Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle)

by Siana, Patrick

  Wayfarer

  The Empyrean Chronicle

  Book II

  By Patrick Siana

  Copyright © 2013 Patrick M. Siana

  Published by author, 2013

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Bias Design

  Cover image by Modern Renaissance

  Map design by Bias Design

  Map digital image by Modern Renaissance

  For my Grandmothers.

  Special thanks to my editors, Kathleen O’Donnell and Krista Siana.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Information

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue: The Nameless Fear

  Chapter 1: Vanished

  Chapter 2: Shaper

  Chapter 3: Abeotium

  Chapter 4: An Uninvited Guest

  Chapter 5: The Wandering Isle

  Chapter 6: A Foot in Each World

  Chapter 7: Vortex

  Chapter 8: An Unexpected Caller

  Chapter 9: Looking Glass

  Chapter 10: The Lichlor

  Chapter 11: Bound

  Chapter 12: The Slumbering Mind

  Chapter 13: Lover's Folly

  Chapter 14: Haven

  Chapter 15: The Royal Armory

  Chapter 16: First Law

  Chapter 17: Barrister

  Chapter 18: Trial

  Chapter 19: Altered States

  Chapter 20: Rune Circle

  Chapter 21: The Rook's Nook

  Chapter 22: Confession

  Chapter 23: World's End

  Chapter 24: First Marshal

  Chapter 25: The Chains that Bind

  Chapter 26: Desmene

  Chapter 27: Soul-Knife

  Chapter 28: Fire and Stone

  Chapter 29: The Race Home

  Chapter 30: Rift

  Chapter 31: Snared

  Chapter 32: Out of Illedium

  Chapter 33: The Wilder

  Chapter 34: Medicine Woman

  Chapter 35: Pyre

  Chapter 36: Appeal to the Elder Fey

  Chapter 37: Time Mage

  Chapter 38: Whiteout

  Chapter 39: Arcalum Bound

  Chapter 40: The Lichlor Den

  Chapter 41: Hidden Worlds

  Chapter 42: Malak's Oath

  Chapter 43: Mordum's Offer

  Chapter 44: Time Gate

  Chapter 45: Passage to the Wandering Isle

  Chapter 46: Temporal Arcanum

  Chapter 47: First Contact

  Chapter 48: Vault

  Chapter 49: Time Mage's Apprentice

  Chapter 50: The Road Home

  Chapter 51: Dark Elf

  Chapter 52: The Return

  Chapter 53: The Battle for Time

  Chapter 54: The Penultimate Time Mage

  Chapter 55: Wayfarer

  Chapter 56: Spirit Sword

  Epilogue: For Once and For All

  Map

  Prologue

  The Nameless Fear

  “Since I was young, I’ve always been gripped by a nameless fear, then came you.” Elias dabbed a damp cloth on Bryn’s forehead. Her eyes darted beneath half-open eyelids, but he knew she couldn’t see him.

  “After the Scarlet Hand’s ambush I thought it was crushed by grief, or by a hunger for vengeance, but the fact is...” Elias swallowed the fist-sized lump caught in his throat. “Fact is, that stow-away was ground out beneath your boot-heel the night you called Cormik Macallister to task and walked into my life.”

  Elias sensed a presence at his back. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know who stood in the doorway.

  “All my life I’ve had this needling feeling that something wasn’t quite right.” Elias’s brows pinched together, hooding his coal-black eyes as he struggled to find the right words. “It’s like there was an itch in the middle of my back that I couldn’t quite reach. Sometimes I’d wake from a dead sleep in the small hours of the night with a great millstone pressing down on my heart and this pristine certainty that I was in the wrong place living someone else’s life. I didn’t belong. I wasn’t the man I ought to be. This feeling, it was always gone by morning, but I wondered in the night, when I couldn’t run from it.”

  Elias leaned forward, so close that he could feel the heat of her fever. “My point is that you knew what I was, who I was, when my only clue was the occasional troubled night’s sleep.”

  “Elias,” Danica said, entering the dim bedchamber, “when was it you last slept?”

  Elias ignored the question and pulled a sticky strand of hair from Bryn’s brow. “Phinneas says that I must prepare myself. It’s unlikely she’ll see the morning. What magic is this that even your power cannot cure her?”

  “I don’t know, brother.” Danica took a step toward him and the tangled bed upon which Bryn lay, but a warning chimed clarion-clear in her mind and she stopped mid-step. She looked at the granite floor and her heart skipped as she saw her foot hovered over the edge of a spell-circle drawn in red chalk. With deliberate care, she retreated a step and lifted her gaze to Elias. His free hand was stained with scarlet dust.

  “One God’s blood,” Danica breathed. “Elias what have you done?”

  “House Senestrati has reached out across the sea with their wraith hands and taken her from me. I can taste the stink of their fell magic.”

  Danica’s mind raced and she went numb with terror. “But they’re bound. You banished them. You broke their power.”

  “Do you think I’ve forgotten!” Elias all but screamed. He surged to his feet as Danica groped for her power, for her arcane sight, and she trembled at what she saw, for his aura had gone as red as the spell circle, as the dust caked on his balled-up fist.

  “What is this?” Danica scanned the circle. Her legs weakened. “Necromancy, or worse? Elias, you are not yourself. Bryn would never want this.”

  “Bryn never had a choice in this. I do.” Elias rubbed a finger between his eyes, and composed himself. “Magic is neither good nor ill, but it is how we utilize it. Yet this is not Necromancy. This is something far more powerful, and it is the only way to save her.”

  “More powerful than Necromancy?” Danica went cold. “Elias, you’ve read every book in Arcalum. It’s just not possible.”

  “I didn’t find this spell in Arcalum. An old acquaintance brought it to me.”

  Danica’s voice became thick and her vision blurred. “It’s over, Elias,” she whispered. “You’ve already tried everything.”

  “I haven’t tried this.” Elias opened his unsullied hand, and a thick tome bound in gold filigreed leather levitated from the nightstand, fanned open, and alighted over his palm.

  “What are you going to do?” Danica reflexively retreated another step toward the door.

  Elias’s aura fanned out to fill the room, and at its core Danica saw the familiar, rich violet that was the signature of his power. Golden light poured from the tome. “I don’t know how they reached their talons out across our lands, sister of mine, but I will not let them sow their dark seed this day, nor any other as long as I draw breath. That is the vow I made when I too
k back Lucerne, and I will see it kept.

  “This volume contains the scripts of a cabal of great and storied mages who had power over the primordial forces of the universe, those who could bend the ether and twist the tapestry. I will set things back to the way they were before Bryn fell to this dark power.”

  “But at what price?”

  Danica saw then that his sword stood at the foot of the bed, driven into the center of the spell-circle, through the very granite of the floor. Snaking ropes of silver light lashed out from the blade, thrumming like the base notes on a guitar, and met in the air between Elias and Bryn. At the point of their impact an oblong sphere of pulsating energy formed.

  Elias spat a handful of words in a tongue unknown to her and the sphere condensed into a disk and then into a vortex of leaden energy. Danica found herself pushed back through the doorway as if she were an iron filing caught in the hold of a magnet.

  “But at what price?” Danica cried again, having to shout to be heard over the crackling of arcane energies, which filled the room with a palpable, ear-popping pressure.

  Elias fixed the fire of his gaze upon her, and she heard the whisper of his voice echo in her mind.

  History will be rewritten. I’ve found a way.

  Danica cried out and threw herself against the tremendous force repelling her, reaching with her mind to find a chink in the vortex, a fissure where she could exert her own power, but Elias was too strong. His spell had taken on a will of its own. Her vision darkened as she was lifted from her feet and propelled through the doorway.

  Fear not, I will return to you.

  The last image she registered was the granite of Bryn’s door crashing shut in a cataclysm of inky light.

  †

  Ogden inhaled sharply, then swore as the inkwell he had been dipping his pen in emptied onto his lap.

  An arcane working of tremendous magnitude had just taken place. The ripples of the arcane backlash yet reverberated through his chambers, which was of no little consequence, for his rooms were as heavily warded as any in the kingdom. More troubling yet, was that he knew nothing of anyone having planned a ritual or spell of such unbridled power.

  As Archmagus of the Sentinels, with spies in every arcane college and government on the continent, there was scant chance that he would be caught unawares by anyone attempting such a feat—at least any arcanist in good standing. Which meant one thing: whoever or whatever had perpetrated the present working was up to no good at all.

  Ogden’s next thought was of his queen. He didn’t spare another thought to his ruined robes as he rushed from his chambers.

  †

  The mage opened his eyes. He had seen the invoking of the forbidden ritual. He uncrossed his legs and stood.

  He stepped out of the spellform he had drawn on the silvered disk that was the seat of his power, careful not to disturb the lines of energy woven and bound to the enchanted metal.

  This should not be, he thought. All who knew of the lost and secret Arcanum were gone, save he. He had hidden the Grimoire in another world, where none knew how to decode its mysteries. And yet it had resurfaced, and now far more than any single world balanced on the precipice of the abyss.

  He could already feel the shift in the Ido. Consequences rippled like hailstones raining onto a placid pool, and he could see the threads of many tapestries being pulled and unfurled. And yet he was bound, cursed by his own hands, unable to leave his haven and interfere.

  Yet he knew he had to find a way. He had to find a way to reach out beyond his prison and send a warning to any who had the ears to hear it. The old artifacts would benefit him little, as they were treasures long buried. He had to find another way. He had to find a way to drop clues, to lure the man who created the rift here so that he could neutralize him.

  He had to find this Elias Duana.

  Chapter 1

  Vanished

  Daryn Blackwell, captain of the Whiteshields, threw open the doors to the royal council chamber with nary an announcement, and without pause strode across the room and dropped to a knee before his queen.

  “Have you no couth, Captain,” Lord Geoffrey Oberon growled, “this is the Council of the Six.”

  “I am rather certain, Lord Oberon, that Captain Blackwell knows where he is,” Eithne, Queen of Galacia, said dryly. Though her hazel eyes remained fixed on Blackwell she could feel Oberon opening his mouth to retort. “Not another word, Oberon, my memory is yet fresh, and I require little prodding to fan the flame of my ire where you are concerned.”

  The chamber grew still, for the entirety of the council, and no doubt a significant portion of the court besides, knew of Oberon’s treachery during the coup on the throne but two seasons past. Eithne regretted almost daily not throwing him in Treacher’s Tower, but House Oberon was an influential clan and Galacia needed their resources, and more importantly their not insignificant sway in the court of neighboring Phyra. House Oberon would be much more acquiescent without one of their sons a capital prisoner.

  “Captain Blackwell,” said the queen, “What is it?”

  “Danica Duana,” Blackwell replied, yet breathless from his run from the stables. “She set out from Knoll Creek a week ago, come, she said, on a matter of grave importance.”

  “A week?” snorted Vachel Ogressa. “Impossible.”

  “For you perhaps,” Blackwell returned with a sharp glare at the corpulent duke, “but not for a Duana.”

  Eithne smiled despite herself. “Send for her at once, Captain.”

  “No need,” said a familiar voice from the corridor.

  Danica Duana strode into the council chamber on knee-length riding boots. The dust of the road yet clung her, turning her black riding breeches the brown of dead oak leaves. Hay hung on her grey, woolen cloak and the bitter scent of horse sweat. Against her dust-powdered skin her eyes stood out like jade before an open flame.

  “How did you get here so quickly?” Blackwell asked at once, and Oberon, “How did you get past the Whiteshields?”

  A half smile broke Danica’s grave expression for a beat. “I took a short cut.” She fixed baleful eyes on Oberon. “One that my brother and I discovered when we took Lucerne back from her...malefactors.” Remembering herself, she dropped to a knee—Danica was not one for curtseying. “My Queen.”

  “Rise, Danni,” Eithne said quickly, a sudden fear quickening her heart, for whatever Danica was about, it was not good news. “Lords, you are all dismissed.”

  Oberon cleared his throat. “Your—”

  “Now!” Eithne commanded, sparing her Uncle, Josua of House Antares, a brief glance and a nod.

  The five High Lords scurried from room and Blackwell closed the doors behind them.

  Eithne rushed from her chair and took Danica in a fast embrace. The exhausted woman crumpled in her arms like a sack of grain and Eithne and Blackwell carried her to a chair, where the White Habit slumped.

  “Daryn, water,” said the troubled queen. “And bring some of that cheese.” Eithne knelt at her friend’s feet and wiped the dirt from her face with a linen napkin. “Danica, what’s happened?”

  Danica took Eithne’s hands in her own, and her voice broke over cracked lips as she said, “It’s Elias. He’s vanished.”

  †

  Bryn couldn’t breathe. She wasn’t being suffocated. She wasn’t choking. No impossible weight pressed upon her chest. She simply couldn’t draw breath. Her lungs refused to heed her bidding.

  She was aware of her body, yet she felt as if she were seeing herself from outside herself, viewing her person in profile, as if caught halfway between the dream world and the waking world. With that thought realization dawned and she felt the prison of her bed-sheets tangle about her. She gasped and whimpered as she fought weakly to throw off her sweat-slicked sheets. Panic tightened her throat as she struggled to catch her breath while her heart punched at her ribcage.

  “Elias, you mustn’t,” she cried, unsure why hysterical tears poured from her eyes,
blurring the appearance of her chambers and the mid-afternoon light that streamed through the open windows, lending the familiar surroundings a sinister aspect.

  She knew that she had just woken from a disturbing dream, a dream where she had been a prisoner in her own body, but even the grossest of details had fled her mind the moment she had opened her eyes. It was a recurring nightmare that had plagued her every night for the last week. Her reaction worsened with each occurrence, and her recollection of the dream grew dimmer, until all she remembered was an abject feeling of dread.

  Bryn pushed herself from her bed but her numbed legs failed her and she tumbled to the floor. She rolled onto her back and scrubbed at her eyes to clear them of tears and the dust of sleep. She pushed herself into a seated position against the wall, the cool, hard press of the granite grounding her. She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing—a trick Elias had taught her.

  You’re a princess of Galacia. Get a hold of yourself.

  She didn’t usually suffer nightmares, but Bryn Denar knew that nothing about what had just happened was usual. The tightening in her guts told her something was very, very wrong. Reacting without thinking she spoke the words her father had taught her when she was but child, invoking the first cantrip she had ever learned, to detect the presence of the arcane.

  For the second time in as many minutes Bryn couldn’t find her breath. Her chamber was awash with a flickering, leaden light.

  Someone, or something, had channeled a mysterious magic in her chambers, and a great deal of it.

  †

  Eithne looked out the window of her sitting-room onto her lands—lands that had been under the stewardship of House Denar for four centuries. She bowed her head and her eyes came to rest on the royal gardens, which sprawled beneath her windows. The azaleas had already begun to bloom in small, pale buds with violet petals peeking out. The world was warming, but Eithne felt cold to her marrow.

  She half-listened as Ogden prattled on about the laws of Arcanum and the significance of the magical event last week that had every arcanist in the city out of sorts. She had no reason to doubt Ogden, or the gravity of his report. In fact, she herself had felt a chilling shudder at that very same moment as he, which instantly transported her back into the heart of a childlike, nightmarish fear. Perhaps everyone in Peidra had felt it to some degree, whether they were aware of it or not. No, she was concerned, certainly, but she knew that this matter was out of her hands and in those of her Steward and Archmagus of the Sentinels, faithful Ogden. What gnawed at her with black and poisoned teeth was a sinking supposition that this was somehow related to Elias’s disappearance and Danica’s sudden appearance in the palace.