ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 36

“Hold your fire!” Dylan shouted to the thirty Shadarlak around him.

In uncharacteristic panic, the Shadarlak had begun firing at the Tainted creatures that were slamming themselves into the Tuathan shield a few paces away.  But the creatures only destroyed themselves in a grisly explosion of yellow blood and tissue whenever they simply touched the shield.  No use wasting valuable ammunition when the shield was doing all the work.

The musket-fire tapered off as each sergeant restrained his men.  Dylan went to Captain Laesh, Myndehr’s second in command.

“Captain, no firing unless those things get through the shield,” Dylan shouted above the rain, thunder, and shrieks of the Tainted.

The wide-eyed captain nodded.  “Yes, sir.  Sorry, sir.”  Laesh nodded toward the shield.  “I’m not used to fighting…those…behind one of…these…”

“I know, Captain.  This is new to all of us.  We have to trust the Tuathans.  If this shield falls, we’ll need our ammunition.”

“Yes, sir,” Laesh said.  He turned and started passing the order on to his subordinates.

Dylan made his way through the agitated Tuathans toward the front of the column, his four Shadarlak bodyguards surrounding him.  He saw Fatimah with her arm raised and continuing to walk at a brisk pace, her face twisted in concentration and effort.  Taran Abraeu was nowhere in sight.

Dylan saw Melahara talking to Eblin, who rode in the front seat of a single horse-drawn wagon with a canopy over the rear, but nothing above the driver and Eblin.  Her white hair was plastered to her head, and her gray woolen cloak was soaked.

“Where is Abraeu?” Dylan asked.

Both Melahara and Eblin frowned, and Melahara said, “He ran off into the woods.”

“The woods?  Why?  When?”

Eblin said, “Seems he saw something that interested him more than maintaining the shield.”

“What did he see?”

Melahara said, “Pomar said he told Fatimah that he saw a girl in the road.  Then he ran off.  But Fatimah never saw a girl.”

“We have to find him,” Dylan shouted over a fresh lightning strike, and the howls of Tainted exploding themselves against the shield.  “We can’t just leave him behind.”

It was more than his duty as Speaker of the Compact talking.  It was his loyalty to Tobias Abreau that would refuse to let Dylan abandon his former commander’s son to certain death in these woods.  Tobias Abraeu had seen Dylan and the rest of his men through the “hopeless” Battle of Growan Pass during the First Mazumdahri War.  Dylan would be damned if he left the man’s only son behind without trying to find him.

Melahara said, “No one is going into those woods to find Abraeu.  If you have not noticed, Speaker, we are under attack.  It would be suicide for whoever went.”

“I thought Taran was this ‘Zervakan,’ your savior,” Dylan growled.  “How can you leave him behind?”

“He left us,” Melahara shot back.  “Maybe he is not what we thought he was.”

“Whatever he is,” Dylan said, “he is one of my men.  And I don’t know about Tuatha, but the Compact does not abandon its citizens.  I’m going after him.”

From the wagon, Eblin said, “You will die without a shield, Speaker.  The harrowers and the Tainted will be too much for your guns, even if all of your Shadarlak accompany you.”

“Maybe,” Dylan said.  Then he looked at Melahara.  “But do you really want let Taran Abraeu be captured alive by all those harrowers and Tainted?”

Much to Dylan’s satisfaction, the implications of Taran’s capture by the Fomorians was not lost on Melahara.  Her frown deepened, and she glanced at Eblin.  Eblin’s mouth curled in a smile, and she gave Melahara a look that seemed to concede Dylan’s point.

Melahara turned around to the priests walking with Fatimah and shouted, “Pomar!”

The short, thin red-haired young woman turned and jogged over to Melahara, bowed her head, and said something in Tuathan.

“I want you to Wield a shield for Speaker Edoss and his men, and then accompany them into the woods to find Taran Abraeu.  I choose you because, like Fatimah, you were the only one to see where he went into the woods.”

Pomar’s eyes widened a moment, glanced once at Dylan, then said in heavily accented Recindian, “As you say, Mother Seat.”

Dylan said to Melahara, “Thank you.”

He turned to gather the men he would lead into the woods after Abraeu.  He selected five men—Captain Laesh would allow no fewer—and gathered them toward the rear of the long column of Tuathan civilians.  The sodden and terrified people gave him curious glances when they saw him, Pomar, and the Shadarlak jogging back toward Fedalan, but they continued forward without saying anything.  Most were too preoccupied with flinching as each screaming Tainted monster smashed itself against the shield, or with the lightning strikes exploding into the grounds outside the shield, or the sheets of rain soaking them through.

Judging by Melahara’s explanation alone, Dylan knew what Abraeu thought he saw.  Only a vision of his daughter could have made Taran abandon his promise to the Tuatha.  And that meant someone or something was targeting Taran.  Dylan had never left behind one of his men when he was a sergeant in the First Mazumdahri War, inspired by the examples set by Taran’s own father.  He would find Taran.

They stopped at the end of the column.  Twenty paces ahead was the edge of the shield, which slowly moved toward them at the same speed as Fatimah’s walk at the front of the column.

“There,” Pomar said, pointing to a break in the woods.  “He enter there.”

There were no Tainted within the woods that Dylan could see.  The attacks seemed to concentrate on the middle of the column, from the left and right.

Dylan looked at Pomar, who was only a couple of inches taller than him.  “Thank you for doing this.”

“Thank you, Edoss.  I love to Wield.  Especially against Tainted.  They kill my brother in first attack.”

She said this in a matter of fact manner, which seemed to make it even sadder to Dylan’s ears.  He nodded.

“Stay close me, please.  Ten paces, yes.”

When Dylan and the Shadarlak did so, she raised her hand and said the incantation for the shield.  Dylan watched as the bubble of blue-white energy appeared where her open hand was raised, and expanded to engulf them all with a comfortable margin of five paces all around them.

As the edge of the main shield advanced toward them, Dylan said to his men, “I don’t have to remind you to stay within the shield perimeter.”

Dylan heard their “Yes, sir’s,” and saw them all gripping their revolvers and sabers tightly.  To Pomar, Dylan said, “We’re ready when you are.”

She nodded, and then walked forward.  They stepped out of the safety of the main shield and into the woods where Taran had disappeared.

 

 

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 35

“Mara!” Taran shouted, but his daughter only fled deeper into the forest.  He caught glimpses of her white-clad body through the low hanging pine branches, but she always seemed to be ten paces ahead of him.

“Mara!” he shouted again, trying to make his voice heard above the peals of thunder and the torrents of rain that had started minutes ago.  He was soaked to the skin, and the sharp needles of the pine branches stuck to his clothes, his hair, and his hands.

“Dad!” Mara screamed, from somewhere to his left, sounding farther away than he thought she was.

“Mara, where are you?” Taran shouted back.

“Daddy!”  This time her voice seemed to be ahead of him.  Taran wanted to weep with frustration.  His little girl was out in this forest with harrowers and Tainted monsters, and he could not help her.

“Please, Mara,” Taran shouted, “run to my voice!”

He did not hear her voice again, so he charged through the pine branches toward the place where he last heard her.  Taran came out of the woods in front of a creek that was swollen and flowing rapidly due to the heavy rain.  It was maybe three paces across, and looked to be a pace deep.  Mud and water flooded into the creek from both banks, creating a deep gully with the creek at the bottom.

Taran looked up at the other side in time to see Mara’s white shift disappear woods.

“Mara, come back!”

She must not have heard him, for she did not return.  Between the thunder, rain, and the swollen creek, Taran could barely hear his own voice.

He scanned the lip of the gully for a quick, easy way down, but saw none.  Both banks seemed to have suffered a mud slide that exposed tree roots, clay, and stones.  Taran sat down on the bank, and then tried to ease his body down the three pace drop to the surging creek.  He immediately slipped and slid all the way into the water.  It was deeper than he thought, and his head went under, sending dirty water down his throat and nose.  He came to the surface coughing, and was able to stand in the chest-high water.  He fought the current and managed to climb the other side of the gully to where he had watched Mara enter the woods.  He paused a moment to catch his breath and cough up the last of the muddy water from his lungs.

“Mara!”

Taran was aware of lightning striking the ground less than a half mile behind him, and he knew the Tuathans on the road were being attacked.  He did not care about them now, not with his daughter out here, alone and frightened.  Fatimah would take care of them.  Taran had to find his daughter.

He stumbled through the pine branches again, shouting Mara’s name.  He grew terribly weary, and his breathing came in ragged gasps, but he kept his legs moving and he kept shouting Mara’s name.  He would die out here before he gave up looking for her.

Taran stopped moving when he heard the sounds of crying coming from his left.  He shouted Mara’s name, but all he heard was the crying.  He charged toward the left and emerged from the forest into a small clearing no more than ten paces in diameter.  Mara sat on the stump of a downed tree, her head in her hands and her shoulders heaving with each sob.  Taran ran over to her and put his arms around her.

“I’m hear now, Mara,” he said, holding her tight.  “Nothing’s going to hurt you.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and cried softly on his shoulder.  “I thought you wouldn’t come for me.”

“Of course I came for you,” Taran said, gently pulling her away from him so he could look at her.

Her long black hair hung in strings around her face, and her eyes were red from weeping.  Aside from the dirt all over her body and the oozing blood from minor scratches, she appeared to be fine.

She was fine….

“Mara,” he said, “you can walk.  How are you here?”

Something wrapped itself around Taran’s ankles, yanked him off his feet, and pulled him back toward the forest.  He looked at his feet in disbelief.  Writhing vines jerked him into the air so that he hung upside down five paces above the ground.  He heard Mara scream, saw similar vines wrap themselves around both of her arms and pull her into the air.  She hung there screaming, her arms spread wide by the vines.

Taran was horrified to see a black tendril of Angra touching the ground just beyond the tree line behind Mara.  It came closer, and then a man clad in a dark coat wearing a black tri-corner hat emerged from the forest, his hand raised and holding on to the nauseating tendril.  He paused near Mara a moment, and then walked toward Taran.  As he grew closer, a cold horror gripped Taran’s body.

Kumar Ladak stopped in front of Taran, and then tilted his head.  He smiled, and Taran thought he saw more teeth in Ladak’s mouth than a normal human should have.

“Hello, Zervakan,” Ladak said.  “Your daughter is even prettier than the picture you showed me.”

 

 

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 34

“What if I told you that I knew who your father was?” Savix asked Karak as they strolled around the balcony that encircled the top of the palace tower.

“I would believe you,” Karak said, though he could not see how Savix would know a man that not even Karak knew anything about.  But Karak decided that it would be unwise to doubt Savix’s knowledge.  A part of him wondered if that was his fear of the necklace talking, or if he had truly come to believe that.  He decided that it did not matter.  Not anymore.

“Karak, my friend,” Savix said, “you are the product of generations of selective breeding, as was your mother and your father, and their parents, and their parents, and so on, for almost a thousand years.  All of it just to create…you.  Now it was my intention to have you come quite a bit sooner—maybe a hundred years after I started—but you cannot imagine how difficult it is to get two Mundanes to breed when they do not want to.  Perhaps I was a bit naive.  We had to resort to rape most of the time, women and men.”

Karak clenched his teeth and stamped down the hatred that threatened to rise in him.  The necklace gave him enough pain to make him stumble, but not enough to knock him down.  Avoid the pain.  Do anything you have to, but avoid…that…pain.

“Your father was one of my disciples,” Savix said, “albeit one who was not of pure Fomorian blood.  He was part of a Jaden’yar invasion of Hlaan lands, and your mother’s village was the first one in their way.  Your father, however, knew exactly who your mother was, though she did not know him.  He found her, raped her, and then ran off to join the other pillagers in their revelry.  And later that night, while in a drunken stupor celebrating the completion of his one purpose in life, your mother gutted him with a dagger while he lay passed out next to one of his other conquests.”

Karak had always suspected he was conceived that way, for his mother’s eyes had always darkened whenever he asked her about his father.

“Your father was supposed to have taken your mother as his wife, not as a spoil of war.  Your mother, however, was of pure Fomorian blood and was meant to raise you with Fomorian values.  Your father was supposed to have assisted her in this.  He accomplished his life’s purpose by impregnating your mother, but he failed miserably at what I thought would be self-evident—raising you to serve me.”  Savix chuckled.  “Now you see why it took me a thousand years of breeding to create you.  My disciples tend to be a bit…enthusiastic.  I suppose it’s simply the nature of the god we all serve.”

They had made one complete circle around the balcony and now overlooked the city and the bay again.

“And you know the rest of the story,” Savix said.  “Your mother died in another raid when you were eight—after she was tortured and raped before your young eyes—and after years of living off what you could scavenge, you were taken in by Silek.  Who knows, if your father had done his duties, your mother and siblings might still be alive to help you in the battles to come.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Karak asked.

Savix arched an eyebrow at him.  “Do you not want to know where you come from?”

“I know where I come from, and I know my father was scum.  What does it have to do with my ‘destiny’?”

Savix smiled.  “Everything.  Crane?”

There was shuffling in front of them as Crane came around the bend in the balcony from a door on the other side.  He kept his head down, his gaze on the stone at his feet.  When he was a couple of paces from Savix, he knelt on one knee and said, “Yes, my lord.”

“Show Mr. Frost your scar.”

Without hesitating, Crane stood and unbuttoned his white coat, then slipped it off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor.  He unbuttoned his white shirt, all the while staring at Karak with an appraising expression, studying him as Karak would have studied one of his new whores.  When Crane removed his shirt, Karak saw a man with an emaciated chest, as if Crane had been starving to death for months.  The flesh was grayish white, with thin blue veins running all across its surface.  Karak could swear he saw Crane’s organs undulating beneath that translucent skin.  A bronze necklace hugged his neck, similar to Karak’s.

A long, jagged white scar ran from Crane’s navel up to the center of his sternum.  Several more scars were spread around his chest, most concentrated around his heart.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to heal wounds of this sort?” Savix asked Karak, waving a hand at Crane’s chest.  “Even when it is possible, the man is never the same.  As you can see.”

Karak looked from the scars to Crane’s face and suddenly realized why he had thought Crane looked so familiar the first day he saw him—in another lifetime—in his office.

Crane smiled, the mouth wide and unnatural.  “He knows, my lord.”

“That’s impossible…” Karak whispered.

“Crane would have died thirty-two years ago,” Savix said, “if it had not been for one of my other disciples, who was also part of the Jarden’yar army.  He brought Crane’s body to a secret Fomorian priest who had kept one of the harrowing stones from the glory days of Fomorian rule and used it to keep Crane, er, fresh until he could be awakened when Angra returned.  The priest could have done the awakening himself had it not been for the cursed Barrier blocking Angra.  Might have saved some of Crane’s good looks.  But alas.”

Karak shook his head.  His father was dead.  His mother had told him so.

Answering his silent doubts, Savix said, “Your mother thought she killed him.  And normally, those wounds would have killed any man.  But she did not count on the fact that Crane was also important to my plans.”

Karak stared at Crane, who stared right back at Karak.  The man’s grin was making Karak want to rip the jaw off his head.

“And now we come to your destiny,” Savix said.  “You must kill your father, or he will kill you.”

“What?” Karak asked.  He continued staring at Crane, whose grin had turned into a determined sneer.

“It is the only way I will know for sure that you are to be my champion.  Now, there is one thing you must know before I release Crane on you.  Only the power of Angra can kill him.”

“What are you talking about?  How?”  Karak already felt himself unconsciously backing away from Crane.  He knew how fast those hands could move.

Savix sighed.  “And now you know why I was most put out when Crane did not raise you…  You hold your hand up to the black ring and ask for what you want.  Like this.”

Savix raised his right hand, and Karak saw a forked tendril of black light shoot down from Angra faster than a lightning bolt.  Savix nodded in Crane’s direction, and Karak felt a blast of wind pass him and slam into Crane.  Crane’s emaciated body flew across the balcony and slid into the stone railing ten paces behind him.  Crane rolled over and jumped to his feet.  He walked back to where he stood before, the same determined sneer on his face, but he now breathed hard and favored his right side a bit.

“I have just given you a head start,” Savix said.  “Now begin.”

Both of Crane’s hands shot toward Karak, one toward his throat and one at his feet.  Karak dove beneath the hand going for his throat, but he could not escape the one going for his leg.  It latched on to his foot and began dragging Karak back toward Crane.  Karak pulled the knife out of his belt that he had meant to use on Silek, and plunged the blade into Crane’s hand.

Crane howled, and his hand released Karak’s foot.  Karak jumped to his feet and ran past a laughing Savix and around the bend in the balcony.  He tried opening the double glass doors, but they were locked.  He lowered his shoulder and plunged through the glass into Savix’s study.  Karak kept running toward the spiral staircase, shaking the glass shards out of his hair and jacket.  He did not bother to see if Crane was following.

At the foot of the stairs, the two soldiers who guarded the entrance tried to block Karak’s path.  One of the men brought his musket up, but Karak ran into him at full speed, knocking him backward.  Karak fell on top of the man, but scrambled to his feet before the other one could apprehend him.  He heard the guard fire.  The musket ball shattered a lamp less than a pace from Karak’s shoulder.

He rounded a corner, only to find five more guards running toward him, muskets with bayonets pointed at him.  They dropped to their knees to fire.  Karak ducked back into the hall he had just come from an instant before the musket balls tore chunks from the walls.  He sprinted down the hall, past startled servants, some of whom fell wounded when the guards behind him fired their muskets again.  Karak ran in a broken pattern to keep the guards from drawing a clear shot at him.  He charged between servants who came out into the hall to see what the commotion was about, using them as cover.

At the end of the hall was an arched doorway with the doors swung open.  Karak charged through the doors and onto a crushed stone path that curved into a garden filled with willow trees, their branches hanging all the way to the ground.

Once he rounded the bend in the path, Karak dove into the willow-covered bushes to his right.  He forced himself to calm his breathing as the guards sprinted past his position.

He listened a few moments.  The guards’ shouted to each other as they searched the garden.  He backed out of the bushes, away from the stone path.  He made his way deeper into the forest of willow trees, running as stealthily as he could.

Karak was wondering why his necklace had not stopped him fleeing from Savix, when he emerged from the willow trees at the edge of a cliff that dropped hundreds of feet to the crashing waves below.  Karak skidded to a stop just before the drop-off, and even made himself fall backwards to keep from tumbling off the edge.  He scrambled to his feet and turned around.

He stopped when he saw Crane part the willow branches.  Crane was still shirtless, and the sun made his thin muscles and sharp bones more pronounced beneath his translucent skin.

“Hello, son.”

“Don’t call me that,” Karak said.

“It is who you are.  You are my greatest achievement, my life’s purpose.”  Crane smiled that unnatural smile.

The rage that had been building in Karak, that rage that he had wanted to unleash on Savix for orchestrating his whole sorry life, exploded from Karak.  He leapt for Crane’s throat with a raw scream, but Crane’s left hand shot out and took hold of Karak’s throat.  Karak felt Crane’s grip tighten, and he was suddenly unable to take in any air, or even exhale.  He felt his tongue lolling on the side of his mouth and his eyes growing wide.

“Now I will kill you,” Crane said, studying Karak’s face.  “For it seems that you are unworthy to serve our master.  You are weak.  Just like your mother, just like your bastard brothers.  Perhaps I will rape you before you die, just to give you a taste of what I did to them.”

Karak did not remember consciously raising his right hand, but when he realized he had done so, he called on Angra to strike down Crane with as much power as it could.  Karak felt a rushing torrent of rage and hatred flow through him, enough to make his body feel like it would explode if he did not release it.  He looked into Crane’s eyes.  Karak saw them widen when Crane recognized what was about to happen.  Fear dominated them, but also…pride.

Crane’s body bulged, heaved, and then exploded into a spray of red, gray, and black.  Karak flew backward and landed on his back, the little air left in his lungs bursting from his throat.  His ears ringing, Karak took in several deep, rasping breaths, staring up at the rings in the blue sky.  When he had his breathing under control, he sat up slowly and looked at where Crane had been standing.  There was a small blackened crater, its perimeter littered with broken dirt, charred chunks of flesh, and bits of burning white cloth.

Karak looked up to see Savix emerge from the willow trees, a wide smile on his face and his hands clapping.

“Well done, my boy, well done.  I knew the only way you would call on Angra was to destroy the cause of so much pain in your life.  Now you will have the power and prestige that was once your father’s.”

Karak stared at the bits of flesh that were left of his father.  The man had been every bit the demon out of Hlaan mythology.  A rapist, a murderer, a monster of the highest order.

And Karak was now on the same path.  He had used the same power that Crane had drawn on to kill Primus and his Swornmen, the closest thing to brothers Karak had ever known.  The same power Crane had used to turn Silek against Karak, the man Karak considered to be his true father.  Now Karak was enslaved by the same man, or demon, who had twisted Crane.  Enslaved with the same necklace.  Karak suffered a blast of pain for his impertinence, so he quickly abandoned those thoughts of Savix.

“You will serve me well,” Savix said, walking toward Karak.  “I will give you the power and riches that you have always wanted, but never dreamed possible.  You are my champion.  My Zervakan.”

Karak would not become another Crane, and he decided what to do just as he began moving toward the cliff.  He heard Savix cry out, and then he felt a pain that made the pain he had suffered in Savix’s study feel like a breeze on his neck.  But Karak’s momentum had carried him too far for him to stop, and he plunged off the lip of the cliff and into empty space.  He did not realize any of this, for the pain that scorched him had already driven him insane.

But the moment he hit the rocks below, he knew peace.

 

 

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 33

Besides the shuffling of Tuathan feet and their occasional murmurs, Fedalan was unnervingly quiet to Taran’s sensitive ears.  He wished he could hear something: scurrying animals, open doors creaking in the wind, something.  The occasional peal of thunder ahead was all that broke the silence.

Taran kept his hand raised to Ahura, feeling content that the ring’s power still flowed through him.  His arm didn’t feel numb at all, as he would’ve expected after keeping it raised so long.  He had only walked maybe five hundred paces—almost half way to the gates of the town—before Fatimah began questioning him on his strength.

“Remember,” she said, “tell me as soon as you feel any weariness.”

“I will.”

“Blurred vision, pains in your chest—”

“Yes.”

“—the desire to sleep, visions—”

“Fatimah,” Taran said, “you are making it hard for me to concentrate.”

“Ah.  Forgive me.”   She remained quiet for another fifty paces before she started questioning him again.  Taran almost wished for an Angra attack just to distract her.

But they reached the town’s gates and no attack came.  The storm, which Taran thought would be on them the moment they stepped onto the road out of town, seemed to stay ahead of them, but did not dissipate.  It was becoming harder for him to hope it was natural.

The town gates were breached in the Tainted attack several nights ago, though “breached” did not describe their current condition.  It looked as if the thirty-foot tall wood gates had suffered a barrage from a company of Mazumdahri cannons.  There was nothing left of the ornately carved gates but splinters and jagged shards of wood.  The stone walls to either side of the two gates had also crumbled under the terrible onslaught, creating a mound of debris that Taran and the Tuatha would have to climb.  He could not determine what had destroyed the gates, for there were no scorch marks indicating lightning strikes.  The wood looked to have been twisted and torn.  He just hoped he didn’t have to face whatever had done that.

Climbing the pile of debris was a challenge in normal conditions, for the pile of loose wood and stones constantly shifted under Taran’s feet.  But climbing the pile while holding onto the Aspects was a nightmare.  He could only steady himself with one hand, while he held his right hand above his head holding onto the multi-colored tendril of Ahura.  Several times he almost fell, only to have Fatimah or another priest steady him before he impaled himself on a jagged beam of wood.  Through the entire climb, the part of Taran’s mind that was not focused on maintaining the shield wondered how Myndehr and the other Tuathan priests had made it over this pile without their horses breaking a leg.

Once over the pile, Taran continued walking up the road without looking behind to see if all the Tuathans were following.  There were others who would see after the civilians; he had to focus on maintaining the shield.  One task at a time.

Fatimah again questioned Taran on his strength, but Taran ignored her.  He still felt more alive than he ever had in his life, more aware of his surroundings.  He could do anything.  He was not going to grow fatigued any time soon.  When Taran did not respond, Fatimah stopped asking.  For now.

He walked by small log homes surrounded by plots of overgrown land.  Stray dogs peered at him from under porches, and some even walked through the shield with wagging tails, sniffing and barking playfully at the Tuathans behind Taran.  With all the Tainted that had attacked the Heiron, Taran was surprised to see any living animals within the vicinity of Fedalan.

The sky ahead of Taran kept its black, angry color, and blue-green lightning flashed between clouds.  The storm still seemed to pace them, staying maybe a half a mile ahead, as if leading them.  Taran’s gaze strayed to the road ahead, hard packed and dry—

Fifty paces ahead, a girl stood in the middle of the road, facing him.  Her hair was black and hung over her face in wet strands, and she wore a tattered white shift.

“Fatimah,” Taran said, “is she one of yours?”

“Who?” Fatimah asked from Taran’s right.

“The girl ahead of us.  Is she one of your people?”

Fatimah was silent, and Taran risked a sideways glance at her.  She stared up the road, her eyes squinting, but not focusing on the girl less than thirty paces in front of them.  The girl had not moved since Taran first spied her, and he could not understand how Fatimah—

And then twenty paces away, just outside the shield’s reach, Taran recognized her.  He stumbled a bit, and then stopped.

It was Mara.

She looked at Taran with pleading eyes.  Blood ran from a wound on her forehead above her hairline, and bloody scratches and dark bruises covered her arms and legs.

“Taran what’s wrong?” Fatimah asked from someplace far away.  “Taran, the shield is faltering!”

“Mara,” he whispered.  But how…?

“Taran!” Fatimah screamed.  “The shield!”

Mara seemed to be crying, for tears left tracks down her dirty face.  Then she turned and ran into the forest.

Taran heard Fatimah begin the shield incantation just as he lowered his hand and released the tendril of Ahura.  The world of the Mundane crashed into him—his reflexes and senses felt muddled and slow, like he was under water.  His movements were like in a dream, his hearing was muffled, and his sight had become blurry and unfocused.

He ignored it.  He charged through the faltering shield and toward the place where Mara had disappeared into the forest.

 

 

The weight of the shield was crushing Fatimah, but she held it up.  The Aspects of Air and Spirit threatened to tear her soul apart, all while she reveled in Ahura’s joyful ecstasy.  Fatimah heard the priests around her begin the shield incantation.

“Do not Wield!” she cried through gritted teeth.  “I cannot hold this for very long and you will be needed.”

The last thing she wanted was her back-up priests unconscious when she inevitably faltered.

Through Aspect-enhanced eyes, Fatimah saw Taran inexplicably disappear into the forest.  How could he have abandoned us? she thought, struggling not to let her dismay break her concentration.  What had he seen to make him run off like that?

She continued walking forward, as fast as she could make her feet go.  She was aware of the panicked cries coming from behind her.  They, too, wondered why the Zervakan had run off into the forest.  What could she tell them?

Fatimah heard Melahara’s voice behind her throwing questions at the priests.

“What happened to Abreau?  Why is Fatimah holding the shield?”

She did not want to break her concentration simply to tell Melahara that she did not know where Taran went.  But one of the priests explained, “He said something about a girl, and then he ran off into the woods over there.”

“What girl?” the Holy Seat asked.

At that moment, the storm that had threatened since they left the Heiron leaped on them like a wolf on a wounded lamb.  Rain deluged the Tuathans and lightning strikes just outside the shield showered them all in dirt, mud, and shards of trees.  The thunder was deafening, yet through it Fatimah heard the screams of her people.  Thankfully, none of the lightning strikes fell within the shield’s perimeter.  Priests on either side of the road struggled to keep people from taking cover in the tree line thirty paces from the road, but several dozen slipped through and ran for the trees.

No! Fatimah had time to think before lightning rained down on top of each running group, leaving behind only blackened craters and showers of dirt and limbs.  That horrible sight kept others from trying the same thing.

“Two Angra trails to the right,” Pomar Aliin shouted from behind Fatimah.

“Do you see the harrowers?” Fatimah asked, keeping her eyes on the road ahead.  I must hold on…

“No, they are in the trees.  There’s another one to the left…near where the Zervakan entered the forest.  That’s three trails.”

Fatimah cast an involuntary glance toward the left, but returned her gaze to the road when she felt a slight weakening in her hold on the shield.

“Do you see the Zervakan?” Melahara asked Pomar, just as a bolt of lightning exploded right on top of the shield.  Fatimah felt the shield bend dangerously inward.  But it did not break.

Fatimah wished she could have held up just as well—she fell to her knees, but managed to keep her hand up and her hold on to Ahura.  The priests around her rushed to pick her up, and she gladly accepted their help.

“Do you need me to take over?” Pomar asked, but Fatimah shook her head.  She had felt like the weight of the shield would crush her when she first took over, but she was getting used to it, and she even thought it felt a little lighter now.

What she worried about was more lightning strikes.  She did not know how long she could hold up the shield if the harrowers decided to concentrate their strikes on it.

Gunfire from the Shadarlak behind her almost made her lose her hold on Ahura again.  “What is happening?” she yelled.

Pomar started walking backward and craned her neck to get a better view over the Tuathans behind her.

“It’s coming from the Compact Speaker’s location.”  Then she gasped and said, “Blessed Ahura…”

“What?” Fatimah asked.  “What’s happening?”

“Tainted,” Pomar said.  “They’re all around us.”

 

 

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 32

“Please, sit,” Savix said to Karak, pointing to two red, cushioned chairs that faced the stunning view of the city and the bay.

Karak stood where he was.  He was tired of the games and would not take another order until he knew what was happening to him.

“Why am I here?  And how did I…get here?”

“Sit down,” Savix repeated, “and I will explain.”

Karak did not hear the reverberating voice that he had with Crane, but he nonetheless found himself moving toward the chairs against his will and sitting down in the right chair.  It was as comfortable as it looked, and the view beyond the balcony was beautiful—

Karak shook his head.  He turned to Savix, who sat in the left chair.  “Why am I here?”

Savix smiled.  “Mr. Crane.”

Crane walked over, his head bowed.  “Yes, my lord.”

“Bring us two cups of cocau, please.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Crane backed away and strode briskly through the arch and down the spiral stairs.  When Karak could no longer hear the clicking of Crane’s boots, Savix turned to Karak.

“Have you ever heard of the ‘Zervakan?’”

“Other than in passing by your lapdog, no.  Should I have?”

“I suppose not,” Savix said.  “Not many living today have heard the term.  Time breeds ignorance, unfortunately.  No matter, I was hoping to avoid some unnecessary explaining, but now I suppose I must educate you.”

“Fine,” Karak said.  “Educate me.”

Savix looked at him with an arched eyebrow.  “Did you talk to Overlord Silek this way?  I will have to educate you on showing respect to your new lord, as well.”

“I serve no lord,” Karak said.  “Not Silek, not you, not anyone.”

Savix smiled, and Karak saw that he had the same unnaturally large number of teeth that Crane had.

“Do you feel that gold chain around your neck?”

Karak’s hand shot up to his neck.  Sure enough, there was a chain necklace that he had not noticed until now.  How did that—?

“How it got there does not matter,” Savix said.  “What matters is that you serve me now.  Everything you do, everything you say, and everything you think is known to me.  Now I can force you to do, say, or think whatever I want, but that takes energy on my part that I’d rather devote to other purposes.  And don’t even think about trying to take off that necklace.”

Karak wanted to rip it off his neck and strangle—

Blinding pain shot through his head, a pain that should have killed him if it were something gentler, like a pick axe through his skull, or a steam trolley on his chest.  The pain spread from his head, down his spine and soon throughout his limbs.  His entire body was engulfed in flames, every inch of skin.  His blood boiled and his organs had turned molten.

And it was not just the physical pain, but it was emotional as well.  Every horrible memory he had suffered throughout his life, every moment that had ever given him anguish, was thrown into the furnace of agony his existence had suddenly become.  From the moment of his birth, to the day he held his mother’s broken body in his arms when he was a boy, to the first time he had killed a man, to Silek’s betrayal.  All of it was focused like an arrow into his heart that threatened to destroy his soul.

The pain suddenly switched off, and Karak realized he was screaming his throat raw.  He stopped screaming, but his heart thumped and his breathing was heavy.  Sweat drenched his hair.  His fingers had dug themselves into the cushions of his chair.  The physical agony was gone, but Karak could remember every moment of it, along with the emotional anguish.

Savix sighed.  “I told you not to think about the necklace.”

For the first time since he was a boy holding his dead mother’s broken body, Karak wept.

“Now to avoid that,” Savix said in a consoling tone, “you cannot think of removing the necklace ever again.  If it ever breaks, or becomes separated from your neck…well, you just felt what happened.  In fact, after what you just experienced, I suspect you will fight to the death to keep anyone from removing it.”

Savix put a hand on Karak’s left hand and gently said, “You are mine.  Accept it, and the pain will never bother you again.  Do you accept me?”

“Yes,” Karak said in a cracking voice, before stray thoughts could enter his mind.  He never wanted that pain again.  He would do anything to avoid it.  Anything.

Savix clapped his hands and said jovially, “Good!  Now then, let us discuss why I have brought you here.”

The King of Mazumdahr stood and went to the double glass doors that led to the balcony.  He opened the doors, and a fresh breeze of sea air came through, helping Karak to forget for a moment the torment raging in his mind.

“Follow me, Mr. Frost,” Savix said without turning around, and stepped out onto the balcony into the sunshine.

Karak stood and followed of his own will.

The sun was bright, the sky blue, and the air warm and fresh.  He closed his eyes, and tilted his face toward the sun.  It had been a long time since he had been outside the city of Calaman, so he had forgotten what fresh air and sun felt like on his face.

“Beautiful, is it not?” Savix asked.  “Of all the kingdoms I have ruled, Mazumdahr is my favorite.”

Karak opened his eyes and stared down at the city below him.  As he suspected, the palace was built on a bluff above the city.  The sun glinted off bronze-colored domes and spires.  Red-tiled roofs of residences and merchant shops marched up the hill toward the palace, ending at the palace gates a half-mile down the steep hill.  Beyond the city, fishing boats and merchant vessels filled the blue waters of the bay.  Karak thought the air looked strange until he realized that it did not have the black tint of coal smoke that Calaman had.  Though the guns and cannon of Mazumdahr’s military kept pace with Calaman, coal and steam technology had yet to filter down to the Mazumdahri people.  Karak wondered if they still had to draw their water from an outdoor well, rather than from an indoor tap as he was used to in Calaman.

“Yes,” Karak said.  “Beautiful.”

“Speaking of beauty,” Savix said, “how do you feel when you look at the rings?”

Karak glanced up at the colored ring and the black ring that ran north to south across the blue sky.  He hadn’t spared them more than a passing glance over the last few days, but he, like any other person, was curious about them when they appeared over a month ago.  Had they caused the storm that ripped through Calaman the day after they appeared?  He had been skeptical then.  Now he wasn’t so sure.

“I sense power in them,” he said.

“Yes,” Savix said, staring up at the rings with eyes that seemed in shadow.  “The rings are power.  They are the power that created this universe and the power that maintains it now.  For the longest time they were absent from the sky.  The people responsible committed an atrocity against nature.  A crime for which they will soon pay.”

Savix sniffed the air.  “Ah, our cocau approaches.”

Crane walked onto the balcony carrying a tray with two cups of steaming liquid that smelled both sweet and bitter.  Savix handed Karak a cup, then took one for himself.  Without saying a word to Crane, Savix turned and continued to stare up at the rings.  Crane retreated into the circular room.  Karak briefly wondered if Crane also wore a necklace, or if he voluntarily served Savix.  He could not imagine anyone voluntarily—

A quick twinge of pain shot through Karak’s skull.  It was nowhere near the level he had experienced before.  Just enough to make Karak turn his thoughts to other matters, like the rings above him.  Yes, concentrate on the rings.

Savix did not seem to notice—or chose to ignore—Karak’s flinch.  “Did you know that the black ring is called Angra?  It is the greatest force for change in the universe.  It challenges life to survive, which in turn makes it strong.  You and I would not be here if Angra had not forced our prehistoric ancestors to use tools to hunt.  Those who didn’t, starved to death, or became prey themselves.  Angra has been the guiding influence in your life, Karak Frost.”

Karak did not speak, nor did he allow himself to contradict Savix.  To do so would invite the pain again.  He simply allowed his mind to open, to listen to Savix’s words.

“Yes,” Savix said, studying Karak as if he were reading a book.  “You are a child of Angra if there ever was one.  You grew up in the Wild Kingdoms, where intrigue and tribal warfare made your people hardy and strong.  When your mother died in your arms—your eight-year-old arms—you were forced to survive on your own.  You stole clothes to keep warm, attacked other street children for the food they scavenged.  When you were fourteen you killed a man because he tried to take the food you stole.”

Karak felt a strange presence in his mind, as if another voice was whispering words he could not understand.  He tried to resist, but a jab of pain made him allow the intrusion.

“Yes,” Savix said, putting a hand up to Karak’s cheek and caressing it gently.  “Angra has taken your pain, your hatred, and focused it.  You are someone who wants what the lords of your homeland always had—wealth and power.  It is what drives you to this day.  You know it will keep you from suffering the same hardships that your mother and your siblings had to suffer.”

Karak’s mouth opened and closed as he stared at Savix.  It was true.  All his life had been a pursuit of that which his family never had.  He came from a family of peasants, the class of people who inevitably suffered the most in the tribal wars of the Wild Kingdoms.  When his mother and siblings were killed before his eyes—he had never known his father, nor had his mother ever spoken of him—Karak realized that there were two classes of people in the world—those who suffer and those who mete out the suffering.  While holding his mother’s bloody body in his arms after a raid from some rival lord whose name he no longer remembered, he had resolved that he would no longer be the one to suffer.

Savix smiled, his multitude of teeth gleaming in the bright sun.  “Angra created you, my friend.  It has made you strong so that you can come to me at this moment, ready to start along your destined path.”

“What path?” Karak asked.

Savix smiled, then turned, put his hands behind his back, and slowly strolled along the balcony.  He started whistling the same tune Crane had whistled in the dungeons.

Karak followed, walking at his side.

 

 

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 31

Taran felt as if he had just shut his eyes when Fatimah gently nudged him awake.  “Taran,” she said.  “It is time to leave.”

Taran groaned, then sat up on the small bed.  The bed in the empty priest apartment was more of a cot, which explained Taran’s sore back after only four hours of sleeping on it.  At least he had not dreamed.

“You told me to wake you in four hours,” Fatimah said.

“I know,” Taran said, rubbing his sleep-crusted eyes.  “I’ve just always been a grumpy riser.  You wouldn’t happen to have coffee in this place?”

Fatimah shook her head.  “We have tea.  Though very little is left.”

Taran stood.  “Nevermind.  I’ll be fine.”

As they walked through the arches on their way to the Heiron’s first level, Taran and Fatimah had to weave their way through a line of young Acolytes carrying baskets full of books, parchments, and artifacts from the library.  Anything that could be carried on the backs of the priests was leaving the Heiron.

But not all of the Tuathan treasure was to come with the refugees.  Some artifacts, like the Window or the Crucible, were simply too heavy to carry in the Tuathan dash to the sea coast.  It was one of the reasons Ollis Gray and a token group of priests and Heshmen had chosen to stay behind.  Fatimah had explained to Taran before his nap that Gray also wanted to find the isolated pockets of Tuathans still living throughout the Beldamark who could not flee, or who simply wanted to stay.  Taran respected Gray’s courage in choosing to stay in a land overrun with harrowers and Tainted, but knew his fear of the world outside the Beldamark was part of the decision.  Taran could hardly blame the man—he suspected most Pathist leaders would choose to stay in the Compact if it were overrun by Mazumdahri than to live in relative peace among the Tuathans, where magic was a part of daily life.

If all of the pressure riding on Taran’s shoulders was not unbearable before, it became so now as he entered the large circular room on the Heiron’s first level.  He saw the bedraggled and hollow faces of all the Tuathans gathered there.  As he walked among them, many old women grabbed his hand and mumbled, “Ahura bless you,” while old men gave him quiet, hopeful stares.  Even the children were subdued and grim while standing or sitting next to their parents or grandparents.  Everyone he saw wore as many of their buckskin and woolen clothes as they could fit on their bodies, and stored their remaining possessions in leather packs at their feet.  Most packs overflowed with more clothes, food, and treasured trinkets.  Some families even had skinny dogs beside them, some sitting up and staring at their masters expectantly, while others simply lay on their stomachs with their heads on their paws.

And the smell of all those unwashed bodies in such a close space was as overwhelming to Taran as their stares.  Taran grew up in a modern, Compact city where bathing was a daily ritual for most people.  Even the odors coming from his own body were enough to make him grimace.

All of these people expected Taran to see them safely through the Beldamark and beyond.  Taran wanted to shout at them that their faith in him was misplaced, that he was no more talented at Wielding than he was with a saber or revolver.  But he would not.  If Taran’s presence gave them hope, better they had some hope to cling to.  Even if it was a false hope.

The Tuathans had organized themselves into groups of twenty or so.  A scarlet-sashed priest shouted out instructions to each group, telling them the route they were to take to the sea and what to do while marching there.  Even the priests tended to give him sideways glances as they spoke to their groups, and some stopped speaking altogether to watch him pass or to bow their heads.  He tried returning their respectful bows, but was soon feeling dizzy from all the bowing.  He simply gave them quick nods.

“Dr. Abraeu,” said a voice nearby.

Taran would have missed Edoss if the Speaker—or former Speaker—had not been accompanied by four stone-faced Shadarlak in their green tri-corner hats.  The top of Edoss’s head barely made it to the shoulders of his bodyguards.

“Are you ready for this, Doctor?” Edoss asked.

“What if I said no?”

The Speaker smiled.  “I know the feeling.  Just concentrate on one task at a time.  Before you know it, you’ll be done.”

“You’re the second person who’s told me that today,” Taran said, glancing at Fatimah beside him.

“Then there must be wisdom in it,” Edoss said.  He extended his hand, and Taran shook it.

“I don’t know if you are what they say you are,” Edoss said, “but I know you have courage in you.  I can see it.  Whatever happens today, do not quit.”

Taran nodded, felt at least that much was true.  Whatever he did today, he would not quit.  If he could not get through this, he would never see Mara or Ahdera again.  It was that simple.  If he was going to die, he was going to die trying to get home.

Taran held his head a little higher.  “Thank you, Mr. Speaker.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Lee Cursh said, approaching them from where he had been talking with Melahara.  “The Holy Seat is waiting for us.”

Taran glanced at Melahara, who stood near the Heiron entrance where hundreds more Tuathans talked quietly to each other.  Edoss gave Taran a reassuring pat on the arm, then followed Cursh toward Melahara, where a dozen Shadarlak surrounded them.

Taran and Fatimah approached the great doors once again, and had to wait while Ollis, Eblin, and the other Circle members made their way through the Tuathans toward Melahara and Edoss.  Taran saw them trying to give the people reassuring smiles and words, while he knew they struggled to stay calm themselves.

And then he suddenly wondered how he knew that each Circle member was a roiling sea of fear and anxiety.  The situation obviously called for such emotions, but they were not apparent on the faces of the Tuathan leaders.  Did Wielding Ahura increase his empathy toward others?  It was just one more symptom of Wielding that Taran would not have to endure two days from now.  Whatever the outcome.

When the Master Circle had reached Melahara, Taran saw Gray say a few words to Melahara and Eblin.  Taran had watched Gray argue with the two women many times, but now he saw worry on all three faces.  Gray quickly embraced each woman, and then retreated into the crowd.  Melahara looked at Taran, and then gave him a slow nod.

Taran turned to the four Shadarlak at the door and ordered them to open it.  Ten Shadarlak took up positions in front of Taran and the Tuathans, their revolvers drawn and aimed at the doors.  The Shadarlak at the door turned the cranks that unbarred the doors, and then swung the doors open.  Through the lowered portcullis, the sky was dark, though the sun had an hour to go before it set.  Roiling black clouds formed ominously above the town and the hills to the east, the direction in which they were about to travel.  The Tuathans behind Taran began to murmur.

“They know we are coming,” Fatimah breathed next to Taran.

“It’s just a storm,” Taran said.  He scanned the horizon around the town.  “I see no Angra trails.”

“Even if it is the harrowers,” Melahara said, “it matters not.  We leave today.”

Taran called out to the gate keepers above the portcullis, and they began cranking their gears.  The portcullis creaked up into the ceiling.  When the cranking stopped, all was silent.  Not a sound came from the town, nor a whisper of wind.  Even the murmurs from the hundreds of people behind Taran were gone.

Captain Laesh, standing in front of Taran, barked an order.  The other nine Shadarlak—including the men who had opened the door—jogged outside the gate and took up positions in a semicircle in front of the door.  One by one, they all held up a closed fist, giving Taran the all-clear sign.

Taran clenched his teeth and walked out the door, beneath the portcullis, and into the center of the Shadarlak semicircle.  Fatimah walked close behind him, followed by the six other priests who would maintain the shield from him once his strength gave out.  The air outside was fresh, and the smell of rain hung over him.  It gave Taran a sense of well-being, which he welcomed at the moment.  He would need all the calm and peace he could muster for Wielding the shield.

He raised his right hand into the air and repeated the incantation the priests accompanying General Myndehr had used yesterday, while concentrating on the times he loved the most, and the times he felt the most loved.

“‘The Shield of Spirit, protect us.  May no obstacle stand before us…’”

It was getting easier now to empty his mind and concentrate on the incantations and his memories.  All of his doubts and anxieties washed away as if he had turned off a ringing wiretype.  When the peace washed over him, he felt Ahura touch him, and then he searched the swirling colors for the Aspects of Spirit and Air that would Wield the shield around him and the hundreds of Tuatha that would follow.  He found all the Spirit and Air he could gather, molded them together, infused them with all the desperation of their situation—

His eyes shot open, and he saw the bubble of blue light expand silently from his outstretched hand.  It engulfed the semicircle of Shadarlak in front of him, and continued onward, taking in the entire lower half of the Heiron and almost the entire field surrounding the great tower.

Taran had never felt this much joy.  Peace surged through him.  When someone from behind nudged him, he almost ignored it.  He did not want to let anything distract him from Ahura’s love coursing through his body and soul.  He felt the nudge again, this time accompanied by a woman’s voice.

“Move forward, Taran.”

This time a small bit of anger crept into him, and he felt the shield weaken.  He turned to the source of the voice, and saw Fatimah watching him.  He suddenly remembered why he was Wielding this shield, and what he was supposed to do.

The shield of Spirit and Air now encompassed the entire green field around the Heiron, enough to safely contain all of the Tuathans huddled inside.  He wanted nothing more than to cling to the Aspects forever.  But thoughts of Mara entered his mind, bringing him back to the whole reason why he was here.  He refocused his thoughts now on maintaining the shield.  Maintenance took far less Wielding of the Aspects, so Taran felt most of the peace and joy flooding through him dissipate.  It was so hard to let go, but he consoled himself with the fact that he still held on to much more of the Aspects than any Tuathan could.

Taran walked forward, and the Shadarlak in front of him moved out of his way.  All of them continued to scan the town and the surrounding hills for signs of Tainted.  But they also glanced his way once or twice, their expressions just as wary of him as they were when they searched for harrowers.  Where the Tuathans saw a savior, the Shadarlak saw the refutation of all that they had been brought up to believe.  Taran could not blame them for their fear.

As he walked down the Heiron’s steps, the Shadarlak took up marching positions around him, surrounding him in a square as their mates were doing around Dylan Edoss.

Taran saw with satisfaction that the shield moved ahead of him with each step.  He did not have to look behind him to know that the Tuathans were filing out of the Heiron, for he could hear their hearts beating.  Wielding the Aspects not only filled him with addictive joy, but also enhanced all five of his normal senses.

“How do you feel?” Fatimah asked from beside him.

He smiled.  “Like I’m alive for the first time in my life.  Does that make sense?”

“Yes,” she said wistfully.  “But be sure you pay attention to your fatigue.  If you fall over from exhaustion before one of us can take over the shield—”

“I know what will happen.  I won’t let the shield fall.”

He knew what to look for: blurred vision, head pains, and an uncontrollable desire to sleep.  Essentially all the signs of normal exhaustion.  But while normal exhaustion would be cured after a good night’s sleep, true Wielding fatigue might mean he never woke up.

Taran wondered how he could let go of the Aspects after experiencing this joy, a thought he had each time he Wielded.  Would he have the strength to know when he had had enough?  Would he have to fall unconscious to give up the power coursing through him?  In the short amount of time he had known how to Wield, he had not had the opportunity to test his limits.  How long could he last Wielding this much of the Aspects?

Right now he felt like he could strengthen the shield to contain the entire Beldamark.  But the priests around him could barely maintain the size of the shield as it was, much less a shield hundreds of miles in diameter.  He forced himself to keep it to the size they needed.  And nothing more.

At the bottom of the stairs, Taran stopped and asked Fatimah, “Is everyone inside the shield?”

He did not want to turn around and check for himself, for he did not want to see anything that would break his concentration on the road in front of him.

“Yes,” she said, craning her neck to see above the priests next to them.  “With room to spare.”

Taran nodded, and then started up the road through the abandoned and ruined town.  The road was deserted, unlike two nights ago when it churned with misshapen Tainted and Angra tendrils.  In the sky, black clouds continued to creep toward them, and Taran saw green lightning flash within them.  A peal of thunder soon followed, and Taran knew that rain was going to deluge them at any moment.  The shield would not protect the people from the rain, so it was going to be a miserable hike to the coast.

He did not know if it was the Aspects surging through him that gave him confidence, but he stepped onto Fedalan’s main street with steady legs and a courage he knew was not his own.

 

 

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 30

Fear kept Karak from reaching out and breaking Crane’s neck while the witchman led him through dark twisting corridors in whatever dungeon Karak was a prisoner.  Karak feared Crane might not die, and he feared what Crane might do to him if he failed.  But Karak’s fear enraged him even more.  Not only was he angry that he was a prisoner, but that the only thing keeping him from doing something about it was…himself.

“What is this place?” Karak asked in a strained voice.  He wanted to do anything to get his mind off his self-loathing, and if that meant talking to Crane, so be it.

“This is my house,” Crane said, glancing back at him with a gruesome smile.  Karak could not help but stare at all those teeth each time Crane smiled.  Maybe that was why Crane smiled so much.

“More precisely, the catacombs beneath my house.  Do you like it?”

“It’s dark,” Karak said.

Crane laughed.  “Yes, I suppose it is.  Sort of cliché of me, yes?  The evil demon with his own personal underworld.”

“The thought occurred to me.”

Crane clicked his tongue as his black, gnarled cane tapped the stone floor with each step.  “You must realize, Mr. Frost, that appearances are not always what they seem.  You believe that I am evil, but I can assure you I work for the greater good of all.  Only through my patron’s wisdom can the world renew itself into something stronger and fitter to survive, to thrive even.”

Crane turned his head to Karak again and grinned.  “Ah, but I am getting ahead of myself.  Where is the fun if I tell you everything now?  If you are like me, it will take a…demonstration to make you a believer.”

Crane continued on, whistling a strange tune that Karak had never heard.

They made several turns in the dank, dark corridors, and Karak began to wonder if Crane was lost, or if he was going in circles to confuse Karak.  Every corridor looked the same.  All were lit by torches that Karak thought would take an army of servants to maintain.  All were made of sharp red bricks laid in such careless, haphazard rows that Karak was amazed the corridors had not caved in.  They would occasionally pass iron-banded wooden doors with small, barred windows in the center.  Karak glanced into each one, but saw only darkness.  In one, he heard what sounded like a giggling child, and it made the hairs on his arms stand.  In another, he heard someone retch, and then a sickening splatter.

“Where are we going?” Karak asked, more to mask the terrible moaning he heard from a passing door than out of curiosity.

“You will see when we get there,” Crane said, then continued whistling.  But two steps later, he stopped in front of an iron-banded door similar to the dozen or so they had passed.  “Ah, here we are.”

Karak peered through the barred window, but just as in all the others, he saw only darkness.  At least there were no horrid sounds or foul smells coming from this one.  Crane produced a blackened key from his pocket, inserted it into the lock, then pushed open the door.

For a moment, Karak wondered if this was where Crane was going to put him, that he would end up like the other sorry souls behind the previous doors, spending the rest of his life retching and giggling in the dark.

But Karak’s dread turned to awe in an instant.  Through the door, Karak saw what could only be described as the sun lit suite of a king.  Crane stopped a few steps from the door, turned, and said, “Do not dally, Mr. Frost.  My patron hates waiting.”

Crane waited for Karak to take his halting steps into the room, then pushed the door closed with a heavy slam.  Karak turned and saw that there was no door behind him.  It was a seamless white plaster wall with a small portrait of a grim-faced woman standing on the deck of a ship with stormy seas behind her.  Her eyes seemed to stare directly at Karak, and he had to look away for fear she might blink at him.  After the supernaturalist events of the last few days, he did not want to take that risk.

Crane led Karak past a large bed that could have comfortably held five.  The bed was made with white silk covers and matching pillows.  On the white plaster walls were paintings of various sizes showing sceneries, battles, and important looking nobles affecting proud poses.  Tables filled with neat, organized piles of books and parchments stood throughout the room, and cushioned chairs were arranged next to large, crystal reading lamps.

Beyond the bed was a balcony with open, double-glass doors.  Sunlight poured through the window, accompanied by fresh salty air mingling with the familiar odors of a large city—horses, cooking food, and sweaty bodies.  Karak went to the balcony and took in a breathtaking view of a large city below a cloudless sky.  Bright blue water lay beyond it.  The palace in which Karak stood sat upon a bluff overlooking a city on the coast of a sea.

“Mr. Frost,” Crane said, sounding annoyed.  He stood at the door to the large bedroom, his hand on the knob.  “We have an appointment to keep…”

Karak went to Crane, who opened the door and beckoned him through.  The hall they entered was long and decorated just as lavishly as the bedroom.  Finely woven carpets ran up and down the hall, and windows along the left side showed a beautiful garden filled with flowers of all colors and sizes.  The entire garden was surrounded by the walls of a three-story palace.  Karak saw six men wearing white shirts and tanned breeches stooped over the garden pulling weeds and planting new flowers.  A tall fountain dominated the center of the garden, where a bronze sculpture of a bearded man stood on a pedestal in the center.  Water spouted from mouths of small, stone children ringing the pedestal.  The man rested his left hand on the hilt of his sword at his side, while his right hand was raised above his head, as if reaching for something.  The man looked vaguely familiar, but Karak could not place him at the moment.

As they walked down the hall, Crane resumed whistling the same tune he had in the dark corridors.  Several servants in gold livery with black trim around the edges lowered their heads as Crane walked by.  The servants kept their heads lowered until Crane had passed, then continued on with their tasks when Crane was a dozen paces away.  Karak watched some of them, but was only rewarded with a glance from one brown-haired girl.  When she saw him looking at her, she turned away and quickly entered a nearby room.

Crane stopped at the entry that led to a spiral stone staircase that wound its way upward.  Two men wearing gleaming chain mail and holding muskets with polished bayonets stood on either side of the arch, staring straight ahead.  Karak noticed each one tense as Crane walked by, but they did not stop him or Karak from ascending the stairs.

“I hope all that time sitting on your ass has not made your legs weak,” Crane said.  “It is a rather long climb.”

And Crane did not exaggerate.  Round and round they climbed, higher and higher.  There were small windows placed periodically along the way up, and Karak could judge their height with a glance at the city far below.  By the time they reached a platform at the top, Karak’s heart was pounding and he felt a fine sheen of sweat on his brow.  He noted with dismay, however, that Crane was not even breathing heavily.

They passed through an open arch and into a circular room that was surrounded on all sides by windows.  In front of Karak were glass, double doors that led to a covered balcony that ringed the entire outer wall of the room.  He recognized the view of the bay in front of him, but to his left lay forested mountains stretching off into the distance, while to his right was a flat plain of green grass dotted with tiny farms and villages to the horizon.

Shelves filled with books and parchments lined the interior of the room below the windows.  Several tables held stacks of maps, parchments, open books, and loose letters, all looking much more disorganized than the bedroom below, as if no servants were allowed to ascend the stairs to clean up.

“Ah,” said a voice behind Karak.  He turned to see a man rise from a mahogany desk set in an alcove in the walls.  He had  a dark red beard that was neatly trimmed and hardly more than stubble.  The same colored hair was tied back in a ponytail.  He wore a white shirt with a gold coat, black breeches, and gleaming black boots.  He walked from behind his desk and strode toward Karak and Crane with a friendly smile.

Crane fell to his knees and touched his forehead to the ground before the man.  “My lord,” Crane said in an awed whisper.  Karak was surprised to hear the same fear in Crane that Karak had seen in the eyes of the servants below.

“Rise, my friend,” the man said with good-natured impatience.  Crane rose to his feet, but kept his head lowered and his gaze on the floor.

“You are going to make our new friend here think I am some tyrant who demands constant prostrations from his servants,” the man said.  He had a thick accent that brought Karak the sudden, crashing realization of where he was and the identity of the man he faced.  It was the same man whose sculpture sat atop the fountain in the garden below.

The King of Mazumdahr winked at Karak and said, “Well, maybe from some of them.”

He extended his hand to Karak, and Karak took the King’s icy, but firm grip into his own.

“I am Savix,” he said.  “And I am so pleased to finally meet you, Mr. Frost.”

 

 

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

 

Chapter 29

Taran watched dawn break to begin the second day of the harrower siege on the Heiron.  He sat on a stone bench on a balcony at the tower’s highest level, watching the cloudy sky turn purple, then gray, and then eventually a brighter shade of gray.  Taran could not remember the last time he had seen the sun.  He was beginning to wonder if the sun ever shown in the Beldamark.

Thankfully, the stone railings blocked his view of the ruined town below and its destruction by the harrowers.

He yawned, a reminder that he had not slept in almost two days.  At least not a normal night’s sleep.  He did not count the hour he spent unconscious after he Wielded the first time.  The Tuatha priests, especially Eblin and the doctor, ordered him to sleep several hours ago after spending almost the whole day drilling him relentlessly on the basics of Wielding.  But sleep was impossible for him.  Especially when all he did was stare at the ceiling in the empty priest apartment they gave him and think about what they wanted him to do over the next few days.  His life had become the worst kind of dream—his deepest desire twisted into a nightmare.  For six years he dreamed of finding the Mystics, and then bringing them back home to make Mara well again.  To save her from the Blood and the Mercy.

Instead, the Mystics were telling him he was some kind of prophesied savior destined to help them defeat their enemies.  The thought of him leading people in battle scared him witless, never mind using the Wielding ways of the Tuatha.

The Wielding ways….

Taran wrapped the fur lined cloak around him tighter.  How could it be that he could Wield like the Tuatha?  In fact, Wield in ways that no other Tuatha could?  Did that mean his parents were really his parents?  If not, where did he come from?

It was all so overwhelming that he wanted to run off into the forests—the Tainted be damned—when he dwelled on it too long.

Instead, he tried to turn his mind back to today’s tasks.

Taran was so lost in thought that he did not hear Fatimah approach until she stood next to him.  She put her hands on the stone balcony and stared at where the sun would be if the clouds were not so thick.

“The sunrise is usually quite beautiful from up here,” she said.  “Winters get a bit gloomy in the Beldamark.  I shall enjoy the warmer climate of the Compact.”

“If we survive that long,” Taran muttered.

“We will.  For you are the—”

“Don’t say it.  For the last twenty-four hours I’ve had you and your people look at me with these worshipful expressions.  I’m just a man.  I’m no ‘chosen one.’”

“You are wrong,” she said.  “All the signs are there, all the prophecies have been fulfilled in you.  You are the Zervakan.  And you had better accept it if you want to see your daughter again.”

Taran pointed a finger at Fatimah.  “Don’t you use my daughter like that.  If you say something like that again, I’ll let you all rot.  Do you understand me?”

Fatimah flinched away from Taran’s anger, and he instantly regretted his words.  He needed her guidance more than ever right now, especially in the hours and days to come.

Fatimah wrapped her cloak tighter around her body, held her chin up, and said, “I apologize for my words regarding your daughter.  It was wrong of me.  But I do not apologize for what I said before them.  For most people down there, you are the only thing giving them a small dose of hope.”

Taran sighed.

“Do not think too long on the meaning of it all,” Fatimah said, her face softening.  “Only think about what you must do.  Concentrate only on the task before you, not the many yet to come.”

Taran grinned.  “You sound like a Pathist Teacher.”

She grimaced, and then put a hand on his arm.  “You are more powerful than any Tuatha alive.  You do not even suffer from the fatigue anymore after you Wield, and you have only been Wielding for a day.  I have been Wielding for a month and I still want to sleep for hours afterwards.”

After he had awakened from his first Wielding attempt, Eblin had shown him how to Wield several Aspects that would come in handy for their escape plans.  Each made him weary afterwards, but he did not fall unconscious.  In fact he felt the same euphoria like the first time.  He enjoyed Wielding, enjoyed it to the point where it was all he wanted to do.

And that scared him.  He was a father, a husband, a son…and all of those roles meant nothing to him when he was Wielding.  He felt like he could abandon his family if he had to choose between them and giving up Wielding.  Taran shuddered, and buried that thought.  Again.

“Come,” Fatimah said.  “Melahara and Eblin wanted to speak with you before it begins.”

An involuntary surge of elation swept through him when he realized it was almost time to Wield again, but he stamped it down.  This is only to save lives.  Once I return home, I will never Wield again.

They left the balcony, walked through an empty hallway without doors, and entered the circular room at the center of every floor in the Heiron.  There were no decorations or furniture on this level, other than the stone benches on the balcony.  Fatimah had told him this level was meant for meditation and reflection.  Decorations and comfortable furniture would only distract the priests who came up here.

They passed through the arches that led to the Heiron’s lower levels, walking in circles through each floor’s arch until they arrived at the large, circular room on the Heiron’s first floor.  When they exited the final arch, Taran saw that dozens of female priests were gathered in the room, along with bearded Heshmen holding spears and bows with quivers strapped to their fur-cloaked backs.  All of them looked at Taran with mixtures of awe and fear.  The conversation seemed to stop when he and Fatimah entered the room and walked among them to where Melahara, Ollis, Eblin, several Tuathan priests, and Edoss were standing near the large barred doors.  Taran felt their eyes following him, and he wanted to shout that he was not their savior…but he could not deny that a part of him enjoyed the attention.  After six years of being looked on with pity and ridicule, he was finally something he had never been in his life.  A hero.

Melahara, Ollis, Eblin, and the Tuathans near the door watched him approach with the same mixture of emotions as the people in the main hall.  Edoss, Cursh, and Myndehr looked at Taran with more doubt than anything else.  They seemed to ease his anxiety.  It comforted him to know that there were some people who still saw him as a man.

Eblin bowed her head to him.  “We decided to add two more priests to your circle, just as a precaution.  This is Pomar Aliin”—a thin, red-haired woman a few years older than Fatimah—“and Rosen Lator”—also a thin woman, but with gray in her hair and laugh lines around her eyes—“who were two of my brightest students, once.”

Both women smiled at Eblin, then turned to Taran and bowed their heads.  Taran was growing impatient with all the bowing, but he said nothing.  He returned their bows with as much reverence as he could muster.  At the moment, it was not much.

Both priests joined the six other priests with which he had practiced earlier.  All six stared at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to say something inspiring.  Along with his reverence, inspiring words were escaping him at the moment.

General Myndehr, her uniform as crisp and clean as the day Taran saw her step on the train in Calaman, said to Taran, “My lookouts have reported these Tainted things have retreated from the entire city.  There’s been no movement among the city for over three hours.”

Taran stared at the barred doors a few paces in front of him.

Myndehr glanced from Taran to Edoss.  “The Tainted have left open the main road leading out of the city.  They want you to leave.  You will be ambushed.”

“If everyone does what they’re supposed to, we should be fine,” Taran said, slowly wiping his sweaty palms on the sides of his coat.

“Regardless,” Melahara said, “we must leave today.  Our stores of food and water are dwindling fast.  If we do not leave now, we will not have enough to see us out of the Beldamark.”

Myndehr glared at Melahara.  “I never said you shouldn’t leave.  I’m just saying you’d better keep your minds open to the enemy’s plans.”

“Thank you, General,” Edoss said.  “We will proceed with caution.”

Myndehr frowned, then nodded to Edoss and walked over to confer with her men, who were checking their revolvers and fastening their saber scabbards.

When Taran turned his attention to the large, barred doors again, Melahara, Fatimah, and the other priests came and stood beside him.

“Are you ready?” Melahara asked.

Taran inhaled, and then nodded.  He found General Myndehr’s eyes.  She stood near the front of the doors among her Shadarlak.

“Open it,” he said.

Myndehr ordered the Shadarlak at the doors to open them.  Two Shadarlak were stationed on each side of the door, and each team began to turn the cranks that withdrew into the wall the large, iron bars that hung in massive slots across the doors.  The bars retreated into the walls with the sound of metal grinding on stone.  Once the doors were free, two more Shadarlak pushed the doors open.  Through the lowered portcullis, Taran caught today’s first glimpse of the ground surrounding the Heiron.

The meager dawn light able to fight its way through the clouds illuminated a trampled and torn field that was once well-trimmed and green.  The Shadarlak rushed toward the portcullis, revolvers and sabers drawn, and poked their heads through the bars and around the corners.  All four turned back to Myndehr and declared the way clear.

Myndehr turned to the arrow slits in the walls next to her to shout at the men in the hidden hallway.  “Raise the portcullis.”

The old gate rose with the cranking and creaking of the gears.  The portcullis rose steadily into the ceiling, and the way to the fields beyond was at last open.  Myndehr turned to Taran, gave him a quick appraising look, and then grinned.

“See you in Markwatch, Doctor.”

Three Shadarlak led four saddled horses through the dozens of Tuathans crowding the gate.  Three were ridden by scarlet-sashed Tuathan priests.  Myndehr mounted the fourth horse.  One of the priests guided her horse forward to the edge of the Heiron’s stone steps.  She then raised her right hand above her head, closed her eyes, and began the incantation in ancient Tuathan that Taran had practiced so much over the last twenty-four hours.

“‘The Shield of Spirit, protect us.  May no obstacle stand before us.’”

She said this several times, whispering at first, until she spoke the words with forceful conviction.  A tendril of light spiraled down from the swirling colors of Ahura and touched the priest’s outstretched right hand.  A bubble of bluish light expanded to encompass the priest, Myndehr, and the other three Tuathans.  Once the shield was in place, all four rode out of the Heiron’s entrance and down the steps toward the main road that led through the center of Fedalan.  Myndehr rode with her back straight, but her head swiveled about looking for threats from all quarters.

Taran and several more priests raised their hands, and said the same incantation, ready to call on Ahura if Myndehr and the priests should suddenly come under attack.  Taran knew that scouts in the upper levels of the Heiron watched their General with eyescopes, along with the surrounding buildings, waiting to blow the whistles hanging from their necks if they should spy any attacks.

Once Myndehr and the priests had descended the Heiron’s steps and were on the road, they spurred their horses into a quick jog.  Taran watched them ride up the road until they took a turn to the left and disappeared over the hill a mile outside of the town.

“Ahura go with you,” Fatimah whispered from Taran’s side as she, too, watched the riders disappear over the hill.  She and the other priests lowered their hands and retreated toward the interior of the Heiron.  Taran stayed a few moments, continuing to watch the tendril of Ahura get farther and farther away.

There had been no movement anywhere in the town, nor had Taran noticed any black tendrils from Angra.  A part of him wondered if that meant the harrowers had abandoned the siege, had decided to take mercy on the beleaguered Tuathans, but that seemed unlikely.  The harrowers had not gone through the trouble of creating hundreds of Tainted simply to give up after a two-day siege.  All the harrowers knew how to do was destroy.  There was no mercy in their twisted hearts.

The four Shadarlak who had opened the door, quickly shut it once Myndehr was out of sight.  They replaced the bars, as Taran heard the portcullis creak shut.

Four more hours, Taran thought.  Then it’s our turn.

Myndehr estimated it would take her—at the most—four hours to reach Markwatch by pushing their horses to the point of collapse.  And what would have been a ninety-mile journey would be cut to forty miles by traveling through the Guardian arches.  Another few hours to gain Lord Demeg’s approval of the plan, and another six to implement it.  They all knew that five hundred men, women, and children walking the ten miles to the sea coast would be a plump target for the harrowers.  But not as plump of a target as five hundred men, women, and children walking the forty miles to Markwatch.

So in four hours, the Tuathans would leave the safety of the Heiron and march the ten miles to the coast.  If all went according to plan, the Turician ships would be waiting there to pick them up.  With any luck—and the will of Ahura, as the Tuathans would say—the Tuathan people would be relatively safe in Turicia in three days.

Until the next Fomorian attack, Taran thought grimly.

Taran suddenly felt very tired, the previous thirty-six hours without sleep catching up to him.  With Myndehr gone and the potential for a battle averted for the moment, Taran retreated to the interior of the Heiron, ignoring all the stares and whispers as he passed through the Tuathan crowds.  He hoped he would stay awake long enough to reach the empty priest apartment.