by Jeff Wilson
Favored by these circumstances, all of which had proven contrary to the far more cautious expectations with which Oren and his men had begun their assault, the Sigil Corps had taken possession of the palace unopposed, and it was now being used as their base. By morning, it was also serving as one of several locations for treating men injured in the fighting. At Edryd’s request, someone had been sent to bring Uleth, who was doing a thorough and competent job at directing the task of attending to the most seriously injured men.
Uleth still had some of Irial’s old clothing, a dress and some shoes that she had once worn when she had been a child, and he had sent Neysim to go and collect them for Eithne, along with a number of medical texts. Near the end of the afternoon, when the city had settled down enough that it was safe to do so, Edryd left the palace along with Eithne and Uleth. Together they followed the familiar road that led east towards the cottage that Irial and Eithne had called home. Eithne held Edryd’s hand tightly as they walked, trying to be strong, and remaining very quiet. Edryd understood her feelings. He wished they were going somewhere else and that he did not have to face this loss, or at the very least that Eithne should not have to bear it too.
Smoke rose in the air trailing off to the east. It was too far towards the south and east to be coming from the cottage, but it was still reason for concern. Eithne saw it too, and looked to Edryd for reassurances that he could not give her.
“We should gather flowers,” Edryd said, as they came to the place where he and Irial had often left the roadway, seeking out a variety of wild plants which grew there.
“What kind?” Eithne asked, very much in favor of the idea as she brought her hands up, letting go of Edryd’s hand in the process. She was obviously eager to be off, needing only the least push of encouragement.
“Find some mountain iris,” Edryd suggested, “and some of her other favorites as well.”
Edryd thought that Eithne might run on ahead, but she remained with him, and together they walked towards the streamside meadow. He had formed such pleasant memories with Irial on those occasions when they had visited this place, and he could picture her now, enjoying the natural peace that could be found here. Edryd helped Eithne across the stream once they reached it, and she was soon roaming the boundaries of the meadow in search of beautiful flowers. Uleth arrived just behind them.
Choosing his customary spot, Edryd sat down upon the ground. Uleth remained standing, watching Eithne, who was carefully moving amongst and choosing out selections from the many flowers that grew here.
“Irial would have loved this place,” Uleth said.
“She did love it,” Edryd responded. He then fell silent for a moment, feeling something he did not know how to express. “I wish everyone could have seen her as I did. If they had, they would all mourn as I do.”
Edryd looked to Uleth, who turned and answered, “She may have been feared and hated by those who remained in An Innis, accounting her a worker of evil spells, but years ago, Irial helped a great number of the disempowered victims of this island escape to the settlements.” By this Uleth meant the people who now lived under the patronage of the Ascomanni encampment at Darkpool, former citizens of An Innis who had fled to escape enslavement under the rule of the harbormasters. “Those men and women owe Irial their lives, and they are among the many who will not soon forget her.”
Uleth sat down a short distance from Edryd and proceeded to tell him more. The slave ships of An Innis had developed a reputation for being disease ridden nuisances, harming the prices the men of An Innis could expect to obtain in the markets. To combat this, they took to separating out sick slaves before departing. If the cause of illness was suspected to be one of the plagues that had ravaged An Innis in years past, those slaves would be killed. In desperation to escape their fates, even knowing it could mean death to do so, men and women began to feign illness to avoid being taken and sold.
Irial was known by then as a healer in An Innis. Uleth had trained her. She begged for permission to treat these men and women who had fallen sick, but their masters refused. They preferred not to assume the risk of the diseases spreading further.
By this time there were already rumors about the returned and whispers of cursed men and women walking the world as corpses after their deaths. Irial played upon these fears by telling the men who would one day become the harbormasters that this is what they were facing. She told them that only she could make certain that the dying would remain dead. If they did not allow her to do her work, she swore that when these men and women returned from death, they would seek out those who had wronged them and take their revenge.
“She hadn’t planned anything beyond trying to frighten them,” said Uleth, “and none of slave masters believed her.”
“But then something happened to them. Something that changed their minds,” said Edryd.
“Krin happened to them,” Uleth said, confirming Edryd’s guess. “All in the course of one night, he killed the slave masters of three different ships, stealing and escaping in the largest of them, a slave ship called the Black Strand.”
“And that was the beginning of the Ascomanni?” Edryd asked.
“No, just the beginning of Captain Krin, the Ascomanni came later,” said Uleth.
The old man went on to explain that Krin had not left any witnesses behind, only rumors. Those rumors became stories that were the fulfillment of Irial’s warnings. Dead victims of these ships had returned, or so people believed, and they had killed the masters who had bound them in life. This became the accepted truth in An Innis, and so they all then heeded Irial’s demands that she be allowed to calm the spirits of the sick, so that they would not return seeking revenge.
The cottage was just one of several buildings prepared as places away from the city, where Irial could help ease the suffering of the dying, and prevent their return once they succumbed to the final stages of their illness. For those who had become sick, she tried to heal them. For those who recovered, and those who had only pretended to be ill, Irial arranged in secret for their escape to a base Krin had set up to the south of An Innis. They made use of the tunnels hidden under the homes where she cared for them to avoid being seen. The people she cared for were all expected to die. No one would miss them when they escaped.
“Did no one wonder why everyone died?” Edryd wondered. “Were none of those who recovered ever seen by people in the town again in the years since?”
“But they were seen,” answered Uleth. “That only reinforced the notions of the returned, making them ever more into things to be feared. They could not return to live in An Innis if they had wanted to, which they did not. Instead, by subterfuge, and with caution and care, we had their loved ones feign illness as well, marking them in places with dyes and paints to simulate disease. Irial rescued more than a hundred in this way.”
Edryd understood now. Irial had through her kindness, created the Ascomanni. She was the benevolent patron to these men and women, who in a sense, had truly passed on from their former lives and yet lived on thanks to her intervention. It made sense now why she had been so connected to the Ascomanni, and it explained how she had developed the reputation which had made her an outcast.
“There are those that cared about her deeply,” Uleth said. “I believe you will soon see how great her influence was felt.” Edryd could feel that Uleth’s grief was greater than his own. She was family to him. He had raised her as a daughter, and he missed her now as only a father could.
Their conversation was interrupted by Eithne’s return. She held bundles of beardtongue, aster, and mountain iris, collected from across the meadow. The attractive purple and blue flowers were beautiful, bringing out the sapphire in Eithne’s eyes. Edryd, seeking to confirm what he had seen the night before, envisioned Eithne through the effects she had on the currents of the dark. She manifested as a beautiful pure light, which interacted with the darkness in the way that only a shaper could.
Edryd understood now as well, wh
y Irial had insisted that he must be the one to help Eithne. Irial had hoped that he would guide Eithne and protect her while she began to understand her potential. As he thought on this, Edryd was shaken by a fear as powerful as any he had ever experienced, feeling painfully unequal to the task with which Irial had entrusted him. He could not afford to fail Irial in this. He had promised her that much.
Turning towards Uleth, Edryd began to suggest that they should leave, but there was no one there. Edryd was still relying on his ability to perceive the dark. He should have been able to confirm Uleth’s presence, even if he had moved somewhere else. As Edryd concentrated on finding the man, his attentions were taken eastward. Eventually he found himself focused on the ruins. No, not on the ruins, but on the forests which encircled and hid them, it made no sense.
Edryd tried to return to what he could physically see and hear. At first, although the meadow, Eithne, and everything else began to return into focus, Uleth was not there. Edryd was struggling to pick up on even a hint of the man’s presence. Finally, concentrating fully on only what he could physically see, Uleth was there once more, having not moved from where he had been to begin with. Edryd wondered for a moment if Uleth could be shrouded. It didn’t seem likely, but it was the only explanation he had right now.
There was another possibility. Edryd concentrated once more on seeing the man through the dark, and he found it, an insubstantial pattern that mimicked the presence of a person. Uleth was the mere image of a man. It could fool the senses, but it wasn’t really there. Edryd immediately thought of the Ældisir and the false images she had made him see. Somewhere inside, he felt a confirmation that he was right to draw this connection.
“I thought maybe some lanceleaf too,” Edryd said to Eithne, so that he could buy a moment to speak with the illusion that was Uleth. Eithne set the bundled flowers down and bounded away in search of the yellow flowers Edryd had named.
“You are not real,” Edryd said. Thinking about it now, Edryd could not recall visibly seeing this man interact with anything. Uleth had unlocked the door to his home, but had not opened it. He had made Edryd carry the basket with the loaves of bread into the kitchen, instead of accepting them when they were offered. Edryd had seen Uleth tend to sick patients, but he had only examined them, directing others in the treatments.
“I would say that none of us are,” Uleth answered. The conversation began to remind Edryd of the book he had read in Irial’s cottage. The one Eithne had tried to explain to him. “I could not fool one who sees so clearly for long,” Uleth said, sighing deeply, having understood that it had always been only a matter of time.
“You are a shaper,” Edryd said.
“No, I do not shape,” Uleth corrected, “or at least no more than other men. Less than any other man, I should say.”
“Then by what power do you do this?” Edryd asked, believing that he was being lied to.
“Men shape the dark, but only as part of a greater design,” Uleth explained. “We are all part of the shape. If you know the design, it can be made to suggest something else, all without ever touching it.”
Edryd thought he almost understood some of that, but the idea seemed more of an illusion that even Uleth.
“A man is a pebble,” Uleth continued, “sunk in the current of a stream if you will, that circles and flows around all of us. As pebbles go though, you are I think, a very important one. I tremble to speak with you like this, out of a fear that I might dislodge you from your place in the pattern.”
“Who are you?” Edryd asked, having become timid with awe.
“One of the Ascetics,” Uleth answered, “though, I do not know that I can call myself one any longer. I will have been the last, once I am gone. I had thought I might train Irial, so that she could carry some of my burden. I count it a kindness to her that I never did, and in any event, that opportunity has passed.”
Edryd recognized the name Uleth spoke of. It belonged to a group of sorcerers who upheld an oath that forbade certain aspects of their arcane arts as a penance for wrongs committed by their ancestors. They had been destroyed over five hundred years ago by the dark sorcerer Ulensorl. Perhaps not all it appeared.
“Train Eithne,” Edryd said. “She seems to have the mind for such things.” Edryd did not know whether she really did, he just knew how smart she was. He had, he was ashamed to admit, suggested this idea because of how heavily he had begun to feel the responsibility that Irial had given to him. Surely Uleth was a more capable teacher.
“No,” Uleth insisted firmly. “She is too much like you. She has a part to play, and I do not dare interfere with it. You will need to be the one to help her grow strong.”
Irial clearly had been influenced by this man, Edryd realized. Her certainty about who and what he was, and insisting that he must help Eithne, all had a source. It had been Uleth.
“You speak as though you know what is to come?” Edryd said, not yet prepared to believe what he was himself suggesting.
“No,” Uleth disagreed. “I am afraid I am giving you the wrong impression. I have no real wisdom or power, only a few weak tricks and bits of lost knowledge. I don’t seek to see the future. It is, I think, unwise to try, for doing so would be to seek something that does not exist.”
“But you know the fates of others.”
“I see the world, and those of us who inhabit it, as they are, or I try to,” Uleth said, trying vainly to explain himself to an uncomprehending Edryd. “I can see your place in the pattern, and the shapes you can take within it. I cannot predict what will come, but I can see that you bring change. That is all. I can tell you only this, when you act, you must try to see all ends before you decide.”
Edryd had no immediate response for this. Uleth seemed to be speaking nonsense, but that nonsense was making Edryd feel uncomfortable, and he was beginning shake. “I have not often been faulted for having acted without thought,” Edryd finally said, “only for failing to act, or for being too harsh or too selfish when I did.”
“Then they have not understood you.” Uleth’s words were quiet and full of empathy, as though he could see Edryd’s suffering. “You are not an ordinary man. You are burdened with an importance. Your choices will often be hard ones, and they will carry consequences.”
These words recalled to Edryd’s mind a similar admonishment Seoras had once given him. But where Seoras’s words had been dark, urging Edryd to seek greater power, Uleth’s words of caution were an expression of sympathy, and though Edryd took no comfort from them, he recognized the wisdom that they held. He could see Irial’s kindness in this man, and he felt instinctively that he could trust Uleth.
“You should help me then,” Edryd said.
“No,” Uleth said, even more firmly than he had when Edryd had suggested that he teach Eithne.
“I need to understand my power. I have to learn how to shape.”
“You have not been listening,” Uleth replied. “I am a sorcerer, and an incompetent one at that. I do not shape.”
“Shaping, is it something evil?” Edryd asked.
“No, it is neither good nor bad. But it is something I have no talent for, and it is an area in which you have been hobbled as well. Even if I were a shaper of great power, you would not have the ability to learn. There is a reason that Seoras failed to progress your awakening. There is nothing I can do.”
Edryd was not convinced. Clearly there were things that Uleth could do, things that even Seoras could not. “I need guidance,” Edryd pled.
“The things I could impart,” Uleth said slowly, choosing his words carefully, “are things you should not learn from me. I would be a blind man teaching a child about a world filled with light and color. I would forever distort your perceptions, and it would prevent you from seeing truth.”
Uleth went silent as Eithne returned. She smiled at Edryd and held out the samples of lanceleaf that he had sent her after. She had also harvested clusters of woodsage, and had picked several beautiful stream orchids.
Edryd allowed his conversation with Uleth to end. Eithne and Edryd, dividing between them the flowers that Eithne had collected, made their way back to the road, followed by the image of Uleth, which of course carried nothing.
Falling back, so that he could inspect Uleth, Edryd noticed that the man’s feet left tracks in the ground, but they did not stir any dust into the air as they should have done on the dry earth. As soon he noticed this, small clouds began to rise behind Uleth. It might have been Uleth, correcting a flaw, but Edryd suspected it was instead a product of being made to see, whatever it was that he expected he should see.
Edryd was able to confirm this suspicion, for he found that he could make Uleth’s foot trail appear or disappear, by simply imagining that the earth of the roadway was either more hard, or more soft, than it truly was. There was a thrill in this discovery, but it left Edryd feeling unsettled. He had no idea who or what Uleth really was. These were not the questions Edryd should have been asking. Uleth was precisely who he showed himself to be. What Uleth hid, from everyone, was where he was.
The opportunity to explore the nature of the illusion did not last long, as they had not been far from the cottage. Arriving before the lonely structure, the scene of violence that had been in front of the building the day before was gone, with all traces of blood having been swept away. The bodies of the men that Ruach had killed had been moved a great distance away and burnt in a fire, accounting for the smoke that they had all seen earlier.
