Wayfarer (The Empyrean Chronicle)

by Siana, Patrick

  “We are all of us brothers, but today the Marshals took back their place. You who wear the brown follow in the footsteps of great men. Men far greater than me. Elias and me once asked Padraic what it was to be a Marshal, and here’s what he said: You are the arrow of the queen. You are the shield of the realm. You are the dagger in the night. You are whatever Galacia needs you to be.”

  Those gathered, Redshields and Blackshields, Whiteshields and household staff, and the newly sworn Marshals, erupted into boisterous cheers.

  Bryn who rested her back against the stable whistled under her breath. She leaned toward Danica and said, “Britches, what just happened?”

  “Lar just left his boot-print on Peidra,” said Danica around a smile. She lent her voice to the hoots and hollers as Lar danced his mare around the pressing crowd. For the first time in weeks, Danica felt a laugh rise up from her belly.

  Chapter 29

  The Race Home

  With a flick of his wrist, Elias called his sword home. The runes etched into the flesh of his forearm screamed a silent song as the enchanted steel thrummed in his hand, pregnant with an inexorable power, like a lightning rod wrangling an errant bolt from the heavens.

  Elias bounded to Mordum’s side and looked down on him.

  “You’re going to end it then,” Mordum said.

  “No,” said Elias, as he laid the edge of his blade against Mordum’s throat, “I just wanted you to witness a barbarian’s restraint.”

  Teah exhaled a brittle sob and laid the inert Nyla down. She pushed Elias aside and grabbed Mordum by the collar and pulled him close. She peeled his hand from his wound and opened her palm over the rent in his abdomen. A halo of green light blossomed from her hand and Mordum’s wound sealed, leaving behind a thin, pink scar. “Tell me how to save her, and don’t think to deceive me.”

  Mordum offered her a grim smile. He held his bloody hand up, revealing a black sigil that looked like a backward p with a twisted hook at the bottom. “The soul-knife’s magic comes with a price. I am bound to the knife, and thus I alone can break the curse. The only other way to save your child is to take the life of he that bound her spirit. You must kill me.”

  Teah began to shake. She withdrew from him and peered down at him with baleful eyes. “The darkness take you, you bastard.”

  Mordum pushed himself up onto an elbow. “I can’t expect you to forgive me,” he said, his tone free from malice, before he vanished with a crackling whoosh, not unlike air rushing through bellows. He rematerialized on the vacated Arbiter’s bench. “But nor can I die. Not yet. I alone can stop the Wayfarer from collapsing the timeline. I will give you back your daughter, at the end of all things.”

  Elias called upon his magic as soon he caught sight of Mordum and was rewarded with an instantaneous, sight-stealing headache. Foolishly, he had squandered his strength with his lightning spell and left his reservoir of power empty. He blinked away the withering pain and charged Mordum with his sword, but the Darkin turned, as if to walk away, and a vertical slice of light cut through the air. After but a beat, the light opened into a luminescent ellipse which he stepped into before he and it vanished in a white starburst.

  Elias skidded to a stop against the Arbiter’s bench with a curse on his lips. “I’m going to need to learn how to do that.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Teah as she stood, Nyla rag-doll limp in her arms. She looked Elias hard in the eye. “We’ll run him to ground on our own terms.” To her credit, Teah’s face had resumed its stoic mask, though her eyes were alight with fury.

  Elias didn’t need to be a mind-reader to know Teah’s thoughts. He went to her and gripped her by the arm. “It’s not your fault he escaped. Anyone would have done the same as you, myself included.”

  Teah gave him a sharp nod. “We’ll find him. I swear it on my salt.”

  “I know,” said Elias. He sheathed his sword as Cormn and Malak wandered up.

  “Is what he says true?” the Arbiter asked.

  Elias buckled his sword on and adjusted it so that the hilt rested against the hollow between his ribs and stomach. He looked Cormn dead in the eye. “I don’t know. But what I do know is that I don’t trust Mordum any more than a fox in henhouse. The man speaks in riddles and has more power than any one being should have.”

  “I find I must agree with Elias, father,” said Malak.

  Cormn cast his son a sidelong glance. “You have made it abundantly clear where you stand on this matter.”

  “Think about it, though,” Malak said. “Even if Mordum speaks the truth, can we be so selfish as to think to save our own little corner of creation when we may be able to avert perhaps the inevitable destruction of an entire world?”

  “It is not for a mortal to answer such questions,” replied Cormn. “What version of history is more valid? Which is to say nothing of the paradoxes that might arise from changing the timeline yet again. This is the very reason why temporal Arcanum has been outlawed.”

  “Before the end Leosis told me that we each of us are great spirits wreathed in flesh,” said Teah. “And to our souls this world is as a dream. Not existing in this life will not extinguish our souls. Have we not learned that when the flesh no longer exists that still we go on? Is that not the point of the Abeotium? I can’t believe that a being can just cease to exist, for is that not just another paradox? And have we not been taught that nature abhors a paradox?”

  “Again, this why temporal Arcanum has been outlawed!” Cormn exhaled and something seemed to go out of him. “I’m not going to debate metaphysics with you. It’s just that all this...” He threw up his arms, at a loss for words. “So, what then, Teah? You’re saying that you’re throwing in with Elias?”

  “No,” said Teah as she squeezed Nyla to her chest, “that became evident when you put me in chains. What I’m saying is that you’ll have to break the First Law to stop me.”

  “And I,” said Malak. “Father I will move my affects out at once.”

  Cormn laid a hand on his son’s shoulder in a glaring show of public affection for the prim Enkilder. “That won’t be necessary, son. You are all welcome under my roof. Yet this subject brooks further discussion.”

  “Are you just saying that so that you can keep an eye on us?” said Malak with an arched eyebrow, though he made no attempt to pull away from Cormn.

  Cormn shot him a wan smile. “You are a barrister to the core, Malak. No, I was thinking that perhaps Wayfarer is right—maybe there is a solution to this issue that doesn’t involve erasing us from the timeline. Maybe we can have our biscuits and our tea. You all should know that since Elias and Teah were captured the rift in the ether has grown exponentially, and we’ve had no success in slowing it down. If we can’t stop the anomaly from spreading it will destroy Illedium and then the Enkilder will be doomed anyway.”

  “Shiny,” said Elias. “Now, where do we begin?”

  “There is one place we may able to find the means, and the knowledge, to repair the timeline and save Nyla,” said Teah.

  “Where’s that?” asked Malak.

  “The ruins of the wizards’ keep at Arcalum,” Teah replied.

  “What?” asked Elias, drawing close to her. “I thought all Peidra was destroyed?”

  Team indulged herself in a smirk. “Oh, it was, but the arcanists were clever. They made vaults deep beneath the earth, where they hid all their most secret lore.”

  “Huh,” said a pleasantly surprised Elias. “When?”

  “Long before your time,” said Teah. “But they were rediscovered and the contents of the great tower moved there by Archmagus Adlai Duana.”

  “Impressive moniker,” said Malak.

  “Duana,” said Elias as a shock of goosebumps swam up his arms.

  “Your surname, no?” asked Teah.

  “Yes,” Elias managed, when he found his voice again.

  “I didn’t know you were a father,” said Malak.

  “I’m not,” Elias said.

  Teah s
hot him a coy smile. “Not yet.”

  “Wait,” said Malak, “what does this mean?”

  “It means that Mordum hasn’t succeeded in changing the timeline—yet,” said Teah.

  “But if he did, would we even know?” asked Malak.

  “Perhaps not, as it would affect our memories. But if I still have memories of Elias’s descendent, then that means he does return back to his own time, which means we have a chance to defeat Mordum and save the future.”

  “What of the Wandering Isle?” asked Elias. “Leosis led me to believe that’s where my path leads.”

  Teah shook her head. “The Wandering Isle is half a world away. We may find something in the vaults to change our tactics, or point us in the right way on our journey. It profits us nothing not to try this first.”

  “Our journey?” asked Elias.

  Teah looked Elias dead in the eye. “Our fates are one now, Elias Duana, as is our path.”

  Elias returned her gaze, and drew strength from the fire he found there. “Very well. Let’s go find this vault.”

  Teah nodded. “Tomorrow, at first light. We have preparations to make.”

  “What sort of preparations?” asked Malak.

  “To reach the vault we’ll either have to travel overland and pass through Wilder territory, or we’ll have to travel through the bedrock tunnels under the ruins where we’ll likely find more Wilder and ancient Peidra’s safeguards. Either way, we should expect danger.”

  “Which is the more prudent?” asked Elias.

  Teah shrugged a shoulder. “That is something we’re going to have to discuss.”

  “And discuss it you shall,” said Cormn, “but for now let’s get home before the mob descends. Besides, I am in sore want of a drink.”

  Elias looked around the audience chamber and was surprised to see that at least half, if not the majority, of the Enkilder had lingered to watch the drama unfold. “Agreed. Let’s make tracks.”

  †

  Within the hour Elias and his new allies were situated in Cormn’s drawing room debating their next course of action. Their appetites had been stoked by the melee in the audience chamber, and they conversed in between mouthfuls of cold salmon, crusty bread, leeks, mushroom, and a soft cheese flecked with dill.

  “Which way is quicker?” asked Elias.

  Teah swallowed a bite of bread with a mouthful of watered wine. She tapped her hand on a map of the area unfurled before her. “The overland route, certainly, but that means open ground, with little cover once we leave Illedium, and the Wilder have horses.”

  “And through the tunnels below the plateau?” asked Elias.

  Teah shrugged. “I haven’t been that way since before I met Leosis. There may be near as many Wilder roaming around or camped down there, particularly with autumn breaking.”

  Elias scratched a hand through his hair. “Yet being outnumbered will be less an issue in the tunnels. The narrow corridors will funnel them into a single front, nullifying their advantage.”

  Cormn snorted. “Until you start falling, and their front rank man has someone to replace him, whilst you do not.”

  “Your argument is well made, Arbiter,” Elias returned. “But I have no intention of dying before returning to my own time. There’s just too much at stake.”

  “Your conviction is...admirable,” said Cormn with a thin smile. “And call me by my given name. I think it’s safe to assume that we are past the point of formality now.”

  Elias met Cormn’s eyes, the Enkilder’s expression unreadable. “Malak, what do you think?”

  “I wither at the thought of trekking under a mountain of stone,” he said with a shudder, “but nor do I want to run afoul of a tribe of Wilder on the open ground. It would be suicide. You are the only one with any combat experience. Stealth can be our only option.”

  Elias leaned back. “Or subterfuge.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Malak.

  “I’m not quite sure,” said Elias, “but I am human. Maybe we can come up with a contingency plan if we are overpowered. Maybe we can trick the Wilder, or elicit their aid.”

  “You must be mad!” cried Cormn. “They’re savages. They cannot be reasoned with.”

  Elias felt a smirk creep across his mouth. “You forget that I too am a savage.”

  “You and they are hardly the same, and you know it,” Cormn said.

  “Yet the only difference between us is that their civilization was destroyed, and they’ve had to live off a blasted land without any education, resources, or infrastructure for generations,” Elias said.

  Cormn sighed heavily and held up his hands. “I’m not going to debate semantics with you. We have more pressing matters at hand.”

  Elias reached for his water. “On that we can agree.” He shuffled in his seat. He felt Teah’s eyes on him and turned to meet her gaze. “What if Mordum was telling the truth? If I succeed and it means that the Enkilder never exist?”

  “That’s what we’re going to the vaults to find out,” she said. “Let’s not put the plow before the ox. Leosis believed in you, and that is enough for me.”

  Elias gave her a curt nod and pretended the weight of multiple civilizations didn’t rest on his shoulders. “I vote for the tunnels.” He looked first to Teah who gave a curt but decisive nod, then to Malak who said, “Agreed.”

  A silence fell which saw Teah idly rolling a grape around her plate. “Cormn. Your library is vast. What know you of the soul-blades and their function?”

  Cormn met her eyes with no small difficulty. “I have studied many things yes, but your command over the deep mysteries is far greater than my own, and the soul-knife is an art of the Darkin.”

  Teah’s hand shook ever so slightly as she raised a grape to her mouth. “Surely one of our ancestors must have seen this black curse lifted? Dianna the White, perhaps?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” said Cormn, “but we can look. I will go with you, while Malak and Elias make preparations for your journey.

  After Teah and Cormn left the room, Malak turned to Elias. “I suppose we should see about gathering supplies for our trip.”

  “We can travel lightly,” said Elias. “It’s not far.”

  Malak snorted. “This will be the farthest from home I’ve ever gone. It might as well be another world.”

  Elias clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, friend, you know how I feel.”

  Malak’s smile was clearly forced. “There’s a good chance that we won’t return, isn’t there?”

  “I wouldn’t say good. I’d say fair, at least.”

  Malak shook his head. “Always with a joke.”

  “It helps. But if you think I’m overly jocular, you should meet my sister.” Elias’s smile wilted. “Or Bryn.”

  There must have been something in his tone, because Malak gave him a quizzical look. “Who’s Bryn?”

  Elias chuckled, the sound a hollow echo in his ears. “It’s complicated.”

  “It seems everything with you is.”

  “Bryn is special. Perhaps in another life we could have...”

  “Ah,” said Malak. “I think I understand.”

  An awkward silence fell between them, which Malak broke by suggesting they go see about supplying up. Elias was only too happy to oblige, welcoming any activity that gave him a break from his ruminating thoughts.

  †

  Elias rapped softly on Teah’s door. When no answer was forthcoming, he turned to leave, but an intuition stopped him. He turned the knob and eased the door open, peeking through the sliver of light that poured from the room.

  Teah sat cross-legged on the floor, back arrow-straight, eyes closed; even her bosom appeared inert, so that he couldn’t see the rise and fall of her breaths. Motionless as a stone, and with her statuesque beauty and porcelain skin he could almost believe she was made from marble and not from flesh and blood, save for the blush on her throat and high on her cheeks, which dispelled the illusion.

  A candelabra flick
ered on the table behind her, and a pungent bowl of incense spiraled blue skeins of smoke into the air. On impulse, Elias crept into the room and raised his arcane sight. Teah’s aura fanned out to envelop nearly the entirety of the room. He stepped into the limits of her energy field and felt her power wash over him like warm water, raising the hairs along his arms in its wake.

  Elias Duana, whispered a voice in his mind.

  Elias was certain her lips hadn’t moved, but he knew the voice to be Teah’s. It wasn’t so much the sound of it, which didn’t seem much different from the voice of his own thoughts, rather it was the feel of it, the essence.

  Teah’s eyes snapped open. They seemed impossibly green, impossibly bright. Elias felt a sudden longing, but he suppressed it at once. “You’re learning. You’ve become familiar with my energy, you recognized it as separate from the patter of your own mind.”

  “Can you communicate like this?” asked Elias. “Over distances?”

  “Yes, as can a few other gifted individuals. So shall you be able one day, no doubt, if you care to dedicate yourself to this discipline.” She patted the spot of floor before her, on the area rug. “Come. Sit.”

  Elias complied. “Wouldn’t it be more comfortable to sit in a chair?”

  She made an expression in which her lips pressed together in a lopsided line somewhere between a smile and a grimace, which he had begun to recognize as an indication of amusement. “This helps keep me from falling asleep. And it helps to keep your spine straight.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Quieting my mind so that I can sense goings-on in the ether, both near and far.”

  “Like entering the void?”

  Teah tilted her head to one side, in what had become a familiar expression to Elias. “Yes, I suppose you could think of it as that. But the trick is this: after you drop within to awaken the deeper senses, you then must reach out.”

  “I’m not sure I follow.”

  She scooted closer to him, so that their knees were touching. She tapped his sternum with her index finger. “When you drop into your void you descend here, within yourself. You activate your abilities, touch upon the powers secreted in your being. Now that you’ve gathered yourself here,” she raised her hand and laid her palm against his crown, “you must bring yourself up here, and then out so that you can interact with energies outside yourself.”