Coming to meet them as they crested a small hill, was a young man Haustis recognized immediately. “Nethyal?”
“Well met again, sister. What have you brought this time?”
To Lydria, Nethyal had hardly aged a day since she had last seen him. He had met her and Haustis in the forest near their home of Eifynar. The siblings embraced and then Nethyal walked to Lydria and embraced her in the same fashion. “Wielder, you have done well in saving Eigrae from the Cursed Wynter.” Lydria couldn’t bear to tell the smiling young warrior before her that Wynter was loose again, and that this time there was no information as to what he was planning, and that this time, he was likely in the company of dragons.
“Come, all, for there is one thing left for you to see.” Drae Ghern was smiling like a child being handed a gift. “The reunion is not for you, it is for me, and I will take my time and enjoy it as long as I may. Down this path to the river, you will find your sign from the spirits. I know not what it will be, nor how it may help you, only that you will find it there.” Drae Ghern smiled again and looked at both Haustis and Lydria. As he reached to hug them both, the women smiled behind his back as they saw his wife, the former Haustis, walk behind him. She was young and beautiful like her husband, with straw-colored hair and dark skin that reflected the light in a hundred directions, and Lydria realized this woman was, a much younger version of the first woman she had known to be called Haustis.
“Ah, I know that fragrance,” Drae Ghern said and slowly removed himself from his grand-daughters’ embrace. “And now, I must go.”
Without another word, Drae Ghern turned and swept up his wife in his arms and carried her down the hill to a waiting group of people who cheered his arrival and then began to fade, leaving only the white path to the river. Haustis, ran a hand across her eyes and looked to Lydria, smiled and began walking to the shore.
No one among them had any idea what to expect when they arrived at the river bank and so they stood, for long minutes waiting for some sign. Finally, Relin moved forward and entered the river, kneeling to drink, and wash his face and the others followed his lead. The water was bright and clear and yet, it did nothing to slake their thirst or clean the dirt from their faces.
“This is a spirit river, and will not clean our bodies,” Haustis said. “It is a river for cleaning souls and is meant for the dead who live here – not the living who exist here only as spirits.” As she turned to leave the water, Relin plunged forward into the center of the river where the gentle current curved around his waist. He looked toward the others near the shore and smiled before diving into the water.
When Relin emerged from the water seconds later, his smile had not faded; he was nearly laughing as he shouted, lifting from the water a curved sword so black it was like a hole in the sky.
The Sword of Wilmamen.
Codex of the Prime Wielder
Spheres of Magic
With so few wielders and so little experience between us, it is difficult to say for certain anything about magic, but we record our guesses so that if they are one day proven incorrect, our words can be amended.
Studying the Stones of Power can be done more or less directly, using one of the unattached stones as a sort of book. It takes much practice and pain, and a long time to learn anything of use, but perhaps that is for the best.
Currently, as we enter the end of the first Year of the Magic Age, I guess that like the Stones, magic itself can be given over to spheres. Whether these spheres are a property of the Stone or of the Wielder herself is unknown. What we guess, is that different people seem to have different proficiency with magic. Whereas Lydria is adept at healing, I am not; where I may more easily use the Stones to learn, Perryn cannot.
It is most likely that the sphere of magic a Wielder is most suited to has more to do with the individual rather than the Stone itself. As learning magic requires some pain and sacrifice on the part of the Wielder, it follows that the Wielder will follow a path that is less damaging to their own being, and spend more time and energy becoming proficient in magic that is less destructive to their body.
This is not to say that Wielders are limited. Wynter is an excellent example of how a Wielder can use any magic – if they are willing to make the personal sacrifices and endure the physical pain necessary to learn.
Grettune
13 - Duzmet
The tracks Grettune and Krieger followed brought them south and west of their destination of Dar’Ahlmon. When the tracks faded from wind moving the talc-fine sand, Grettune stopped. Beneath the thin linen that covered her head, face and neck, Krieger saw a dull pulse of her collar, and then she confidently strode off. Several times an hour she would stop and alter her course according to where the milky-white path led.
“You must rest,” Grettune. Krieger hadn’t spoken much since they left the oasis several hours previously. They had made good time, helped along by a very low-level magic that kept their legs and lungs fresh for the journey. “Does your magical aid extend to your unborn child then?” Grettune stopped cold and stared at the man with an intensity he had never seen in her before.
“Do you think I would endanger my child, Krieger? We will rest soon, but not until we know where they are headed, or the sun grows too strong and we are forced to rest.” She tried to maintain her grim composure, but even a hardened ex-assassin like Krieger could see through her façade. Her eye twitched and her lip trembled slightly, but enough for the man to see the pain she was hiding was not all physical. Enclosing her shoulders in his arms, he rested her head against his chest and let her cry. He said nothing.
After several minutes, she pushed slowly away and thanked Krieger with her eyes. “I have this power to command, and yet I can do nothing. We chase, but we get no closer because those who took Perryn are mounted and we walk; and all the while we move further away from the objective our king has sent us on.”
“We will find Perryn and we will continue on our mission, and our king will be satisfied,” Krieger confided. “He has a greater respect for you and the collars you wear than you know.” They started to walk again, taking long drinks from their water skins and watching as small insects scuttled across sand that would warm rapidly in the approaching dawn. “Perryn also has power to command, do not forget. Can you reach out to him across this distance?”
“I have tried, and it is too far. I feel, however, that if he had come to harm, I would know.”
“Your magic would tell you this?” Krieger looked impressed and surprised.
“No, Krieger, magic would do nothing of the sort. Love, however, would.”
They walked further than they had intended after spying a small line of rugged hills and what looked like a town further to the south. Heading west, they made for the hills, determined to rest before making their way toward the town. If Perryn had indeed come this way, it was likely someone there would know of his passing.
After a short rest, Grettune lay against the wall of rock which had cooled considerably as the sun made its way to the western side of the stone hills. She had said nothing to Krieger since their mention of Perryn, and he honored her silence. The pain in her knees subsided and she pressed her hands to the cool stone at her back and leveraged herself off the ground. Halfway to standing, she stopped and stared at Krieger, her eyes wide.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps nothing, but the last time I felt something similar, was on top of the mountains outside Brookfield.”
Krieger came to her side and placed his hands next to hers on the stone, locking eyes with her and concentrating on his hands. “I feel nothing,” he said after minutes of silence. As if that settled the matter, he collected their things and handed Grettune her pack. It was not lost on the woman how quickly he had made them ready to move.
They walked along the hills taking advantage of both the shade and the harder walking surface close to the rock. Grettune confirmed their path and they moved quickly, but she noticed Krieger’s hea
d was in motion constantly, moving from the hilltop above them to the ground, and out to the desert around and behind them.
“I think Perryn is in this town.” Grettune’s certainty was such that Krieger asked no questions.
“This town seems somehow larger than I think it is,” Krieger said as they continued walking, staying close to the hills for their shade and the cover they provided as they approached the walls of the city – walls that were cleverly built from the very rock they walked along. “There is little noise or odor…” Krieger’s voice trailed off and he held up his hand in a signal for Grettune to stop and wait. She stopped and watched as the man removed his pack and checked that his sword, and several small blades hidden in his clothes were in place and could be easily and quietly removed from their sheathes. Grettune had seen Krieger in action before and she was always quietly envious of how he could move so gracefully and quietly when he chose. Even without magic, he moved as part of the shadows, and had Grettune not been watching him carefully she would have lost him among the darker places in the rock face.
Krieger wasn’t gone long before he came running back down the line of wall without trying to hide his travels. He didn’t speak until he arrived and despite his jog of some half mile or more, he didn’t seem winded in slightest. “This isn’t a town, it’s the ruin of a town. Are you sure Perryn is here?”
Grettune stared at him, her mouth opened slightly as if he had just told her he’d found her husband’s body. “That can’t be right… He’s here, I’m sure of it.”
There was no other way to explain how she felt, and she didn’t need to. Krieger gathered the things he had put down earlier and nodded. “Well, then, let’s see if we can find him.”
They walked slowly but with no great stealth down the line of rock Krieger had walked minutes before and came to a small opening in the wall. Nearby was the remnant of a large gate, but it was tumbled down and impassable. Only the small needle-gate was unobstructed. With the sun setting on the opposite side of the hill, looking through the needle was like looking into a cave, a tunnel of rock continued in a straight line for twenty feet and beyond, it seemed the tunnel opened into an area open to the sky.
“You know Lydria’s shield spell, yes?” Krieger asked as he stared down the tunnel – a narrow stretch that an incompetent bowman could hold against an army for as long as he had arrows.
Grettune smiled, nodded, and indicated Krieger should move forward. They moved quickly down the tunnel and when they reached the other side, they saw an entire town carved from the rock of the hill, all open to the sky. Whoever built this place, it must have taken decades. The sun had bleached the stone so that it was all the same dun-color as the sand outside, and the buildings, in addition to stone, were also made of mud with small deep-set windows, the remains of thick wooden shutters still clinging to many of them.
“You are right, Grettune, there are people here.” Krieger pointed to the ground where the roadways showed clear paths where people moved from place to place, pushing aside the sand that blew in from the desert as they went. Following the path, they came to what they believed was the town center. The dust paths separated here and went off in different directions down the several streets that connected to the open area where they stood. All the paths converged on the center where a large stone well sat, obviously well maintained and used.
Grettune pointed down one of the larger streets where the path seemed widest and nodded to a look from Krieger to confirm her choice was not a guess.
All the while they walked past houses, no one stopped them. In fact, even Grettune considered that her magic may be wrong, and that perhaps the town was abandoned. The places they passed as they walked showed a town that was partially ruined. Some homes had crumbling walls and fallen roofs while others were closed to the weather with wooden doors painted in faded blue and gold with patterns of diamonds and circles.
“Who comes to our town so boldly and armed?” A voice seemed to come from a point above and both in front of and behind them, and they looked for a moment before answering.
“I am Krieger, and I travel with Grettune. We search for our companion, Perryn.”
“Come forward and stay true to the path you hold.”
At the end of the street, there was a long, low building that crossed the road in front of them. It had few windows, but the doors were like the others they had seen with vertical strips of wood reinforced with large horizontal cross-cut logs at the top and bottom and middle, fastened with iron nails whose heads were as big as Grettune’s palms. A simple chain moved another piece of wood that slid out of a depression in the rock and allowed the door to open. Inside the building it was cool and dry.
“I am Ilyadra, leader of the Dar’Duz. Welcome to Duzmet,” the voice came through the building as if riding on the air. Krieger didn’t move until he heard Grettune whisper that the voice had come from their left, and then he smoothly turned and faced the voice. “We are looking for our friend.”
One of the painted wooden doors opened slowly and a lone woman walked into the street to stand several paces from Krieger.
“Where is Perryn and how did he come to be with you?” Grettune’s question to the woman was soft and pleasant but in the shade of the building, the linen around her neck did little to hide the growing heat of her blue collar. It was an effect not lost on their host.
“We didn’t abduct a wielder, if that’s what you ask.” Ilyadra’s tone was level and firm and a look from Krieger told Grettune that he thought she was telling the truth. “If you will come this way and follow me, we will sit and take water and I will tell you what we found. I think you will then understand.”
Grettune and Krieger followed Ilyadra into the building and down a long narrow hallway to the right of which were small rooms, cool and dark without windows. Some hadn’t been cleaned in ages, with broken bits of furniture and sand sitting in small drifts against walls. Some seemed to be in use, with wooden pallets and piles of carpets, blankets and pillows. To the left, evenly spaced along the route, were windows. Some were covered by wooden shutters, and some open to the cooling evening air and allowing the waning light of the day into the building.
At the end of the hall was a door and from the orange glow beneath it, Grettune could tell there was a fire, and eventually she heard voices speaking in a language she was not familiar with. One of the voices, however, sounded familiar, as if she’d heard it before, despite not understanding what it said.
Ilyadra turned when she reached the door, and pushed it open with her left hand, maintaining eye contact with Grettune and using her right hand to show her guests inside. Grettune approached the threshold carefully and ran into the room after she passed Ilyadra.
“Perryn!” The barman of Brookfield was caught off guard and toppled his chair as he jumped up at the sound of his wife’s voice. Their embrace was fierce and over quickly when Grettune pushed him away and slapped his chest. “What happened?” Then she began to cry and hugged him again. She felt his arms tighten around her and felt his heartbeat speed up.
“Gret, please sit down, there are things you both should know.”
Krieger looked around the room and took a seat with his back to the far wall, facing the door. No one had asked for his weapons and he had no plans to offer them. Grettune noticed him casually move his tunic aside so that the hilt of his sword was accessible, and he kept one leg bent up near him so that a knife she knew he carried in his boot could also be called upon quickly if needed.
Food and large bowls of water were placed on the table before them and Ilyadra asked the others in the room to leave them, so she sat alone with the three northerners, herself at the head of the table, Perryn at the foot and Grettune to her right.
“Perryn has told us much about you, and it is obvious you are his wife Grettune. Your hair is every bit as radiant as he says, and it is quite stunning to see in person. Hair of that color is not seen often in the desert, and when it is seen, it is not often resp
ected. Perhaps your coming will change how people feel about their red-haired children in future.” Turning smoothly to Krieger the woman smiled. “You may stand at ease Krieger or draw your blade now if it makes you more comfortable to have it by your side. You have no enemies here.” She didn’t wait for him to respond before she reached across to his plate and ate some of the goat meat, and bread that sat there and drank from his water.
“You are now among the Dar’Duz, the fallen people of Dar’Ahlmon. Once our people ruled the land you walk, but when our Dynasts fell, our families were cast out. The lucky ones, at least. Within the ruins of Duzmet are the remnants of the most recent dynastic families. We live here on the border of the desert kingdom where we are, for the most part, left alone.”
Ilyadra’s voice and story were calming and sad, and Krieger moved forward and rested his arms on the table and made a point to eat and drink. Grettune followed his example, and from the crumbs in front of him, it was obvious Perryn had long ago accepted the hospitality of the Dar’Duz. Grettune understood why Ilyadra was the leader of her people. She was tall and slender, with a complexion that melted into the background of the shadows caused by fading light on sand and stone. Her eyes were bright blue. Not the ordinary blue of most people, Grettune, noted, but a vibrant blue that reminded her of clear water in the early rays of the summer sun.
“It was we you traveled with along the caravan road.” Ilyadra smiled. “We felt like the people of kings again, traveling with two wielders. But we are not kings and we are not wielders, so we respected your privacy as is the way with people of our station in our land.”
“Our station is no better than yours,” Grettune offered. She leaned closer to Ilyadra to hold the woman’s hands in her own, to thank her for harboring her husband, and perhaps to offer a soothing magical influence as she had seen Lydria do.
Magic's Genesis- Sword of Wilmamen Page 11
