Knight Exiled: The Shackled Verities (Book Three)

by Tammy Salyer

  Deespora stared straight ahead, outwardly stoic and calm, but Ulfric noted the subtlest hint of lavender and a subdued pink in the deep layers of her skin. She said, “Your daughter, young Isemay, is she safe?”

  “She is, she is with my heartmatch. Thank you for asking.”

  “I’m very glad to hear it. Is she well?”

  “As can be,” he answered. “Symvalline discovered a way to free Mithlí without the cage maker.”

  This drew Deespora’s circumspect gaze. “How?” she asked simply.

  “She didn’t explain fully, only that there’s something about the Equifulcrum’s alignment that creates a celestial light capable of breaking the shackles holding your creator. Akeeva figured this out and somehow Symvalline learned of it. We must keep Tuzhazu and the Minothians distracted until after the Equifulcrum so she can see it done.”

  “What if it doesn’t work? Then Tuzhazu will be able to carry forth his charade.”

  “Not if he’s on the battlef—” He stopped himself. The word “battlefield” was certain to distract Deespora from the point. “Not if he’s occupied, or we catch him. If he’s not able to perform whatever ritual it is that convinces the Minothians he’s the newly ordained vessel, it will make it that much easier for us to convince the Minothians instead of his falseness, if not also Akeeva’s.”

  The Archon contemplated this for a moment, then said, “But he must still be stopped.”

  Ulfric nodded.

  “And, Stallari, though you may think me meek or wavering because I’m not willing to sacrifice lives on a whim, remember that your ways are not our ways. We are a strong people because we value life, not despite it. The Minothians were once the same. Today, we’ll find out which is stronger: our values, or our fear.”

  Feeling as if his thoughts were uncannily naked to the Archon, Ulfric simply said: “Understood.”

  “We’re approaching the end gate.”

  Deespora turned to the troop of aulos players riding a stone platform behind them and waved her Fenestros staff. The group began playing a set of windy sounds as Deespora spoke aloud to the Churss to prepare it to breach this barrier as it had the last, her voice echoing through the enclosure and amplified by the Fenestros.

  The bruhawks lifted again, and Urgo flew forward to be first past the gate. To his surprise, it was open. A dangerous invitation, likely fraught with trickery. The Minothians had either left the gates ajar because they knew the wood would be useless in the face of the Churss, or they had set a trap.

  But no trap sprang as they passed through. There weren’t even any guards present. Before them, a vast valley spread far and wide, farmlands near, and far ahead a haze hugging the base of the mountains rising beyond. The haze itself spoke of the industry and activity of a concentrated population, with cooking fires, smelters, and dust rising from well-trodden streets giving the air its patina. Deespora had told him most of the Minothians lived at the end of the valley, but the haze was not what one might expect in color.

  The three moons of Arc Rheunos stood almost in perfect alignment above the far mountains. Their daystar was nearly hidden behind them, as well, creating a strange and ethereal aura throughout the horizon. The daystar’s light struck the valley floor in wavering rays of blue and red, as if it shone through a prism, or as if the moons themselves were made of crystal. Staring at the expanse, Ulfric felt as if he’d fallen into a dream, for at no time in his long life had he witnessed such a unique atmosphere.

  Drawing himself back to the present, he examined their situation. They would have to cross open country for a time, but Ulfric wasn’t concerned. If the Minothians couldn’t attack them in the labyrinth, they would have no better options out here. He decided to remain on vanguard as the Churss drove onward.

  Before the daystar crested, they’d reached the edge of the Minothian city growing right up to the walls of Everlight Hall, a veritable fortress itself. Two towers pointed toward the heavens from within the curtain wall, the tallest up against the mountains. That would be where the Cosmoculous and the shackled Verity were. The moons were overhead, nearly at syzygy. He guessed the Equifulcrum would arrive late in the night or early tomorrow morning.

  The Churss stopped at the town’s edge, and the Zhallahs discontinued their incongruous piping. From high overhead, Ulfric could see hundreds of Minothian commoners running to their homes. They had seen what was coming and taken the natural action to hide and wait it out.

  Urgo landed near Deespora, and Ulfric said, “We must get the stones on the move, all the way to the wall of the fortress. Then through it, if we have to.”

  “We will stay here and wait for Tuzhazu, and Akeeva if she dares face me.”

  “If we don’t prove we are a threat, then they’ll simply wait us out.”

  “We won’t crush their homes and put people in harm’s way. Even if the Zhallahs had your callousness, the Churss itself would not obey such an order. They, too, respect life. Tuzhazu will come. If he wishes to prove he’s worthy of his Verity’s ordination, he’ll come.” Her stare returned across the distance toward the fortress. “And if I know him, the greater the threat, the more he’ll relish the challenge.”

  And Deespora was correct. Within moments, the curtain wall gate opened and let forth a procession of warriors, some flying, others mounted atop massive hairy creatures that resembled the great bears that roamed Vinnr’s Morn Mountains, but with purple fur and a singular horn atop their heads. They fanned out throughout the city but drew relentlessly toward where the Zhallahs awaited them. Ulfric remained perched by Deespora. As the Minothians approached, she addressed the Zhallahs through her Fenestros and urged them to stand fast while she spoke with their long-time adversary.

  They didn’t have to wait long. Along the main road that split the town in two rode a stout, tall warrior with misshapen wings that appeared to have been shredded by beast or fire. Ulfric knew instantly this was Tuzhazu. The Archon stopped short of the Churss, eyeing Deespora and the great bruhawks Yggo and Urgo from a distance until the entirety of his garrisoned force had created a long line, three deep, spanning the width of the town to the east and west.

  A group of the Deathless Guard, two dozen or so in all, surrounded the Archon in a semicircle, and it was not easy to miss how the regular Minothians beside them shied to the sides, avoiding them.

  Tuzhazu’s voice boomed, unnaturally loud, and Ulfric could see the familiar shape of one of Balavad’s Fenestrii in his hand. “I would ask where you acquired such strange and sinister-looking feathered creatures, Archon Raamuzi, but I already know you prefer fraternizing with foreigners from other realms. First you bring your foul plague, then you bring us enemies from afar. Is there no end to what you Zhallahs will do to ruin our peace and threaten the vessel that sustains our world?”

  The lies and misleading statements alone made Ulfric’s ephemeral hands itch to strangle the Archon, but now seeing the man who’d threatened his heartmatch and daughter, the depth of his inner corruption made visible by his foul wings, made it that much harder to stay steady at his post.

  “Lies, Tuzhazu? That’s what you accuse me of while you work so hard to conceal your own and Akeeva’s. What would the people of Minoth do if they knew the truth? Have any ever asked you and my sister who falsely claims to be the living Verity why you won’t allow any Minothians to leave this place? And”—her eyes swept over the forces spread before them—“I wonder what has become of those who did.”

  “Your accusations are as baseless as the oath you swore to the Everlight. Give me back the Fenestros and Scrylle you stole from Mithlí’s loyal Archons and leave Minoth forever.”

  “I have no plans to do that, Tuzhazu, and you know it. You’ve been left to run and to ruin the sanctity of our creator and her gifts for too long. We Zhallahs, ever faithful to Mithlí, have returned to take back the children you’ve stolen from us—and to restore our Verity to her power.”

  Ulfric watched Tuzhazu’s crowd shift, looking at each othe
r uneasily. They didn’t know what the Archons had done to the Everlight at the last Equifulcrum, but any claim at all that the Verity was in some way hindered and powerless would unnerve them, make them question. And people with questions and without resolution were vulnerable.

  As he took in the crowd and entertained the thought that Deespora’s clarity and authority would win them over without need for violence of any sort, his eyes caught sight of a wagon being drawn to the front of the Minothian forces. Inside sat an iron cauldron that looked big enough to bathe in. He’d learned the winged Arc Rheunosian men would lose the ability to fly if wet, but surely a single cauldron of water wouldn’t be taken as a serious threat by anyone. Which left the question, what was it for?

  Tuzhazu spoke again, his voice almost conversational, despite its amplification. “I’ll ask you once more, Deespora—leave Mithlí’s artifacts and take your Churss and your plague-bearing exiles back where you belong. While you still can.”

  Deespora’s response remained calm, reasonable. “We have no desire or intention of fighting you or any Minothian. We are still all Arc Rheunosians and we’ll not harm our own, nor any other with peaceful intent. These birds are from Vinnr, and they come merely to aid in the retrieval of the other Vinnrics you’ve taken captive without cause or need. No one has threatened the Minothian people, and no one will.”

  Ulfric and Deespora had agreed it was best to keep the circumstances of his presence here a secret. If Symvalline were recaptured, or if he were, he didn’t want either of them to be used as leverage or bait against the other.

  Tuzhazu looked around at the forces spanning the edge of town left and right. A brutal smirk stretched over his face. “Do you believe her, Minothians? They bring plague and death for the last three hundred years, and now they bring a horde of stone to crush us with, and this fallen, disgraced Archon claims they mean us no harm?” The crowd remained hushed, unsure how to respond. “Well do you?” Tuzhazu roared.

  It was the Deathless who started the response. Their voices all joined in a heating hissing shriek that rose in pitch and volume toward a crescendo that seemed capable of igniting the very air it passed through. The Minothians began shouting out variations of “No!” and “Banish the Zhallahs!” but their cries seemed mostly intended as a defense to drown out the Deathless Guards’ unearthly screeching.

  “Will you let them topple our Verity, take our homes and our children’s lives, and spread the Great Waste through our haven in the mountains again, like they did long ago?”

  The Minothians continued their cries of negation, voices growing bolder at his urging—and perhaps to quell their own fears of the battle that might be at hand.

  Tuzhazu turned back to face Deespora, his face a mask of hate. “Then we shall stop you.”

  Before Ulfric could think of what to do, Tuzhazu had pulled a small bottle from a pouch at his side, yanked its stopper free, and poured its contents into the cauldron. Ulfric heard Deespora draw an alarmed breath beside him, but she gave no orders. Would she be capable of taking the necessary next step? Would the Zhallahs be capable of taking action?

  Before this thought was complete, Tuzhazu did something that, though Ulfric could not guess its purpose, sent razor-like shards of ice into his veins. The malicious Archon dropped the Fenestros into the cauldron with the liquid from the vial. Then he began to speak, his voice too low and far away to understand. And Ulfric remembered Symvalline’s warning: Something in the elixir Tuzhazu uses to transform them makes them slaves to him…I think it’s the Fenestros he bears that allows this to happen.

  What had Tuzhazu done?

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Isemay wasn’t used to seeing her mum this way. A hard woman who fought like…well, a Knight. She’d feared Symvalline was going to kill the Deathless Guards, though she wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t have welcomed it as a way to escape their vacant gray stare. But Isemay had seen enough death already. Agatha…and what had they done to the poor old friendly Widin?

  As they followed the little boy her mum knew, Inder, disbelief that her mum had agreed to let her come warred with her fear at what they were facing. She wanted to be grateful for Symvalline’s confidence in her. And in some ways she was. In others, though…she couldn’t get Agatha’s face out of her mind. The way her life bled from her eyes like melting frost. She’d died so Isemay wouldn’t. A sacrifice like that, unlooked for, undeserved even—would she ever, even if she lived as long as her da, be worthy of such a sacrifice? Would she ever again be able to close her eyes and not see the Minothian woman’s face staring back at her? Did she really want to spend hundreds upon hundreds of turns living just to find out?

  Inder seemed to understand their urgency and scuttled through hidden passages like a silvflan through the walls, as if he’d been born in them. On one or two occasions, they’d had to cross open rooms, but fortunately, these had been vacant. The whole of the fortress it seemed was elsewhere, preparing for the coming Zhallahs and the Equifulcrum.

  Soon enough, she and her mum were hurrying up a path that narrowed as it got closer to the mountains, then into a ravine, past a frightening-looking cave, and along another path that took them outside the massive stone tower where the Cosmoculous and caged Verity were. Symvalline had explained what the book meant and what she intended to do on their way.

  The tower’s doorways were sealed and locked but unguarded. Her mum’s klinkí stones quickly disabled the lock, and they hurried inside and up the single winding flight of stairs toward a room near the top.

  Isemay somehow managed to keep up with her mum, still invigorated by Agatha’s gift. Veins of a whiter stone in the tower walls seemed to pulse with an inner light that made the flight upward strange, as if they walked among shooting stars. At last, they reached the doorway of a chamber, and she saw the same light pulsing irregularly beneath the door. Was it the Verity? The idea of meeting the Everlight made her hesitant. Vaka Aster had been absent from Vinnr for so long, and she’d never faced a living vessel in the flesh. What would Mithlí do or think? Could the celestial creator even act or was the cage her mum spoke of all-encompassing?

  Symvalline looked back at Isemay. “Stay close behind me. We don’t know what exactly we’ll find inside.”

  This statement did not, to say the least, allay her fears. Squaring her shoulders and pretending she wasn’t quaking inwardly, she nodded. “All right.”

  Symvalline opened the door.

  The first thing Isemay saw was the ceiling, which bowed downward in a huge, perfect circle like half a kórb fruit—except hundreds of times bigger. Based on the fore-edge image in the book her mum still carried, the sphere, the Cosmoculous, was a full orb, one massive crystal. The way its millions of tiny facets glinted made Isemay think of the shining flecks of stone mixed in with the Churss towers. The orb must have weighed thousands upon thousands of pounds. Each time the light pulsed, it reflected from the massive crystal, illuminating the room as brightly as a full moon on a lake’s surface.

  In the center of the chamber beneath the Cosmoculous sat a stone table with four ornately carved stone legs, upon which lay a human body, male but appearing to be made of white stone—just as Vaka Aster’s vessel was. And circling above his form, so fast she could barely make them out individually, were five smaller spheres. Fenestrii. Four must be Arc Rheunos’s, but whose was the other? Each time the light in the room and along the walls shifted, the body itself glowed brilliantly, clearly the source of the light’s pulse.

  It very much seemed as if there was life within this statue, the vessel, that was fighting to get out.

  “Who do you think that vessel is…or was?” she whispered to her mum.

  “An Archon I’m sure, but I don’t think there’s anything of the person he used to be left. Like all vessels who’ve been so for hundreds of turns, his spirit has rejoined the Cosmos. His body is just a vault for Mithlí now.”

  “Like Vaka Aster,” she thought aloud, remembering the Vinnric vessel
was an ancient Dyrrak, apparently Knight Nazaria’s own ancestor.

  “Yes.” Symvalline nodded.

  She retrieved the book she’d packed inside a satchel and studied the art along the edges. “Strange, in this image, it is atop the tower, but I know we’re still at least two or three stories below the peak. Down here, it may not be in line with the Equifulcrum.” She looked around the chamber. “There must be some way to raise it. Crumb, walk around, look for any device or construct that might lift it. I’ll search the book.”

  Isemay did as she was told and found the rest of the chamber to be devoid of anything besides the Verity. She wandered back to it and, gathering her nerve, peered into the man’s face.

  For being a statue, he was remarkably detailed. She could even see the colored lines that adorned his skin on his face and hands. His hands were not lying at rest on his chest or by his side—in fact, as she looked closer, she realized nothing about the body seemed at ease. Though the statue lay on a bench, there was a marked sense of movement in the form. His legs were spread, one slightly in front of the other, and his wings were as well, as if he’d been about to take flight. His hands were held up, either to beckon something or ward something off. To her, he looked as if he’d been frozen just as he’d been about to charge or run away. He’d not been caged willingly.

  “There’s nothing here. No mention of how to raise the crystal,” her mum said, more to herself.

  Isemay glanced at her, then something in the sphere, some movement it seemed, caught her eye, and she looked to it.

  Just like in her memory keeper, a vision began to form just beneath the crystal’s surface. “Mum, look at this,” she murmured, and Symvalline looked up.

  The image solidified. It showed the edge of the Minothian city and two opposing forces facing off: one long line of Minothian soldiers, another of a massive wall of Churss. The stone forest itself stood outside.