Gifts of Vorallon: 03 - Lord of Vengeance

by Thomas Cardin

  The same clear voice that had offered the chain, called out. “Keep your eyes shut against the light.”

  Lehan could not see, but he felt the impact of his daughter as she flung herself upon him. “Father!” Falraan cried over and over between kisses to his cheek.

  He trapped her face between his hands and stilled her with a kiss to her forehead. “Fal! Aran told me you were here,” hot tears streamed from his tightly shut eyes, “and Oen as well. Where are you brother? I cannot see!”

  “Hold on,” the same young man’s voice called, resonating with the serenity awakened within him. Hard wind turned them back out to sea, flinging the flying vessel motion.

  It gropes its way around us, looking for a weakness. Lorace thought. “Our light holds the blight at bay—hold it a while longer, my friends. We will be clear of its threat soon.”

  Falraan continued to embrace her father while sailors took the other survivors in hand and lead them clear of the crowded bow.

  “Thank you! Brother of Aran,” Lehan called out toward Lorace’s voice. “My blessings to you.”

  “Truthseeker indeed.” Lorace chuckled in relief as they put distance between themselves and the rising wall of hungry darkness. “Be welcome aboard, brother of Oen and Father of Falraan, you are among friends.”

  The lean priest sagged from exhaustion and long privation.

  “Lower the light, my love,” Lorace called. “We have left the blight behind for now.”

  Iris spoke quietly to the priests, talking them through the proper release of the spell. Much of her teaching had centered on the firm warning that their own vitality would be consumed if they dismissed a spell improperly. They let the flow of magic from the world spirit ease away and exhausted their light simultaneously.

  A radiating brightness rippled through Vorallon’s spirit as this occurred. Does Vorallon gain strength from their magic? Incredible. The spirit of Vorallon was much stronger about them, though the blight still lurked nearby.

  Once Oen had lowered his hands from casting the light spell, he turned to his brother and wrapped his arms about him in a crushing hug, nearly burying the thinner man.

  Lehan blinked tears out of his eyes, still straining to see anything now that the solid light had faded away. His face lit up to the sight of his brother and daughter and the many familiar faces of his fellow priests of Aran. Turning toward Lorace and Iris, his eyes widened and his smile contorted into a snarl.

  “Murderer!” Lehan cried as his hands clenched and reached toward Lorace, eager to throttle and kill. “Monster and murderer!”

  Lehan struggled desperately to free himself from his brother’s strong grip. “That man cast a young girl-child deliberately into the path of a demon to save his own worthless life. He was the reason we abandoned a ship in a storm-tossed sea before it exploded into a rain of debris. Yet you have him in your midst!”

  Lorace took a step back from the priest, remembering the same nightmare. He only sees me for who I was.

  Lehan cried in wracking sobs. The blessing of Sakke Vrang wreaked havoc upon the man’s feelings of rational outrage toward him. He does not fear. He only seeks to protect everyone from me. Lorace realized.

  “Father, no!” Falraan clutched at him, trying to calm and console him.

  Sir Rindal stepped forward with his big hands held low and wide. “I remember you. You were on the ship out of Zed. You called out in the storm to save my life from this man.” He nodded his head toward Lorace without turning away from the priest. “Do you remember me?”

  Lehan looked at the paladin with clarity and nodded. “You are the paladin that put us to sea before that man caused the ship to explode.”

  Sir Rindal now stood between Lorace and the priest. “Yes, but it was I who made the ship explode when I cut the demon spirit out of this man’s soul. He is Lorace now. He leads us all to mete out the final destruction of the very same spirit who had possessed him.”

  “You speak truth,” Lehan said then pointed an accusing finger past the paladin. “But I see the truth of the monstrous things he has done, you are not safe.”

  “Your gift is truth, brother,” Oen said, still clinging tight to Lehan’s arm. “Know then the truth of this. Only his flesh and the spirit of the demon who controlled him were guilty of the crimes your gift shows you. That man does not exist anymore. He has not existed since Sir Rindal performed the act that you witnessed on that lost ship. The man you see before you is beloved of us all—his spirit is more pure than any I have ever beheld save that of Lord Aran himself.”

  Lehan sagged in Oen’s grip. “Do you see the truth?” Oen asked.

  Lehan fell to his knees and Falraan dropped down with him, her arms wrapping him tightly as he raised his eyes to the sky. “Lord Aran forgive me for not heeding your divine words, my gift tells me all of this and more,” he dropped his gaze to address Lorace. “I beg your forgiveness as well, brother of Aran.”

  “Rise up, Master Lehan,” Lorace stepped forward with a broad smile. Tornin stood close in his role as protector, but he made no other move to ward his Lord against the father of his wife. “Call me Lorace, as your friends and loved ones do. My chain has made this hard on you, and I beg your forgiveness as well. It filled you with righteousness and strength, but when your eyes beheld me, those same feelings compelled you to immediate action without fear or humility. Anyone’s emotions would have burst in the confusion of such compulsion, you have nothing to forgive.”

  Lorace gestured at the motley assembly of people on the deck, all while he held the ship low in position beside the remainder of the fleet. He showed Lehan that there were men wearing black Zuxran mail, fully armed and standing freely among Halversome’s guardsmen. He lifted the remainder of the fleet from the water below them as Lehan watched, displaying the Elves of the Keth and broad shouldered dwarves of Vlaske K’Brak.

  “We are the last defenders of the light,” Lorace bowed before Lehan. “Be welcome among us. The blessing of my chain has purified the corruptions, fears, and hatreds of all of us. We are all united in our fight against the end of days.”

  Lehan looked hard into Lorace’s face, still shuddering, but calming steadily.

  “Only you can do it,” Lehan said, awkwardly at first, but then the words of truth came flooding out of him. “The gods have tortured you horribly to try to suit you to this destiny, even your own brothers played their part, and I can see that truth. You deny the Old Gods intentions at every turn, yet you obey their will in complete tranquility. You puzzle over the nature of the physical world and the spiritual, binding them both together in ways that none have ever contemplated and none before has been gifted enough to even attempt. You have three gifts and manipulate a fourth from the godstone chain about your waist.”

  Lehan’s lips quivered to a stop. His face changed as his mind worked through what he had just blurted out, accepting, understanding.

  “I would join you, Lorace,” Lehan said in genuine fealty.

  “All I ask is for your friendship and your aid in saving that which I love,” Lorace returned.

  “I give that and more, for those are my loves as well,” Lehan swayed from the deep weariness and hunger that was finally taking the last of his energy away.

  “Let your daughter see to getting you some food,” Lorace said as he reached out to clasp the man’s shoulder. “She has some wonderful news to share with you when you are recovered. All is not lost to darkness yet.”

  Falraan gave Lorace an exasperated look, but took her father by the arm and led him to a place amidships where he could lay comfortably while she cared for him.

  chapter 6

  FEARS REMEMBERED

  Twenty-Ninth day of the Moon of the Thief

  -upon the Vestral Sea

  Lorace turned to Oen. “Your brother has an amazing gift. Think long and hard before you leave him alone with Hethal, together they will unlock every secret this world has left.”

  “You will simply have to busy yourself
with discovering yet more secrets we are not supposed to know,” Oen said with a wry smile. “Thank you, Lorace, for returning our brother to us.”

  “Now you just need a life ahead of you to enjoy his company,” Lorace’s expression turned grim. “What did your gift show you of the blight when our light approached it?”

  “It pulled back from us—Iris was right, the light is its bane.”

  Lorace scanned the now distant coastline, alarmed at how the darkness of the blight had enveloped the beach where Lehan had been and spread outward over the sea. “Our light should allow us to penetrate deeply into the blight if we can maintain it indefinitely, but if the light should falter while we were inside, we would be lost. The casting of the light strengthened Vorallon’s spirit in this area, but already it is drawing away again.”

  “I may know of a way, my love,” Iris said from beside him. “I will need a supply of silver for us to craft the necessary glyphs.”

  “Glyphs?”

  Iris nodded. “If I can enchant them strongly enough they will keep Vorallon’s spirit bound to them, drawing his strength wherever we go. They would work like Tornin’s sword does with the light of the sun, only they shall shine with Vorallon’s light.”

  Without hesitation, Oen lifted the Guardian signet chain from his neck, its silver plates catching the afternoon sun. “Will this be enough?”

  “That is your symbol of office, passed down from the first Guardian of Halversome.” A knot twisted in Lorace’s gut. Is this how the sacrifices begin?

  Oen shook his head and smiled. “It is made of purest silver. There is no greater purpose for it than to protect the very children of Halversome it was created to serve. I will not deny it this destiny. Besides, it will make a dwarven craftsman terribly happy for the opportunity to make a new one once this is all behind us.”

  Iris accepted the heavy chain with gratitude. “It goes to the best of causes. Thank you. Lorace, I will need you and Falraan to help with this unless Moyan has managed to stash a forge and crucible somewhere on one of these galleys.”

  “I will fetch her, and tend to my brother in her stead.” Oen turned and departed the bow, showing no regret in his stride.

  “What are you planning, Iris?” Lorace asked as his wife examined the guardian’s chain with a critical eye.

  “It is quite beautiful, is it not?” She looked up into his eyes. “We have to melt it down. Shape the silver into four glyphs, one for each ship. You, my dear, are going to become a master silversmith in but a few moments.”

  “Oh?” Lorace raised his brows playfully. “Another talent of mine I did not know about?”

  “You can do it, that is not the difficulty.” Iris leaned her hip into him, while her spirit swirled in a display of bold confidence. “You can think of this as another way to practice with your gifts. I must show you what it is you have to make, and you will have to use your mastery of air in fine detail to shape the molten silver precisely.”

  “I shall do my best,” Lorace said as Falraan returned, her infectious happiness warming everyone around through his link. She locked Tornin in a mighty hug that drove the air from his lungs. Then she turned to Lorace, grabbed hold of his arm and gave a pleading look toward Iris.

  “Go ahead, hug him.” Iris granted Falraan’s unspoken request. “I give you my permission to hug him whenever he does something worthy.”

  Lorace relinquished himself to the powerful hug of Captain Falraan. “Thank you so much, Lorace.”

  “You are very welcome. Your father is a wonderful man,” Lorace gasped out the words. Air!

  “Now, what is it you need of me,” Falraan asked as she released Lorace, giving him her leave to breathe again.

  “We have need of your gift.” Iris held up the Guardian’s Chain. “You need to melt this a bit at a time to allow Lorace to shape it into several glyphs, one for each ship. When we are ready, Lorace will hold this up in the air and you will heat it carefully, not enough to burn, just bring it to its melting point.”

  “I think I can do that,” Falraan said with a slow nod, though her lips turned down at the corners.

  She must not want to see the Guardian’s Chain destroyed either, but she will not hesitate, Lorace noted.

  “Lorace you must hold the chain up and separate the portions that melt so nothing falls and burns into the deck,” Iris explained to him. “Now share your sight with me, and I will show you exactly what it is you are going to make.”

  Lorace shared his sight with Iris. “Where am I looking?”

  “Into my memory,” Iris said.

  Lorace locked his eyes on hers. “I think I see where the difficulty lies now. Just how should I do that?” How does your mind even begin to work this way? He wondered.

  “You are going to have to get very, very close to me,” she tried not to blush in the presence of Falraan and Tornin but failed, “like you have before, but without the passion. I will not be able to think clearly with all that going on. Make that connection, and I will share my memory of the glyph. If I thought I could draw it for you accurately enough I would.”

  “Without passion? This is going to take some time.” Lorace studied her stone cold gaze a moment. Her spirit was no longer exuding confidence.

  “You have all the time left in the world, my love,” Iris said with a weak smile.

  “You must think very clearly about what you want to show me, it must be at the surface of your thoughts.” Lorace resolutely squared his shoulders and opened his arms to her. “I do not know what to expect, but I will be as careful as I can.”

  “I am ready.” Iris stepped into his embrace. “I trust you.”

  Lorace surrounded her in his golden sparks, carefully matching the patterns of her white whirls and golden glow, denying himself the passion of this intimate caress. He felt her do the same, struggling against her own desires. It is not so easy, is it?

  They stood in each other’s arms, linked as intimately in spirit as two people could be. He shifted his sight carefully into a very tenuous realm, neither spirit nor physical but something else entirely. He willed it into the realm of thought to see images of memories. He opened up a cherished memory of his mother experimentally. If I did this right, you will see her. He thought toward Iris, and her eyes widened.

  “Oh,” Iris gave a small cry. “She is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen! You carry her image in your memory and still you love me?”

  “You know exactly how ravishing I think you are. She is my mother Fara,” Lorace said as joy filled his being. Oh to be able to share her with you! “You see her from when I was young child, teaching me how to count my fingers and toes.”

  “It is how all great minds begin.” Iris gave her crystal bell laugh. “I will cherish this memory of her often, for it is mine now, thank you, my love.”

  “It is your turn; take me into your memory.” Lorace changed the focus of his sight to flow into Iris’s thoughts. Smothering darkness enveloped him. A young girl’s piercing scream sounded in a tight closed space. Fingernails broke to the quick while her fingers continued to claw at the slats of confining wood. Through a crack, red eyes glowed.

  The images of dark terror flooded into him, very much like the images Sakke Vrang had brought forth during its blessings, only these came stronger, steadier—memories of horror seen through the frightened eyes of a child. Look past the fear, Iris!

  “Iris, focus on the glyph,” he coaxed, but her eyes remained stricken by fear. She cannot! Gently he withdrew his sight from her, but maintained their intimate link. Her spirit quivered and shook with each of her choking sobs. He hugged her closer. “I am here, you are safe. The darkness of those memories hold no power over you now, Sakke Vrang has removed it all. Those are just memories of bad things that happened long ago. We will deal with them together, I promise.”

  Even the memory of such fear hurts you so. What monster would do such things to a child? It pained him to have facilitated in anything that could reduce her to these unco
ntrollable tears. Is there no other way?

  The sun sank toward the horizon, turning the sky to orange as it dipped into clouds that were forming up beyond the blight. Lorace rocked her in his arms, pouring his love into her spirit. He carried out his multitude of tasks with barely a conscious thought while every other attention focused on his wife. Falraan hovered beside them with a gentle comforting touch and a continuous stream of soothing words to her dearest friend.

  “I am so sorry,” Iris said at last, her voice broken with emotion. “I thought I was stronger than that. Seeing your mother, it made me think of mine. I was unconsciously comparing the two of them.”

  She paused to take a shuddering breath. “Lorace, I killed her. When my gift first manifested I had no control over it. I pushed all my fear of that nightmare into her, and it killed her. I ran after that, I ran from myself and kept on running. Until your chain touched me, all I had done was run. I hated myself so passionately, and yet I was too afraid to stop hurting everyone around me. I thought if I ever released my hold over anyone that they would become my mother to avenge herself upon me.”

  “That is what you showed me, a nightmare you had that you sent into your mother?” Lorace asked, brushing a hand through her hair. Driven by her gift that nightmare would have stopped the heart of the boldest of men. He thought.

  She turned her pained eyes up to his. “I did not mean for that to happen. For a moment I thought I had unleashed it all over again into you.”

  Lorace smiled at her, and kissed a tear from her cheek. “It had no power, Iris, they were just images. You do not have to punish yourself for what you did any more, you are no guiltier of it now than am I of the horrors Tezzirax performed while he had control of my body. I am lucky to have only my scars and a few dim nightmares as a result of that time. If I could remove your memories of life from before, as I removed their corruption, would you want me to? I do not think you would remain the woman I so dearly love.”