The marquess had no ready answer, but he meditated upon the problem as he and the birdman walked side by side along the broad path, moving amongst the massive rocks and trees in silence. Enormous shadows shaped like spiders followed their progress, scuttling up and down the trunks of the sleepy trees, whispering to one another in brackish language. Charles perceived crimson eyes within the stalkers’ dark faces, and he counted over six dozen of the arachnid soldiers. Off in the distance, booming sounds like thunder mixed with the roaring of lions caused the ground to quake, and each time, the spider army halted as though obeying a command.
After many minutes in this fashion, Sinclair stopped, his eyes on the spiders. “We’re being followed,” he told his guide.
“Of course, we are!” the yellow-eyed birdman gloated. “We’re never alone, human. Not here. Never here. Our citizens grow hungry. It’s been so very long since they last fed.”
“I don’t suppose they eat birds,” the human dared suggest.
“Only those who disobey, and I am immune to such rules, anyway.”
Sinclair turned to stare at the creature. “Wait just a moment. You’re speaking to me in English. How is that, if you speak only the ancient tongue? Or do I merely hear it as English?”
The birdman laughed, though it sounded rather like a cackling sort of chirp. “You know, that is a very perceptive question! So few of your kind ever come here now, that I’d quite forgotten how your limited minds work. There was a time when the great men of old walked here at will, entering our realms through the recitation of magical phrases and incantations. Wisely, they sought me out, and I communed with them, teaching them many of my secrets. How I miss those days! One grows lonely, you know. Are you here for instruction, Charles Sinclair? Are you on a quest for knowledge?”
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