Leaderless?
No. Not while Guardians like Eshala fought for them.
“You will be the next Al’kah,” he said.
“No.” Eshala shook her head, but he continued.
“You will not let them scatter again. You will carry my mandate to the Chorah’dyn, and she will heed you. She will tell you what you must—”
“One day, perhaps, I shall carry that honour, my lord Al’kah. But not today.”
She bent and lifted him to his feet, ignoring his moans of pain. She lowered her weight, slung him over her back, and hoisted him across her shoulders.
The pain was excruciating. His body clenched and twisted, screaming in fire. Then she was running: a short, plodding pace as she puffed beneath the heavy load.
Eshala ran up the crumbling steps of the Palace of the Great Tree. The stairs were once white like untouched sand, like pearls in sunlight. Now they were broken, smeared with blood and soot. Black weeds pushed through the cracks like grasping fingers.
Was the pain making him delirious, or had the weeds—?
He could have sworn the weeds had moved, crawling before his eyes.
Eshala ran down the great empty hall. Her footsteps echoed into forsaken shadow. Murals and tapestries hung in half-peeled swathes, like flaps of torn flesh, and a huge fissure whipped down the centre of the hall.
The Great Tree herself had done that. A single root, writhing in agony after the Breaking of the Pillar of Blood.
Had he heard that? A muffled cry, a sob of horror from one of the distant halls?
He groaned as pain jarred through his body with every step. Only a memory. He had been here the day it happened, thirty-one years ago, when the Laws were undone and the Doom of the Realms had been unleashed: seas boiling, clouds falling in sheets of ice, the whole world gone mad. The mountains had opened and fire had spewed out like bile, while men and women ran, burning, still alive, screaming and screaming.
And he had lived, when he should have died.
Eshala ran. She turned down one hall and the next, ever climbing the steps, ever higher, past frowning statues like great Tensei E’tuah on his warrior bull and Dynaias ab’Kuldayu Al’kah. Past Guardians of old, the righteous and the wicked both. Past Shatayeth, Last of the Undying, who had betrayed Kyrada himself, holding forth a crown in one hand and concealing a knife with the other.
They were almost above the waterline now—or at least where the water should have been, where it once lapped against the sacred Palace, against ytyri-infused glass designed to let air seep through instead of water: one of the many wonders built during the Abundance, when ytyri had filled the vats of Kayr. Before the decline, before the precious liquid metal ran out, before the wars.
Eshala turned to the next stair. The path was blocked. One of the roots of the Chorah’dyn had seized the corridor and crushed it, sending shards of stone and glass in every direction. Unbreakable, ytyri glass.
The corridor now lay open to the sky and the world above. They beheld a single glimpse of the Great Tree herself: huge, black roots, twisting above their heads, a mountainous trunk, and far away, a flash of green as the branches swayed in an atmospheric wind.
“Back another way,” Andari groaned.
Eshala was already turning, her breath coming hard now as she trembled beneath her burden. Still, she was a Guardian, trained by the Order of the Sacred Tree—when there had been such a thing.
They turned down more broken halls and past more ruined wonders. Up more steps. The Palace had once encircled the Great Tree: a city built amidst her roots. Now all that remained were memories.
Visions bled together in Andari’s mind. Voices he once had loved. Lips he had caressed. The bustle of footsteps at each festival and feast. The sound of prayer songs, lifting like breath through the halls. A reverent stillness, so different than this present emptiness, this ache of death.
The pain ebbed as the memories grew. He was not Al’kah, then. He had been a simple Guardian of no great Order—and he was happy. A woman’s eyes filled with his, loving him, choosing him.
“Mari,” he whispered.
A jolt brought him back to his agony. He cried out, fingers clawing.
“Al’kah, we are here,” Eshala whispered, voice low in reverence. She laid him down and pressed water between his lips.
Andari blinked to clear his vision.
They had come to the huge ebony wood doors of the Outer Chamber. The silver sign of the Tree was grafted above it, the roots curling, twining down each doorpost, while the zenith exploded in leafy branches. Once, a dozen Guardians had lined the door on either side, blades of white and green half-drawn in readiness.
Andari blinked again.
The right door had been twisted and thrown down, its wood scorched as if with fire. The left door sat crookedly on one silver hinge.
Eshala could have leapt over the broken threshold and into the sanctum behind, but she did not. With all the reverence of her Order, she straightened, reached out, and pushed open the one remaining door. It groaned with disuse and neglect, yet still opened to receive them.
Eshala stooped to retrieve the Al’kah, slinging one arm across her shoulder and helping him limp painfully into the Chorah’dyn’s Outer Chamber.
While everything in the Palace was made of marble and stone and old things beyond living memory, this room was glimmering with bright, cold metal. Mirror-shine metal made up the floor under their feet and the graceful beams that arced on every side, reflecting like the purest silver the light of the gate itself.
It stood before them, set into the wall, a perfect circle of the same metal, but grafted with ytyri so its surface danced with watery light.
“The Last Threshold,” Eshala whispered. “Here I must leave you.”
“You were of the Order of the Sacred Tree.”
“We were not permitted. None were—none but the Elders of Kayr.”
Andari’s face darkened. The Elders. The Elders had betrayed them, giving in to desperation and greed, thinking they had overcome the last barrier of mortality in their secret knowledge. How long had they been harbouring Shatayeth’s lies? Years? Generations? How long had they nurtured their dark plans in dark places?
They’d wanted to be like the Deathless King, the Last of the Undying. They’d wanted mastery over the Laws of Blood, over the Seen Realm and the wars that threatened their once-great empire. They’d wanted mastery over life and death itself.
The Aethen Uprising, the loss of the mountain kingdoms and the severing of Ne’adun, with all its wealth and wonder, was not the final cause, but only the final justification. And so the Elders of Kayr had taken dark counsel together—and together they broke the Pillar of Blood, shattering the foundation of Law.
Thus beginning the Fall.
Andari shivered and clutched his side. “Yanebashi,” he said.
“Al’kah?”
“The sign that opens the way. Yanebashi. The great unending. That is what . . . she told me to write.”
“We were not permitted—”
“Your Order has ended,” Andari returned, voice struggling for strength. “We are a new Order, the exiles of Kayr, and when I die, you will be the next Al’kah. You will make the sign for both of us, and you will go before them to lead them when I . . . when I cannot.”
Eshala looked at him. She didn’t throw his words away this time, but took them in, paused, then lifted her hand to the shimmering gate. The metal swam beneath her touch, her fingers trailing light as they moved. Up and down, sweeping and turning, like the strokes of a keshu in the hands of a warrior—
Yanebashi.
She made the oldscript sign upon the door, then drew back.
At first, there was no response. The elaborate symbol stood for a moment, shimmering against the bright metal, before it sank beneath the undulating surface.
Silence.
Andari and Eshala both held their breath, waiting. And then it came. A deep thump from somewhere under the earth. T
he floor trembled. A sigh circled the room. Where the door had appeared solid, now it bulged and writhed like a living thing. Tendrils peeled off, one from the other, unclasping, untwining. Like the roots of a tree growing in reverse, they drew back to reveal an entrance, just wide enough for Eshala and Andari to cross together. Beyond was darkness.
They crossed, and the door folded shut behind them. They limped forward into the dark. It was warm, and the air was humid and thick. Despite the blackness, Andari did not feel trapped, rather like he was being cradled in the womb of the earth. The walls seemed to breathe. And the excruciating pain of his wounds slipped into the back of his mind.
The Chorah’dyn. It was her strength. Her goodness.
They shuffled forward, hands pressed to the walls to feel their way. The passage wound and twisted, going down, down into the heart of the Great Tree herself, towards the Pillars of Law and the Lifewater. Andari held his breath. There was a presence here, a heaviness in the air like an approaching storm. In his dream, he had heard the voice of the Chorah’dyn, the mission she had given him, but he had never dared to imagine he would cross the threshold.
“Al’kah!”
Andari tilted his head, then heard it. A soft trickle, the dripping and moving of water, echoing from a distance.
“That is far enough,” said a voice.
The voice moved under Andari’s feet and up into his chest. It whispered in his ears. It thundered in the distant sky.
Eshala gasped and dropped to her knees. Andari felt himself doing likewise. The darkness pulled back, revealing the shape of a woman, though she was like no woman alive. She was tall and powerful, skin dark like the earth and hair like verdant summer: thick green, splashed with colour and beads of white. She was clothed in grey like a rain cloud.
“Chorah’dyn,” Andari whispered. It was said only Dynaias ab’Kuldayu, first Al’kah, had ever beheld her thus in her fleeting human form, and for a moment, all words were taken from him.
She smiled and warmth filled him. “Andari ab’Andala Al’kah and Eshala sai’Ethanai. You are welcome.”
Andari had no words. He stared at the woman, then glanced at her bare feet. Water trailed after her, drawn up the passage against its natural flow, following her footsteps and creating a small pool at her feet.
“The Lifewater,” he breathed, then glanced in wonder at Eshala. The Guardian was on her knees, face pressed to the floor, seeing nothing.
“Yes,” the Chorah’dyn said. “A small remnant, not yet stained by the Broken Pillar of Blood.” She looked at them. “Why are you here?”
The question startled Andari. He shook his head, struggling to find words. “You . . . you sent for us. You came to me in a dream, and—”
“Why are you here, Andari ab’Andala ab’Kyrada?”
Andari swallowed. “You came to me in a dream, asked me to gather the faithful Kyr’amanu who yet remained, to bring them here.”
The Chorah’dyn fixed him with her eyes, a dark, swirling blue, like waves in an ocean. She knew everything. She knew him and the dream, and she knew exactly how many Kyr’amanu camped at the borders of Ashianys, awaiting his return.
“Why are you here, Dara?”
Something inside him clicked open, like the popped lid of a chest. He gasped at the sudden flood of emotion. No one had called him that since Mari . . . since . . .
“Help us!” he sobbed, then could speak no further. He covered his face, tears flowing hot and shameful into his hands.
He felt her nearness like a burst of sun on a cold spring morning. She knelt before him, and her touch filled him. She said nothing, only waited. Waited for him to explain.
Andari took a steadying breath. He blinked at her through his tears. “Great Tree, we are suffering. Dying. So many of my people. They . . .” his breath caught. “They have no hope but you. Our world cracks around us. The woods are withering. The stone is breaking. The shadows come for us in the night, and if it weren’t for Guardians like Eshala and the keshu of Kat-net, we would have perished long ago, every one of us.”
His voice was growing stronger. He finally looked up, meeting her eyes. Was he feeling the sorrow of her own heart, or was she feeling his? He couldn’t tell, but the shared ache was deep, a sharpness and a hope. “We betrayed your trust, the trust you gave the Kyr’amanu, we know this full well, Chorah’dyn. We deserve nothing less. We deserve to perish. But then who will be left to undo the horror of the Breaking? We ask for a sign of hope. Please, Chorah’dyn. Against all that we have done, help us! Show us what we can do to heal the land.”
She touched his face. “You speak true,” she replied at last, voice low, trembling at the edge of a whisper. “Take heart, Andari ab’Andala Al’kah, for not all is lost.”
At this, Eshala finally stirred, her face lifting, daring to glance up in wonder at the nearness of the Great Tree of the World. The Chorah’dyn’s gaze shifted.
“Yes, Eshala sai’Ethanai. You are not lost, nor are your people. You are found again, for you are here.”
The light in the chamber flowed like dappled sun on still water, but now it shifted, darkening. Andari glanced past the Chorah’dyn. He gasped.
The water was still flowing up towards them, but now some began to flow thick and dark, like Andari’s blood oozing from his side.
The sight of the dark water twisted inside him, sickening him, reminding him of his wounds. He groaned, folding in on himself.
“Is that . . . ?”
The Chorah’dyn glanced behind her. The darkness was edging towards them, faster and faster, crawling like the weeds that broke through the steps of the Great Palace, staining the ground and wafting the stench of decay towards them.
Eshala paled. Andari’s stomach twisted, and he gagged.
The Chorah’dyn’s face exploded with fury. She rose, turning, and her raiment darkened to the blackness of a storm. Words trembled through the roots around them, words Andari did not understand, though the meaning was clear. There was a snap, and the putrid blood was cut off from the rest of the water. Like an ebbing tide, it sighed and flowed back down the passageway, leaving a dark trail in its wake.
Andari let out a shuddering sigh.
The Chorah’dyn spun to face him, her clothes and hair twisting with sudden urgency.
“Andari ab’Andala Al’kah, are you ready to do what must be done to cleanse the Lifewater?”
He nodded. “Yes, Chorah’dyn.”
“And Eshala sai’Ethanai of the Guardians of Kayr—are you ready?”
The woman nodded, and Andari saw she had clutched the hilt of her keshu.
“Then you must find the Half-Being of Light,” the Chorah’dyn said. “What the ancients called the Avanir. It is a power capable of acting upon both the Seen and Unseen Realms, the same power once given to the Undying, which they abused to their own undoing.”
“You mean Kyrada, our Father?”
She nodded. “And those who perished in the Wars of Rending. Perished—or survived.” Even with such a vague reference to Shatayeth, last of the Undying, her voice darkened. “The Avanir has been hidden from the children of men because of its great power, both to heal and to destroy. It feeds on the Lifewater itself.”
“But if the Lifewater has been corrupted by . . . by that . . .” Eshala spoke for the first time, staring at the slime and blood that oozed down the passage and into the dripping dark.
The Chorah’dyn nodded. “Presently it is more dangerous than any shadow or blade, drinking deeply of the emptiness of the Broken Law, capable of horrors beyond your imagining.”
“And you want us to find that?” Eshala’s eyes were wide.
“Yes.”
The Chorah’dyn lifted her arms, and the water around her feet—the pure Lifewater—began to run up her legs, flowing up her body, twisting around her until it was cupped in either hand.
“You must carry my Lifewater—what little I have left to give. And with it, you will cleanse the Avanir. It will flow with life for y
ou. It will protect you from the emptiness that surrounds you. And in time, it will Choose those who must return to undo the Breaking of the Pillar of Blood. Will you accept this last hope, Andari, costly though it may be?”
Andari considered her words. “How will we know when to return?”
“In the right time, you will know.”
“And where will I find this Avanir?”
“I will guide you.”
“But I’m dying, great Chorah’dyn.” He pressed a hand into his side. “Can Eshala be sent in my stead?”
The Chorah’dyn shook her head. “You will die, Andari ab’Andala, when you have fulfilled your oath, and not before: to find the Avanir, to cleanse it, and to teach your people to attend to its rhythms. Will you swear, both for yourself and for the generations to come, that you will be faithful to see it done?”
Andari glanced at Eshala. Her eyes were round, face bright.
“This is our hope, Al’kah,” she whispered to him. “This is the help we sought.”
“I know,” he replied. He took a deep breath, then gazed into the eyes of the Chorah’dyn. “I will see it done, Great Tree.”
She nodded.
“Hold out your hands,” she said.
Andari glanced at Eshala, then reached out, holding his hands open towards the Chorah’dyn.
“You as well,” the Chorah’dyn told Eshala.
The Guardian blinked in surprise, but eased her grip from her keshu and cupped her hands.
The Chorah’dyn said nothing else, only held out the water, some in each palm. It began to move with light, alive and thick. Slowly, it slid from her hands into theirs. Andari gasped at its touch. It was both hot and cold, tingling like a fresh mountain stream. It pierced through his hands. He felt it running through him, invigorating, touching the place in his side, healing him and driving away the Sumadi’s touch. It smelled of wet stone and warm cedar, of jasmine and orange-blossom. It was hope and new life. It was purpose. It smelled like Mari.
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