“No, I do not believe so,” Lehan said in earnest. “You, in particular, need to keep thinking about the loving life that is ahead of you, for his sake.”
She pulled back from him to smile up into his steady gaze. “Yes, truth be damned indeed.”
-in Ousenar
Palla shifted at his back, waking Andrigar to the late morning sun’s thin warmth. As he took inventory of his situation, left hand tied to Marek’s, sword underneath his right; Palla continued to move, gathering his legs beneath him.
“Stay, Palla.” The command came out of his dry throat like the grinding of the gravel under his rump.
He reached toward the great horse’s bridle, but only brushed it with his arm as Palla lurched to his feet. “No!”
Andrigar tried to roll, flailing for the horse’s fetlock. His tied hand pulled him back while Palla staggered down the riverbed, hooves crunching on stones polished smooth by the torrents of spring.
Andrigar wailed, flinging back the cloaks that covered him and the unconscious Marek and assaulting the knots that strapped their hands together. Before realizing fully what he had done, he was standing a stride away from one companion while his other had widened the gap between them. Palla remained white and perfect, though his ribs were showing in his great barrel chest.
Andrigar turned back toward Marek. His friend remained whole and untainted. The unseen thing that had pursued them was not striking. Did Marek’s screams herald its destruction?
Without the scout’s gift to guide him, he could only believe what his eyes told him. For whatever reason, the thing that had pursued them for days did not attack. He spent a moment trying to shake Marek awake, but the man was in a deep slumber. Whether from the trauma he had endured in the night or their privation, Andrigar refused to guess. He likewise refused to choose one friend over another. He chose both. Throwing his cloak over his shoulders, he turned to retrieve Palla.
He staggered in the horse’s wake, fast as his stiff, protesting legs would carry him.
Withered scrub lined the riverbed, thorny and white. The horse had halted before a clump of brush to thrust his nose in among the sharp thorns, heedless of their pricking.
“What have you found?” Andrigar soothed as he stretched for the bridle.
Palla reared his head up an away, out of reach. The horse’s eyes rolled wide. His nose was beaded with red from the jabs of countless barbs. The juice of black berries stained his large square teeth. Andrigar turned to the bush as the destrier stamped anxiously. Dozens of shriveled berries hid among the white thorns of the shrub.
He attempted to stroke Palla’s neck and calm him, but the horse lunged away to trot further down the sandy wash. Andrigar barked a command to halt that went unheeded. Already exhausted from the effort of stumbling to this point, he watched, hands on knees, until the horse was out of sight.
With an effort, he shifted his hands up his thighs and straightened his spine. The horse would return once he had sought out more black berries to satisfy his hunger and thirst. If not, he and Marek would seek him along the deepening riverbed.
He turned to examine the berries that remained on the bush, all were shriveled to dry husks, but deep within the thorns was one that remained round and full. A small, glossy-black fruit shrouded by bone-white needles. Andrigar eased his right hand into the nest of barbs, fighting not to flinch into thorns when one stabbed the tender skin under his wrist.
He cursed and shifted his hand with care. His own precious liquid dripped away even as he sought out what moisture remained within the plump black berry. After several painful stabs, his fingers closed around his prize and he began the equally treacherous retreat.
He bit down into the berry. Black juice dripped over his hand to mix with his blood and sting his wounds. The wetness was sour on his tongue, the flesh grainy in his teeth. He spat the spiked black pit into the sand at his feet and wiped his hand on his cloak.
The distant sound of Palla’s scream echoed along the dry riverbed, breaking the dead silence. Andrigar cursed and hobbled up the wash toward Marek, his throat already tightening where the berry’s poison had flowed.
The riverbed rolled and bucked under him, whirling around in a blur. Somehow, he crawled to the scout’s side as his stomach knotted and tried to expel the foul pulp in a series of painful, dry retches. Nothing came up.
Darkness clouded the edges of his vision and his right hand throbbed with fire. He strapped his left hand to Marek’s cool palm before collapsing beside him and allowing his consciousness to flee.
chapter 10
FORBIDDEN QUESTIONS
Last Day of the Moon of the Thief
-upon the Vestral Sea
The ship lurched beneath their feet. Iris looked at the sea dropping away below them and half frowned. “He is awake.”
Lehan’s face opened into a smile, dispelling her concern. “Go to him. Cherish every moment.”
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. With a parting nod to Lehan, she made her way down the deck to where Lorace sat up brushing the accumulation of snow off his cloak.
She gestured to the ship’s boat with its cargo of priests and glyphs that he had lifted along with them. “See that they get to the other ships, will you?” she asked.
“I shall,” his face widened into a smile as she plopped herself onto his lap, placing her face on a level with his.
While they kissed, the cold wind stilled, allowing the air around them to warm with their body heat. Deeper warmth suffused her being as he re-forged their spirit link, a feeling that broadened as he reached out to connect with more and more people. She did not need to look away from his eyes to know that the ships were speeding southwards once more.
His face showed no sign of his former weariness. He was fully rested though it was still well before noon. She kissed him a few more times.
“I am not distracting you from your tasks, am I?” she asked with a coy flutter of her eyelashes. “I can try harder if you want.”
“I welcome the challenge.” Lorace’s eyes twinkled.
Iris held his face between her hands and leaned her forehead against his. “All right then, I shall do my best—do you have any names to suggest for our child?”
He crushed her too him in a tight embrace. His feelings on the matter poured out through his link of golden sparks to infect everyone in contact with love and joy. Between the two of them, their affection resonated in perfect harmony. “You know what names I would choose, I wove them into your dreams last night.”
She whispered his name into his hair as she recalled the wealth of wonderful dreams, happy, childhood dreams; dreams that had been denied to her previous life. “Of course I will see your parents’ names honored. Fara if it is a girl and Veladis if it is a boy.”
“Thank you,” he whispered back. “I wish that either of their spirits was free to be reborn unto our child, but they were consumed by Tezzirax.”
The light in Lorace’s eyes dimmed at his memory, but she crushed her lips to his in a kiss. After a moment, she pulled back to see herself in the focus of his eyes and return the smile that spread across his lips.
“One of the dreams you shared with me while I slept was a prayer,” Iris said. “…And the skies open to their will, the sun to shine or the rain to spill.”
He nodded. “That is part of a prayer to the Old Gods my mother would say. It means there are things in our lives that happen whether we will them or not.
She dropped her hands to her belly. “Wait, do you suppose this is the Old Gods’ work?”
He chuckled. “I can only assume so, although I have no clue which of them to attribute this particular miracle to.”
Her eyes narrowed, but she chose to pursue a different divine topic, “You shared dreams with me of your brothers as well—do you know why the Old Gods renamed them after they ascended?”
“You really are trying to distract me, are you not?” He chuckled again. “Honestly I do not know, but we can find
out. Do you want to ask along with me?”
“I would like that.” Iris wriggled out of his lap to kneel beside him while holding tight to his hand. He shared his sight with her—shifted to the realm of spirit. Bright colors bloomed about her, as though the ships were crewed by living magical lights to banish the gloom of the low clouds. Connecting all the glows and fountains of color were streams of Lorace’s golden sparks. His spirit withdrew from everyone until only her own glow of gold with swirls of white remained in his embrace.
“Jorune,” Lorace called in a voice she felt through their link. Streams of his golden sparks reached outwards again, but instead of connecting to the spirits around them, it sought out the spirit of another, a soothing yellow glow that was separate from their fleet but near to them all. The deck vanished from beneath them, and they were once again kneeling before the Hall of the Lady where Jorune had united them.
The youthful silver-locked boy, source of the soothing yellow glow, stepped out of the gateway in the mossy rock wall and strode up to them with a big smile dimpling his cheeks.
Jorune smiled and gave them a graceful bow. “Brother and dear sister, welcome home, my blessings to you on your wonderful news.”
Lorace turned to her and shared a brief smile. “You want to ask him or shall I?”
“I have this,” Iris said with a squeeze of his hand before turning to the child-like god. “Thank you, brother, we are glad to share this news with you, but we have called out to you for answers.” At the child’s nod she continued. “Why is it that you are worshiped as Lord Aran and not Lord Jorune?”
Jorune’s form shifted. He aged and grew before their eyes into his adult form of Lord Aran before he replied with a question of his own. “If I told you that question was forbidden to answer, would you be satisfied?”
“Not even remotely,” she answered with a slow shake of her head. “Who or what forbids you? Or is that forbidden as well?”
Lord Aran chuckled. “You are owed the answers to these questions and more, indeed I cannot deny my dear sister, beloved wife of my brother, the answers,” he said before his voice lowered into a serious tone. “If that is your wish?”
Aran spoke as one under the spell of her coercion. She looked back to Lorace with concern, but he merely smiled at her. “He teases you,” Lorace said. “My brother has a humor unique from mine.”
Iris rolled her eyes and turned back to the white-robed Lord Aran. “I appreciate your candor, though you sound as one who has been coerced by my gift. I wish to know.”
“Coerced only by the love I see before me, if that is a gift then share it widely,” he said with an expansive bow. “Aran is an ancient name. In the language of the very first being to ascend to my task, it means ‘light-giver’. Our brother Lorn’s name translates to ‘level-wing’. The third brother, whose very name means ‘vengeance-seeker’ in this tongue, is Chreen. These are the three Lords of Balance and they exist to all the universes that the Old Gods have birthed.”
Aran paused, studying her reaction to the information he was sharing. She held her face to a stone-like mask while her mind erupted with a thousand questions. She imagined she was playing a game such as Falraan did with her father, refusing to allow the enormity of what she learned to lay her flat.
“We have seen there are other worlds beyond our own,” she said. “What makes Vorallon so special in all this? Why is it you lived your mortal lives here rather than on some other world?”
“Now you hit upon the best of the forbidden questions for me to answer,” Lord Aran said with a grand smile. “Vorallon is the only one, the first one of the worlds you have guessed at, whose spirit is aware of its own existence. He is the prize jewel of this universe. It required that awareness for the Old Gods to empower our ascendance. It is Vorallon’s will to survive, to fight for that survival, that the Old Gods played upon so that my brothers and I might become the wardens of all that you can see. Our task is to fix the flaws in the balance and ensure the continuation of the grand cycle of souls. In time, more world spirits will become aware, we watch, and work, anxiously for this event. Until then, our survival is intrinsically tied to that of Vorallon.”
He leaned close and whispered, like a conspirator in a devious plot. “When many worlds and stars such as Vorallon awaken within a universe they often unite into one vast will. Each Old God is such a universe. Hah! How is that for forbidden knowledge? The Old Gods you know are universes unto themselves.”
“You have answered my question,” Iris said with a dissatisfied tone, returning his humor in kind. His words were shocking and revealing, as quick as her mind may be, she could not grasp the true power that the Old Gods must wield. “May I ask another of you?”
He smiled and nodded, his lock of silver hair bobbing on his forehead. “Very well, I am rather enjoying our exchange.”
“If the Old Gods are living, conscious universes, what is this God of Undeath?” Iris watched Aran’s eyes cloud at her words, their warmth and happiness dimming.
“Gods are the pinnacle of success for what a universe may become in its evolution of sentience,” Aran said with composure. “The Lords of Balance work to achieve this for the universe they shepherd, as do the Old Gods as they may. Alas, in some universes the Lords of Balance fail, the very elements may fail, and the magic you know becomes a twisted thing. Many of these universes die, over eons of time they grow cold and still. But in one the will to live could not be stilled, it became dark and hungry for the life which had been denied it. This is undeath, and though the Old Gods worked to seal this abysmal place away, denying all access to the pathways that allow the gods to travel between their children, it has found a means to escape.”
Iris could not conceal the downturn of her lips and the narrowing of her eyes. “That is what attacks us now? An entire universe of darkness and hunger?”
“The God of Undeath that threatens us was the birthplace of our originators, our namesakes. Those first Lords of Balance failed. I do not know the details of how they failed—only that they did, and the last of the brothers accepted the hunger of his twisted world. Through his actions this God of Undeath can gain access to other universes which the Old Gods cannot prevent.”
Iris waited a moment for him to continue, but he remained silent. “Thank you, Jorune. I am satisfied. I think I can understand why we are not supposed to know these questions even exist, let alone their answers.”
“There is a price to pay for my answers, sister,” Lord Aran said, rising up tall and imperious above her for a moment before once more descending into the form of the handsome silver-locked youth and stretching out his arms to her. “I demand a hug—I hear you are quite accomplished at them.”
Iris smiled and opened her arms wide to take in the joyous child. She felt his touch as he embraced her; it was the touch of a real, living boy. There was warmth to his skin, the strong beat of a heart. His hair smelled of hay and spring.
“You are alive?” she grasped his shoulders and held him at arm’s length to search into deep green eyes so similar to Lorace’s.
“Of course I am. I am not merely spirit now, neither shall Lorace be when he ascends. You will still be able to hold him in your arms, to touch him, and he may touch you. When your child is born he will be able to hold her in his arms, an honor which I would beg for myself as well.”
“Yes! Most certainly,” Iris wiped tears from her cheeks. She looked back toward Lorace and saw glistening in his eyes as well. Through their link, his spirit was soaring in happiness and relief every bit as high as her own. “Her name is to be Fara.”
“That is all the more reason for Lorace to succeed,” Jorune said. “I am sure that mother’s spirit would be more than happy to be part of your life.”
“Wait.” Iris held up her hand. “Are you saying her spirit is not lost to Tezzirax?”
Jorune’s smile expressed only love. “When a demon kills, the souls of its victims remain intact, trapped entirely within the demon’s own spirit. Th
ose spirits are safe within their souls. In a similar manner, godstone protected Lorace’s spirit when the free spirit of Tezzirax possessed his soul. Only if the demon returns to Nefryt to disgorge the souls are they lost. Slay the spirit of Undying One with Sakke Vrang and mother’s spirit shall be set free, as will all the souls he has taken. This is the brilliance of the Lady at work. She devised the destiny of Lorace’s chain.”
Iris turned to hug Lorace close. “They are not lost, my love.” She turned her head back toward Jorune. “He will release her. He must. Can you set Fara’s spirit into my child?”
Jorune smiled wide. “My dear sister, this is what I do when I am not busy in my duty of reinforcing the light in all who would pray to me. She will not remember her former life, but I am sure she will be comforted in knowing that you will.”
“I would tell the Old Gods when they awake that you do your duty extremely well, Jorune. I cannot imagine the light within me feeling more reinforced than it does right now.”
Jorune gave them a parting smile, once more shifting into the appearance of Lord Aran and turning to face Lorace, “Accept my blessings in this task ahead of you. Your destiny remains bound by the choices you have yet to make. Remember, some victories are greater than others.”
Lorace ended the prayer with an act of will that drew her awareness back to the deck of their galley.
Iris made a quick survey of their fleet, “I see that you have been busy while we were with Jorune. The glyphs have been distributed to each ship and you carry us even faster than you did yesterday.”
“I am stronger,” Lorace shrugged, “and the thought of freeing those souls drives me to greater effort.”
Tornin and Sir Rindal, having risen, brought them their noon meal, though it was hard to tell where the sun stood in a sky so heavy with snow and clouds. Beyond the shelter of air surrounding the fleet, a solid wall of snow whipped past.
Gifts of Vorallon: 03 - Lord of Vengeance Page 10
