Heartless
Veiled Rose
Moonblood
Starflower
Dragonwitch
Shadow Hand
Golden Daughter
Goddess Tithe
© 2015 by Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Published by Rooglewood Press
www.RooglewoodPress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
This volume contains works of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Book design by A.E. de Silva
Cover art by Mihaela Voicu
Stock image “Nordic Warrior” by Lia Konrad
To Beka,
for the beginning.
To Handsome,
for the end.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The High Promontory
The Name of a Man
Across the River
Shadow on the Water
A Slow Climb
The Hunting of Hydrus
Mortal Sorrow
Of Blood and Madness
Too Dark to Speak
Blackened Embers
Fall of Tears
Arms Outstretched
A Hard Tale
Rumor of Hope
An Old, Old Story
The Candle
Spiral into Darkness
The Fallen Tree
The Legacy of Gaheris
About the Author
Coming Soon
Also Available
Each step dragging more than the last, the girl climbed the winding track up the hill. She progressed so slowly, with such hesitation, that one might have thought she bore a terrible weight. But no; her arms clutched the waterskin to her thin breast without apparent strain. She had carried far heavier burdens often enough in her short life. Nevertheless, her pace dragged, and her gaze, darting up the path and down again to stare at her feet, was filled with apprehension.
“I need you to make the run for me today,” her mother had told her but a short while ago. “I have no time, and it is the least we owe them. Hurry, child.”
“Cannot Grandmother go with me?” the girl had protested, her eyes rounding even as her mother placed the waterskin in her hands. The outer hide was slippery, and the girl was obliged to hold it close so as not to drop it.
“Certainly not!” her mother had replied. “You hurry along now, and don’t be bothering your grandmother. She needs her rest and can’t spend her days holding your hand anymore.”
But the girl hadn’t moved. She had stood quite still, the waterskin dampening the front of her rough-fibered gown, staring up at her mother. Then, very softly, she said, “I’m afraid.”
But her mother had no patience. “Afraid of what?” she had cried and, without waiting for an answer, turned her daughter around and gave her a firm push toward the hill-winding track. “Don’t be a coward. Go on! It’s wrong to keep those poor men waiting all day. I can’t be expected to run every errand, and you are quite a big girl now.”
She didn’t feel quite a big girl. She felt small. She always felt small when she walked this track, but never so small as she did now, climbing it alone for the first time. Always before she had gone in company with someone: her father, sometimes her busy mother, even one of her aunts or older cousins. Always before she had held onto someone’s hand and gathered courage from a stronger grasp.
But not today. Today she must face the enormity of the Great House on her own. The Great House . . . and the Brothers who built it.
As long as the girl could remember, the Brothers had worked on the top of the hill, going about their endless labor. As long as she could remember, she had watched from Kallias Village down below as, day by day, month by month, year by year, the great walls had risen up from the tree line to tower on that promontory above the river. In winter the labor ceased for a time, and the Brothers went away to far-off quarries (or so her father told her), there to mine and shape enormous blocks of stone.
But as soon as the binding of winter gave way to the freedom of spring, the Brothers would return, accompanied by strange, fierce folk and stranger, fiercer animals, hauling the new stone up the track—which was quite wide by now after many years of this cyclical process—up to the very top of the hill. The strange folk and the fierce animals always left soon after, never speaking to the men or woman of the village.
But the Brothers remained. And throughout the rest of the year the ringing song of hammers upon stone echoed down from the promontory, as much a part of each day’s music as birdsong or the voice of the river itself.
The girl heard the hammer song now—Clang! Clang! Clang! Only one hammer singing a lonely melody, she thought. Slow and rhythmic, without haste but with great patience. She matched her stride to that beat.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Step. Step. Step.
Though her pace was reluctant, her heart beat like mad in her breast. She could feel it thudding against the waterskin. Would the Brothers speak to her? They never had before, though the Kind One had smiled at her upon occasion. His was a nice smile . . . but still! She dreaded the very thought of his speaking and, worse still, expecting her to answer.
The walk up the hill was a long one, but the late-spring day was fair, and the girl’s going, slow. She should not have felt so winded. But as the trees gave way at last to the large clear space at the crown of the hill and she looked out upon the rising stone walls of the Great House, she gasped and could hardly catch her breath.
To compare the Great House to even the largest structures of Kallias Village would be like comparing the wingspan of the northern eagles to that of the little chaffinches living down in the brier. The difference was so vast that no comparison could be justly made! The Great House, even unfinished as it was, could have held all of Kallias in its main hall and many of the fields surrounding in its courtyard. The doors themselves, newly carved and hung by the hand of the Kind One, were each as large as the entire floor space of her father’s house. The stones comprising the walls—so carefully cut in those fabled, far-off quarries and shaped upon arrival to fit seamlessly one against another—were shot with blue and gold, unlike any mined in any quarry within a hundred miles, perhaps within a thousand. Indeed, these stones were so otherworldly in their beauty, they did not seem as though they could come from this world at all. The gold in them caught the light of the sun and held it, warm and glowing and alive.
But while this was enough to overwhelm the girl, it was not enough to make her afraid. No, she trembled because, through the open door, she could see inside the hall. And it was dark. Dark like the fall of night. Dark like the mouth of a yawning mine. Dark like the beginning and the end of the world. Though the walls were lined with tall windows and the roof above was as yet incomplete, its rafters etched against the sky like the ribcage of some giant beast, no light seemed able to penetrate down into the shadows cast within.
So the girl stood on the edge of the tree line, staring up at the Great House and unable to make her feet move. She saw, high above on a wooden scaffolding, a tiny figure moving. The figure was tiny only for distance, and even at that distance she knew the form at once for one of the Brothers. The Strong One, as she always thought of him.
The singing of the hammer stopped. The figure of the Strong One stood and stretched. She knew that he had seen her, and she knew that she must proceed
. They were expecting her, after all.
She approached, each step a battle of wills with her own fearful heart. She watched as the Strong One began to descend the scaffolding. Soon she was near enough to the House and he close enough to the ground that she could see the dust of carving on his face, streaked with lines of sweat. But it was hard to notice such things when near to either of the Brothers. For no matter how covered with the dust of this world they became, no amount of dirt could disguise the overwhelming, shining beauty of either of them.
The girl felt her throat thicken with terror as the Strong One leapt down the last scaffold ladder and strode toward her. The sun was on his hair, making it shine like pure gold, and his eyes were like the sky above, only brighter and full of the hammer’s song. A song of strength and metal and rock. A song that could echo across a nation.
“Well met, little one,” the Strong One said as he approached, and he smiled. But his smile was nothing like the smile of the Kind One. The girl couldn’t bear to look at it. “Are you come alone today?”
She nodded, fixing her gaze upon the ground at his feet, and offered up the waterskin. She continued to stare at the same spot while the Strong One took the water and drank deeply. This was the only price the Brothers asked for the work they did on the promontory: water from the river sent up once a day. And when the water came, both drank and both seemed satisfied. It was uncanny. No other men the girl knew could work such long, such difficult hours, morning, noon, and night, with only a single draught of water to refresh them each day. This was one of a hundred different reasons she knew the Brothers were not like normal men.
Indeed, they might not be men at all.
She studied the ground beneath the Strong One’s feet until she could have told from memory the arrangement of each stone fleck fallen down from the hammering work performed high above. She could have told how the thin stalk of grass bent under the pressure of the Strong One’s boot, the tiny golden flower at its end bowed down and touching the dirt.
“Thank you, child,” said the Strong One, having finished his drink. He knelt, his head drawing level with hers. She turned her chin slightly to one side the better to avoid meeting his otherworldly gaze. “You are kind to bring us water all the way up from the village. It is a long walk for a small girl. Are you tired?”
She shook her head once and quickly.
He nodded and rubbed the stubble on his chin with a dust-grimed hand, saying nothing. There was an awkwardness about his silence, as though he sought for a certain word but couldn’t find it. It made the girl even more uncomfortable, and she wished he would rise and climb back up his high scaffold, freeing her from his studying eyes.
“Lumé,” he sighed at last, straightening up to his full, towering height. “I fear I’m not graced with gentle words for children. You should run along, find Akilun inside. He has the right way about him.” Then, as though as eager to be free of her as she was to be free of him, the Strong One turned and started toward the scaffold.
But he had only just grasped the ladder when the girl, suddenly finding her voice, gasped, “Inside?”
The Strong One turned and looked over his shoulder, his face wearing a puzzled frown. “Yes,” he said. “Inside. Go on then. Hopefully he won’t scare you as I seem to!” With a self-deprecating grin, he hastened on up the ladder, leaving the girl standing in the scaffold’s shadow.
The girl looked down and found that the waterskin was back in her hands, though she did not remember taking it from the Strong One. She stared at it as though somehow it might offer some solution to this newest problem, this newest terror.
But there was no solution. She must enter the shadows of the hall. She must step into the Great House.
Perhaps she could run. Perhaps she could turn now and flee back down the track, emptying the skin in the dirt as she went. Her mother would never know; she wouldn’t even ask. No one would ever have to know.
Except . . . except the Kind One. He would know. For he wouldn’t receive his daily gift of water. And he would wonder why, when he asked so little, even that was denied him.
She found that she was staring at that bent stalk and the gold blossom. The stalk was slowly rising back into an upright stance, the little flower bravely raising its bright face to the world. As it lifted, so the girl felt her quailing heart lift in her breast. She would enter the House. She would deliver the gift.
So on trembling legs the girl crossed the dust-shrouded yard, stepping around piles of discarded stone, avoiding sharp tools of some metal far stronger than she had ever before seen—stronger even than the bronze tools with which her father and his men worked the land around Kallias—and made her way to the great doors. These had been carved and hung when the girl’s mother was still a child. But the girl had never seen them up close.
She approached them now with equal parts trepidation and curiosity, staring at the doors themselves so that she would not have to look at the darkness beyond them. The doors were fascinating to behold anyway, for the enormous panels of wood had been so carefully carved, smoothed, and treated that they scarcely looked like wood anymore. Indeed, they were the soft hides of stags and does, the powerful pinions of eagles’ wings, the pounding hooves of mighty horses, the shining of a sky full of stars.
So gifted was the Kind One’s hand that he could make these things, and more, come alive in the planed heartwood of a tree. The girl stared open-mouthed, seeing the doors truly for the first time. And she realized, the closer she came, that her first impressions had been wrong. Or, if not wholly wrong, then not wholly true either. For what she had taken to be stags and does were indeed more like men with antlers sprouting from their brows, and women with the haunches of deer and soft, up-pricked doe’s ears. What she had believed were eagles’ wings actually belonged to great cat-headed beasts with thick manes about their necks. Other wings sprouted from horses’ shoulders, bearing them up into the star-filled skies among the wood-carven clouds.
The girl stood in the very shadows of the door, staring at the panels and the many carvings. Those visions she beheld were far beyond her comprehension, and she felt her brain growing numb. Indeed, when she blinked it seemed to her that all the fantastic figures melted away and became once more beings she could understand: deer, eagles, horses.
“Who is there, please?”
The girl startled at the voice coming from just beyond the door. She forgot her awe at the carvings, and all her fear returned. She opened her mouth to answer but could find no words. Thus she stood dumb and ashamed as one of the two doors creaked heavily on its hinges, allowing space for the second of the two Brothers to look through.
The Kind One, seeing the child standing shivering on the step, smiled gently. The girl felt her heart melt inside her along with some of her fear. His was such a lovely smile!
“Good morrow, child,” said the Kind One, looking down upon her and taking in the waterskin clutched to her chest. “I’ve met you before, haven’t I? You are Iulia’s daughter, I think.”
The girl nodded.
“Is your mother not with you today?”
The girl shook her head. Then, without a word, she held out the waterskin. Still smiling, the Kind One accepted it and drank, even as his brother had. When he had finished, he emptied the last drops in his hands and washed them. Only then did he address the girl again. “It is good you came when you did,” he said. “I am just beginning an important work, and it is wise to pursue such tasks with clean hands.”
She felt she was meant to say something. Perhaps to ask a question, to inquire as to what this work might be. But she could only stare, and even that took more courage than she liked to admit.
“I believe I know your name,” said the Kind One, considering her. He spoke her name then and asked, “Am I right?”
“Yes,” the girl whispered.
“It is a good name. A very good name.” He handed the waterskin back to her but hesitated, even as his brother had before returning to his work. Unl
ike the Strong One, he was confident in his way with children, and his confidence gave the girl heart. “Would you like to see what I am working on?” he asked.
Much to the girl’s surprise, she nodded.
“All right. Come on then.”
He put out his hand, and she took it without a thought. Something about holding the hand of someone so much bigger, older, and stronger than she made her feel better than she had since she began this long trek. Tucking the now-empty waterskin under her other arm, she allowed herself to be led through the great doors, even into the shadows of the hall. Now that the Kind One held her fast, she found she wasn’t so frightened as she might have been.
And truly, once she was through the doors the shadows were not as deep as she had thought. Long spears of sunlight fell across the floor and up along the opposite wall, and she could see many details of the hall’s interior, details she had never imagined. For the carving on the doors was not the only evidence of the Kind One’s handiwork. The walls were brilliant with murals worked in multi-colored flecks of stone. The supporting beams were carved in fantastical patterns, many in a sun-and-moon motif, others in designs she could not name. The floor at her feet displayed a wonderful image of the sun worked in color-treated wood, highly polished so as to shine where the light struck it. She glimpsed statues shaped like angels and other more fantastical beings. She glimpsed tapestries woven and embroidered by the hands of Faerie maids.
On the opposite end of the hall was another set of doors facing east. These were closed fast. They looked so very heavy, the girl wondered if it were possible for a single man to open them.
The girl could have stood in one place and stared about her for hours. But the Kind One led her across the hall—led her for what seemed like miles, so vast was the interior—to a place along the northern wall. There a small gleaming lantern burned bright, illuminating a tool-littered workspace. Bathed in the lantern’s light stood an ugly, fat stump. It was all that remained of quite a large tree, the branches long ago cleft from the trunk, the bark peeled away to reveal the wood beneath. It stood six feet tall and more, taller than the Strong One, even.