He was one of those slaves, taken with his family in the wake of a shipwreck into different places of servitude, his older son and he to this place of endless noise, the iron mines of Vornessta.
Talking during work hours, which comprised all but four in each day, was strictly forbidden, so Evrit had learned little of the geography of Sorbold; he had no idea where in the world he was. Sometimes when he was curled up against the wall of the sleeping tunnel, just before he would fall into an unconscious state, the ever-present noise more distant but still vibrating in his skin, he would pray to the God he was no longer certain he believed in to show him, just once, an image of his wife or his younger son, even if it was only in a dream.
Apparently that God could no longer hear his unspoken prayers over the pandemonium in which Evrit existed now.
But, in spite of the inevitability of a bad ending, Evrit had hope.
Sometime before, how long it had been he could not even begin to fathom, a lashman had hovered over him, whip in hand, and had dragged him from his place along the wall of ore up to within a handsbreadth of the man’s mouth. While the rest of the slaves on the wall beside him skittered away in fear, the guard had whispered words in the language of Marincaer, his homeland, words that Evrit now repeated in his mind with every waking breath.
Fear not, friend, your liberty is coming. Be ready when the call comes to fight. Tell no one else. For what I must do now, I apologize.
Unconsciously, Evrit’s hand went to his neck now, where a thin scar remained that the lashman’s whip had drawn in blood.
Ever since that day, Evrit thought he had noticed glances between his fellow slaves and the guards, but having been a gentle tailor and the leader of an even more gentle religious sect called the Blessed in his former life, with no understanding of the practices of war or self-defense, he had no real way to gauge if those exchanges were meaningful or not.
He rose painfully at the foreman’s whistle with his scuttle of ore and joined the line of his fellow slaves making their way to the enormous wheeled bins along the track from the smelting fires. The slag from the forges that had been sent up from below had been off-loaded into what could only rightfully be called a mountain of rock waste that towered to the ceiling of the enormous cavern. The bins were now empty again, awaiting the fruit of Evrit and his cave fellows’ work.
One by one they tossed their scrapings over the edge into the wheeled bins two levels below and moved hurriedly back to the deposit wall under the eyes of their guards.
On his way back to the wall Evrit cast one last quick glance at the mountain of slag. When he first had been brought to the cave where he and hundreds of other slaves spent their days, one of dozens on that level, with dozens more on levels above and below him, he had heard several of the guards discussing the slag pile, which even then had reached to three-quarters or more of the height of the dome of the vast cavern. The tongue of the Sorbolds was a difficult one to learn, but Evrit had always had a capacity with language, being in the trade, and he felt certain he heard the men make humorous reference to the fact that the only exit doors out of the mine, other than the ones they had entered in at the base of the mountain range, were behind the towering pile of slag.
At least we never have to worry about escape.
In his time working in the mine, the mountain of slag had grown at least ten times thicker and had reached the top of the dome. It was a constant visual reminder of how and where their servitude would end, if anyone had ever thought to believe otherwise.
As he picked up his trowel again, Evrit looked furtively around at the guards and the lashmen. It seemed to him that the men with the whips were largely new, but it was hard to be certain in the dark of the sweat-filled cave. Any direct eye contact was punishable with the lash, so keeping one’s eyes averted was a basic survival skill.
He was almost certain, however, that he saw the guard at the opening of the cave in which he was toiling nod to him, then turn away again.
Evrit returned to scratching ore, trying not to let his hope become too entrenched. That was the only thing that could completely crush the fragile resolve he had nurtured to survive long enough to find his family again.
23
THE OPEN SEA, BETWEEN GAEMATRIA AND MANOSSE
How many days and nights Ashe had walked the waves between Gaematria and Manosse he no longer knew. He’d found it quicker and easier to travel the depths in the heavier water of the Twilight Realm, where the drift was minimal and the wake of a ship or a particularly large breaker did not drag his vaporous form off course. His mind was still reeling at what he could not help but consider a betrayal, fighting the knowledge that the refusal of the Sea Mages to aid the Alliance might very possibly have been the signing of the Middle Continent’s death warrant.
And perhaps that of the Known World.
And the world beyond it. The Afterlife.
He was keeping track, however, of the passage of ships over his head. As he had predicted to his uncle, he was only able to traverse less than a dozen nautical miles before the ship traffic picked up again. By the feel of the pressure in their passage, he could tell that the vessels deployed off the coast of Gaematria were by and large warships, with merchant vessels and pirate ships fewer and farther between.
How in the world could you miss this, Edwyn? he wondered, but the loss once again of his corporeal form, and the return to a vaporous elemental state, had dispersed his rage, leaving behind only his fear.
For the first time in many weeks he was unable to beat back the thoughts of Rhapsody and Meridion. Giving voice to his son’s existence, unplanned and unwise as it was, had planted the image of them both in what was left of his mind, filling his thoughts with worry for their safety. As a result, he found himself occasionally coming suddenly to awareness as large fish or cetaceans swam past, startlingly close to him, or noticing enormous gatherings of prey fish when he had already floated into their midst.
There is not enough of me left to concentrate on where I am going and what I have left behind at the same time, he thought sadly. Having to put aside thoughts of what gave meaning to his life in favor of concentrating on the duty he resented beyond reason was sheer torture of mind and soul.
He began to allow himself a few moments of the sweet respite of memory whenever the despair threatened to overwhelm him. When he found himself thickening, his bodily form becoming heavier, he would cease his forward movement and hang motionless in the drift, as he had in his infant memory, closing his filmy eyes and letting his thoughts travel back to the Middle Continent, back in Time, to the scant moments in which he had held his wife and son in his arms together, cradling the family he loved.
They were the two people in the world who had given him the ability to conceive of family as something to be treasured, rather than the burden the one he had been born into had always been. Edwyn’s refusal of aid or counsel had reinforced the horrific memories, the betrayal and manipulations of his grandmother and father, so when the image of his wife and baby made their way insistently into his consciousness, he ceased pushing them away and allowed himself a few moments of time to bask in them.
But only a few moments.
Deep as he was in the dark sea, where everything else was shadow, Ashe knew that should he luxuriate too long in the happiness of the Past, he would inadvertently sacrifice the Future.
So he mentally cut the lifeline those pleasant thoughts had attached to him.
It was a sensation similar to ripping the hand of the F’dor out of his chest and soul a quarter century before, leaving him in surpassing physical and spiritual agony then. Now the agony was only spiritual.
But in some ways it was even more painful.
Finally the water became shallower, causing him to rise into the Sunlit Realm once more.
I must be approaching Manosse, he thought, seeing more exotic plant life and signs of human existence—the wreckage of ships, empty barrels, and driftwood along the sandy bottom. Soon, soon
I will be home. My mother’s home.
And then, finally, I will have the aid I need to return to the continent.
24
NAVARNE CITY, THE FIRST ARMORED GARRISON
Gwydion Navarne was absolutely terrified.
Having only participated in one battle in his entire life, now being quartered in his province’s garrison, without his adopted grandmother or the Lord Marshal for the minimal comfort of familiarity, was difficult enough. But given that Anborn had decided that he was to serve in the First Front as division leader over a garrison of trained soldiers, all of whom Ashe had selected personally and for whom the Lord Cymrian had designed the regimen of training, the young duke was so nervous that he had been unable to sleep and barely able to eat since arriving in camp.
Rhapsody, who had been sent with Anborn’s trusted comrade Knapp to defend the capital of Bethany, the largest and most central of the Orlandan provincial capitals, within the Third Armored Garrison, had taken him aside and looked thoughtfully into his eyes before deploying herself. He had expected her to pat his face comfortingly as she had on so many other such occasions, but instead his adopted grandmother had merely stared at him and satisfied her own need for information about him, whatever it was.
Trust the soldiers that are coming, she had advised. They know what they are doing, even if you don’t.
If her intention had been to reassure him, it had failed.
After much weighing of his options, he had decided to address his concerns to the Lord Marshal before he had left to head south to lead the Second Front in the assault on Sorbold. Gwydion had confessed his doubts about his own fitness to lead, and requested that someone, anyone of higher rank and greater experience than he could be named commander. Anborn’s stinging retort was still was ringing painfully in his ears, long after the Lord Marshal had departed.
The bandage roller and the piss boy both are of higher rank and greater experience than you, cur. Stop sniveling. You bear an elemental sword, and you have no right to dishonor that blade with your doubt. Stand up straight, look the men you command in the eye once they get here, and remember your lineage; your father held off an entire brigade of Sorbold soldiers with little more than a roasting fork at the assault on the Winter Carnival four years ago. My father Gwylliam would have thrown himself from the deck of his ship or from the peaks of Canrif on numerous occasions had it not been for the wisdom and strength of your ancient forebear, Hague, for whom this place is named. This is your family’s citadel. Defend it. You can do this, whether you believe it or not. And even if you cannot, you will. You have no other choice.
Once the soldiers from Canderre had arrived, his hope had risen somewhat upon seeing how well trained and prepared they were. But not long after their arrival the skies had begun to turn gray in the north, fraught with distant smoke and the faint smell of burning wood and metal, and an ominous rumbling that kept growing ever nearer.
The scouts had reported that the approaching Sorbold army from the northwest numbered approximately twenty-five thousand, with reinforcements from the Hintervold of five to seven thousand more coming from northeast. Gwydion had been shocked at the numbers, given what a major percentage of the enemy forces he knew they comprised.
Then realization came over him like a cold wave, with the understanding that his western province of Navarne was an eastern gateway to the Great Forest, and that if the capital was taken, it would be a perfect outpost from which the Sorbold army could launch offensives east into Bethany, north into Canderre, and west into the forest itself, in close proximity to the Filidic Circle and the Great White Tree there.
His ineptitude might very well be responsible for the loss of the Middle Continent.
He thought of Haguefort, his family’s keep and ancestral lands to the west, and wondered dully if it was in the direct line of fire from the advancing Sorbold forces. Anborn had deemed the keep and its surrounding wall insufficient to withstand a siege and had ordered it evacuated, the villages around it left empty in the path of the oncoming enemy.
Gwydion thought of the Cymrian museum, his father’s beloved historical repository on its grounds, where Stephen had spent endless hours lovingly polishing and maintaining the relics and remnants of an all-but-forgotten age, patiently recounting stories to Gwydion in his childhood of all the reasons they had to be proud of their lineage, and some of the reasons they had not to be. He thought of the frescoes on the ceilings of Haguefort, the small castle of rosy brown stone that had been his and Melisande’s home, the suits of armor and the weapons proudly displayed for only a few eyes to appreciate.
And wondered if it would withstand whatever atrocities might be committed upon it in the war that was rumbling closer with each passing moment.
It occurred to him that his rapid death might in fact be the best possible outcome for the troops that were standing, in a full muster, within the central courtyard of the walled garrison that had once been Navarne City. At least then an experienced soldier would rise from within this muster and take over command, someone who knew what to do, who would not falter in the face of direct combat.
Dear All-God, help me, he prayed silently as the troops broke muster and headed off for duty and their shifts at the wall. Give me strength, give me wisdom, not for myself, for them. They don’t deserve the commander with whom they have been shackled.
He had no idea that the All-God had placed the answer to his prayers just beyond the gate.
* * *
“M’lord, we have need of your attention to a matter at the wall,” Lieutenant Lausten, his attaché, said, hurrying across the town square that had been transformed into the central courtyard of the garrison.
“What is the matter?” Gwydion Navarne asked nervously as the man passed him, indicating the direction he should follow.
“The captain has asked for you, m’lord, and says it is urgent,” Lausten said as they made their way to the wall. “The scouts are involved; Solarrs has sent his last report before riding east to Bethany. Hurry, please, sir—”
Gwydion broke into a dead run.
A cohort of archers was ascending the north wall as he arrived at the garrison’s edge. Gwydion watched them climb, quickly and efficiently, and spread out across the rampart, setting their crossbows and longbows into the wooden stands that had been designed with vertical slats to shield them as they fired.
Before him was a small cadre of archers surrounding a man in a hooded gray robe, the kind often seen on religious pilgrims and men of the Great Forest. The man was kneeling on the ground, his hands behind his head, his hood still up.
Each of the crossbowmen was aiming at his head.
“What is going on here?” Gwydion demanded.
“M’lord, this man was found beyond the gates and the trenches, in the same position you see him now, bearing a scrap of parchment with Solarrs’s imprimatur,” the captain, a man named Filius, said quietly as he handed the scrap to Gwydion. “As we needed to set the final seal of the gates, I deliberated and decided it was best to bring him inside, rather than delay the closing of the gates.”
“Good,” said Gwydion Navarne. “Maintain your stance, archers.”
He walked to the man, whose face was still shielded by his wide hood, and stopped before him. “What are you doing here, friend?” he asked, trying as hard as he could to evoke the voice of his father. “And with the signature of Anborn’s chief scout?”
“I have come to your aid, at the request of the Lord Marshal,” said a deep voice from within the hood. “Solarrs recognized me on the road, or rather I recognized him. He was in a hurry, but he gave me his imprimatur that you would know I am a friend. As you have just named me.”
Gwydion blinked. The deep voice was familiar, but he struggled to recall where he had heard it before.
“By all means, stand, please,” he said, “and lower your arms.”
He did not tell the archers to stand down.
The man obeyed, shaking the dust from his robes. r />
“Where do I know you from, friend?” Gwydion asked.
“From a meeting in the depths of your own domicile,” the man said, his tone indicating annoyance. “Or perhaps from your attendance at High Holy Day ceremonies in mine.”
The young duke of Navarne dropped to one knee.
“Your Grace,” he said, his voice choking with emotion.
The broad-shouldered man exhaled, then took down his hood.
As recognition swept throughout the garrison, the archers lowered their bows and dropped to their knees as well.
Constantin, the exiled Patriarch of Sepulvarta.
“Get up, you young fool,” he thundered at the duke. “I told you that when we met before. You are a child of the All-God, as am I, as are they.” He gestured impatiently at the soldiers, who hurried to a stand as well. “The enemy is coming; it does not suit for them to find you on your knees, lest they bring you to them against your will. Here, in this place, we shall stand!”
A roar rose from within the streets of the barricaded capital.
“Back to your posts,” the Patriarch commanded. “If your commander wills it, that is.” He looked markedly at the young duke, who signaled his agreement. Then, as the soldiers returned to their posts with renewed vigor, Constantin came to him and looked down at him seriously.
“Your task here is a mammoth one, young Navarne,” he said quietly. “It is likely that those of us within these walls have seen our last sunrise. But I have finished all but the last of my tasks reconnecting the Chain of Prayer, and if we live through the stand we are about to make, and I am successful in Avonderre, I will need your assistance to help free Sepulvarta from her captors. So today, I will help you in your fight; then, when I am ready, you will assist me in mine. Are we agreed?”