Deomans of Faerel_Contemporary Fantasy Page 9

  They came upon a narrow suspension bridge that stretched out before them. It led toward a spot at the bottom of the spine where one section of the colorful netting seemed to touch the ground.

  Some sort of gatehouse was set back into the mountains behind it. Just before the horse could step out onto the bridge Yorgan pulled back on the reins and it obediently stopped. He climbed down.

  “The steed will take you to the other side,” he said, helping her into the forward seat. He looked up at her with a warm smile. “I have work to do and can travel no further. It’s okay, milady. You are welcome here.”

  Claire felt her stomach drop. She looked out across the narrow bridge swaying dangerously in the wind. “You must be joking?”

  Yorgan closed his eyes and nodded. “You will be safe. This I promise.” He patted the steed on the rump, and before she could protest it started moving. She looked behind her.

  “On the other side you will find a round stone fixed to the ground,” he called after her. “Stand in the center.” And with a wave of his hat and a deep bow, he was swallowed by the mist.

  Claire gripped the saddle horn firmly. She’d never been on any kind of horse, but she’d suspected, even as far back as the weird maze of hallways, that there were many new talents she would soon be forced to acquire. She held on tightly as the muscular steed plodded gingerly out onto the crooked planks.

  Out along the span the wind grew stronger, and the bridge pitched and swayed. She held her breath as the sturdy animal moved steadily forward.

  She risked a look out over the edge.

  That was a mistake. The sparkling drop below looked endless, a cosmic void into which the frosty air itself seemed to be drawn.

  She closed her eyes and held on tight.

  At last, the steed made it to the ledge where two frosted doors of purest silver stood in the side of the mountain. It stopped. The curtain of lights passed up from the earth here, rising up just before the doors like virtual webbing. She looked down and saw a rune-encrusted disk of rock embedded in the frozen earth.

  As Yorgan had instructed, she climbed down from the steed, which whinnied and immediately started back across the bridge. Not bothering to look back, she placed both feet onto the stone.

  The doors cracked opened and a yawn of warm air escaped. Beyond lay a long and ghostly corridor. She took a cautious step forward, passing straight through the luminescent netting without so much as a tickle.

  Lanterns that burned with a bright blue light lit the way. Apparently fascinated by the alluring glow, her adopted nixies moved off to investigate, drawn toward the fizzing fixtures like moths to a flame. But when she finally reached an archway at the end of the corridor they regrouped around her head like the reverse explosion of a Christmas wreath.

  “Yeah, I’m kind of creeped out myself.”

  The archway was filled with blackness as though a sheet of vinyl had been draped over the opening, but when she pushed her hand forward it passed through unimpeded. She took a deep breath and stepped through.

  All at once the world became a brilliantly lit place teeming with the sounds of nature, as though the master switch to a wildlife amusement park had suddenly been thrown. She stood, wide-eyed, looking down from the crest of a gentle slope that flowed down into a forest puffy with crimson, orange and gold foliage. A few paces into the grass a cobbled road began. Off in the distance the wisps from unseen chimneys rose up into a bright blue sky.

  She tread slowly down the slope. A flock of pink and yellow birds dashed by. They looked something like cranes. But not quite. She watched in awe as they flew around and down, circling lower and lower toward the arm of a meandering blue river.

  She looked around and gasped. The valley floor sloped up on all sides to form a craterlike ring of mountains that resembled an upturned bottlecap.

  But practically everything was upstaged by the planetary orb that hung in the sky above the crater, an ebbing orange sphere that crackled with a brilliant inner storm of energy. A smaller version of it hovered just above, burning almost as intently.

  A figure dressed in a brown robe approached. It was slight in build and walked with a feminine gait. It held its wrinkled hands clasped before it, and on its head was a basket shape woven from twigs that completely covered its face. As it drew nearer, Claire was able to see a kind but disfigured countenance behind the woven sticks.

  “You have travelled far,” a woman’s voice said softly. “I am Babcha Mishka, a Sister of The Gardens of Cynthiana, which is where you now are.” The woman bowed. “Please, come with me. The Reverend Mother extends her greetings and patiently awaits your arrival.”

  Not really knowing what to do otherwise, Claire followed the odd woman down the road. There was a strangeness to her, a kind of almost devout aloofness that was a bit unsettling. She said nothing as she slowly glided along the path toward the center of the crater. Claire thought of running back to find Yorgan. Perhaps this was a mistake.

  The quiet serenity of the place delayed her from doing so. It was all getting quite distracting—the dazzling coiled plants from which sprouted tall, colorful buds, the berried vines that clung to the tree limbs and swayed in the wind, the puffy pink flecks of pollen that danced in the breeze. It was all almost intoxicating.

  She followed the robed figure across the valley floor and up a mossy path that seemed to lead into the very heart of the crater. Here, a silvery castle jutted up from the lush growth. The gigantic orb of light that burned brightly above now filled much of the sky, hanging like a molten planet that, weirdly, threw no great amount of heat.

  Babcha Mishka led her through a gate that pierced the outer walls of the shimmering castle. They stood now in a magnificent flower garden filled with an even more amazing and abundant variety of flora unlike any Claire had ever seen. Her nixies momentarily disbanded to frolic among the petals and stems, then regrouped around her head, quietly and cheerfully singing in unison.

  At the center of the garden waited several more robed figures. The one in the center wore a cascading necklace of silver that contained dozens of tiny bells. It jangled softly as it moved forward.

  “I understand you’ve had quite an eventful day,” the figure said. Her voice was warm but stern, and full of authority. She sounded older than the other woman. “I am Babcha Maylena, Reverend Mother of the Gardens of Cynthiana. And I welcome you.”

  “Th… thank you,” Claire replied. She managed something of a clumsy curtsey. To her great surprise, the woman reached out and closed her wrinkled hands around Claire’s. They were aged and ghastly spotted but surprisingly soft and warm. Despite her apprehension, Claire felt almost immediately at ease.

  “Come with me, child,” the woman said. “There is so much to tell and so little time.”

  The collective group of women led Claire through the flower garden and into a room at the base of a tall tower that stood at one corner of the castle. When the floor lurched and the small room quivered, Claire realized she was in an elevator that was now rising up into the tower.

  The elevator slowed to a stop. It opened to a domed chamber ribbed with window slits that overlooked the gloriously lit crater. Claire walked to one and peered out.

  She marveled at the patterns of twinkling strands that crisscrossed the valley floor below. Some were static outlines, little more than dotted ropes or faint suggestions. Others flickered and shot out over the trees like liquid lighting. There were too many to count. She looked up and gasped.

  From such proximity, the slowly descending orbs looked like two moored suns, literal celestial titans snared by some unseen and infinitely powerful force that were being towed down into a cavernous hole at the center of the crater.

  Claire turned away from the glare. Her nixies squealed and formed a tight group, latching onto her fuzzy hair.

  A clandestine contraption of interlocking metal wheels, gears, slides and cranks rose from the center of the room, stretching all the way to a small opening in the concave ceiling
where the tip of the device poked out into a slowly darkening sky. One of the Sisters was seated at the top, fiddling with some of the cranks and dials. The glare outside dimmed considerably and then faded altogether as green lanterns on the walls came to life.

  “What a mystery this all must seem,” the Reverend Mother said. “For this I am truly sorry.”

  Claire blinked. “Please, I’m not sure why I am here. I need to get to a place called Arythria.”

  The Reverend Mother nodded. “In time, child. A great storm is spreading across all the southern lands, which is where Arythria lies. Our communications with the Falfax have been disrupted and I fear it is not safe to travel. You will stay with us awhile. I have many things to show you.”

  Well that was a red flag.

  Was she to be held against her will? For the moment, Claire kept quiet but remained alert. The Reverend Mother turned and gestured toward one of the slits. Impossibly, it widened into a much larger opening and filled in with darkness.

  “What you have just witnessed is the setting of this world’s suns. We Sisters are responsible for the safekeeping of all the heavenly objects, including the suns, the moon and each and every one of the stars. These gardens provide a safe haven for the suns and for the moon, the movements of which we guide each day.”

  She peeked up at Claire through the mask of twigs. “We can even color the moon and influence the positions of the stars. We are also charged with the management of the weather and for everything that grows in nature, which is how we are able to keep this place so eternally peaceful and pleasant.”

  That sounded fine and dandy. But one thing in particular didn’t make sense.

  “If you can manage the weather then why not simply get rid of the storm?”

  The Reverend Mother pulled her robe tightly about her. She laughed quietly. “That is precisely the problem. This storm is not natural, a foul thing forged from powerful magicks. Day and night we have been working, and we have yet to find a way to make it pass.”

  Claire wiggled her head and shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure why any storm would prevent me from getting to Arythria. Is it a hurricane, or something?”

  The small woman remained patient. “Dark forces are preventing magickal transportation across the realm, which is going to make it very difficult for you to get to Arythria.” The old woman seemed to shrug. “Apparently someone knows you are here.”

  Claire shuddered at the thought. “Who?”

  The woman shook her head as she moved closer to the window. “We do not know. Not yet.” With a wave of her hand the blackness outside was replaced by the scene of a tranquil swamp. Claire realized she was looking at some kind of an image, a vision in the air. “Come closer. There is something very important I wish you to see.”

  Claire drew nearer. Outside, the enormous image of the swamp loomed. From the darkness above it, a long streak of twinkling light fell from the sky.

  “Very long ago, a bright star fell into the heart of Felsen Bog, a place far south of here.”

  The star burst down into the swamp. There was an explosion, streaks of colored light shooting out into the sky. Claire realized she was watching some kind of playback.

  “Upon impact, the star shattered into six shards which sailed across the lands. One piece is kept hidden here. Two others are guarded: one within the complex of Arythria, and the other in the undersea city of Athanasius. These shards are very important. They must be brought to the Falfax.”

  Claire put her hand to her forehead. Weren’t they here to find some… missing scrolls? This was becoming quite involved, but she could sense the importance of it all.

  “Okay. You said there were six shards. What about the other three pieces?”

  The Reverend Mother turned away from the scene. Almost instantly, the air outside returned to darkness. She folded her hands down near her waist.

  “These fell into dangerous hands, places of purest evil.”

  Claire shook her head in wonderment. “But… what’s so important about these shards?”

  The Reverend Mother gestured toward the machinery that filled the room. “When joined together, the Star Shards form a rare crystal, the heart of the star that fell. With it, we believe we can use this machine to find the exact location of the Destiny Scrolls.”

  Claire nodded knowingly. “So you knew. You knew of all this and you knew of me, even knew when and where I would arrive?” She put her hands together. “Then please help me get to Arythria!” she begged. “This is too much. This is way beyond anything any of us can accomplish. You have to let me speak with Maltheus Falfax!”

  The Reverend Mother remained unaffected. She bowed slightly. “In time, child. Maltheus can do nothing for you right now, and the storm is blocking all pentalpha travel. Fear not, we are in the midst of making other arrangements. In the meantime, there is much more that I need to tell you.”

  It came in the night. After the long shadows of the day had passed and the boreal winds began to moan once more across the ice-scalded landscape of Draken Glas, it appeared on a high cliff wall, at first nothing more than a speck of crimson light hanging in the air, although no one was there to witness its birth into the world of Faerel.

  The speck pulsed and ebbed, dark clouds in the sky above swirling and writhing, and then it blossomed into a roiling mass of crackling energy that poked a gate through into existence.

  What stepped through stood several meters tall, a giant man-shape of amorphous silver energy that seemed to somehow both reflect and absorb the moonlight. It was unarmed and unclothed.

  Its face was a featureless blank of emotion. It peered around with fiery eyes, scanning the icy valley floor below.

  Far down in the snow it spied a great winged creature. A dactyl, it somehow knew, a giant raptor of the northern mountains. The beast feasted on some freshly killed lesser creature. It gave a snort and snapped its leathery wings, the horn ridges along its spine cracking as it sensed danger above. The deoman dropped down several hundred meters to stand before it.

  The winged creature howled, lurching back at the sudden intrusion. It snapped and snarled, jerking its head to gobble up the smaller thing that stood before it.

  The Baal was quicker. An ancient deoman assassin drawn to this realm with a singular purpose, it shot out a wriggling mass of tentacles from its gaping maw. The tentacles plunged deep into the dactyl’s neck, instantly stunning it.

  The great bird screeched and thrashed as the very recipe of its existence was sucked away. When the withered carcass could provide it with no more sustenance or information, the Baal detached. It immediately took on the shape of the ancient predator and flew high up into the sky.

  To avoid the scrying eyes of the mountain witches, it skirted the northern shores of the Nunloch, a vast dead lake of blackest water, keeping just above the tree line. Sailing beneath the pale, green light of a new moon, it came into view only once by a wandering pack of nomads, which it quickly swooped back to scoop up and devour.

  By dawn it had sailed around the western edge of the dead lake. Soon, the mountains where the suns and the moon slept came into view. Using the clouds as cover, it continued around the horn of rock and back toward the northwest, until freshly tilled fields came into view.

  Below, bundled workers toiled, busily sewing the last of the winter seeds. Its instinct were to drop down and devour them one by one. Instead, it circled back and dropped down over a frosted hillock.

  There it reshaped to take on the appearance of one of the nomads it had devoured in the night, a small, pale-skinned girl wrapped in furs, a waterpack strapped to her back. Once it had fully formed, it pulled the flaps of the furry ushanka down over its ears and hiked over the hillock. It walked straight into the group.

  When it was within a few dozen meters of the closest man, it was spotted. The man set down his scythe and walked over.

  “Hey there! Girl!” He eyed her suspiciously. “What business have you around here?”

 
She pointed to her mouth and then shook her head.

  The man adjusted his furs. He gestured toward her pack. “You’re a water girl, then.” He held up his hand. “Wait.” He turned and fumbled in the loose soil for his water skin. He quickly unstoppered it. “I’ll give you a copper if you fill this.”

  She filled his skin to the top and then looked up at him with a shy smile.

  “A mute, eh.” He patted her on the head. “Well you’re in the right business, my lovely. Lots of hard working folk need water, and they need no discussion to complete a purchase.” He reached inside his wooly coat. He smiled as he handed her two coppers. “There you go.”

  He bent and pointed up the hill, toward the sacred mountains. “Now you best be heading to the upper field, up near the mountain base. My cousin is up there, and he never brings enough water for a day’s work.” He chuckled then went back to his work.

  She did as he suggested, crunching through the frosted earth, higher up into the field, straight past the other laborers, and closer to the edge of the sacred mountains. As she walked, she looked up with hungry eyes.

  She could feel the girl’s energy, somewhere up there…

  The disguised deoman found the cousin and filled his flask as well. Then she sat and watched the field hands work, listening to their work songs.

  8

  Kriegen Hold

  Breven Strongarm was no fool. There was a very old prophecy that spoke of the four who would bring about a time called Renewal, but most believed it nothing more than a myth. He himself had not put much faith in the prophecy, but time recently spent in the desert trade town of Sam Samnir had altered his thinking.

  He stood now on an outcropping of rock, outside the mouth of a forest cave just south of the Blood Plains. Long ago, a great battle had taken place on the plains, scorching the lands, leaving nothing behind but miles of scalded sand. At its dead center, only the trade town from whence he had just returned now thrived.