The Quintessence Cycle- The Complete Series

by Terry C. Simpson

  Thar lowered his arm. He hung his head in surrender and shame and meekly said, “We will do as you say.” He sighed, fighting against the heaviness in his chest and the images of dull grey scales devouring a face he loved.

  E scape

  E lin-Lahnim jerked awake. Night greeted her. She had a faint recollection of a dream in which Vasys Balbas attacked her sons and captured her. It took but seconds for the dream to become reality.

  She retched at the taste of metal on her tongue and the feel of sandy grains in her mouth. Again she tried to discern the cause, which had begun nights ago. As usual her mind came up empty. A bout of coughs wracked her chest before subsiding. The foul taste lingered.

  As had become commonplace, the Longing had increased yet again. It was like her beating heart. She’d given up on any attempts to prevent its call.

  How long had it been since Balbas took her? A week? Two? She’d tried to count the days, but more often than not she became lethargic and would fall into bouts of sleep.

  She burst into tears even as she collected her thoughts. Memories of her sons lying motionless filled her. As did her helplessness against Vasys Balbas. Millennia spent in preparation, honing her skills, building an army, a people, a civilization, garnering more knowledge on soul than anyone she knew outside of the Abandoned, had all been for naught. Did Winslow and Keedar survive? How badly were they wounded?

  Frowning at the serenade played by the night’s denizens, she wiped her eyes and shifted her head to take in her surroundings. Every time she’d woken, Balbas had been there to torment her, to show just how powerless she was against him. He’d allow her to attack him or flee before taking her once again with the ease of a father snatching an insolent child by the ear.

  Not so this time.

  She was sitting alone in a field with her back against a boulder, legs outstretched, grass pricking through the flimsy material of her britches. A whiff of brine wafted on the slight breeze. The two yuros Balbas had chosen as mounts were off to one side, long ears pricked up, attention riveted on something ahead. Antelen offered meager light from within her cloudy shroud, but that did nothing to prevent the view of a vast city rising before Elin-Lahnim.

  Her stomach fluttered at the sight of civilization. And with the knowledge of Balbas’ absence. She clamped down on the inkling of hope. The man didn’t seem the type to make such an error, to leave her unguarded. Surely he was somewhere close, watching, smiling that smug smile of his while waiting for her attempt to take advantage of the situation. Only to set another example. To increase her despair.

  No, she would not allow him to get the best of her this time. She would sit and wait and not play his game. A small victory but one well worth the effort.

  She studied the city and the various brick and metal buildings that spanned several floors. Beyond the first dwellings, five structures reached for the heavens. They were four-sided, each side triangular, converging at the top into a single point. Steps befitting a giant led up each edifice to a tower at the apex. The buildings were majestic, almost reverent.

  Streets and lanes cut through the city. Something was off about them. It took a moment before she understood, her affinity to darkness causing her to overlook the obvious.

  For a place so vast, numerous lanterns and lamps should set the streets aglow. They should have lit up windows and doors even if most of the citizens slept. Not even a candle shone from a single dwelling. The city was night itself.

  She’d heard tales of dead cities in the west. Places abandoned after the Blight. This had to be one such, once home to Dracodar, now shunned by humans.

  Light bloomed atop the first of the five massive structures. A dull rumble followed. The ground quaked. The tower at the apex crumbled, debris falling from it like leaves in the fall. A moment later the entire edifice collapsed in on itself. Dust billowed up in a smoky pall.

  Mouth agape, she stared at the destruction. Then her mind clicked. This was Vasys Balbas’s work. A part of her knew she was witness to a battle beyond her comprehension.

  This was her moment. The man couldn’t be in two places at once. If Hazline shone on her, then Balbas would perish. At the very least she would have time to flee.

  The earlier flutter of hope returned, this time as a thump in her chest. Her hands shook as her confidence grew. Dare she believe she could escape this time? She scrambled to her feet, ignoring the soreness of holding the same position for an extended period. As she made to head for the yuros, she stopped. Balbas had already proven they were his creatures. Besides, with a simple meld she could put more distance between her and Balbas than she could atop the beasts. And if the open plains were any judge, he would easily spot her on the animal.

  She delved into the fount that was her soul, opened every cycle, and combined their power. She poured it into her legs and melded.

  Nothing happened. No magnification of her bones and muscles. No tearing of cloth as her body changed.

  Grimacing, she made another attempt. The results were similarly futile.

  She swallowed against the sudden dryness of fear in her throat and tried once more. And again. The next few times she made to call on the simplest ability: the summoning of a nimbus. No wispy luminescence rose around her.

  The second structure crumbled.

  Scaled hands shaking, breath ragged, she tried to make sense of it all. Tears streamed down her face. She had no explanation for her inability to meld. She wasn’t wearing kerin shackles, and she could clearly feel and touch her soul, yet harnessing it proved impossible.

  She froze. And looked down at her hands.

  Grey scales covered them.

  Choking back a horror-filled cry she tore away the sleeves of her shirt, praying there was some mistake, some trick of the moonlight. But her prayer was not to be answered. Her once beautiful prismatic scales were dull and diseased, completely infected by the Blight.

  Balbas found her curled on the ground, singing to herself. “Ah, I see the final change has manifested.” He bent to stroke her head. “Not to worry, my sweet, a little longer now as your body adjusts, and then you shall be able to meld again due to the quintessence. By then, though, you will be mine in full.”

  E nd of the W orld

  A sea of warriors, Dracodar, and animals hid northern Aladel’s verdant plains. Or at least what had been verdant plains before the army churned them into mud-caked flats that smelled of shit, men, and beasts. More banners than Winslow could count fluttered in the warm air. The army’s numbers had doubled on their long journey through the western lands, ranks swollen by able-bodied conscripts as well as refugees from the cities farther south. Cities ravaged by the passage of Balbas’ Soulbreaker-led army.

  As Yeren had promised, the majority of the western forces heeded his words and now considered Winslow to be the source of their deliverance. Even the ones who once doubted. Balbas’ army had caused that last change of heart. People flooded north with tales of carnage, tales of the serensenjiren—the shadowsouled.

  Some refugees fled, screaming when they saw the Dracodarkind among the vast army. A number of them bowed or wore expressions of abject horror, as if they expected their lives to end at any moment. The reactions were identical whether toward Dracodarians of healthy gold, bronze, or silver scales, or the dull grey of Soulbreakers and Blighted Brothers. They were one and the same to these destitute survivors: the source of countless tales. Some true. Others meant to inspire fear.

  Once a week, at times when they stopped to rest, Yeren would call for prayer among the westerners. Winslow’s presence was a necessity at such gatherings. Although he didn’t understand a word of their tongues or the Jehazite religious practices, he showed the proper reverence for the occasion. In time, the expressions of the westerners, the Soulguards in particular, had grown less wary in his presence. When he killed one of them who’d decided to challenge him, acceptance had become respect. It earned him a Soulguard detachment on yuros who constantly traveled beside his ereskar alo
ng with his escort of Blades and Dracodar.

  Winslow wished his mother were there to see them united. Odd, wanting to please her despite her absence from his life. And yet, it felt right. The greater part of him yearned for it, anticipated her rescue, and the time they would spend together.

  “My father worries me,” Keedar said from his seat next to Winslow. He stared toward the ereskar carrying Thar. “He hasn’t said a word to me since the day he lost to Akari. All he does is sharpen that sword of his.”

  “He hasn’t said anything to anyone.” Winslow could only imagine his uncle’s feelings. Thar had always spoken with unwavering devotion when referring to their mother, the love he held for her as great as any from a guiser’s tale. Whether it was the defeat or his inability to help his wife, Thar had seemed to age overnight. His beard and mustache no longer had streaks of black. They were like his hair, the white of bleached bones.

  “We’ll need him when we reach the Tombs,” Keedar said.

  “I have a feeling he’ll be ready. The question is, will we?”

  “I honestly don’t know.” Keedar shook his head. “When the Soulbreakers fought at the workshops only Thar and the Blighted Brothers were a challenge. They were as strong or stronger than Na-Rashim. On the Parmien Plains, they could at least match our entire force in number. We have our own now too, but if Balbas converted as many more as the Winds claim …”

  Although he was yet to encounter them, Winslow understood his brother’s unspoken fear. How would they defeat a few hundred thousand Soulbreakers when they had barely half that number worthy enough to be a challenge?

  “Did you ever envision you’d be ruler of the Empire?” Keedar asked.

  Winslow snorted. “I never imagined I’d be a count, much less king. Ainslen would always claim I’d assume his rule over House Mandrigal, but my heart wasn’t there. My dreams were always of becoming a powerful melder, perhaps a Blade.”

  “You too? When I was very young, living in the Smear, I used to imagine life as a Blade. To serve the king and the Empire. To die with honor. To live not being a dreg. It wasn’t long before I hated them for what they did to their own people … to my people.” Keedar’s hand absently stroked his shirt.

  “And now?”

  “I stopped hating them some time ago, when I learned of their training, that doing as the king and counts bid was beaten into them. And that most of them were unknowingly playing a part for Mother and Thar.”

  Winslow stared ahead of the army to the lush plains. “My own training with them taught me they were nothing as I’d dreamed. I used to see them as the Blades of the guiser’s tales, heroes one and all, saving the weak, defending the Empire. Instead, they were little more than killers.”

  “It’s ironic.”

  “What is?”

  “We’ve both become as Blades are, perhaps not in title, but we’re killers all the same.”

  “I disagree. We’ve killed in battle, not for coin.”

  “In the end, killing is killing. Death is death.”

  Winslow opened his mouth to voice his dissent but stopped before uttering the words. “You may be right.” The admission left him crestfallen.

  “Every Day of Accolades I’d collect bits of clothing left by those the Order took to become Blades.” Keedar said, voice distant. The hand that had been stroking his shirt now gripped it tightly. “I made a patchwork cloak in their memory. And every year, while I watched from the rooftops, I’d wish the Dracodar would rise again, that everyone in the Smear would fight. Now, it seems I’ve gotten my wish, but I never imagined the cost. Soon, we’ll be fighting our own … the price will be even greater.”

  “Perhaps we can change that at the Tombs.”

  “How?”

  “By trying to save any converts we can.”

  “You heard the Winds. There’s no reversing the process in Mareshna.”

  “Perhaps. However, if we’re to survive, there’s no choice but to defeat Balbas and his army. But by not killing all the converts, by breaking whatever hold the man has on them, we might be saving them.”

  “They’re the enemy. Seeing them in any other way will lead to failure.”

  “I know, but we can still hope.”

  “Sometimes hope can kill as surely as any sword.”

  “And without hope a man is already dead.”

  “I think that’s why he’s the way he is now.” Keedar gazed toward Thar. “He’s preparing.”

  “Preparing?”

  Keedar was still studying his Thar. “I think that’s why he’s the way he is now. He’s preparing.”

  “Preparing?”

  “Killing Mother might be our only hope.”

  A cold wave swept over Winslow. He hadn’t considered the notion. He opened his mouth and closed it, and then opened it again to speak.

  “I think we’ve arrived,” Keedar said.

  The plains ended. Abruptly. One moment, grass and wildflowers spread ahead, and the next, they were gone, replaced by barren, stony ground, shale, and sand. And bones. Bleached ones. Picked clean. The bones started sparsely at first before becoming a white carpet blotting out the ground. Some were human. Others not. The air had also changed, becoming hotter by the moment, and now carried a whiff of brine. At various points throughout the boneyard, there were sets of eight curved pillars, at least thirty feet tall, neatly aligned opposite each other. Something about the pillars seemed out of sorts. It took a moment for Winslow to realize he was not looking at manmade constructions but ribcages.

  “It’s as if we’ve reached the end of the world,” Winslow said softly.

  “This is the reason we call it the Tomb of Shattered Souls,” Yan-Harin called from atop a massive korgan cat. He swept a hand out. “Here rests the remnants of millions, killed during the Chosen Campaigns and the Thousand Year War.”

  The lifeless ground stretched in every direction. A glittering road wound its way through the bones and up a slope to a long ridgeline. In the distance, black clouds hovered in sections of the sky, swirling this way and that before diving in a long, dark stream to disappear behind the crest. Similar masses rose in a black pall. A repetitive dissonance carried on the wind as well as the whiff of foulness.

  The Winds drew to a halt where the boneyard began and turned to face the army. They shouted a series of commands in various tongues. The Farlanders began offloading supplies. Several groups focused on the disassembled firebreathers, and set about the task of remounting them atop the two-wheeled drays.

  “You and your generals follow us,” Akari said. “The rest remain here. We can use our power to hide you for a few minutes.” A rush of movement followed as orders were called out. Afterward, Akari led them up the hill, bones crunching under the feet of their mounts.

  They soon gained the road, which sparkled with golden metal embedded into its stones. It was broad enough for several wagons. The road disappeared over the ridge. Peeking above the crest were the tops of two distant towers, larger than the Winds of Time, the sun reflecting from their surface.

  “The Dragon Gates.” Akari pointed at the structures. “Or the Pillars of Dissolution, as they are known in your Empire.”

  As the group drew closer, the black clouds resolved into carrion birds, thousands upon thousands of them. In a turbid maelstrom they rose and fell, their outraged caws filling Winslow with dread.

  Another sound carried on the wind, akin to the roar of waves crashing against a defiant cliff face. The fetid stench came with it. Winslow’s stomach grew queasy. He cupped a hand over his nose and mouth.

  “The smell of sulfur and old death,” Keedar whispered.

  Winslow nodded. He tried not to think of what waited beyond the rise, but it gnawed at him. His heart rate sped up, and his hand drifted to his sword hilt. Would they be able to defeat this horde of Soulbreakers? Could the Winds succeed against Balbas? Had Keedar been correct? Did Mother need to die? On and on the questions assailed him. He wiped sweat from his forehead.

  T
he sounds became clearer, the stink so terrible he could taste it. He made out the roar of men and animals, the clash of blades, the concerted thunder of firesticks, the boom and crackle of melds.

  They gained the summit.

  Hills of putrid corpses lined either side of a battlefield surrounded by yellowed, rocky crags. Black smoke shrouded the hilltops, unaffected by the wind. Men, animals, and Dracodarkind churned through mud and muck, locked in combat. On one side were the Abandoned, many still black-robed while others had shed their garb, their scales seeming odd in the scorching sun. Soulbreakers, Farlanders, and men from various kingdoms toiled against them.

  Yuros fought beside the Abandoned, fang and claw shredding flesh as sure as any blade. They focused on several ereskars, harrying the giant beasts in packs, tearing into their legs. The carrion swarms dived at the drivers and Blazers in the baskets. When they rose, their targets crumpled. The combined onslaught had reduced the majority of the Farlander ereskars to just so many carcasses that the two sides battled atop or around.

  A volley of arrows arced into the sky, fired from within the black smoke atop the corpse hills. Single shafts zipped from the same congealed mass toward specific targets. Thinking such an attack to be useless, Winslow waited for the arrows to be deflected by soul.

  Instead, the Egini in the outer ranks used their shields against the lone attacks, sending the arrows careening away. Even as the volley rained down toward the rearguard of Farlanders and Soulbreakers, the earth heaved at their flanks. It writhed and lifted like a giant carpet, mud pouring from its edges. The earth continued to flow up before extending over the rearguard, forming a roof of sorts into which the arrows buried themselves. When the last shaft struck, the earth collapsed and bathed the combatants in a muddy deluge.

  There appeared to be no true strategy for the two sides. This was a test of strength, willpower, and guts. A melee in its purest form, steel, tooth, and nail.

  “The arrows,” Keedar said, voice awed. “They’re all Dracodarian-forged steel, aren’t they?”