Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle)

by Siana, Patrick

  When Teah had demonstrated the technique to him, if she was in full sunlight he could see a distortion in the air, like heat-waves. In the shadows, however, or by cover of night, she was virtually undetectable to the naked eye.

  “Yes, yes,” Teah said, as Elias coalesced the spell around himself. “You almost have it. Now, just draw it tighter.”

  Elias dizzied under the effort, but he tried to follow Teah’s instruction. He drew the veil closer about himself and willed the ethereal fabric to become denser; instead his consciousness had grown lighter and he found himself swaying on his feet.

  Elias doubled over and retched, wracked by stabbing cramps. Teah and Nyla rushed to his side and began probing him. “You’ve suffered a minor averso,” Teah said, which is what she called an arcane backlash. “We best get you inside.”

  The shivers had set in before Teah was able to seat him before the fireplace, which she lit with a casual, automatic gesture. She knelt at his feet and rubbed her hands together briskly. She drew a symbol in the air before him with her index and middle fingers. He felt at once a sinking in his stomach as if he had suddenly accelerated into a dead gallop. The symbol she had made flashed in his mind’s-eye, drawn in lines of red fire.

  Warmth radiated from his solar plexus and presently his shivering lost momentum and then ceased. Elias drew a ragged breath of relief, before his heart punched at his ribcage and the room began to spin bringing with it a profound nausea. Elias let loose a hoarse laugh. His physical distress transported him back in time to when he and Lar had sneaked their first barrel of knoll.

  “Stay with me,” Teah said as Nyla padded up to them with a steaming mug. “Here take some of this willowbark and hops tea.”

  Elias took a sip of the bitter brew, scalding his tongue. The sensation however was welcome, for the searing pain helped ground him. He peered at Teah over the rim of his mug.

  “Good,” she said. “The headache should come next.”

  Elias offered her a grim smile. “Hangover express, eh?”

  Teah blinked. “Pardon?”

  “Just an old, human joke.” Elias closed his eyes. Momentarily his head began to throb. It appeared Teah was good to her word.

  Satisfied that he would live, Teah rose and took the chair across from Elias. Though his own eyes remained closed, he could feel hers upon him. He had grown fond of Teah and Nyla in the fortnight since he had fallen forward in time and landed in the ruins of the royal gardens. He appreciated both their hospitality and Teah’s lessons, but he knew that he had to set out into the world outside the Hartwood, and soon. In a way he supposed he had nothing but time, as far removed as he was from the events that had caused him to be here, but he felt an insistent pull to be on his way that gnawed at him with incessant, needling teeth.

  “If I can’t master this working,” Elias said, “I won’t stand a chance out there.”

  “You’re a resourceful man,” Teah said, “you’ll find a way.”

  “If the Wilder are as barbarous as you describe them, I’d rather have my sword than my wits with which to defend myself.” Teah called the tribal people that dwelt outside the ruins the Wilder, because, in her words, they were a wild people who had lost their way.

  “A man with keen wits is never weaponless,” Teah said.

  “You sound like my father.”

  As much as he had tried to forget the enchanted, enigmatic sword he inherited from his father since he returned to Knoll Creek, he was in sore need of it now. The men he had slain with the exotic steel crowded his thoughts, poisoned his dreams, but he needed its power now if he were to survive the journey home. Yet his sword was lost to him, left behind in another time. Another world.

  He couldn’t remember why he had left the precious weapon behind. He knew that it had something to do with the gate he had opened, but try as he might the reason eluded him, like a jar on the top shelf just beyond the reach of his fingertips. In fact, nothing felt quite right since he had awoken in Nyla’s stone garden. He knew in his heart that his sword wasn’t all that he had left behind in the past.

  “What is it?” Teah asked, when Elias startled without preamble. “Elias can you hear me? Are you well?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Elias said absent mindedly as he pulled up the sleeve on his right arm. “It’s the darnedest thing. My runes have grown warm.” Elias quickly explained how the runes etched into the base of his father’s sword had been magically branded into his forearm the day he had taken it up for the first time.

  During his story Nyla returned to the greatroom with the cloak Teah had given to him the night of Leosis’s Abeotium. She draped the cloak around his shoulders as he spoke, which he now realized had lately belonged to her father, the significance of which was not lost on him. She peered in wonder at the arcane symbols embossed into his flesh in thin white scars. She traced them with a finger. “They’re warm to the touch,” she observed, before backing away to a safe distance.

  “Perhaps your sword is closer than you think,” Teah said.

  “Maybe.” Elias pulled his sleeve back down, unsure what to think about this newest of many riddles. He pulled the cloak about him and peered into the dancing flames of the fireplace. One thing was certain, he wasn’t to find his sword or any other in the Hartwood.

  It was clear that the Enkilder were a peaceable people, if not pacifistic. When Elias had asked if any of her people had any spare weapons, Teah had looked at with an expression approaching disgust. They didn’t even use metal cutlery, but stone utensils and earthenware. When Elias inquired as to why, Teah had responded, “My people have tasted enough of steel over the years.” For all that, something kept the Wilder away from their forest, and Elias wasn’t convinced that it was just superstition.

  Elias hadn’t felt the veil of sleep slip over him, but when Teah woke him the scent of simmering stew filled the air, and crimson hues of twilight slanted through the windows. Elias wondered what savory delights Teah had managed to procure in the hours he had been out. The Enkilder didn’t eat the flesh of mammals, but did supplement their largely vegetarian diet with fish. Elias was more than a little surprised to learn that the waters of the Hartwood contained freshwater mussels as well as salmon and trout.

  As Elias stretched and made to rise he felt a pressure at the back of his head and his thoughts were drawn outside to the path leading to their modest domicile. Elias blinked away the image that had sprung to being in his mind’s-eye. Someone approached. “Teah,” he called as he reflexively reached for a sword that he no longer wore.

  Teah turned from the stove, her eyes preternaturally bright in the failing light. “Yes, I sense it too. Someone’s coming, and they carry a great anger.”

  An instant sense of guilt weighed upon Elias. He had learned little of the Enkilder since Teah had been nursing him back to health, but he had deducted that they were a very private people, perhaps bordering on xenophobic. Teah had insisted that he stay until he regained his strength, but he hadn’t wanted to bring any trouble to her or Nyla for putting up an outsider, and he feared that very trouble may well be knocking at her door.

  Nyla padded into the greatroom, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Mom, what’s happening? I have the strangest feeling.”

  “Nyla, go back to your room, please.”

  “Why?”

  Before Teah could answer a knock came at the door. Teah and Elias exchanged glances. Elias cast off his cloak and moved toward the door, instinctively thinking to place himself between Nyla and their unexpected visitor. The knock came again.

  Teah’s eyes narrowed. “Come in.”

  A tall Enkilder with delicate features stepped through the doorway. Elias had to consider him for a few beats before he decided that he was male, evidenced by his greater height and a more angular cast to his jaw line. Unlike the other Enkilder he had encountered, his eyes were a pale ice-blue, bordering on white. In contrast to his placid expression, Elias felt the rage billow off him in jagged clouds.

  �
��Mordum,” said Teah, “what a pleasant surprise.”

  “I’m sure,” Mordum responded, but his eyes had fallen on Elias and there they remained.

  “Have a seat. Will you take some tea?”

  “No,” Mordum said, and remained standing in the open doorway. “Ill tidings bring me to your doorstep.”

  “Is it the Wilder?” Nyla asked.

  “No, child,” Mordum replied. “I’m afraid it’s something far worse. Lichlor have gathered in the ruins.”

  The cold, pregnant silence that fell on the room was not lost on Elias. He felt more than saw Nyla take a step back behind him. He hazarded a glance at Teah, whose expression remained unreadable, but he sensed a tension crackling in her aura.

  “Is that so?” Teah asked.

  “It is,” said Mordum, his eyes yet fixed on Elias. “I wonder what has changed that they have found the courage to risk the ruins and venture so close to our borders?”

  “The ruins are not our province. There is no thing that bars them or anything else from risking that cursed land. They sense the magic that was lately there is all.”

  “Still,” said Mordum as he took a step into the greatroom, “they’ve never come so close to our domain. The ruins are taboo even to them. The stigma of the thinning has always been enough. Even the birds have the sense to avoid the place. No, the Lichlor have never had cause to cross the ruins before. Then again they’ve never sensed our haven before. Perhaps something has happened to change that. It is an ill omen.”

  “Omens?” said Teah. “Come now, Mordum, has the Speaker really devolved to casting bones and reading portents in the sky?”

  Mordum pulled his stony-eyed gaze from Elias and offered Teah a tight, mirthless smile. “I may not yet claim the mastery that Leosis held over the deep mysteries, but I can read the patterns as well as any Enkilder.” His smile opened, flashing the white of his teeth in a chilling lupine grin. “As well as any, save one, I think. You could have succeeded your husband as the Speaker. There are many who would have supported your nomination, but you took in an outsider. The fact that you are the late Speaker’s widow is all that has spared you censure.” He turned his pale and withering gaze back to Elias. “You violated our laws, for a barbarian.”

  “He’s not a barbarian, you cur!” cried Nyla.

  Elias felt a static charge fill the room as a corona of magic gathered around Nyla. He retreated toward her, never taking his eyes off Mordum, and laid a restraining hand on her shoulder. Teah joined him and grasped her by her other shoulder, and the three stood facing Mordum.

  “That’s quite enough of that, Ny,” Teah said.

  Nyla relaxed and the charge went out of the room, but Elias remained alert, balanced on the balls of his feet.

  “I can see your new friend is already teaching your child his barbarous ways,” said Mordum. “His is the legacy of violence and decadence that destroyed this world.”

  “Whereas you seek only to wound and threaten with words and innuendo,” Elias said.

  “Ah, it does have a voice.”

  Elias was unsure of the subtext that lay beneath Teah and Mordum’s conversation, but he was sure that Mordum sought to bait him into a reaction that would prove his point. He had no intention of satisfying him.

  “Who are our people to look down on anybody for the origin of their blood?” asked Teah. “And think well on this, Speaker: If it wasn’t for his kind, our kind wouldn’t exist. Would you prefer oblivion to our exile in this wood?”

  “Exile. Interesting choice of words, Teah. I suggest you think well on that word, lest you find yourself as alone in the world as this human. Good day.”

  Mordum turned on his heel and disappeared into the twilight, without troubling himself to close the door behind him. Nyla cast out a hand and the door flew closed with such velocity that the door jamb vibrated and granite dust flitted through the air.

  Teah spun to face her daughter. “Nyla, mind your emotions!”

  “He’s a son-of-a-crow, Mother! I hope the devil takes him!”

  Teah’s face drained of color, then flushed in the span of heartbeats. “Nyla, where have you been to learn those phrases? Have you left the forest more than once? You told me it was only the once. Have you been beyond the stone garden?” Teah dropped to knee so that she could look up into her daughter’s face.

  Nyla’s bottom lip trembled and tears wound down her face. “I didn’t go far. I just wanted to see what was out there in the world. No one saw me. I promise.”

  “By the Elder, Nyla.” Teah stood and backed into the kitchen, her eyes gone wild and round, roving around as if an answer lay hidden in some darkened corner of the room. “The Lichlor haven’t come because of Elias. They followed your scent here. The hounds of the Darkin, they’ve followed you here. They’ve your scent now.”

  A whistling wind blew without the house and rattled the windows. Nyla startled and began to cry. “I’m sorry!” she blubbered.

  Teah embraced her at once. “Don’t fret, child. We’ll figure it out.”

  Nyla fixed her red eyes on Elias. “But think, if I didn’t leave Illedium I never would have found Elias. He probably would’ve died.”

  Teah arched an eyebrow and her eyes too fell on Elias. “Yes, it may well have been atma. However, that is a question to be answered at another time. For now, we’ve supper to eat.”

  After they had eaten a reserved dinner, Teah gave Nyla some honeycomb and a calming tea that smelled of spiced apples. Shortly thereafter, Nyla lay curled up by the fireplace, fast asleep.

  Elias looked at Teah, who met his gaze with iron in her eyes. “Teah, I think it’s high time you explain some things to me.”

  Chapter 9

  Looking Glass

  “No need to look to so suspicious, Princess,” said Phinneas. “It’s harmless.”

  Bryn eyed the potion, which shone green as witch’s brew in the incandescent light of Ogden’s wizard’s-lamp. “What’s in it?”

  “A little something to help you relax and stimulate the hypnosis process,” replied the doctor. “It’s perfectly safe, I assure you.”

  Despite Phinneas’s protestation to the contrary, Bryn felt less than convinced as to the brew’s innocuousness. Still, she reasoned it was in the best interest of the kingdom, and of Elias. She tipped back the beaker and quaffed the acrid tonic. Rather proud of herself for not gagging on the concoction, she lay down on the spare physician’s table Phinneas had dragged into Ogden’s laboratory.

  “Are you ready to begin?”

  “Explain to me again what it is you’re going to do.”

  “Certainly,” said Phinneas. “I am going to hypnotize you. I’ve already conditioned you to the hypnosis with the exercises we went through earlier. Then I am going to create a psychic haven of sorts—think of it like a dream—which I will then project into your mind.”

  “Of course you are.” Bryn’s eyes flicked to Ogden, then to Danica, who offered her a reassuring nod. She exhaled, looked up at the ceiling, and then closed her eyes. “On with it then, sawbones.”

  “Here, put this on,” Phinneas said and handed her a black sleeping mask.

  Bryn arched an eyebrow, but donned it without complaint.

  Bryn sensed more than heard Phinneas walk around the table. A warmth followed in the wake his passage, which bloomed first in her crown, before radiating throughout the rest of her body. Colors pinwheeled through her field of vision, beginning with a burnt orange which darkened and then faded into rich shades of indigo and purple. Her body grew light and floated through a sea of otherworldly colors and half-formed shapes. Indistinct voices murmured to her from just beyond earshot, her mind drawn to them like a magnet. Yet before the bodiless speakers could close in on her, Phinneas’s voice sounded in her mind, clear as a clarion and as commanding as a binding of the Deep Arcanum.

  “You are standing on a stone staircase that winds down a hill and into a bright and welcoming wood.”

  Bryn’s stomach dropped a
nd the colors collapsed in on themselves in a white starburst. When her vision cleared she found herself standing on worked, granite stairs, which descended into a vale thick with trees afire with the colors of autumn. Overwhelmed, she dropped into a crouch and grasped a stair. She felt its hewn edge press into her hand. Her breath quickened and she tasted the crisp, earthy scent of fall.

  Phinneas’s voice echoed in her mind. “Do you see it?”

  “Yes. I’m standing at the top of the stairs.”

  “Descend the stairs. At the bottom you will find a cobblestone path that will snake through the wood toward a creek. Tell me when you reach the bottom.”

  Too wonderstruck to feel afraid, Bryn took careful steps down the staircase, feeling the granite press into her feet. “Alright, I’ve reached the bottom.”

  “Take the path. Do you hear the water yet?”

  “Yes,” said Bryn as she made her way through the woods. “Yes, I can hear it!”

  “Good, that means you’re almost at the gate.”

  Bryn rounded a corner and the path flattened out. At the end of the trail loomed a cast iron gate, easily as tall as single storey cottage. Taken aback by the intricacies of its construction, she ran a hand over it, tracing fleur-de-lis set within sweeping arcs. “I’m here. I’m at the gate.”

  “It’s open. Just give it a push.”

  The gates swung silently open at her touch and Bryn stepped into a glade blanketed with orange and red leaves. A crystal creek bubbled in the distance. “I’m in the glade. The gate has closed behind me.”

  “Walk downriver until it runs under a hillock with a staircase built into it. As you close in on it you’ll see that an open structure sits atop the hill.”

  True to Phinneas’s word, Bryn happened on a hillock, but a copse of trees obscured her view. As she cleared a switchback, the path deposited her at the foot of the hill, revealing a structure of simple yet majestic design. Situated directly atop a slap of granite fifty yards across, six limestone columns supported the temple’s roof on the face, and perhaps twice that number along the flank. The frieze was decorated with sculptures in low relief of cherub and other empyrean figures.