by Giles Carwyn
The city covered the entire southern tip of the island. She would have to take the city back from the wild, but she would do that slowly, a little bit here and there. Not all the trees would have to go. She felt a need to foster a kinship with the green and growing things, and her new city would embrace and nourish all life.
Idea after idea rushed through her. There were so many places she could begin. After her father was released, they would explore the city together, finding all the treasures left behind. When her kinsmen arrived they would choose strategic buildings to reconstruct. There would be thriving marketplaces, schools for children, and symposia for her citizens to share their wisdom. There would be festivals, games, public art, and gardens. The streets would teem with mages and the light of magic would shine into the dark places of the world.
“Your smile is contagious,” her father said, appearing behind her. “Seeing your joy makes me feel young again.”
Her father had remained at her side during the entire voyage, ever since she’d awoken. She couldn’t always see him, but she felt his presence hovering around her like the sun, warm on her shoulders.
Arefaine turned back to the island and studied the towers. The canvas bag containing the three stones swung against her hip. She could feel Efften’s legacy humming inside.
The Silver Wharf grew larger as they neared, and Arefaine sent her awareness out, exploring. The dock was empty, and she searched farther into the city. It was filled with life. Animals, birds, insects. But she didn’t find a life light bright enough to be a human.
“My child?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Are you looking for the Ohndarien?”
Arefaine pressed her lips together.
She almost said that she was merely checking for any remaining Silver Islanders, but she didn’t want to lie to him. Deception came as naturally to her as breathing, but that time was past. She didn’t have to lie anymore, not about what she wanted or about who she was. She could declare her dreams for all the world to hear. The chains of Ohohhom were disappearing, and the closer she came to Efften, the more of those bindings fell away.
“Yes,” she finally admitted. “I was looking for Brophy. I keep hoping that you were wrong, that he is not dead.”
She felt a deep pang of regret for that moment at the bridge. She had replayed it in her mind a dozen times. She had lost her temper, behaved like a child. She closed her eyes and the bitter taste of sunberries filled her mouth.
“I had a dream that he was in the battle,” she admitted. “He saved me from the Silver Islanders after I had been knocked out. He was suffused with the sacred fire when he fell. It could have saved him.”
Her father nodded. “I sincerely doubt that anyone could have survived that fall, but it is possible that I was mistaken. I certainly wouldn’t underestimate him or the power that drives him. We were delayed by sailing north; if he survived, he may well have made it to Efften by now.”
“Do you think so?” she asked. Mixed emotions stirred inside her. The first was fear that if Brophy lived he might yet find a way to shatter her dream. But she also felt a strange and tremulous hope that he had come to help her. Could he possibly have forgiven her? If she could convince Brophy to forget her past, she could convince others to focus on their collective future. New ideas were always opposed until people saw the benefit. She didn’t want the world against her. Everything she was building was, in the end, for them.
Arefaine kept her eyes locked on the city of her birth as the indentured brought the Silver Islander ship expertly into the harbor. Twelve docks made of white marble radiated out from a vast market space overrun by vines and bushes.
Dozens of boats were still tied to the marble pier. Most of them had rotted out below the waterline. But a few still clung to life, refusing to succumb to the ravages of time. Their elegantly carved wood had once been painted silver, but most of that paint had flaked away over the years, leaving speckled guardians of the Illuminateds’ will. Most of the city was worn and broken, decaying, but the soul of Efften, just like the few remaining ships, still endured.
Her heart soared as her servants brought the ship alongside one of the stone quays at the famous Silver Wharf. Several indentured leapt over the rails and secured the mooring line. She couldn’t wait for her servants to run out the gangplank, and jumped directly to the shore. Her feet tingled as she landed, and she felt a sudden lump in her throat.
“I’m home,” she murmured, crouching to touch the dock. She pressed her palms against the smooth white stone that had been created by magic rather than dug from the earth and turned her face toward the sun overhead. She had imagined this moment since she was a child. And now that she was here, in her new kingdom, she couldn’t wait to get started rebuilding.
A dozen men jogged down the gangplank and formed a protective circle around her. She glanced up at Halman, the only Carrier who had been loyal to her throughout. He panted laboriously, waiting for his next command, and she could smell his musky breath. Arefaine frowned as he stood there, seeming to stare at her with unfocused eyes.
Annoyed, she turned back to touch the dock again, but the power of the moment was gone. The euphoria she’d felt had fled.
“How does it feel to be home at last?” her father asked, walking down the plank to stand next to her.
She forced a smile. Halman’s black tears preyed on her mind. “It’s glorious, Father. The city is everything I dreamed of. But—” She looked at the Carrier again. He seemed in pain, one shoulder hunched slightly forward as his chest convulsed with that ceaseless, hurried breath.
“What is it, my child?”
She considered hiding her thoughts again, but no. She was no longer the emperor’s shadow, a gilded wraith bound in silence. “This is no place for the indentured, Father.”
He didn’t answer for a moment, then said, “They brought us victory, my child.”
Regret heated Arefaine’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I know. But we don’t need them anymore. And I don’t want to live in a home—” She took a deep breath, suddenly wishing she hadn’t spoken, but she forced the rest of the words out. “I don’t want to live in a home built by slaves.”
Her father considered her carefully, his eyebrows furrowed. Then he smiled. “Of course, my child. Don’t think on it anymore. These creatures were a necessary evil, a regrettable choice forced on us by our enemies. Once our kinsmen have joined us, we will release them from their service and send them back to their homes.”
“You can do that?”
“Of course. I’ll show you how and we’ll do it together as soon as we can.”
She nodded. “Thank you, Father.”
“Arefaine,” he said, smiling at her. “Remember, you are no longer among strangers. You don’t have to be afraid to speak your mind.”
She nodded, instantly feeling better.
“Look around you,” he said, indicating the jungle, the city, and the ocean with his hand. “It is all ours. You have come home; revel in it.”
She smiled. “Of course, Father. I’m sorry. Please, show me our city.”
He offered his ghostly arm, and she took it. Together, they walked up the dock onto the cobblestone shore. The market was overgrown with short bushes that bore clusters of small yellow fruit. Generations of pits littered the broken cobblestones, and the tangy smell of fermenting fruit mixed with the salty scent of the sea. Beyond the open market, the crumbling ruins of an enclosed plaza showed through the undergrowth. Charred roof timbers still protruded from many walls that had been too sturdy to be torn down by the barbarians. She tried to imagine what it had looked like before.
“Come, my child,” her father said, beckoning her forward. “I cannot wait to see you with my own eyes.”
They wended their way through the jumbled cobblestones toward his tower in the distance. Her father sent half of the indentured ahead to make sure the way was safe. The rest stayed with them, encircling them protectively.
As
they walked, her father pointed at one of the mighty silver towers.
“That spire was built by Hestorn the Blind,” he said, indicating the northwestern tower. It rose like a spear, with a fluted conical top. Its tall, thin windows nestled between the flutes. “He was rarely at home, constantly traveling about. They joked that Hestorn was the only blind man to see all the corners of the world. He was in the Southwyldes when the barbarians attacked, but he never returned home.” Arefaine thought she saw a hint of anger or disappointment cross her father’s face, but then he smiled. “Perhaps he was devoured by those half-naked cannibals he was determined to befriend. He probably never saw it coming.”
Arefaine returned her father’s smile. She had never known him to make a joke before. The shadow of his long imprisonment must be lifting from his heart.
“That one there,” her father said, pointing at the closest tower to the south, “was built by Rellana. She was a true archmage, strong in all forms of magic, but she favored Zelani and Necani above all and loved mixing the two. She was a very popular teacher, especially with young men.” He raised a knowing eyebrow. “In her later years, she developed an obsession with storms and lightning. See that spike?” Rellana’s tower rose elegantly, twisting like the spiral of a horn. At the top, it flared out in a small, round platform. Arefaine looked closer, and she could barely see a thin spike that shot up even farther.
“I see it,” she said.
“She would stand up there during storms, calling the lightning to herself. The woman was convinced she could harness its power.”
“Could she?”
“Who can say? All we know is that one night she went up there during a hurricane and never came back down.” He waved a hand. “Perhaps she became one with the lightning. Perhaps that was her aim all along.”
“And that one?” She pointed to the tower on the northeastern side of the city. It was square, while the rest were round. They could not see its base, but the middle of the tower tapered gradually as it rose out of the jungle. It was smooth, brilliantly silver, with many windows to the world.
“Yes, of course you would know that tower, it was the first to be built. That was designed by your ancient ancestor Alc. He was one of Oh’s original disciples and the first master of the Alcani form. When he first arrived on Efften, he made a break with his past, changing his name to Morgeon, which means—”
“Unchained,” Arefaine murmured.
“Exactly,” her father said. “He declared himself a free man, free from the bonds of Ohohhim subservience and fear. His tower is now yours.”
She looked at him sharply. “No, Father. It is still yours. It will always be yours.”
He gave her a gentle smile and put a hand on her arm. “You are very generous, Arefaine, but it is yours by rights. The future is for the young, and the tower must pass to you. You have earned it.”
She stared at the tower in the distance, and tears came to her eyes. The tower of her ancestors would be her new home. “It will be our tower. And all will be welcome in it.”
“As you say, my child.”
“Tell me about the tower in the center.” She pointed at the tallest tower of all. It rose, round and smooth, with no windows, and flared near the top, spreading outward to form a vast silver bowl. She could just make out the tops of the trees growing within. “I’ve seen drawings of it in books, but not much more. Have the gardens atop it survived all this time?”
“That one,” he said slowly. “That is where I have been held prisoner all these years.”
“It’s beautiful.”
He shook his head sadly. “I haven’t thought of it that way for a long time. But you are right, it is beautiful, and I will see it that way again.” He sighed. “It was the last to be built on Efften, and it was designed to connect and enhance the other four. It is the soul of the city, the center from which all else radiates.”
And the site of his terrible imprisonment. Her step quickened at the thought of her father caged for so long. “How did they do it? How did those ignorant savages keep you here?”
“Ah,” he said, fluidly matching her increased pace. “It wasn’t the Silver Islanders who caged me. I was betrayed before they even breached the city. I was imprisoned by one of my own.”
Arefaine stopped, staring at him. “But I thought that the Islanders were holding you all this time.”
“Yes, and no. The barbarians have patrolled the walls outside of my prison for centuries, preventing anyone from rescuing me, but they are not the ones who put me there.”
“Then who? And why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“I thought you knew,” he said. “I forget you have been raised on the fairy tales the Ohohhim pass on to their children to keep them in line. The truth of the matter is much different.”
“Then tell me,” she said. Her hunger for her people’s true history had been with her for as long as she could remember.
“Have you heard of a mage by the name of Efflum?”
“Of course. He was Oh’s disciple. He and his followers founded Efften.”
Her father nodded. “Yes. Efflum was the most powerful and respected mage in Efften. His magic allowed him to live for nearly a thousand years.”
Arefaine nodded, wondering if she would live so long. Why not?
“In the city’s final days,” her father continued, “there was great division among the mages, with Efflum at the heart of the disagreement.”
“I have read of this. They fought over the use of the indentured.”
“That was part of it, but not all. It was an ethical disagreement. A question of how one’s power should be used, if and when we should place limitations upon ourselves.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
He waved his hand. “The details are not important. The only thing that matters is that the disagreement grew violent. A civil war nearly broke out, and Efflum was imprisoned to prevent further bloodshed.”
“You sound like you don’t think he deserved that.”
Her father shrugged. “Deserve it or not, he was imprisoned and remained there for several years.”
“What happened to him?”
“The barbarians invaded. During the attack, Efflum’s followers freed him to help fight. He went to the vault where all the raw emmeria in the city was stored and began gathering the power to destroy their enemies. But one of the misguided men who had imprisoned him tried to stop him. Brother fought brother as Efften was destroyed around them.
“Tragically, a number of containment stones were shattered in that battle. At any other time, this would not have been such a disaster. If we were not at each other’s throats, if the city was not in flames, we would simply have put the energy back into storage. But there was no time for that. The only solution was to place the emmeria in your dreams. At first I thought it would not work, but even as an infant the illuminated blood shone in you like no other. And that light saved us all. And we will soon get our chance to repay that great debt to you.”
“But, if the Silver Islanders aren’t holding you anymore—”
“They never held me, my child. They merely guarded my prison.”
“Then who is?”
“I am held by our most ancient and most powerful enemy.”
“Who?”
“The father of us all.”
“Efflum? He is still alive?” She paused. “Father, I can’t fight him.”
“Have no fear, child. You are far more powerful than you imagine. Believe me, this is well within your abilities.”
“But…” she breathed.
He gave her a reassuring smile. “Trust me, my child, you will not fight alone. I have been locked in a struggle with our enemy for three hundred years, just a whisper away from being able to escape. Against the two of us, even he cannot prevail.”
“I will try,” she said, feeling the warmth of his confidence in her. “You know I will try.”
“Ah, I cannot tell you how good it is to hav
e you here,” he said, brushing her cheek with his ethereal fingers. “I have dreamed of freedom for so long I can barely remember what it is like.”
“I’ve never known what it felt like,” she said, smiling at his joy. “Until today.”
She took a deep breath and looked toward the tower shining in the distance. “Come. Enough talk, let’s finish what we started.”
They continued through the overgrown streets as the indentured cleared a path with their swords. They left the plaza and passed what looked like a collapsed bathhouse. The old pools were full of stagnant green water covered with floating white flowers. The walls had once been covered with mosaics, but they had all been vandalized beyond recognition decades ago.
Beyond the bathhouse was a canal crossed by elegant walking bridges at regular intervals. Arefaine paused, sensing and seeing something at the same time, just ahead of them across a canal. It looked like the corpse of some kind of animal. The courtyard where it had fallen was bereft of plant life of any kind. “What is that?” she asked, moving closer.
He followed her gaze and sighed. “One of my failures,” he said. She looked at him hesitantly. “Go ahead. Go see for yourself.”
She jogged lightly up the street to the nearest bridge, crossed over, and approached the corpse carefully. The creature was huge. Even flat on its side, the thing’s meaty shoulder came up to her waist. Long, twisted horns curved out on either side of its head. Black matted hair stuck up all over, and she could detect no signs of decay. Black marks streaked out from the corpse as if it had exploded, and some of its bones were strewn as far as a dozen feet away. There were other creatures beyond it, perhaps twenty of them spread across the courtyard as if an entire herd of the creatures had come to this place and died here, blown apart.
“They were corrupted,” she said.
“Yes, they were,” her father said, catching up with her.
She walked among the shattered remains, and the indentured followed silently, keeping their protective circle around her. “And they fought with the Silver Islanders,” she said, stopping over a body that had definitely been human, though it had decayed almost to bones. A broken horn was lodged deep between two bent ribs.
