On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) Page 6

  Joya lead the dark elf and the cat-man into the black and white tiled entrance hall with its various chairs and tables for awaiting summons. She turned left immediately, and they ascended the stairs that reached high into the towers of the keep.

  "I half-expected to be attacked while we ventured here," Shelara said. Joya wasn't sure she could ever get used to the odd accent of the ooslebed, the proper way she spoke, and how well-enunciated each word was. It seemed to be a racial quality, and Joya loved it in the dark elves that called the Shadow Realm home.

  "Did you happen on a lot of travelers?" Joya wondered. Most people in the Realm of Earth knew that war was imminent, and so tended not to stray far from their homes or newly fortified towns.

  "No," Caldamron answered. "Not many at all."

  "I suspect that once I introduce you to Sara and talk to her about opening the borders between the realms, the Shadow Realm will be more welcome among the other realms. I’m happy there wasn't any hardship on the way here," Joya told them.

  Joya wished, not for the first time, that the Guardian's Keep had a lift installed like her own spire did. It made traveling so much easier. By the time they were halfway up the steps, Shelara was breathing heavily. Joya remembered the first time she had gone to see Sara; she’d had to rest at regular intervals, and by the end of the trek she had been channeling wyrd into her legs to strengthen them for the last push.

  Finally they reached the top landing, arriving in the stone reception chamber with the empty desk that had once belonged to Vanparaness, but now belonged to no one since a replacement hadn't been appointed for Sara's secretary.

  Joya knocked on the door, and moments later it opened. The group had already gathered. Sara, withered and small in her wooden wheelchair, was stationed behind the desk, with Annbell sitting ominously beside her. Various other chairs along the walls seated Angelica, Jovian, Maeven, Grace, Rosalee, Dalah, Cianna, Flora, and Mag. All eyes turned to her when she stepped in. Joya blushed.

  "My counselors from the Shadow Realm have arrived. Would you permit them to stay?" Joya asked Sara.

  "They are welcome to join us; they may be able to shed some light on certain topics." Sara tried not to stare at the alien visages of the two gathered close behind Joya. She only failed slightly.

  Joya settled down in one of the open seats, smoothing the folds of her purple dress, trying to ignore the stares of everyone in the room. She knew they weren’t looking at her, but rather the dark elf and the cat-man who stood behind her.

  Joya looked up and cleared her throat. The sound seemed to bring everyone back to their senses.

  “Right,” Sara said, drawing everyone's attention back to herself. She was still very weak, reclining in her chair with large wooden wheels on it. She looked like a child in adult skin. She was frail, her flesh sagging about her, and she nearly disappeared in the numerous blankets draped over the chair in an effort to keep the chill seeping through the window behind her from her bones. “We have a few things to discuss today. You have all come at a bad time. As some of you know, we are at a point of turmoil in the Realm of Earth. The chaos dwarves have united for the first time since they were driven into hiding, and that’s not a good thing for us. What’s more, they have a relic in their possession that we’ve long thought was only myth: Wyrders’ Bane. They hope to use this as an advantage against us, to drive us out of our home and put themselves back in the Guardian’s Keep.”

  “Before anyone asks,” Annbell broke in when her sister took a breath. “Wyrders’ Bane is a stone that can render wyrders near death.”

  Sara spread her hands wide, indicating herself. “I unknowingly ingested fragments of the stone, and this is what happened to me. If it hadn’t been for Mag and the transfusion she performed on me, I might not have made it.”

  A stir went through the group at the proclamation. Sorcerers just didn’t die that way.

  “Cianna also had experience with the stone,” Sara said. Cianna nodded, but didn’t add any information. “It is likely their greatest weapon against us. We’re happy you are all here, since we will need everyone’s help. As of yet, two of our races aren’t sure they will help, and two other races aren’t battle-capable.

  “Separately the chaos dwarves aren’t a huge threat, but united as they are in a common goal, they are nearly a match, number for number, to the humans in the Realm of Earth. Add to that the trolls backing them, our second-largest race, and they out-number us.”

  “Why aren’t more races helping you?” Angelica asked. “You’re the Realm Guardian — don’t you have some power over them?”

  Sara was shaking her head before Angelica even finished.

  “A Realm Guardian has no sway over the other races in the realm. The dryads are backing the gnomes. The gnomes say they will only come if the land is threatened, and the dryads stand by that. If we’re on the verge of losing, there’s a chance they will help us, but it is probably better that we get in the frame of mind that there will be no help from their quarter.”

  “What about the other realms?” Grace asked.

  “They’re all dealing with their own issues,” Annbell said, and the tone of her voice indicated she didn’t think too much of the issues the other realms were going through. “Personally, I don’t think there’s any excuse for not helping us, but we might as well not count on them either.”

  Sara sighed, closing her eyes at her sister’s tone. “Azra is tied up trying to figure out more about this rising darkness she feels to the west. Aladestra is trying to find where a bunch of escaped verax-acis could have gone.”

  Grace visibly tensed at this, and chewed the end of her pipe.

  “Pyang just had his capital city destroyed. We might be able to bring the Child Guardian here, but I’m afraid my offer of a place to stay might be more selfish than not. There’s been no response from Rowan, though the Realm of Air has gone through a lot of attacks.”

  “And Rowan, unlike Aladestra, doesn’t like communicating through telfetch,” Annbell said.

  “Those sound like reasonable excuses,” Jovian said. Annbell grunted and Sara nodded.

  “What about these verax-acis?” Grace asked. “How did they escape?”

  Sara waved her hand for Annbell to take up the meeting, since she was tiring.

  “It looks like it was less an escape and more of a breakout. The constables on duty guarding the pen were killed, the locks broken open by some wyrd, and the cage emptied,” Annbell said, not mincing words.

  Grace shook slightly as she took the pipe out of her mouth. “If it weren’t for this silly war, I’d say we should be aiding her.”

  Sara nodded, fingering a piece of paper on the desk. “Far more is going on in the world at large than we care to think about.”

  “It seems as though someone wanted everyone to be busy, to keep them distracted from the war,” Maeven said.

  “No,” Flora said. “I side with my aunt. I have felt this growing threat to the west. It feels as though all of this, even this war, was a way to keep everyone occupied and not looking at this threat blooming in the mountains.”

  Joya noticed her brother and sister sharing a look. She wondered if they knew about the tower as well, and the sea of angels. She shuddered at the thought of the dream she’d had last night, of the two white-winged angels standing in the center of a legion of dark-winged angels and a host of white-winged ones. The vision of the black figure floating toward them was enough to make her blood run cold.

  She noticed Cianna watching her. Joya nodded, but Cianna didn’t return the gesture. Had they really shared a dream last night?

  “So that brings us back to this Wyrders’ Bane,” Rosalee said. “Why would they have it now? I know a little bit about the stone; it’s thought to be myth because no one has ever found it. And believe me, I’m sure the chaos dwarves would have been looking for it!”

  “She’s right,” Dalah said.

  “Sounds like someone had it, and was waiting for the right time to u
se it,” Joya said. Everyone looked to her. “If all of these attacks have been happening, we can assume they were alarist?”

  Sara nodded.

  “Not all,” Grace told them. “Some of them could have been caustics from the well.”

  “And wyrd hunters,” Dalah chimed in.

  “Alright, so we can imagine that most of the ones recently are alarist?” Joya asked.

  “Yes,” Sara said. “The well has been cleansed for a while, so that would be reasonable.”

  “So maybe that’s all this attack is, too. I think Flora is right, I think it’s a distraction.” Joya crossed her hands over her lap, her voice aflutter from speaking before such a large gathering.

  “Be that as it may,” Grace said, “It’s still a real attack, and we can’t just ignore it.”

  “Alright,” Annbell said, bringing everyone to heel. “Mag, what were you able to learn about the stone?”

  "Very little is known of Wyrders’ Bane," Mag informed everyone gathered around the small office. "From what we’ve learned, there’s an egrigor trapped inside the stone, working to corrupt wyrd when it can, and in turn poisoning the body of the wyrder. We aren't really sure how that works at the present time. Apparently the closer it is to your body, the stronger the effects. For instance, when Sara was afflicted by it so badly, she was consuming it. When Cianna first encountered it, she was in the same room with it.

  "We believe the egrigor is a parasitic one, but beyond that, we don't know much. If you think you've encountered it, don't use your wyrd on it — that will likely allow it a way in."

  “But how are we to know if we’ve encountered the egrigor?” Grace asked.

  “When we saw it, the egrigor took the shape of a shadow,” Mag said.

  Angelica, Jovian, Flora, and Maeven sat up straighter.

  “You’ve seen it?” Sara asked them, correctly reading their reactions.

  “I saw it the other night when I woke up,” Jovian said, casting a sidelong glance at Maeven. It was the night Maeven had woken him up in his eagle form, but he didn’t want to share that with the others. “But I wasn’t sure what it was.”

  “Just be careful. It doesn’t seem to be doing anything presently, but it does make you sick when it’s around,” Mag told everyone.

  “It didn’t make me sick,” Angelica said. “It felt like it was searching my wyrd, like it was curious, or I was something it didn’t fully understand.”

  “Me too,” Jovian said.

  Mag looked confused, almost as if she didn’t believe them, but then she shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose. What about you, Flora? And you, Maeven?”

  “It made me sick as well. I thought I had eaten something bad,” Flora mumbled the last.

  “Me too,” Maeven agreed.

  “Alright, just don’t try to use your wyrd around it. We wouldn’t want it having a link with you that might harm you,” Mag assured.

  “But how is it here?" Joya wondered. "How is the egrigor in the keep, if the stone isn't around? Can an egrigor escape from its home?" She looked to Grace, who cleared her throat and set her pipe down.

  "I’ve never heard of an egrigor slipping its confines. They’re thought forms made for a specific purpose, and most often housed in a specific container. Unless that container has been broken. . ." Grace spread her hands wide.

  "So that would mean the stone?" Angelica asked. "The stone would have to have been destroyed?"

  "Why would they do that?" Joya asked Sara, as if she should know.

  Sara shook her head. "It may just be a lesser egrigor, only a fraction of the egrigor inside the Wyrders’ Bane, maybe the portion of it contained in the dust that was slipped into my tea."

  “So others are getting sick?" Jovian wondered aloud, looking at the sorcerers. "And who would be effected? Everyone with wyrd?"

  "That's the assumption," Sara said. "Mag, how are the other wyrders in the barracks doing?"

  Mag looked nervously at her hands. "Sick, like everyone else," Mag informed them. "Irritation in the stomach. Most think they've eaten something bad, and I agreed with them until now."

  Jovian leaned back in his chair. "So it starts."

  "This isn't good," Cianna said.

  "We need to figure this out, and fast," Annbell said. "This is their first attack, and we have no idea where it's coming from, or who initiated it inside these walls."

  "Vanparaness?" Mag asked.

  "How could he? He's been locked up," Annbell said.

  "The keep should be searched high and low for the stone," Sara said. Annbell nodded.

  “In the meantime,” Joya said, “What about physical attacks? I’m assuming they won’t wait for us to find Wyrders’ Bane before they attack. Do we have enough people of the non-wyrd variety to meet the threat?”

  Sara and Annbell exchanged a look.

  “We have several roots,” Annbell said. “There are about a thousand soldiers in each root system. There’s one root for wyrders. So, not counting the wyrders, we have a little more than four thousand soldiers.”

  “That’s it?” Jovian said. “There’s no one else in the Realm of Earth to fight?”

  “Besides the other races, no. Utilizing the giants, we have close to eight thousand,” Sara told them. “We are the least-populated by humans of all the realms. The Holy Realm is the largest, given the Ivory City and Lytoria.”

  Joya’s head spun. “How many would you have with the gnomes and the dryads?”

  “It’s best not to count on them,” Annbell reminded them. “But if they were to help, we would have an extra thousand, if that.”

  “But the gnomes are very strong in earth magic. It would be an incredible boon,” Sara said, clasping her hands over the parchment on the desk. She looked down at it, as if there was more she wanted to say, but the time wasn’t right yet.

  “Alright, I think we can get some people to help,” Joya said, casting a look at Shelara, who nodded. She then looked to Caldamron.

  “We can try, Guardian,” was all he said.

  “I intend to open the borders of the Shadow Realm and work with the other realms, but if we do this, you have to promise that none of my people will come under attack whenever they stray into your realm,” Joya said. There was a hardness to her voice, letting everyone in the room know that she meant business, and she wouldn’t be one of those Guardians that they could push around, as she felt they tried to do with Azra and Aladestra.

  “We will certainly accept those terms, and we will work to correct any negative action against your people. But, as I said, humans are the minority here. Since most of the races lived together in relative peace before humans settled in the realms, it is unlikely any of the other races, save the trolls and chaos dwarves, would harm either of your people,” Sara said, this time looking at the ooslebed and the frement.

  “Should we get word to our people, Guardian?” Shelara asked.

  Joya nodded her head, and the cat-man and the dark elf left the office, the door hushing shut behind them.

  “It amazes me how they treat you as if you are their ruler, when you hold no sway over any race but humans inside your border,” Annbell said. “I wish our races were more attentive like that.”

  Joya didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything.

  “Thank you,” Sara said to Joya. She moved some things around on her desk, indicating that they were through with that discussion and moving on to other things. “Now, when the well was penetrated, the Realm of Earth showed me something that I needed to see. It told me that what I had to find was within the Mirror of the Moon. I went there, and encountered my sister, Grace, who nearly beheaded me. I’ve since learned that she was possessed by one of the Norns.”

  Rosalee, Dalah, and Grace looked to one another, a sadness and a darkness in their eyes. Joya couldn’t be sure what had transpired with the three of them while they were possessed by the Norns, but it was obviously something that still stuck with them.

  “Before the atta
ck, I had found a slip of paper. I couldn’t imagine why the realm wanted me to have this slip of paper with nothing but names and numbers on it, until I got sick, and Mag happened to find it.” She looked up at the short-haired sorceress, who was staring back at her Guardian, not moving a muscle.

  “I think that Azra is right, and I think I know what the gathering darkness is. I also think Flora is right in saying that all of these attacks are keeping us occupied while a larger threat is brewing.”

  She held up the paper, as if anyone could read it, which they couldn’t. Joya was close to Sara and still couldn’t make out the words scrawled on the parchment.

  “It says, ‘Arael lives,’” Sara told them all. Complete silence filled the room. Maeven stopped fidgeting. Cianna stared at her hands as if she might have guessed this already.

  “We are to believe this because a piece of paper told us so?” Dalah asked.

  “Not a piece of paper,” Grace said finally, drawing all attention to herself. “That's the paper I got from the nymphs who live at the base of the Falls of Nependier. Orilyn told me there might be significance in their death.”

  “What does that mean, though? Why is that significant?” Mag asked.

  “The nymphs are able to see the truth of a situation, and maybe even divine the future from looking at someone. Their eyes and tongues were cut out, signifying that they saw something, but even in death they couldn't speak it,” Maeven explained.

  “They can talk after they die?” Mag looked uncertain.

  “It's thought that they can,” Maeven answered.

  “They can,” Grace confirmed. “You don't want to see it.” The old lady shuddered.

  “Okay, so if they had died, what is the significance then? How were they able to predict this? How did they know which order to die in so that we could determine their message?” Mag asked.

  “I really don't know,” Grace said. “Maybe whatever force guides them knew what was going to happen and led them there that day?” Mag looked skeptical, and Joya couldn't blame her. She didn't really believe it either.