When he became confident the threat of the Dausos had passed, Teacher slowly walked to the torn patch of ground. He drew a deep breath and looked up at the star-filled sky, dreading what he must do. He was confident Rylan had been taken, not killed, and he was certain a mage of considerable power was behind the action.
There was no choice but to follow the golden threads of Rylan’s essence in hopes of recovering the child and finding the one responsible for the massacre. To do that, Teacher would have to cross over into Dausos, risking his very soul.
Regardless of the possible consequences, he would have to go, and not only to find the child and seek justice for those murdered; Teacher had a horrible suspicion that this incident was somehow connected to the ancient texts concerning Sacha.
Maintaining his cocoon of lifelessness, Teacher gathered more power from the Shamonrae and once again inverting the energy, probed into the gap he had felt briefly before the void had tried to consume him. As I feared, he thought grimly. Whomever had been responsible for the presence of the spirit creatures had lacked either the power, the knowledge, or perhaps the desire to fully close the way they had opened.
He wasn’t certain what the effect of an open rift between the worlds would be, but he was certain, to the very core of his being, that it would be a bad thing to leave the gap open. Insulated as he was, he could not feel the frozen touch and hunger of the other world, though he knew it must be there. Gently increasing his flow of power, he pried open the fissure he found.
There was nothing to see, of course. The void of Dausos offered nothing to the living, only emptiness. Even “black” failed to describe the lack of anything his senses could describe. In contrast, the ribbon of impression left in the living child’s wake stretched off as a beacon to his mind’s eye. It disappeared into what he could only call “the distance,” though time and space worked differently in the plane she had been taken to.
Teacher pondered how he was to follow this trail, where it might lead, and whether he could actually survive the trip he contemplated. He had never traveled within Dausos before, and it was only a matter of study that allowed him to stand here, on the very precipice.
Taking another deep breath, as if he were approaching the ocean, he stepped through the portal and turned back to face the rent that showed his world. He prepared a suture of sorts to close the way behind him. As with his proposed journey, this effort was more applied knowledge than practice. It should work.
Teacher worked and massaged the threads of his closure for some time before he realized what he was doing. By Eos... I’m procrastinating! He was afraid—terrified, in fact. The probability that he would survive this quest was low, and no amount of waiting would improve his odds.
Chiding himself for cowardice, he took one last look at the world he knew and pulled the edges of the rent between realities tightly closed.
On the small farm he left behind, silence ruled the night.
ERIK gave a silent prayer of thanks as Rouke rounded a bend in the trail at a full gallop, three riderless horses thundering in his dusty wake.
“I’ll take good fortune over skill-at-arms any day!” Kinsey whooped.
“No arguments with you there. Here, help me with him.” Erik bent to Kesh’s prone form and began to lever the senseless man to a sitting position. Kesh’s head lolled uselessly from side to side, and his arms seemed to have minds of their own, dropping from Erik’s shoulders and flopping to the leaf-littered ground.
Tsking at Erik’s vain attempts, Kinsey tossed his axe on the ground next to Kesh’s slumping form and gently moved Erik to one side. Kneeling, the broad man reached under one of Kesh’s flaccid arms and across his slumped back to grasp the finely crafted belt at the nobleman’s hip. Finding the balance of the weight, Kinsey easily stood, hauling the recumbent body from its position on the forest floor and snatching the axe from the ground on his way up.
“Showoff.” Erik smirked at his stepson and turned back to the approaching horses. He turned in time to be covered in the rolling clouds of dust kicked up by their skidding halt.
Rouke’s smiling face was revealed behind one of the dissipating dust clouds. “Looks like you three be needin’ a ride.”
“Yes, we do,” Erik coughed into his elbow and waved a free hand at the thick air. “If you don’t choke us to death first, that is.”
Horns blared close behind them and the calls of Wildmen sounded just across the ravine.
“Time to go!” Kinsey heaved the chancellor’s limp form over the back of his own horse.
Erik hopped onto Camelyard and waited for Kinsey to climb up on his mighty percheron.
The calls of pursuit sharpened as the Wildmen grew nearer, and arrows began to rattle through the trees and bracken. “Rouke, go!” Erik shouted as one bolt landed near enough to cause his horse to shy.
Rouke put spurs to his mount and raced away with Chancellor Tomelen’s horse trailing behind him. Kinsey and Erik followed in a blaze of twigs and dust, leaving their pursuers in the distance.
“Good fortune, I tell you!” Kinsey laughed as they sped down the game trail, catching up with Rouke.
“Aye, and I expect to be paid a fortune for savin’ your sorry hides!” the soldier yelled.
Kinsey laughed even louder at the retort.
Erik grinned as well. Facing death and surviving made him feel more alive than he had in years.
He shouted to Rouke, “Where are the others?”
“Just ahead, waitin’ for us!”
Rounding a grouping of trees along the game trail proved Rouke’s words to be true. The escort stood loosely bunched along the middle of the trail before them, the horses stamping impatiently and their riders looking anxious.
Once joined, there was only pause enough to return Kesh to bitterly complaining consciousness before the riders pushed on, riding further into the depths of the Winewood.
“By Eos... it’s huge!” Kinsey said in disbelief.
Erik smiled. That was the third time his adopted son had spoken the words since coming within sight of the mountain fortress of Pelos. The long week that had passed since their encounter on the road had robbed them all of much desire for loquacity, but this repetition presented an opportunity he could not pass by. “Your grasp of descriptive language is awe-inspiring.”
Kinsey looked at him with an open-mouthed smile and nodded his head. The expression reminded Erik of when Kinsey was a child. He would be excitedly fixed on the treat that would reward him for chores well done and completely oblivious to Erik’s sarcasm. He didn’t know many full dwarves. Perhaps they were innately unable to process snarky language.
Erik laughed and shook his head. “Yes, it is huge.”
To Erik, Stone Mountain was so much more than colossal. It was art. He had visited the capital city twice before and had been captivated by its presence each time. Carved from the mountainside itself, the castle spanned across a series of cliffs that overlooked a circular bay below. The shaped granite faces had been polished to a bright white that reflected the sun, making it look as if the entire cliff was glowing. Large statues of fierce bears and stern-faced kings decorated its surface. Each figure was easily over one hundred feet high. A mountain spring flowed from the heights into a great cistern at the top of the stone works. The resultant glittering pool was the source of the entire city’s water supply and was unlike any other on the face of Orundal.
“All my life I’ve thought Waterfall Citadel was the most spectacular city in all the world, but after seeing this, I’m not so sure.” Kinsey said, marveling at the many structures protruding from the cliffs.
“It’s good to keep an open mind,” Erik replied.
Kinsey pointed at a length of wall that stood before Stone Mountain, stretching across the massive chasm within the mountain range they traveled. “Is that City Wall?”
“It is... carved from Mountain Wall as well. It’s been said that when the dwarves first found this place, it was a solid range of mountain
s. The rocks were so dense with precious ores and stones that the dwarves dug out the entire valley you see before you. It was the work of generations to attain the riches buried deep within and the work opened up the bay below to create Stone Mountain.” He spread his arms to encompass the entirety of the scene. “You see—”
“Yes, yes, Erik.” The sneer in Chancellor Tomelen’s voice severed Erik’s next words neatly, like a sharp blade. “We’ve all heard this before, or at least, those with the proper education have.” He rode up next to the pair, dressed in his best attire for the coming reception upon entering the city. His disdainful expression was ruined somewhat by the half-healed weal that marred the line of his left eyebrow and ascended to break the otherwise flowing hairline. The wound had not been deep, but the swelling from the blow he had taken prevented the skin from closing for a number of days. He had loudly dismissed Erik’s ministrations as “hedge doctoring” or “suspicious elven mysticism” while simultaneously demanding some action be taken, otherwise “I, and by extension, Prince Alexander, would be the laughingstock of all civilized nations.” Kinsey, at least, had appeared to enjoy the spectacle of Kesh riding along while attempting to will the gash shut by constantly peering into a pocket looking glass and prodding at the seeping wound. Kinsey’s smug expression had not gone unnoticed and the chancellor’s already present resentment toward Erik’s stepson had waxed even further. Keeping the pair’s constant sniping in check had been challenging, to say the least.
“This bit of history may actually interest you, Kinsey, since part of your... pedigree involves those filthy little men. They went to war with each other over this place.” His arm swept out over the valley. “That’s why it’s a human country now. They brutalized each other like dogs in a pit for years. The pathetic remnants were chased from their dark holes once the nomadic savages that now occupy it arrived.”
Even for Kesh, this offering was rancorous. Erik’s stomach fell to his feet as he looked over at Kinsey and watched the joyous expression on his stepson’s face melt away, into a stone-cold mask of hate.
“That going to be part of your opening speech, Chancellor?” Kinsey’s deep voice was winter cold, and he returned his stare to the sparkling city.
Kesh’s brow wrinkled and the flesh around his green eyes creased momentarily as doubt flickered across his features. Erik hoped the chancellor realized the potential impact of his bigotry. The man had not been far wrong when he used the word “savages.” The Pelosians did, in fact, descend from the most warlike tribes of men, and even now, some hundreds of years later, their legendary exploits were fodder for tales of conquest and excess.
The fair man’s gently pursed lips spread back into the easy, confident smile that was the court mask Erik had seen so often on the nobleman. Kesh obviously felt there was no cause for alarm.
Kesh’s washed and buffed hand rose from its position on the saddle and he waggled it palm up as if weighing his thoughts. “Perhaps. I suppose it will depend on how the Pelosians receive you. Considering it was your grubby wreck of a people who handed over the keys to the uncivilized vagabonds in the first place, it could be they will be glad to see you. I imagine they are tired of emptying their own privies.” Chancellor Tomelen eyed Kinsey along the length of his nose with a wicked smile.
Erik spurred his horse into a forceful collision with the nobleman’s steed, cutting short the next words forming on his venomous lips and delaying Kinsey’s violent reaction. “Let us hope these vagabonds have soap, Chancellor, because your mouth reeks.” Erik made no attempt to hide the disdain in his voice and he locked eyes with the chancellor to convey that his patience was at an end.
Kesh returned Erik’s leveled stare and attempted to arch a brow. The gesture reopened the wound, which promptly began to ooze through the powders that had been so delicately, rigorously, and completely ineffectually, applied. Clapping a hand to the wound, Kesh snarled, “Keep him in check.” Sawing at the reins furiously, the chancellor spurred his horse forward. His entourage fell in about him, like a group of nesting hens, gossiping and laughing as they looked back.
“One of these days, he and I are going to have a reckoning.” Kinsey growled.
Erik looked at his stepson. “No matter. He is of no matter to us.”
“Until this mission is over, he is… I’m fine, you don’t have to worry.”
Erik could almost believe him, but Kinsey’s body was completely rigid in the saddle, his knuckles were white on the hand that gripped the pommel, and Erik could tell from the way Dak stomped his front hooves that Kinsey’s thick legs were clamped uncomfortably onto the horse’s ribs.
A devious grin crept across the big man’s face. “Besides, I’ve set up a little surprise for our friend.”
Erik’s eyes darted with alarm back to the flock of courtiers still prancing along toward City Wall. The remaining Basinian armsmen followed behind them, holding brilliant banners of green and gold that flowed in the wind.
“What?” Erik could see nothing amiss, and his mind raced, trying to remember every action he knew Kinsey had taken in the past few hours. “What have you done?”
“Nothing serious. But we have arrived a day early, you know?”
Erik looked back at Kinsey, raising an eyebrow. “Yes?”
Kinsey shrugged his broad shoulders. “Well, when we stopped at that inn last night to refresh, I may have forgotten to send word of our premature arrival. With all the stress I’ve been under and everything, it was an honest mistake.”
Erik sat in silence as Kinsey’s words sank in. It was customary for arriving dignitaries to announce their advent to another’s estate, and all but mandatory to do so when entering another kingdom. For an embassy to arrive without giving the hosts due notice… The implication would be that Kesh didn’t even know the simplest of forms. The lack of decorum and the disrespect it showed would color every conversation Kesh had with any noble for the entire trip, and perhaps well into the future.
Erik raised one hand to his face, closing his eyes and massaging the sudden tension in his brow. “You’re telling me they don’t know we’re here?” Erik asked, leaning forward in his saddle.
“Nope.”
Erik swallowed his involuntary laugh. If there was one thing Chancellor Kesh Tomelen valued over anything else, it was his ego. This little “mistake” would see it dragged through the mud, or possibly through something far worse. Peering between the fingers that still clutched his forehead, he reached for the fatherly voice he had thought he would never use again. “Kinsey, you’re going to get us both flogged!”
Kinsey’s bearded chin thrust out in defiance. “It’ll be worth it.”
Sacha rolled the black rose between her fingers, patiently waiting her turn as she watched the swarm of girls buzz around her sister in preparation for the ball. The girls giggled and hopped about as they primped Sloane. They might have saved the effort, she thought. Her sister would have been ravishing without the seemingly endless procession of jewels and silks they draped about her.
The press of this many people in close quarters and their constant thrum of conversation put Sacha on edge. She had not realized it, but she had become accustomed to the solitude and quiet of the monastery. Ironic, she thought. During her seclusion she had often dreamed of this exact scene: the press of attention from courtiers, cousins, and friends, the comforts she had so taken for granted. She could still feel the echo of the girl she had once been, looking at her sister in the center of the silk and golden maelstrom, and envying Sloane for her place at the center of attention. Reconciling the girl she had been with the woman she had become would be a true challenge as she tried to find her place amongst the chaos of her return and her imminent departure.
“Have you seen any of the delegates from the Citadel?” Meagan asked as she tugged at the edges of Sloane’s gown.
“Oh, I did,” Bella chirped, picking up a long, delicately carved wooden case and opening it. “I ran down to the square once it was announced they
had arrived.” Her voice trailed off as she fingered the contents inside and her lips pursed in thought.
The announcement neatly arrested the twittering horde mid-babble. The women looked expectantly at Bella, and then at each other as she remained smiling silently at the glittering diamond necklace in the box.
Predictably, it was Marcella who first lost patience with an explosive exhalation. “Well?” The look of exasperation painted across her dusky features almost made Sacha laugh.
Bella looked up from the box, her mouth crooked slightly to one side, and the opposite eyebrow arched gracefully. “Well what?”
Marcella grabbed a densely embroidered cushion and hurled it at Bella, nearly knocking the jewelry box out of the now openly laughing girl’s hands. “What do they look like, you ninny!”
Sacha laughed with the others at the exchange.
“Hoping to catch one for yourself, Marcella?” Leanne asked, turning back to the business at hand and placing the royal tiara on Sloane’s head.
“Possibly... It will depend on whether they are handsome, which we would know if Bella would stop holding out on us.” Marcella shot Bella a hawkish look.
“Really, Marcella. There’s no need to be so impatient!” Bella grinned and placed the delicate box back on the dressing stand.
“I, too, am curious about these delegates,” Sloane said. “Not for their looks, of course, but their manner. I was led to believe that courtiers from Waterfall Citadel are the most sophisticated and proper of all the kingdoms, yet they did not announce their arrival until they were upon our gates. Most peculiar behavior, don’t you think?”
Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1) Page 8
