Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 27

Taran did not even want to open his eyes, for that would take energy he did not have.  It was a struggle to breathe.  His heart groaned with the effort of pumping blood through his body.  Taran wondered if he was dead.

But the voices around him were familiar.  Fatimah, Melahara, even Dylan Edoss.  If he was dead, then so were they.  Memories suddenly came back in a torrent—Mara, the journey to the Beldamark, finding the Tuatha, the harrower attack.

His attempt to Wield.

Taran focused his entire will to simply open his eyes.  They fluttered open, but the faces above him were blurred.  After a moment, he focused and saw Melahara talking quietly with Fatimah—who still had wet hair—on the right side of his bed.  He moved his gaze around the room.  He was in a Tuathan hospital, for there were shelves full of bottles with strangely colored liquids, powders, and even preserved organs.  A Tuathan priest with gray-tinged, rusty hair stood at a table crushing something in a small clay bowl.  Behind her, Dylan Edoss and Ollis Gray were arguing about something, for Edoss glared up at the tall Gray who was pointing down at Edoss.  General Myndehr stood to the side, watching Gray with her hand resting on the pommel of her saber.

“Taran,” Fatimah said.

With Fatimah’s exclamation, Edoss and Gray stopped arguing and stared at him with worry and confusion.  Myndehr’s gaze wandered from Taran to Gray, her hand still near her saber.  Melahara could not have been more expressionless.

Taran tried to speak, but his voice came out cracked and weak.  He managed to whisper, “What…happened?”

Fatimah grinned.  “You Wielded enough Fire to burn down the library.”  She grabbed her soaked woolen cloak.  “And then enough Water to put it out.”

Taran shifted his eyes to Melahara and Gray.  Fatimah shook her head and said, “I could hardly keep it secret after what happened.”

Melahara leaned forward, regarding him suspiciously.  “How long have you known how to Wield the Aspects of Ahura, Taran Abraeu?”

“Never,” Taran croaked.  “I’ve never Wielded before.”

“I find that hard to believe.  Ahura touched you with a tendril that was almost as bright as Ahura itself.  Nobody in the Beldamark is that strong yet.  Nobody.”

Taran tried to prop himself on one elbow.  He felt his strength coming back quickly now, and the effort to rise was less than the effort to open his eyes.

He said with a stronger voice, “I’m not lying.  I have never Wielded before tonight.”

Ollis Gray said under his breath, “Zervakan.”

Taran looked at the Worldly Seat, who stared at Taran with a mixture of fear and hope.  It made Taran pause, for in the brief time he had known Ollis, the man had never shown hope.

Taran glanced at Fatimah.  The Zervakan was the being she had told him about just before the harrower attack on Fedalan began.  He did not say anything, though, not wanting to make things hard on her for telling him something she was not supposed to.

Edoss said to Taran, “Isn’t that what the madman in Doare was yelling at us?”

Gray gave Melahara a frightened look, but Melahara continued to stare down at Taran with the same blank face.  She swallowed once, then said, “It is a prophecy.  When the Barrier went up, the Holy Seat at the time foretold a being who would come if the Barrier should fall.  That being would aid us in our fight against the resurgent Fomorians.  That being was to be called the Zervakan, which, translated loosely into Recindian, means the ‘bringer of balance.’”

“That sounds like a good thing,” Edoss said, looking from Melahara to Gray.

“It is not,” Eblin said as she hobbled into the room with the support of her walking staff.  “The prophecy says the Zervakan will indeed help us defeat the Fomorians.  But in so doing, he—or she—will cause much suffering once the fight is done.”

Gray said in a whispered voice, “‘On that day when night returns, the Zervakan will heal, and all will have hope.  On that day when light prevails, the Zervakan will raze.  And all will despair.’”

Taran swung his feet over the side of the small bed and stood on shaky legs.  He steadied himself against the cool stone wall at the head of the bed, then faced the people in the room.  All of the Tuatha stared at him as if he were a ghost.

Fatimah said, “You should not have this much strength so soon, especially after how much you Wielded….”

The hospital priest rushed over to Taran with the mixture she had been making and said in Tuathan, “Drink this, young man.”

Taran took the small porcelain cup and sniffed the milky liquid.  It smelled like cinnamon.

“What is this?” he asked.

She smiled.  “It is something I have been working on to alleviate the Wielding fatigue.  Although you do not seem to need it as much as others I have tended.”

Taran sipped the mixture, decided it did not taste too bad, then drank the rest in two gulps.  He handed the cup back to the smiling priest, who watched him for the mixture’s effect.  Taran did feel a bit more energetic than he had a moment ago.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“Good,” Taran said, which did not adequately describe the well-being he felt at the moment.  With all the people in the room staring at him, he should have felt like a cornered lab mouse.  But not even their strange prophecies and fearful expressions could dampen his suddenly high spirits.

“Who were your parents?” Melahara asked Taran.  “Where did they come from?”

“My mother Jajeh is Levakan and my father Tobias is Gahallian,” Taran said.  “My father’s family can be traced back over twenty generations, same with my mother’s.  Like I told Fatimah, neither of them are Tuathan.”

Eblin chuckled.  “Twenty generations is only four hundred years or so.  Not all Tuathan retreated to the Beldamark when the Barrier went up a thousand years ago….”

“No,” Melahara said.  “With the power he Wielded, he has to be the offspring of two pureblood Tuathans.  Both of his parents must be Tuathan.”

“I can assure you they are not,” Taran said.

Edoss said, “The Abraeu family has been a part of Gahallian and Compact history for hundreds of years.  And Jajeh’s family is descended from Levakan nobility.”

Melahara stared intently at Taran.  “If Tobias and Jajeh Abraeu are not Tuathan, then they are not your real parents.  There are ancient records of Tuathans who left the fold to marry Mundanes.  But their offspring were unable to Wield and were sterile.”

Taran had enough.  “This is pointless.  My parents are Tobias and Jajeh Abraeu.  They are not Tuathan.  I have phototypes of them with me in all stages of my life.  Our family and friends have told me stories of what it was like for my mother when she was pregnant with me.”  He said to Melahara, “I am not Tuathan.”

She smiled sadly and said, “The fact you can Wield Ahura says you are.”

“Or he is the Zervakan,” Gray said.  “The prophecies never say the Zervakan has to be Tuathan or Fomorian.”

Melahara waved her hand dismissively.  “The prophecies say a lot of things, many contradicting the other.”

As Gray and Melahara argued, Taran was so overwhelmed by all these theories about his parents and himself that he did not know what to say.  Instead, he started laughing.  The others stared at him, but did not join in his laughter.

This was all so ridiculous.  He had come to the Beldamark to find Mystics who could heal his daughter.  Instead he finds a people in desperate poverty, who cannot heal diseases, and who think he was this Zervakan “chosen one,” all while they could not even agree on what the Zervakan really was.  What was there not to laugh about in this situation?

After the laughter had drained from Taran, Eblin said to Melahara, “Whether or not Taran Abraeu is the Zervakan is irrelevant.  What matters is that he not only can Wield more of the Aspects than any Tuathan, but that he appears not to suffer from the fatigue after Wielding.  At least not in the same proportions as other Tuatha.”

She turned her gaze on Taran, and he felt unease spread down his spine.  Eblin said, “What matters is that Dr. Abraeu may be strong enough to help us break this siege.”

Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 26

Karak quietly slid his dagger into the Swornman’s back, held his hand over the man’s mouth until his struggling grew weaker, and then stopped.  Karak gently lowered the still twitching body to the cobblestone streets of the alley where he was guarding the entrance to Silek’s house.

Karak bent down, grabbed the dead man’s feet, and pulled him into a corner of the alley that was nice and dark, then he wiped the blood from his knife on the man’s coat.  Karak did something he normally did not do with his victims—he studied the man’s face.  No, he did not know the man.  Not that it would have made a difference if he had, but Karak did not like to kill people he knew personally.

Unless they had betrayed him.

Karak glanced up and saw a homeless boy sleeping beneath a stack of empty, discarded crates he had built around himself to keep out the rain and wind.  The boy was wrapped in several blankets and staring wide-eyed at Karak.  Karak bent down, removed the Swornman’s coin purse.  He felt the weight, knew there must have been at least twenty han in it.  Karak tossed the purse at the boy.  The boy let his blankets drop as he caught the purse.  He opened the strings and he gasped as he inspected its contents.  Karak grinned, then put a finger to his mouth.  The boy nodded.  He got up and ran out of the alley without taking his blankets.  With all that gold, the boy could buy himself a new blanket a day for a year.

Silek’s townhouse in the center of Calaman’s Low City was one of his “quiet” homes—anything that took place there had to remain quiet.  Karak knew of four such homes scattered throughout the city, but this was Silek’s favorite.  It was in a place where most constables would not venture in groups smaller than ten, and it was closer to Silek’s favorite brothels.  And it was farthest from Silek’s wife in their estate north of Calaman.  Judging from the four Swornmen he had just killed, it was likely Silek was here.  Silek never posted his Swornmen in a location where he wasn’t.  The Overlord had grown too arrogant over the years, a fate that might have overtaken Karak if the events of four nights ago had not changed his life forever.

Karak saw lamps burning in three of the four rooms on the third floor.  The fourth window was dark.  Karak grabbed hold of the drainage pipe that ran down from the flat roof three stories up and began to climb.

He was pleased to find that the stealth of his youth had not deserted him in his mid-thirties.  He had done this many times while making his way up the Klahdera ranks, slitting the throats of Silek’s competitors as they slept.  All orders had come from Silek, and he had never questioned his orders, only obeyed.

His foot slipped on one of the wet struts that held the drain pipe in place, but Karak quickly regained his balance.  He mentally berated himself for losing his concentration while on a job, and he refocused his thoughts on the climb.

The piping took him between two of the three lighted windows, and he paused a moment to listen for any voices within the rooms.  The windows were closed, and thin lacy drapes covered them, but he could see well enough inside.  The one on the left was a guest bedroom decorated with ornate lamps, white paneled walls with several landscape paintings, and a four post bed with a privacy curtain.  One lit lamp in the room showed that it was empty.  The other room was similarly decorated and also empty.

Karak continued his climb until he reached the roof and peeked over the edge, searching for more guards.  Two men leaned against the closed door to what looked like an outhouse in the center of the roof.  Karak knew the door opened into a stairwell that led to the attic below the roof.  Both men smoked pipes and talked in low voices.  Neither was looking his way.

Karak quietly and quickly pulled himself onto the roof, then moved behind two large brick chimneys.  Two roof guards meant that they had keys if the door was locked.  A locked and barred door had concerned Karak more than guards, who he could kill more quietly than trying to break through the door.

He peeked around the corner of the chimneys and saw that both men were still looking the other way, talking in low voices, and even laughing once or twice.  Karak shook his head.  He knew how overconfident Swornmen of the Overlords were.  No one had dared to take on an Overlord in over a generation, not even the constables, so long as the Overlords kept their activities to the Low City.  They’d become so complacent that they only posted six guards who wouldn’t notice a train wreck on the street below.

Karak scampered from chimney to chimney on the roof until he was within several paces of the Swornmen.  Karak picked up one of the small stones that covered the entire roof and threw it toward the far side.  It made a loud clang when it hit one of the metal gratings that covered the top of the chimneys.  The Swornmen immediately turned in that direction, both drawing their revolvers.

“I’ll check it out,” said one of the men in a Kingdomer accent.  “Stay and watch the door.”

“Right,” said the second man nervously.

The Kingdomer who spoke first walked warily toward the other end of the roof.  After a few moments, when Karak was sure the first Kingdomer was on the other side, he hurled another stone into the corner on the left.  This caused the remaining Swornman look that way, turning his back to Karak.  Karak pulled his knife, rushed forward, and gave the man two quick thrusts into both lungs.  Unable to scream, the man thrashed about and gurgled until Karak plunged the knife into his heart.  The man twitched a moment longer, and then went silent.  Karak lay the man down against the door, then crept back to his hiding place behind the chimney three paces away.

When the first Kindgomer came back after several minutes, he stopped when he saw the young Swornman leaning against the door.  He kicked the younger man and said, “I leave for five minutes and you take a nap?”

When the younger man did not stir, the Kingdomer bent down to check him.  Karak sprang forward and killed the Kingdomer in the same way he had killed the first.  Karak felt no regret that he had killed one of his ethnic cousins.  Back in the Kingdoms, the men—and most women—killed each other for far less.

Karak searched the two men and found rings of keys on both of them.  After Karak trying several keys, the third key on the ring he held opened the door’s bolt lock with an audible click.  Karak eased the door open and crept down the dark stairwell.  Light from the city illuminated the stairs enough for Karak to see that it was only ten steps to another door below.  A dim light shown around the edges of the door.  When he reached the door, he put his ear to it, slowed his breathing, and listened.  There was silence on the other side.  He turned the handle.  The door was unlocked, so he opened it a crack.

The door opened into a large linen closet.  Shelves filled the room on all sides with towels, sheets, buckets, and scrub brushes.  Several brooms leaned against the wall in the far left corner.  In the center of the room was a table where a startled maid, in the middle of folding a small face cloth, stared at Karak.  From the looks of her, she was a Kingdomer—her hair was pure yellow and her skin was of the palest white.

Karak hated to kill innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The Swornmen on the roof and in the alley below chose this life knowing its risks and rewards; this maid was just trying to earn a living.  Some Klahdera assassins he knew chided him on this weakness, but Karak chose to look at it in a practical way.  The constables essentially let the Klahdera fight it out with any other crime syndicate they wanted, so long as the body count of innocents never rose to attention-grabbing numbers.  The fewer the civilian casualties, the less chance the constables would get involved in Klahdera business.

Of course, Karak was no longer in the Klahdera.  But that did not mean he would give himself the all-clear to start killing innocents.  You have to have a code, something you stood for, or else you weren’t a man.

Karak put a finger to his lips.  He stepped into the room and shut the door silently, all the while watching to see if the maid would make a move toward the door.  If she tried to warn anyone, or even took in a long breath to scream, she would no longer be a civilian.  She did neither.

He stared at her a moment.  “You are a Kingdomer, yes?” he asked in his native language.  It had been so long since he had used it, and it felt good coming off his tongue.

The girl’s eyes widened even more, and she said, “Yes, I am of the Hlaan kingdom.”

Karak grinned.  “I too am Hlaanish.”

The girl still stared at him warily.  “What are you going to do to me?”

“What is your name?” Karak asked.

“Jelia.”

“Jelia.  I will not hurt you…unless you force me to,” Karak said.  “My business is elsewhere in this house, but I cannot leave you behind to raise an alarm.  I must tie you up and put a gag in your mouth for five minutes, and then I will return and release you.  Now, to compensate you for your troubles….”

Karak pulled one of the coin purses he had taken off the Swornmen he’d killed tonight and handed it to her.  She took it tentatively and opened it.  She stared at the contents for a moment, licking her lips.  It was probably more han than she saw in a year.

“When I return,” Karak said, “I will give you another just like it.  Do we have a deal?”

When Karak finished tying Jelia to one of the shelves, he asked, “Is that too tight?”

She looked up at him and shook her head.

“Good,” he said.

He was about to put the gag over her mouth, but then asked, “Where is Silek sleeping tonight?”

Jelia’s eyes hardened, and he was ready to gag her quickly if she screamed, but she said, “Sleeping with his new whore in the master bedroom.  Third door on the right.  The man is Hlaan, but he has no honor.”

Karak expected Silek’s servants to show him some loyalty, but Jelia’s reaction meant Silek still slept with his maids and probably promised them the stars to keep them from whispering to his wife.

Karak said, “Thank you, Jelia.  Now I must put the gag on.”  He tied a small hand towel around Jelia’s mouth.  When asked if she could still breathe, she nodded.

He went to the door to the linen closet, then looked back at her.  “I will return in five minutes.  My word from one Hlaan to another.”

Jelia blinked, then nodded.

The linen closet door was at the end of a long hallway about twenty paces long.  Two lit lamps, ten paces apart, sat on small tables on the left side of the hall.  At the far end was a window, and then the hallway turned right.  Karak quietly closed the closet door and walked as near to the wall as he could, where the boards tended to creak less.  The rooms behind the two doors he passed were dark and quiet.  When he reached the third door on the right, he paused.  There was no light coming from the other side.  He put an ear to the door and heard Silek’s heavy breathing.  He put his hand on the knob.

And then paused.

This was too easy.  Silek was a Klahdera Overlord, not some captain in the ranks (like Karak used to be).  Why was he only guarded by six Swornmen who did not seem to know the sharp end of a knife from the hilt?  Why was the door to the roof guarded by two incompetent men, and not double barred from the inside?  And why had a Hlaan maid just let him enter her master’s house when she knew Karak was going to kill Silek?  Hlaan were loyal to a fault, almost voluntary slaves to their masters.

Karak had honed his instincts over the years to the point where he knew to trust them when things did not feel right.

He let his wits take control of his thirst for vengeance, and let go of the knob.  Karak backed away from the door, then turned and crept toward the closet.  The uneasiness he felt only increased the farther he got from Silek’s door, and he tried to calm his pounding heart.  Every instinct in him wanted to bolt for that door, the noise he’d make be damned.  The trained assassin in him, however, controlled those urges.  Barely.

With sweat beginning to trickle down his back, Karak opened the closet door to find the Hlaan maid crouched behind the folding table with a revolver aimed at his head.

“I will not hurt you,” she said, smiling, “unless you force me to.”

Behind him, the doors on either side of the hall burst open and a dozen of Silek’s Swornmen filled the hall, all with revolvers pointed at him.  Silek’s door opened, and the Overlord walked out, fully dressed in one of his finest blue suits.  He stared at Karak with a mixture of fury and sadness that seemed to match Karak’s feelings at the moment.  Karak opened his mouth to explain to Silek the meaning of loyalty when he froze at seeing who exited the bedroom after Silek.

Crane in his garish white suit with white top hat strode out, clicking his black cane on the wood floor.  He looked paler than the last time Karak saw him in the silo.  Thin blue veins crept around the corners of his eyes and grinning mouth.

“Mr. Karak,” Crane said, “is this any way to repay your patron?”

Karak turned his revolver toward Crane, but a sharp blow to the back of his head stopped him from firing.  Darkness took him.

Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 25

Taran was searching the stacks of books in the library for texts on healing when he saw the Master Circle exit the arch down the hall from the library.  From the looks on their faces, something terrible had happened.  Fatimah gave him a worried glance, then shook her head slightly.  The Circle entered the room as if they had just heard about the death of a loved one.

Edoss and Cursh turned from watching the mass of Angra monsters below to face the Circle.  Melahara said, “The Jars are no longer an option.”

“Why?” Edoss asked.

He stepped down from the chair on which he had been standing.  Taran admired the way the small Orlenian managed to make even that action seem regal.

“That does not matter,” Ollis said.  “We must proceed with a different plan.  We have decided to use Fatimah’s shield to get our people to the nearest Guardian, where we will use it to go to Markwatch.  The Turicians will accept us.”

Edoss frowned.  “The Compact will also accept you.”  He shifted his gaze to Melahara, who returned it with a sad one.

“In time, perhaps,” she said.  “But for now, the Circle wishes to flee to a place that is known to us, where there is no doubt that the people will accept us.”

Edoss gritted his teeth.  “If you didn’t think the Compact would take you in then why did you even contact us in the first place?”

“I know you want to help us, Dylan Edoss,” Melahara said gently.  “But your authority in the Compact right now is in doubt at best.  We must go where we know we will be welcome.”

Edoss sighed, stared at her a moment, and then nodded.  “If that is what you wish.  At least let my people help you get there.  What can we do?”

Melahara smiled, glanced at Ollis who gave her a resigned nod.

“We hoped you would say that,” she said.

As the Master Circle and Edoss went over their plan on getting almost five hundred Tuatha from the Heiron to Markwatch, Taran caught Fatimah’s eye, then nodded his head toward one of the windows away from the rest of the leaders.  She glanced at Eblin, who was engrossed in the planning conversations, then walked to where Taran was standing.

“The Delving Jars are gone, aren’t they?” he asked.

She stared at him a moment, then asked, “What makes you think they are gone?”

Taran smiled.  “Answering my question with a question tells me I’m right.”

Fatimah glanced back at Eblin, then looked at him again.  She whispered, “They may never have been here to begin with.”

“I had a dream,” Taran said abruptly.  “Two months ago, the night the rings appeared in the sky.  I dreamed of three containers: one black, one white, and one red.  All of them had unrecognizable markings.  And I think they were in Calaman, for I saw the containers sitting on a stone road next to the Hallowed Bridge which crosses the Veda River.  The lid of the black container suddenly flew off…and that’s when I awoke.” For reasons he could not explain, he chose to leave out the part of the beautiful, but deadly spirit that lunged at him.  “I dreamed of the Delving Jars, didn’t I?”

Fatimah’s silence confirmed Taran’s suspicions.

“It was only a few days after the dream that I came across references to them in my old books.  How could I dream of them before even heard of them?”

Fatimah stared at him wide-eyed, then flinched when Eblin called, “Fatimah?”

Eblin limped toward them, resting heavily on her staff with each step.  She frowned, making Taran feel like he had been caught passing notes in class.

“Fatimah, please fetch Master Davin of the Heshman Guard and bring him to the library.  He is on the first level near the south entrance.”

Fatimah bowed her head, then left Taran without looking at him.  Eblin watched her leave, then turned to Taran.

“My Apprentice is as curious about Recindians as I am sure you are about us,” she said.  “But there were will be time enough for the exchange of knowledge after we have escaped our present predicament.”

“I think what I told Fatimah was a bit more important than simply ‘exchanging knowledge,’” Taran said.  “You people have more secrets than the Klahdera.”

He was about to explain the Klahdera to Eblin, but she said, “Other than the obvious difference that the Klahdera is a crime organization and the Tuatha are a nation, that is not a bad analogy.  We are both ‘underground’ organizations whose membership must remain secret if we are to survive.  You would guard your secrets, too, if you had to survive in a world that was hostile to your people, Dr. Abraeu.”

Her smile faded and she took on the air of a stern commander about to berate a soldier who’d fallen asleep during watch.  “What did you tell Fatimah?  And I want the truth, for she will tell me later what you discussed anyway.”

“It’s not a secret,” Taran said defensively.  He hated the way Eblin made him feel like he was first-year student.  And he hated that he acted like a first-year around her.  “I simply told her about a dream I had the night the rings appeared.”

When he told her the dream, her expression did not change, but she asked, “How did it make you feel when you woke up?”

“Afraid.  Paranoid.  As if I could never trust anyone again.  And yet…”

“What?”

“It felt familiar.  I don’t know if it was the containers or the feeling of paranoia, but the dream had a familiar quality.  But I’d never had that dream before in my life, at least not that I can remember.”

Eblin’s stare shifted past Taran’s shoulder and out the window.  “Turn around and tell me what you see.”

Taran turned and saw four black tendrils from Angra spiraling down into the town just beyond the writhing mass of tentacles and Tainted beasts.  He could not see where the tendrils touched the ground, for they were hidden by the small log buildings and thatch-covered roofs.

When Taran told Eblin what he saw, he was surprised to see her lips grow thin—it was the strongest reaction he had ever seen from her.

Fatimah returned to the library with a tall, red-bearded man wearing a black woolen coat that looked to be a uniform rather than used for warmth.  Stitched on the left breast was a scarlet spiral that looked like the sea shells Taran used to collect from the shores of Lake Maximohr as a child.

Fatimah led the tall man to Eblin, who said to him, “Master Davin, the Circle wishes your input on their plans to break the Fomorian siege.  Please come with me.”

Davin nodded, then held his arm out for Eblin.  She took it, and they both walked over to where the Circle and Edoss were talking over a map rolled out onto a nearby table.

Eblin had been a bit more pale as she walked away, and Fatimah seemed to notice this.  She clenched her jaw several times, lost in thought while watching Eblin lean over the map before the Circle.  Taran glanced outside and saw two of the black tendrils of Angra retreat back up to the ring, while the other two seemed to move at a walking speed toward each other.

“They are moving about the town,” Fatimah said, following Taran’s gaze, “probing for weaknesses.”

Then she studied Taran’s face if he were a dissected toad in a biology lab.

“You mean the Fomorians,” he said.

She nodded slowly, then said, “You see them.”  It was more of a statement rather than a question.

“I don’t actually see the Fomorians, but you can tell where they are when they call on Angra.  Those black tendrils should make them easy to find, shouldn’t they?”

She gave a shaky exhale.  “You have seen them all this time.”

“Of course,” he said.  Then he narrowed his eyes at her.  “Just like everybody else.  Right?”

“No, not like everybody else.  At least no one who is a Mundane.  Only the Tuatha and the Fomorians can see the power of Ahura and Angra descend.”

Taran stared at her.  Then he blinked, and before he could stop himself, he laughed.  His laughter must have been loud, for he glanced at the Circle and the Recindians, who all giving him strange looks.  He didn’t care.  Fatimah’s inference that he was either a Tuathan or a Fomorian was absurd.  He was born and raised in Calaman; he was a Recindian.

And yet it frightened him beyond all reason.  For a part of him had always known he was different.  He had always had strange, detailed dreams of ancient people, objects, and events.  Despite his thoroughly Pathist education, he had always felt—known—that the world was an infinitely more complex place than what his five senses could describe.  And the ease and quickness with which he had put his faith in the Mystics when Mara had fallen ill not only surprised his family and friends, but himself as well.

But he had come to the Beldamark to find the Mystics, not to find out he was one.

Through his outburst, Fatimah watched him with a mixture of fear and pity.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Taran suddenly growled in a low voice.  “I’m not what you think I am.”

He then turned and retreated into the library before he lost control of his words.

He wandered through the rows of shelves containing old books, browning parchment rolls, and the smell of paper that had been ancient before the Compact was even founded.  He soon reached the end of the library, and climbed the stairs to the platform that contained the Crucible, the Window, the Book of Ahura, and dozens of other artifacts that Taran could spend a lifetime studying.  Three middle-aged female priests stood around the Book studying the open pages, talking quietly about an incantation.  Taran was able to follow most of their conversation, and knew they were looking for defensive Wields they could easily teach all Tuatha.  From their grim voices they were not having much luck.

Taran wondered if the book in his Calaman office really was a copy of this Book of Ahura.  Could it have filled with words when the Barrier had fallen?  It was enough to distract him from—

“There is a way to be sure,” Fatimah said from behind him, and he flinched.  “Ask your Recindian companions if they can see the tendrils right now.”

Taran glanced at Edoss, Cursh, and General Myndehr talking with the Master Circle, their backs to the windows where he clearly saw the black tendrils from Angra snaking into the town.  He thought back to the attack in Doare and how he had described the tendrils then, but no one had corroborated his sighting.  He just assumed nobody had noticed them.  But he did not question everyone on the train.  Perhaps some of the Shadarlak had seen it, but never reported it because no one asked them.

“This is ridiculous,” he said.  “I am not a Tuathan, or a Fomorian.  My parents were both Recindians, like their parents.  My ancestry is well documented.”

“I do not have the answers, Taran,” she said.  “But I do know that only Tuathans and Fomorians can see the tendrils you describe.  Have any of your Recindian companions claimed to see such a thing?  Would you like to ask them right now?”

Taran did not want to question them.  What if they could not see the tendrils?  The events of this journey had done much to vindicate his Mystic research, and they no longer thought he was a crackpot eccentric who was blinded by grief over his daughter’s illness.  But would they believe him if he suddenly claimed to be a Tuathan or even a Fomorian?  Taran did not want to go back to the ostracization he had worked so hard to overcome.

To change the subject, Taran nodded to the three priests studying the Book of Ahura.  “What are they looking for?”

“They are searching for weapons we can use against Angra.”

“I though Ahura did not allow the Tuatha to destroy anything.”

“We cannot destroy life that was created by Ahura, but we can destroy the Tainted,” she said.  Then glancing outside at the black tendrils.  “Or Angra harrowers, if we encounter them in battle.”

Taran shook his head.  “It’s been two months since the Barrier has fallen and you haven’t found defenses against Angra?  What have you been doing for eight weeks?”

Fatimah gave him an icy glare, and he regretted snapping at her.  “It is not as easy as simply reading the instructions and then performing the act.  Wielders must recite incantations, put their minds at peace—”

“Those two priests who copied your shield down there caught on quick,” Taran said.

“And they paid for it.  They were still unconscious when I went down to fetch Master Davin.  Without the practice, powerful Wields can make Wielders very sick.  Maybe even kill them.”

Taran turned to her and said, “So show me how to Wield.”

Fatimah looked shocked, then glanced furtively at the Master Circle.  “I cannot do that.  It is forbidden for students to Wield without a Master present.”

Taran smiled.  “If you’re so sure I’m a Mystic, then why not a real test?  Even if I can see the tendrils and none of my companions can, that doesn’t prove I can Wield, does it?”

Fatimah stared at Taran.  “Even if you can Wield, you cannot heal your daughter.”

The challenging smile melted from Taran’s face, but he didn’t reply.

Fatimah glanced at the priests looking over the Book of Ahura, then at the Circle below.  She motioned Taran over to a table littered with parchments and books on the other side of the platform, near the Crucible and away from the priests.  She told him to sit down, then she sat on the other side of the table and faced him.  She pushed away some of the books and parchments in front of them, then pulled an unlit candle between them.  It was burned halfway, and hardened wax had dribbled down its length to form a small pool in the brass holder at the bottom.

She put her hands on the table, palms down, and told him to do the same.  “You are going to light this candle by Wielding the Aspect of Fire.  First you will say the incantation that I will repeat to you.  While you say the incantation, you will think of a time in your life when you felt the most loved, and a time when you loved the most.”

Taran nodded that he understood, so Fatimah said, “Clear your mind and repeat after me: ‘Quiet is the soul that Wields Ahura’s Flame.  Quiet is the Flame that heeds Ahura’s call.’”

Taran said, “Quiet is the soul that Wields Ahura’s Flame.  Quiet is the Flame that heeds Ahura’s call.”

“Again,” Fatimah said.

Taran repeated the words, and then again when Fatimah told him to continue.  As he said the words, Fatimah said, “Continue with the incantation, but empty your mind of all thoughts.”

He tried to force all thoughts from his mind while still focusing on the incantation.  He soon felt his body relaxing for the first time in days, but he did not allow himself to dwell on the thought.

“Quiet is the soul that Wields Ahura’s Flame—”

“Now think of the time you felt most loved,” Fatimah said over Taran’s chant.

“—quiet is the Flame that heeds Ahura’s call,” Taran continued.

An image leaped into his mind of a time when he was a child, no more than five years old.  He had had a terrible dream, and he had gone into his parent’s bedroom, crying and frightened.  His parents let him climb into bed with them, then they wrapped him in their blankets and told him pleasant stories of talking rabbits, squirrels, and birds playing and singing together.  His mother would start a story, and then his father would finish it, and then they would switch for the next story.  It became a game to both of them to see who could come up with the funniest beginnings and endings.  They even let Taran begin and end a couple of stories on his own.  All three of them had laughed most of the night away.  He had never felt so loved.

“Quiet is the soul that Wields Ahura’s Flame—”

“Once you have that memory, think of a time when you loved the most.”

“—quiet is the Flame that heeds Ahura’s call.”

Without question, the time he loved the most was the day Mara was born.  Holding her in his arms for the first time, her small face sleeping contentedly after the trauma of birth, he loved her so much that his soul ached.  It still did whenever he looked at, or even thought about, Mara.

“Quiet is the soul that Wields Ahura’s Flame, quiet is the Flame that heeds Ahura’s call.  Quiet is the…”

Over and over he repeated the incantation, and over and over he relived those memories of love and happiness.  His heart felt light, and he imagined that anything was possible.  The peace that settled over his body made him feel as if he were floating above it, and he caught a fleeting image of the top of his head as his body sat at the table in front of Fatimah.

“…quiet is the Flame that heeds Ahura’s call…”

“Now reach for Ahura, find the Flame, and direct it toward the candle’s wick,” Fatimah said.

Without thinking of what she meant, the part of Taran that floated above his body reached a hand for Ahura in the sky.  His spirit could see the ring.  The colors had stopped swirling and became the primordial elements of existence.  He felt the kiss of warm Air on his face, dipped his hands in cool Water, dug his toes into the soft soil of Earth, and watched the blinding white light of Spirit envelop him in love and peace.  He soon found the orange and yellow streaks of Fire permeating Ahura’s ring, and then grabbed on to them and held them with both hands.

A surge of energy that he had never known rushed through him.  His entire body felt aglow with a fire that was neither painful nor hot, but as comforting as a warm bath on a winter’s day.  The part of Taran that had reached for Ahura’s ring rushed back to his body in an instant whirlwind.

And then Taran’s eyes flew open.  Without remembering he had done so, he found that his right arm was raised in the air and his left was pointing at the candle wick.  He focused his gaze at the wick, and it burst into a blue-white flame that seemed to shine as bright as the Fire he had seen in the ring.

Then the flame on the wick began to expand.  It ate away at the top of the candle, melting all of the wax until the entire candle was a boiling puddle in the holder.  But the flame did not stop.  It continued to eat at the candle holder, and then it leaped to the table.

To Taran’s horror, the flame jumped onto the left sleeve of Fatimah’s woolen dress.  She screamed and began to pat the blue-white flames with her other hand covered by the right sleeve, but the flames did not go out.  The fire only continued to climb up her arm.

Without thinking, Taran left his body again and returned to Ahura, grabbed the Water he had felt there (not taking a moment to wonder how he could “hold” water in his hands) and brought it back to his body.  An explosive torrent of water appeared in the air above Fatimah, the table, and Taran, soaking them all.  The fire was extinguished, but the deluge flooded across the floor and flowed down the stairs in a waterfall.  Fatimah stared at him through the drenched red hair that covered her eyes.

Taran suddenly felt an exhaustion that he had never known in his life.  He did not remember falling to the floor.

Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 24

Fatimah had spent seven years in the Heiron as an acolyte and a priest, but she had never been this far down into the Heiron’s vaults.  Nor had she known there were this many levels below ground.

Fatimah had followed Eblin and the other four members of the Master Circle through nine arches, all opening into dark, musty rooms.  For each arch, one of the Master Circle had to place a hand on the right column to activate the Aspects and open the portal to the next level, for these levels were forbidden to all but the Tuathan leaders.  When they came to a tenth arch, Melahara gave Ollis Gray a sad look, and Ollis returned it with a slightly nervous one of his own.  The Holy Seat placed her right hand on the right column of the arch, while the Worldly Seat placed his left hand on the left column.  They both closed their eyes and uttered an incantation under their breaths that Fatimah could not hear.  A loud crack came from the arch, as if it had split in two, and then a dark corridor appeared beyond it.  Cold air rushed from out of the corridor, stinking of mold and centuries.  There was no other arch in the room.  They had reached the bottom level of the Heiron.

Melahara gave Ollis a challenging glare.  “This was your idea, Worldly Seat, so you lead the way.”

Ollis held his head high and strode through the arch and into the dark corridor.  As soon as Ollis entered, two torches sitting in sconces on either side of the corridor burst into blue-white flames that gave off no heat.  Fatimah flinched at the sudden light, but Ollis continued on as if nothing had happened.  The further he walked down the corridor, the more torches on either side of the hall burst into flame.

Melahara followed Ollis.

Fatimah glanced at Eblin, who followed Melahara as if they were walking into another part of the library.  Fatimah stayed behind her Master, trying to match Eblin’s same unconcerned air, but wishing for the first time that Apprentices did not have to accompany their Masters on every part of their trade.  Fatimah did not look behind her, but she heard Nyram and Ocrim following closely.

The corridor ran straight ahead almost fifty paces until it came to an abrupt end at a wall with three alcoves set side by side, their interiors bathed in shadow.  They were two paces high and set in the center of the wall.  Three small torches within each alcove burst into the same blue-white flame as the torches in the hall.

The alcoves were empty.

Ollis studied the alcoves open-mouthed, while Melahara inhaled sharply.  The others stared at the alcoves in shocked silence.

Ollis turned to Melahara.  “It was you and your priests that were supposed to guard the Delving Jars.  What have you done with them?”

Melahara opened and closed her mouth a few times, then said in a tight voice, “No priest has been in this chamber for a thousand years.  And lest you forget, it takes both of us to open the arch.”

“Then where are they?” Nyram asked as she inspected the alcoves where the jars once stood.  She ran her fingers along the pedestal of the alcove in the center of the wall and looked at the dust trail they made.  “These have been empty a long time.”

The others crowded around the left and right alcoves, and noticed dust covering the pedestals of both in equal abundance.

Ocrim Tylea said, “Whatever happened to them, happened a long time ago.”  He looked at Ollis and said, “So I think we can cease the accusations.”

Ignoring Ocrim, Ollis said, “It is impossible to reach this chamber without going through the arch, and the arch can only be opened by the Worldly Seat and the Holy Seat together.  So how were the Jars stolen?”

“Perhaps it is possible,” Eblin said, leaning on her staff, “the Jars were never here to begin with.”

Melahara shook her head.  “But I have records from Kalisha Mazid, the first Holy Seat.  She describes this room and how she was one of the priests who stole the Jars from the Fomorians.”

“Alon Grete’s journals said the same thing,” Ollis said, staring at the empty alcoves, speaking of the first Worldly Seat.  “Why would they both lie?  That does not make sense.”

Eblin chuckled.  “I did not say it made sense.  Only that it was possible.  All this dust says the hall has not been disturbed for hundreds of years.  If the Jars were not here to begin with, then they were certainly taken out of here a long time ago.  In any case, we need another plan.”

Cover by TJ Lomas.

[Posting this chapter a day early since I’ll be laying on a beach tomorrow and staying as far away from a computer as possible.]

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 23

Despite the chaos of the Tuathans flooding into the Heiron, Dylan was able to make his way through the arches and up to the tower’s library level.  General Myndehr and several Shadarlak went with him, and for once Dylan was glad for their presence.  They kept him from getting crushed by the tall Tuathans crowding through the arches.  Dylan had always been nervous in large crowds of tall people—it was a natural Orlenian fear—but large crowds of panicked tall people pushed him to the edge of his self-control.

The crowds thinned around the seventh level, as most sought the refuge of the various floors rather than continue all the way to the top of the Heiron.  Dylan walked quickly toward the library at the end of the long, ornate hall.  Several women priests wearing scarlet sashes stood near the door, and they said something in Tuatha, putting their hands up to stop Dylan.  He could not understand what they were saying, so he turned to Lee and asked, “Where’s Abraeu?”

Lee shook his head.  Through the door and past the priests, Dylan saw Melahara across the room standing at one of the windows looking down.

“Melahara,” Dylan shouted.

She turned and frowned when she saw Dylan.  A book case had been blocking Ollis Gray from Dylan’s view, and Ollis poked his head from around the shelves to see who was yelling.  The frown he gave Dylan made Melahara’s seem like a mother’s smile for her newborn.

“I have almost forty men armed with revolvers and sabers,” Dylan yelled to them through the priests standing in his way.  “Let me help.”

Lee said in his ear, “Excellency, not even a company of Shadarlak could withstand lightning strikes.  There’s nothing we can—”

“We can’t sit in this bloody tower forever,” Dylan growled.  “We need them to get through this, and they could obviously use any help we can give them.”

As Dylan said this, Melahara approached the priests barring his entry.  “It is all right, let them pass.”

The priests gave Melahara a wary look, then moved aside to let Dylan, Lee, Myndehr, and the five Shadarlak enter the library.  Melahara said, “I am sorry you and your men got caught up in this battle, Dylan Edoss.  We did not think the Fomorians could attack Fedalan so soon.”

“How can we help?” Dylan asked.

Ollis strode toward Dylan and said, “What makes you think your men can do anything against what’s out there?”

General Myndehr said heatedly, “My Shadarlak are the best trained soldiers in all the—”

“Follow me,” Ollis said, then turned and strode back to the window.  Myndehr gave Dylan a questioning glance.  He rolled his eyes and followed Ollis.  Dylan was getting tired of the Tuathan leader’s lack of respect.  Dylan may not be the official Speaker anymore, but he was a guest in their city.  He would have thought a political leader like Ollis, even one so isolated in the Beldamark, would have a bit more diplomatic skill.

Ollis pointed down to the ground and said, “Are your men trained for that?”

Myndehr looked down, and her eyes widened in shocked horror.  Embarrassingly, Dylan was not tall enough to peer down at the ground, so he stood on a nearby chair without bothering to ask permission.  Lack of diplomacy could go both ways.

The sight below almost made him stumble off the chair.  What was once a green field of grass fifty paces wide surrounding the Heiron, was now a mass of writhing, snake-like tentacles similar to what had attacked the train in Doare.  Amidst the tentacles were misshapen figures darting about the field.  Some of the figures looked like dogs with extra limbs and their own spiked tentacles.  None of the beasts looked exactly the same, and all had shapes and colors that could have only come from the dreams of madmen.  The mass of monsters and tentacles stretched from the foot of the Heiron to the buildings of Fedalan fifty paces away.  Amazingly, none of the tentacles or monsters touched the Heiron doors, maintaining a ten foot distance from the tower.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Dylan asked when he found his voice again.

“The Heiron is imbued with Ahura’s essence,” Melahara said.  “The Tainted cannot touch it, nor can Fomorians use Angra to penetrate it.”

“Where did those things come from?” Cursh asked.  His pale, sickened face matched how Dylan felt.

“They are the Tainted,” Ollis said as he stared down at the terrors below.  For once his voice held something other than annoyance.  Dylan thought it might have been sorrow.  “They were once natural animals from the forest.  Some were even people.  Harrowers cannot create anything, but they can certainly destroy, as is their nature.  They take a part of Ahura’s creation and use the power of Angra to warp it into something that was not meant to exist.  Better to die a painful death than become one of the Tainted; at least you’d be dead.”

“Can they be killed?” General Myndehr asked.  She continued staring at the Tainted forms, and her face was more grim than Dylan had ever seen it.  If he was not mistaken, he would have thought she was afraid for the first time in her life.

“Not by guns or swords,” Ollis said, turning away from the window and staring at Dylan.  “Like I said, Edoss, your men are useless in this fight.”

“So what is your plan?” Dylan asked.  “You tell me I’m no use to you, so you must have a way to break this siege on your own, yes?”

Ollis narrowed his eyes at Dylan, and his bald forehead reddened.  Before he could say anything, Melahara said, “We have options that we are considering.”

“Then I suggest you consider them a little quicker,” Dylan said.  “Whoever is controlling those things has herded your people into one location.  Now we are holed up in a place from which there’s no escape.  It’s the perfect scenario for a slaughter.  Whoever is controlling those things surely knows he can’t penetrate this tower, and I doubt he’d go through all this trouble to force you here without knowing a way to come in and get you.  Or at least force you out when you begin starving.”

Ollis continued to glare at Dylan, but his glare now contained a hint of worry.  He quickly glanced at Melahara, then said, “We must open the Jars.  It is the only way.”

“That is exactly what they want us to do,” Eblin said from the doorway as she limped into the library, leaning heavily on her staff.  Behind her walked Fatimah, who looked like she was about to fall over from exhaustion at any moment.  Supporting her was Taran Abraeu, half of his white shirt stained in dark red blood.

“Doctor?” Lee said.

“I’m fine.  It’s not my blood.”

“What do you mean ‘it is what they want us to do?’” Ollis asked Eblin, ignoring Taran and Fatimah.

Eblin limped forward until she was at the window and looking down at the writhing Tainted below.  “If we open the Jars within the Heiron, the Furies will break through the charms holding the Tainted outside.  When that happens, the Tainted will be able to attack, and the Fomorians will rain down lightning and Ahura knows what else on our heads.”

Ollis opened his mouth to say something, then closed it as he thought about what Eblin said.  Dylan had no idea what they were talking about, and decided he did not wish to know.

“However, there may be another way,” Eblin said.  Putting her hand on Fatimah’s shoulder, she said, “Go on, priest, tell them what you did.”

Fatimah looked up at Melahara and Ollis through weary, half-closed eyelids.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I studied the Book last night without my Master present.”  Both Melahara and Ollis frowned, but said nothing.  “I found an incantation that enabled me to create a shield around myself and others.  A shield that cannot be penetrated by Tainted or Angra.”

“That’s impossible,” Ollis said.  “No Tuathan has the strength right now for such a—”

“I saw her do it,” Abraeu said.  “She saved the lives of six priests with her shield.  After she collapsed, two other priests copied what she did and Wielded an even bigger shield.”

Fatimah gave Taran a weak smile, then said to Melahara and Ollis, “They had to copy the shield because this fool ran out to save Rylan Jordak after he was mauled by two of the Tainted.”

Dylan stared at Abraeu with a new respect.  He had not figured the doctor to be the type to run onto a hot battlefield,  even though he was General Abraeu’s son.  Dylan realized he should not have judged a man’s fighting courage before he had actually seen him in a fight.  He had seen the loudest braggarts run at the first sound of gunfire, while it was the quiet ones that often stood their ground.

Melahara asked Abraeu, “What do you mean ‘copied?’”

Abraeu shrugged.  “They said the same words and did the same actions.”

“Where are these two priests?” Ollis asked, glancing behind Abraeu and Fatimah.

“They haven’t regained consciousness yet,” Fatimah said, leaning against a tall bookshelf.  “At least not by the time we left them in the hospital.”

Eblin said to Melahara and Ollis, “Our cautious approach to relearning how to Wield the Aspects will not serve us now.  If two priests can simply copy another—without spending days learning the incantations—then we can teach all of our priests to create the shield.  Even the lay Tuathans.”

Melahara sighed.  “But it will mean every Tuathan who Wields the shield will fall unconscious immediately afterwards.”

“Not if one priest Wields the shield into existence,” Fatimah said, “and then another simply maintains it.  Maintenance takes only a fraction of the Aspects as the initial Wielding.”

Eblin raised an eyebrow at Fatimah.  “It is a good thing someone has been studying ahead of her assigned lessons…”

Fatimah lowered her eyes, but Ollis said, “She’s right.  If a few priests do the initial Wielding, then the remaining priests can maintain it while the people in the Heiron escape.”

“Escape to where?” Melahara asked.

Dylan said, “The Compact will take you.”

Melahara glanced at Ollis, but she could not catch his eye before Ollis said, “You have no authority to make such an offer, Edoss.  Your government will not comply with anything you promise us.”

“They will,” Dylan said.  “Throughout this entire journey I’ve seen things that have changed my beliefs forever.  Once my people see what you can do, they will understand that you are our only hope to defeat these Fomorians and harrowers when they come after the Compact.”

“The Speaker is right,” General Myndehr said abruptly.  Dylan looked at her, saw that she held her head high and gave Ollis Gray the same glare she would have given one of her captains if he questioned her orders.  “I have been a committed Pathist all my life.  The things I’ve seen have made me…question some of the things I’ve been taught.  Skepticism is a good thing, but it must not blind us to the reality before our eyes.  It will be difficult at first, but I believe our people will accept you.”

Ollis narrowed his eyes doubtfully.  “Even if that were true, how do we get to your territory?  It is hundreds of miles from here across sea and land, separated from us by a nation that is more hostile to us than the Compact.”

Edellian superstitions about the Mystics attributed to them everything from foul weather to disease.  Dylan would worry about getting the Tuathans through Edellia when the time came, but right now he had to get them to break the siege and escape the Heiron.  The Tuatha were the only hope the Compact and the continent had against the Angra harrowers out there.  Lee was right, the Shadarlak and the Compact army could not withstand lightning strikes, no matter how well trained they were.  This was a different war that required different weapons.

“I will find a way to get you to the Compact,” Dylan said.  “You need to figure out how to get your people out of the Heiron.”

Melahara frowned, but said nothing.  She glanced at Ollis who said to Dylan, “There is a way for us to defeat the Fomorians attacking us, but it would involve doing something that—”

“Ollis,” Melahara said threateningly, but Ollis ignored her.

“—most on the Master Circle refuse to do.”

“What is it?” Dylan asked.

“They are called the Delving Jars—”

“Ollis Gray,” Melahara shouted, surprising everyone in the room at the sound of her voice.  “You know you are forbidden to speak of this outside the Circle.”

Ollis took a step toward Melahara, who stood her ground.  “We just lost over a hundred Heshmen tonight.  How many more do we have to lose before you realize we are in a fight for our survival?  How many more Tuathan lives will it take for you to accept that we must do what we have to do to survive?”

“I thought you said these Jars would break the charms on the Heiron and let the harrowers attack it?” Dylan said.

“Not if we open them outside the Heiron,” Ollis said.

“What are these Jars?” Dylan asked.  Eblin only smiled at Dylan.  Ollis and Melahara ignored him, staring at each other like two circling wolves.

Taran Abraeu cleared his throat and said, “I’ve read some legends of the Delving Jars.  They contain the very essence of Angra.  Chaos and death.”  He glanced at Fatimah, who only stared at Abraeu.  “If I’m not mistaken, there are three jars.  When a jar is opened, the Furies within will do whatever the opener asks, as long as the task embodies the essence of Angra.  You could not open a jar and ask the Fury for a bumper crop, but you could ask it to make your neighbor’s crops whither and die.  Or the population of an entire city.”  Abraeu looked at Fatimah, and asked, “Am I correct?”

Fatimah said nothing, but Eblin said, “You are close, Dr. Abraeu, but not entirely correct.  I can say that the Delving Jars were captured by our ancestors a thousand years ago before the Fomorians could use them.  They have been sitting in our vaults ever since.  To open the Jars would be to give up our identity.  Better we perish as a people than become like those whom we fight.”

“Why don’t you put the question to the people?” Ollis asked Eblin.  “Why don’t you ask them whether they want to use the Jars to destroy our enemies, or whether they want to sit and watch their families starve to death in the Heiron?”

Eblin gave Ollis a sad smile, then said, “I will admit that I am tempted to use the Jars.”

Melahara gasped, but Eblin continued.  “But we do not know what will happen once the Furies are released.  We do know that if we release them within the Heiron, the Aspects that protect us will fall.  And so may the Aspects around the Beldamark, which protect this land from the uninvited.”

“We don’t know that will happen,” Ollis grumbled under his breath, shaking his head like he had said the same thing dozens of times.

Dylan said, “The ‘uninvited’ are already here.  I don’t think you have you a choice now.  If these jars are the only thing that will save your people, then you must use them.  If you die, the continent will fall to these Fomorians.  Isn’t that what Ahura created you to prevent?”

Eblin’s lips tightened into a thin line.  She shifted her gaze to Melahara, who only stared outside and down at the shifting masses of the Tainted.  Dylan also looked down at the horror below.  The moon and the stars illuminated glistening beasts and their tentacles, and the orange glow from the fires burning throughout the city cast the creatures in an abyssal light.  It was a sickly, undulating sea of gray, black, red, and yellow forms.  Dylan felt more nauseas looking down at it than he ever had looking up at the Angra ring.

“We must convene the Circle,” Melahara said in a quiet voice.  Then she swept her gaze from Eblin to Ollis to Dylan.  “We will abide by the Circle’s decision.”

Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 22

After an hour of sitting in the shadows of an abandoned street trolley, Karak finally saw movement in the bushes near the Hallowed Bridge.  It was only a shudder of the bushes, but on a windless night, it was enough to tell Karak that something alive hid there.  Then, amazingly, a small flame appeared as someone lit his pipe, removing all doubt that a man inhabited those bushes.  Karak shook his head in disbelief, feeling a little insulted.  If this was the quality of assassins the Klahdera had sent against him, they must not think much of him at all.

He waited another fifteen minutes before making his way to the bridge.  He wanted to be sure the soon to be dead man in the bushes was the only one.  The bridge was located next to a disposal yard for old, broken machinery and scrap metal.  Pipes and tubes and gears lay about the dark yard, the grisly remains of disemboweled factories.  Karak had to use his assassin’s skills, skills he had not used in a long time, to avoid making noise in this cemetery of metal.  He stepped slowly, carefully toward the dead man in the bushes near the bridge.  That old feeling of the hunt and the impending kill made Karak’s blood rush in his ears and his heart beat faster.  His hand tightened around his knife’s hilt, the blade blackened by fire to avoid giving off a glint in any light.

He approached the bushes from behind and stayed close to the mounds of metal that lined the river front.  He wore black clothes he had stolen from several vagrants, but he had washed them first to avoid giving off a stench that would announce his presence.  He blended in well.  The small light from the assassin’s pipe might not have been noticed by someone walking or riding by on the bridge above, but it was like a lighthouse on a stormy night to Karak, guiding him onward and keeping the would-be assassin’s location known.

The fool.

Ten paces from the assassin, Karak saw the back of his head.  A cold knot formed in Karak’s stomach.  He stared at the man’s head for a moment, not believing—or not wanting to believe—what he saw.  His emotions ran from betrayal to sadness to anger in a moment.  When he regained the cold objectivity of the trained assassin, he sprang forward.

He pulled the man’s golden pony tail back and put the knife at the base of his throat.  The man’s hands scrambled for the revolver sitting on his lap, but Karak growled into his ear, “Keep moving and this knife will come out the back of your neck.”

The man froze, then chuckled.  “Hey, Karak, you scared me.  I thought you were one of the Overlords’ boys.”

“Really, Marwa’jin?” Karak said.  “So you’re here to watch my back while I take Silek’s han?”

“Why else would I be here?” he asked.

“I want you to pick up your revolver by the barrel with your thumb and forefinger, and hand it to me slowly.”

Marwa’jin sighed, inching his hand down to the revolver’s barrel.  “Karak, you’re awfully paranoid for—”

Marwa’jin tried smashing the back of his head into Karak’s chin, but Karak was ready for such a move.  He jerked his head to the side, then brought the hilt of his knife down on the back of Marwa’jin’s head.  It did not knock him out, but it dazed him enough so that Karak could grab the revolver as it slipped from the blond man’s hand.

Karak pointed the gun at Marwa’jin’s head as the blond man looked at Karak through half-focused eyes.

“I’m insulted that Silek sent one man for me,” Karak said.  “And only his bed boy at that.”

Then Karak made his voice deadly serious.  It was not hard.  “Why?” he asked, not really expecting an answer from Silek’s Swornman.

But Marwa’jin shook his head to clear it, then snarled at Karak.  “It’s your head or his, Karak.  Simple as that.”

Then he lunged at Karak.  Karak pulled the trigger and blasted a hole through the blond man’s left eye.  He fell backward, dead before he hit the ground.  Karak half wanted to empty the revolver into the Swornman’s chest, just to make sure he was dead.  Given the event that got Karak into this mess to begin with, he did not think it was such an unreasonable feeling.  He stamped it down quickly, though, since one gunshot was enough to draw a passing constable’s attention.  Five more would bring down a squad.

Karak would have preferred to take the man with his knife, but plans had changed.  He had to adapt and change with them.  He put the gun in one of his coat pockets, then jogged up the incline to where the first support columns of the stone bridge met the land in front of the water.  He searched the column for the false bricks Silek had told him about yesterday, but could not find anything loose.  Karak would have been surprised if he had.  Silek had been setting him up all along.

Knowing he had lingered, he ran down the incline and made his way back through the machinery graveyard, all the while struggling to keep his emotions under control.  Allowing anger or fear to cloud his decisions now would only get him to do something stupid and die.  Silek allowed his fear to overcome him, and it had cost him the life of one of his best Swornmen.  Karak had let fear overcome him in the silo with Crane, and look where it had brought him.  Revenge was a good thing, even a strong motivator, but it was something to pursue in a smart way.

Karak found himself walking back toward the Low City, realizing his feet had made his decision for him.  He was tired of running and tired of being betrayed.  Crane, Silek, and the Overlords were about to find out why Karak was once considered the best assassin in the Klahdera.

Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 21

The Compact camp was in ordered chaos.  Shadarlak ran about securing their arms, sabers, and forming up into ranks on the orders of shouting sergeants.  Taran saw Edoss and his aids encircled by ten Shadarlak holding sabers and revolvers.

Taran called out to Edoss as he ran by.  “Fatimah said to go to the Heiron, you’ll be safe there.”

“Abraeu,” he yelled.  “Where are you going?”

“I’ll be right back,” Taran said, then continued on toward his tent.  When he reached the tent, he flung aside the flaps, dug into the large bag he had brought on the trip.  At the bottom was his father’s old revolver.  He grabbed the revolver and the bandolier of bullets, and then ran back to Edoss.

The Shadarlak had formed a square around Edoss, two ranks deep and shoulder to shoulder.  They let Taran through with grunts and frowns, then closed ranks again.  Once the Shadarlak were set, they began to march toward the Heiron, keeping the same square shape.

All around the green uniformed Shadarlak, Tuathans screamed and yelled as they ran from their homes in the town and toward the Heiron.  There were hundreds of Tuatha, mothers and fathers carrying crying children in their bed clothes.  Some carried large sacks, while others held knives and strung bows, with quivers full of arrows strapped to their backs.

Taran wondered how the hundreds of fleeing Tuatha were going to fit through the open doors at the base of the Heiron, but he saw that not all of the residents of Fedalan were running for the doors at the front.  Portcullises on the left and right sides of the Heiron creaked and groaned as they rose into the ceiling, and the panicked mobs split into three streams toward each portcullis.  General Myndehr continued to shout orders to her Shadarlak to make for the doors at the top of the steps.

Taran never heard the blast of lightning that struck several dozen paces away.  He flew through the air and landed hard on the marble steps of the Heiron.  After a moment of wondering if he were still alive, he sat up, his ears still buzzing, and peered through a shower of dust to see that the large green square of Shadarlak had dissolved.  Most of the Shadarlak were on the ground, shaking their heads, while some were already scrambling back to their feet, sabers and revolvers at the ready.  Two Shadarlak helped Edoss to his feet.  Another shouted to a dazed General Myndehr, who sat on the ground blinking the dust from her eyes.  Miraculously none of the Shadarlak were seriously hurt.  There was a blackened crater two dozen paces to the left of where the square had been, the cobblestone road torn to pieces.  Taran stood on shaky legs, then went to pick up his revolver several paces away.

The Shadarlak square re-formed on shouts from Captain Laesh, and Taran went back to stand next to a dust-covered Edoss.  They continued in a double-time jog up the steps to the Heiron.  There were more lightning strikes behind them and to the south, but the Shadarlak did not stop until they reached the top of the stairs.  They pushed their way through the crowds, and Taran winced as he saw several Tuathans fall into each other when they were shoved aside by the Shadarlak formation.

When the Shadarlak in the first line of the square reached the large doors into the Heiron, they halted and then parted to allow the Shadarlak in the center to rush Edoss and his aids inside.  Taran was pressed into the Heiron’s long hallway while most of the Shadarlak remained outside to take up covering positions around the door.

At the end of the hallway, in the large circular room with the magical arches, frightened Tuathans streamed into both arches toward other levels in the Heiron.  Several female priests with scarlet sashes directed people into one arch or the other.  The Tuathans chattered nervously, most speaking too fast for Taran to make out their words.  The mood inside was a tense calm, though Taran believed a panicked riot would ensue if someone dropped a pot on the floor.

“Taran Abraeu!”

Taran turned, saw Fatimah weaving through the crowd toward him.  The Shadarlak would not let her through their cordon around Edoss, so Taran squeezed his way outside their protection so he could hear her among the din of Tuathan voices echoing in the chamber.

“You will be safe in here,” she said, as she was jostled about by the people flowing past her.  “Angra cannot penetrate these walls.”

“What’s happening outside?”

As soon as he asked, a series of loud explosions, one after the other, shook the tower.  Taran looked down the hall toward the open door through which he had entered and saw lighting strikes tearing up the lawn within paces of the Heiron.  The Shadarlak outside had retreated within, and were pulling the large wood doors closed.  At the other entrances on the left and right, Taran saw people outside surge forward with panicked screams.

“There are still a lot of people out there,” Taran yelled to Fatimah.

Fatimah did not speak, but rushed back toward the Heiron entrance to the right.  Taran followed her, not knowing what he was going to do, but considering it better than standing there in the claustrophobic crush of people.

Fatimah pushed open a small door cut into the side of the large hallway from which the people were streaming.  Taran followed her into the small dark corridor that ran parallel to the main hall, trying not to think that it was more claustrophobic in here than it had been in the arch room.  Torchlight filtered through the arrow slits in the walls, and Taran caught glimpses of people shoving and yelling in the main hall to get farther into the Heiron.

At the end of the corridor, Fatimah touched a metal plate on the wall, and a stone door rose silently into the ceiling.  They exited into the entryway between the portcullis and the entrance’s large wooden doors.  There were still dozens of people outside trying to get in amid the lightning strikes coming down all around the Heiron.  When they saw the open door, they rushed through it.  Fatimah and Taran ran back the way they came, just ahead of the wave of frightened Tuatha, and exited into the circular arch room again.  A stream of people followed them out.

Fatimah then ran to the other side of the circular room and opened a similar door into another dark corridor next to the crowded main hall.  Taran followed her to the end of the corridor and watched her open the stone door at the end.

The scene on the north side of the Heiron was just as chaotic.  Lightning blasted the town from small black, roiling clouds, setting most of the log structures on fire.  Dozens of people still pushed and screamed to get through the Heiron’s doors.  Fresh corpses and blackened body parts lay strewn about the lawn from where the lightning had found unfortunate victims.

Rather than run back inside, Fatimah stayed to direct people through the new door she had just opened.  Taran did the same, though his broken Tuathan speech and modern Recindian clothes drew confused glances from most of the people.  Once everyone had gone through the doors, Fatimah cupped her hands to her mouth and yelled up to a window above the portcullis, ordering the priests up there to lower the heavy gate.

As the iron bars of the portcullis began to creak lower, they heard a cry from the buildings a hundred paces away on the other side of the Heiron’s lawn.  Four priests wearing scarlet sashes, followed by three bearded men with spears came running from out of an alley and sprinted to the closing portcullis.  Behind them, Taran heard something smashing its way through the alley.  Something large.

Fatimah screamed to the portcullis operator to stop.  The iron bars halted halfway to the ground.  The fleeing priests and their guards were fifty paces from the Heiron when the smashing noises behind them stopped.

Six misshapen forms burst from the ruins and galloped after the seven Tuatha sprinting for the Heiron.  Taran would have thought the monstrosities were wild boars, had they not snake-like tentacles whipping from their mouths.  Their hides were pale and glistened in the moonlight, and they released cringe-inducing howls that sounded like the un-greased gears of a steam trolley.

The tentacles of one of the beasts grabbed the ankle of a fleeing Tuathan man and yanked him off his feet.  The beast jumped on him, followed by another one, and then mauled the screaming man.  The four other beasts continued on toward the six remaining Tuatha.

Taran stepped out from under the portcullis and aimed his revolver at the two monsters mauling the Tuathan man.  He fired two shots that echoed off the Heiron and the buildings across the grassy area.  Both shots hit one of the monsters in the head, tissue and black fluid spraying from the beast’s skull.  The bullets got the beast’s attention, and it howled its grating scream, then ran back toward the ruined buildings.  The other beast continued its grisly attack, and Taran fired two shots at it, hitting the head again.  The second monster fled back into the dark alleys, howling with pain and rage.

But the four other monsters continued on toward the six Tuatha who were almost at the gate.  Before he could train his revolver on the last monsters, he heard Fatimah’s voice grow unnaturally loud as she uttered an ancient Tuathan phrase that Taran could not translate.  He glanced at her, saw her right hand in the air, and the left pointed at the wide-eyed Tuatha and the monsters chasing them.  A thin film of blue light, with the consistency of a bubble, spread out from her hand, first enveloping Taran and then the Tuatha who were only ten paces away.  When the boar-like monsters ran into the film of light, they disintegrated into a fine gray dust that seemed to drift in the air before dispersing in the wind whipped up by the unnatural storms.

The six Tuatha scrambled beneath the half-closed portcullis and collapsed just in front of the wood doors.  The portcullis dropped the final four feet as the Tuatha lay on their backs, eyes closed and breathing heavy.  As soon as they were through, Fatimah fell to her hands and knees, her head lowered as if she were about to vomit.

Taran looked back outside toward the alley where the two monsters he had shot were skulking.  He saw motion in the shadows, and he heard more grunts.  Then movement on the grass caught his eye.  The man the monsters had mauled was crawling toward the Heiron.

“Open the gate,” Taran yelled.  “That man’s still alive.”

Taran wondered why the gate operator had not started cranking the gate open when he realized he had yelled it in Recindian.  He called again to the operator in his broken Tuathan.  After a few moments, the portcullis opened again, but only five feet.  Taran slipped through and ran for the crawling Tuathan.  He trained his revolver on the shadows where the two boar-monsters howled and paced.

When Taran reached the bearded man, he was still crawling, but moaning nonsensically.  Taran tried not to look at the terrible bites all up and down the man’s torso and chest.  He holstered his revolver, leaned down, and pulled the man’s arms over his back and hoisted him onto his right shoulder.  The man screamed, and Taran could feel the man’s warm blood flowing down around his neck and back.

“I’m sorry,” Taran said in Tuathan.  “We’re almost there.”

Through gritted teeth, the man said in Tuathan, “They’re coming.”

The boar-monsters howled again, and the thumps of hooves rapidly approached from behind.  All of Taran’s strength went into pumping his tired legs—still wobbly from the lightning blast—toward that half-open portcullis only twenty paces away.  Through the gate, Taran saw several priests with scarlet sashes emerge and raise their right hands, and point their left hands toward Taran.  The same film of light Fatimah had created raced forward and enveloped Taran with a cold tingle that seemed to give his legs a little more strength.  He did not turn to see what happened to the boars, but he hoped the bubble of light had done to them what Fatimah’s had done to the first group.  He no longer heard their shrieks immediately on his heels.

The priests who had Wielded the shield around Taran slumped to the ground, their backs against the Heiron, their eyes barely open.  Several other people clad in buckskins and wools came out and helped Taran with the man he had rescued.  The Tuathans carried the wounded man in to the Heiron.  Taran ducked beneath the gate, then sat against one of the walls, his lungs on fire and unable to take in enough breath.  The portcullis gate crashed shut, as if the operator chose to let gravity bring the gate down rather than the brake.

Taran glanced at Fatimah, who was sitting up with her arms around her legs.

“That was a brave thing you did, Taran Abraeu,” she said, staring at him through exhausted eyes.  “My people will not forget it.”

“You…would have done…the same for me,” he said between pants.

Fatimah said nothing, but continued watching Taran.  Even he did not know what had spurred him to run onto that corpse-strewn field, with lightning exploding all around him and horrifying monsters attempting to rip a man apart—

He turned and retched noisily onto the portcullis.

Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

If you’re uncomfortable getting something for nothing, you can hit the PayPal Donate button in the Tip Jar section to the right. If you donate more than $3, I’ll send you a non-DRM ebook once the book is published (summer 2012). If you donate more than $20, I’ll send you a printed copy.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 20

“You have condemned our people, and you know it,” Melahara told Ollis in low, threatening tones.  They were tones Fatimah had never heard from Melahara, tones that would have had any Acolyte running for cover, and most Priests for that matter.  But Ollis remained stone-faced before Melahara’s anger.

“He is not the Speaker, therefore he has no power to negotiate,” Ollis said.  “He cannot help us.”

Fatimah was glad to stand behind Eblin, who sat between Fatimah and the two most powerful people among the Beldamark Tuatha.  All five members of the Master Circle sat at a round table in the highest room of the Heiron, their Apprentices standing behind them.  Windows from the four slanted stone walls on each side let in the light from the setting sun, though little of it was able to pierce the thick gray clouds.  Fatimah saw the swirling colors of Ahura—she tried her best to ignore the nauseating emptiness of Angra—and its light gave her comfort in a room filled with tension.

“That may be,” Melahara said, “but you had no reason to insult them by throwing them out of the Heiron like stray dogs.  Edoss could very well regain the Speakership, and then where will we be?  We just insulted the only man on the continent that could protect us.”

Ollis laughed.  “The Recindians would never protect us anyway.  They fear us.  They would never let us settle in their lands.  It is the reason we retreated to the Beldamark and it is the reason why we should stay.  I’ve said this from the beginning.”

Melahara shook her head, closed her eyes and rubbed her temples.  “We have already had this debate.  Fomorians have infiltrated the Beldamark and Tuatha are dying every day from their attacks.”

Ollis slammed his hand on the table, making everyone jump except Melahara.  “Then we fight them!  I will not give up my home so easily.  For better or worse, the Beldamark is our home.  We don’t need the Recindians, with their faithless ways.  They despise us just as much as the Fomorians do.  As always, we are alone, and I say we do whatever is necessary to protect our families and our homes.  I say we open the Delving Jars.”

Fatimah frowned, as did three other members of the Master Circle.  Two others, however, nodded their heads in agreement with Ollis.  Predictably, Nyram Suul agreed with Ollis, as she did with almost everything he said.  But the surprise was Ocrim Tylea.  He had always been a strong ally of the Holy Seat, though he made his living as a blacksmith selling knives, arrowheads, and other weapons to the Worldly Seat.  Perhaps the business of war was too tempting for him, Fatimah thought cynically.

Eblin said, “If we open the Delving Jars, we cease to be Tuatha and become like the Fomorians.”

“We will be nothing like the Formorians,” Nyram Suul said, her graying red hair worn around her shoulders like a man.  “We would only open the jars for the intention of destroying the Fomorians.  Is that not what we use the Aspects of Ahura to do?  It is nothing different.”

“It is different,” Eblin replied, as if instructing a student.  “It is the side effects of opening the Jars that is forbidden by Ahura.”

“We don’t know that will happen,” Ollis said, “but we don’t have a choice.  We don’t have the strength to fight the Fomorians any other way.  Besides, we may not have the luxury of following the law as closely as we would like.  Especially with our survival at stake.”

“The law is what makes us Tuatha,” Eblin said.  “I would think the Worldly Seat would recognize that.”

Ollis scowled, but said nothing.

“Besides,” she continued, “we do not know where the Fomorians are at any given time.  How would we know where to open the Jars when the Fomorians disappear almost as quickly as they strike?”

“I’m not saying we open the Jars for a single Fomorian attack,” Ollis said.  “All I’m saying is that it should be an option if we are faced with a concentrated attack by many.”

“Ahura do not let it come to that,” Fatimah muttered to herself.

A little too loudly, for Eblin gave her a sideways glance and said, “Well said, child.”

Fatimah felt heat in her cheeks, bowed her head, and then tried to melt into the wall behind her.

Ollis leaned forward.  “If a Pathist Teacher is now the Speaker of the Compact, what chance do we have of negotiating an alliance with them?”

Melahara opened her mouth to speak, but Ocrim cut her off.  “None.  We all know the Pathists hate everything we are, everything we believe.  That is why I say—”

“You have had your say,” Melahara said.  “We need to see how this plays out.  Dylan Edoss may return to Calaman and regain his Speakership, but then he may not.  If he does not, we must still extend our friendship toward the Pathist Speaker.  All the signs tell us that the Compact will fall to Angra without an alliance with us.  If it has not already happened.  And if when it does, not even the Pathists will be able to deny ‘supernaturalism.’”

“Do not be so sure,” Nyram said.  “Neither the appearance of Ahura and Angra nor the Fomorian weather attack on their capital city changed their beliefs.  They ignore anything that does not conform to their preconceived ideas.  Even extraordinary events.”

Ocrim Tylea folded his hands on the table.  “Perhaps we should abandon the idea of forging an alliance with the Compact?  What about Turicia or Edellia?”

Melahara sighed and shook her head.  “We have been over this as well.  There is no one else.  Turicia would be a faithful ally, but they are no stronger than we are; less, in most respects.  Edellia is large, but the Edellians fear us as much as the Pathist Compact denies us.  Phadeal in the east is no more than a loose confederation of city-states so isolationist that they don’t even come to the defense of a fellow city-state when it’s attacked.  Khur in the west is no better than Phadeal.  And the Wild Kingdoms in the south care nothing for the troubles of the north, even if those troubles would eventually affect them.”

“There’s always Mazumdahr,” Ollis said quietly.  Fatimah wanted to shake her head in amazement at the man’s foolishness.  First, he suggests using the Delving jars, now he suggests an alliance with the Mazumdahri?

Eblin echoed Fatimah’s thoughts.  “The Mazumdahri are what the Fomorians were two thousand years ago.  We may as well cut our throats right now and spare our people a slow death.”

Melahara’s gaze swept the entire Circle.  “Like it or not, the Compact is the anchor that keeps the continent from drifting into anarchy.  If the Compact falls, so does the continent.  An alliance with the Compact is our only hope for survival.”

“The other continents—” Nyram began, but Melahara cut her off.

“—are the responsibility of the Tuatha on those continents.  Recindia is our historic responsibility.  Once things are stabilized here, then we can worry about helping the others.”

Ollis quietly asked, “What if we need their help?  The Guardians have obviously been destroyed or disabled throughout the rest of the world.  How do we contact them?”

Melahara paused.  “We don’t.  At least not right now.  Right now, we concentrate on this continent.”

“And what have your Priests discovered about those responsible for bringing down the Barrier?” Ollis asked.

Fatimah winced, for it was the one thing with which Ollis knew he could challenge Melahara.  The Priesthood had been studying the ancient texts around the clock, and had even conscripted Acolytes into the research.  They were sure the Barrier was impregnable from the outside…but breaching it from the inside was a possibility almost too frightening to contemplate.  For that would mean someone had used the Guardians left behind by the ancient Tuatha to channel the Aspects into boring a hole through the Barrier.  And since none of the Guardians in the rest of the world seemed to be working—the Window would have detected them by now—then it had to have been the Beldamark Guardians that were used.  Only Tuatha could have triggered their magic.

Fatimah could not believe any Tuatha would betray everything they were to release Angra back into the world.  But at this point it was the only plausible explanation.

Melahara cleared her throat.  “We have not been able to identify them.  Yet.”

“If I may say,” Ollis said, glaring at Melahara, “finding those responsible for the Barrier’s fall should take precedence over the negotiations with the Recindians.”

“It does,” Melahara said.  “But we can walk and talk at the same time.”

“What progress have you made?” Ollis pushed.

“Nothing new since we spoke last night.”

Ollis frowned, but leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms as if he were pleased with himself.  The relationship between the Worldly Seat and the Holy Seat had historically been adversarial, but Ollis Gray and Melahara could have been one of the most adversarial, and had grown more so since the Barrier’s fall.

The rest of the meeting covered more mundane things like Fedalan’s upkeep.  Garbage was piling up in the streets and refugees from the surrounding farms and villages were pouring into Fedalan at an alarming rate with terrible stories of Fomorian attacks.  Housing was plentiful in Fedalan—its population, and that of all the Beldamark Tuatha had been declining for decades—but each house needed to be cleaned up and repaired.  The meeting ended with the Circle deciding in a 3-2 vote—Melahara and Eblin against, Ollis and the rest for—for sending Dylan Edoss back to the Compact with a request to meet the new Speaker.

Once the meeting was over, Fatimah asked Eblin if she could go down to the Recindian camp and tell them the decision of the Master Circle.

“You may,” Eblin said with a tired voice.

She leaned on her staff while walking slowly back to her apartment on the Heiron’s fourth level.  Fatimah had never seen her Master so weary, and she knew the investigation into the Barrier’s fall, along with preparation for the now cancelled negotiations with the Recindians, had taken much from her already frail body.

Fatimah walked with Eblin back to her apartments, just to make sure her Master arrived all right, then went back down to the Recindian encampment in front of the Heiron.  Fatimah counted thirty small, two-man tents arranged in neat rows on one of the grassy fields in front of the tower.  The Recindians had taken up as little room as possible, and had even set their cook fires on the cobblestone road next to the field.  The Tuatha had supplied the Recindians with wood for their fires.  Fatimah sadly thought that wood from all of the abandoned homes and buildings throughout the city would keep Fedalan warm for years.

Fatimah saw several Tuathan Heshmen standing nearby smoking pipes and watching the Recindian camp, while several Recindian soldiers sat around campfires eyeing the gathered Tuatha.  She regretted that she could not bring the Crucible out here and let them understand each other’s words.  Eblin had taught her that most arguments stem from miscommunication.  The Crucible would have gone a long way toward reducing the wary glances they gave each other.

She approached three Compact sentries at the border of the camp and she asked in Recindian where she could find Dylan Edoss.  One of the men asked her to follow him.  He led her around several tents until she saw Edoss and his advisor Lee Cursh sitting next to a fire.

Edoss stood when he saw her.  “Fatimah, welcome to our camp.  What brings you out here?”

Fatimah knew from her studies that many Recindian diplomats smiled at your face while plotting your downfall in their minds.  In Dylan Edoss, however, she sensed a man who was genuinely polite and honorable.  She had liked him from the moment she met him.

Which was why she hated telling him the Circle’s decision.  His face fell, then he nodded.

“I can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same thing in their position.  But know this, I will sort this out and I will return.  If you will invite me again, that is.”

“You will be most welcome when that time comes,” Fatimah said.

“We’ll break camp tomorrow morning,” Edoss said.  “Will you guide us back to Markwatch?”

“I will, Excellency.”  Then she looked about the camp surrounding their fire and asked, “Where can I find Taran Abraeu?  I promised that I would speak to him.”

Edoss pointed to a tent four down from the right.  She bid him and Lee Cursh good night, and then walked to Abraeu’s camp site.  There was a cookfire in front of it, with two men smoking pipes and talking quietly.  She remembered them as aids to Edoss’s Ministers.

They both stood when she approached.  If nothing else, the Recindians seemed to have good manners.

“Good evening,” said one of the men through a bushy, gray mustache that hung over his lips.

“Is this the tent of Taran Abraeu?” she asked.

“Yes, but he said was going for a walk around that obelisk, oh, about ten minutes ago,” the mustached man said, checking a small pocket watch attached to his vest.  It was a device that Fatimah could not imagine owning.  How could knowing the exact minute of the day be so important?  Punctuality to the second was one of the Recindians most peculiar habits.

Fatimah thanked the men and walked in the direction they pointed.  She did not have to walk far before she found Taran Abraeu, leaning his back against the trunk of an oak tree that had lost all of its leaves for the autumn, smoking a pipe and staring up at the Heiron.

Without turning his head, he said, “What makes it glow like that?”

Fatimah looked up and realized he was referring to the Heiron.  There was a bluish aura around the entire tower, except for the tip, which had a golden shimmer that persisted at night.  She had lived around the Heiron most of her life, so she sometimes forgot what a beautiful structure it was, especially against the dark sky.

“The ancient builders imbued it with the Aspect of Fire,” she said.  “They wanted it to be a beacon to all Tuatha from across the Beldamark.”

“It’s beautiful,” Taran said wistfully.  He looked into the sky, clear of clouds for the first time in days, and at the ever-present bands of Ahura and Angra.

“My daughter Mara is suffering from a terrible illness,” Taran said, his voice distant.  “And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.  She’s had it for six years, and for six years I’ve studied Mystic legends with the hope of finding you so that you could use your powers to heal her.  Now that I’ve found you, you tell me there’s nothing you can do.”  Taran gave her a mirthless smile.  “I just realized that I spent every waking moment for the last six years to find you, when I should have been spending that time with Mara.”

Fatimah put her hand on his arm, and they were both quiet for several minutes.  Then she asked, “Will your daughter recover?”

Taran shook his head, still staring up at Ahura.  “Unless she is given the Mercy, she will die a painful death.”

“Murder,” Fatimah muttered before she could stop herself.  She glanced at Taran, who looked down at his feet.

“There was a time when I supported the Mercy,” he said.  “I had always thought those who opposed it or wanted it illegal were selfish, and didn’t want to let their loved ones rest, even if it meant letting them suffer a terrible death.  Now I…”

Taran took his pipe from his mouth and knocked it against the tree, dislodging the tobacco ashes from it.

“My wife wanted to give Mara the Mercy as soon as she was diagnosed with the Blood.  I refused.  Mara was already in tremendous pain, but I would not allow my daughter to die without doing everything I could to heal her.  Even though the Blood is incurable.  The slide to death is slow, painful, and messy and…  My wife has hated me ever since.”

Fatimah did not know what to say, so she said nothing.  She had studied the Compact’s arguments for the “Mercy” and still found it to be nothing more that legalized murder.  Never mind that Ahura forbade the taking of human life, the Mercy smacked too much of a society that did not want the inconvenience of taking care of its sick and disabled.

“So I started looking for the Mystics,” he said.  “I gave up a promising career in the University and began chasing a myth.”

The man’s sorrow was so terrible that Fatimah wanted to say anything to him that would give him some sort of hope for his daughter.  She knew Eblin would be angry over what she was about to tell Taran, but the man deserved some hope.

“There is a prophecy,” Fatimah said slowly.  “Well, more like a myth.  It says that when the First Cause sees that the balance between Ahura and Angra has shifted too much in one direction, it will send a being that will bring Ahura and Angra back into balance.  That being will have the powers of both Ahura and Angra, and will fight for the side that is the weakest.  This being may fight with the Tuatha if the Fomorians become too powerful…or with the Fomorians if we win.”

Taran listened attentively, and Fatimah could see that his scholar’s curiosity was pushing back his sorrow a bit.  But only a bit.

“I’ve never heard this before,” he said.  Then realization dawned on him.  “This being has come before.  A thousand years ago.”

Fatimah nodded.  “Much history was lost during the last war and our retreat into the Beldamark, but we do know that it was this being that helped my ancestors erect the Barrier.”

“It was the Barrier that not only blocked Angra, but Ahura as well.”  Taran looked at Fatimah.  “Your people gave up their powers to save the world.”

“It was the sacrifice they made so that the Fomorians would not win.  My people were losing, and losing badly.  It was either that or relegate humanity and ourselves to Fomorian enslavement.”

Fatimah looked up at Ahura and wondered what the ancient Tuatha must have felt when they decided to erect the Barrier.  They would never again feel the love of Ahura coursing through their bodies, nor be able to look up at those swirling colors and feel peace.  From just the limited time she had had with Ahura in the sky, and with Wielding, she did not know if she could give that up.  Despair filled her heart whenever she thought that she might have to.  The only way to defeat Angra this time might be to erect another Barrier.

Taran stared at Fatimah, intensity blazing in his eyes.  “What is this being called?”

“The Zervakan,” Fatimah said.

Taran’s eyes had grown wide, and he licked his lips.  “Would the Fomorians recognize this being when they see him?”

“By sight?  I doubt it.  They might be able to sense the Zervakan if…”  Taran was frowning, staring off in the distance.  “What is wrong?” she asked.

He looked at her, then said, “On our way here, we passed through a town that had been destroyed by a harrower or Fomorian.  He was mad, but he yelled something at the train as it went by him: Zervakan het gaklai na Zervakan.”

Fatimah felt her heart skip a beat.  “This Fomorian shouted that to you or your train?”

Taran swallowed.  “Well…he seemed to be looking at me at the time.  But I don’t know if it was because I was the only face he saw, or if it was a trick of shadows, or if he really was…looking at me.”

Fatimah grabbed Taran’s arm and started pulling him toward the Heiron.  “You have to tell Melahara.”

At that moment a horn sounded from the city’s western boundaries.  Fatimah stopped, listened.  Three short bursts, followed by three more.  Another horn sounded to the north—three and three bursts—and then to the south, near the lake.  Fear threatened to freeze Fatimah’s limbs.  Taran grabbed her arm.

“What are those horns?” he asked.

“Fomorians are attacking the city,” she said.

She looked up at the nauseating presence of Angra.  Several tendrils reached down to areas north, west, and south of the city.  Tendrils from Ahura swirled down to the same locations, but some stopped before they could reach the ground, then retreated back to Ahura.

The Tuatha calling them had been killed before the tendrils could reach them.

“Warn your people that an attack is coming,” she said to Taran.  “Tell them to go to the Heiron.  Go now!”

She did not wait to see if he obeyed before turning and sprinting toward the Heiron.

Cover by TJ Lomas.

I’m posting a chapter from my latest fantasy novel for free every Monday and Friday (click Zervakan above for a synopsis and to start from the beginning). It’s in a “pre-published state,” meaning you might find the occasional spelling/grammar mistake. If you do, please leave a comment below or email me at robsteiner01 [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Thanks, and I hope you enjoy it!

ZERVAKAN

by Rob Steiner

Chapter 19

Despite the stunning news that Dylan Edoss had been deposed as Speaker of the Compact, Taran could not make himself concentrate on the argument Edoss was having with the Tuathan leaders over who was the Compact’s legitimate leader.

The books and artifacts that filled the Tuathan library were too distracting.

He stood on the platform above the library, staring at shelves that held thousands of leather-bound books, scroll tubes, and loose pieces of parchment.  Along the entire length of the wall with the windows on the right were five-shelf cases that held intricately designed bowls, and small statues of men, women, and strange creatures.  There were white and black scepters made of stone, and clubs that seemed hastily carved from driftwood.  Crowns of gold glinted in the meager light from the windows, while crowns of ivy looked as fresh as if they had been picked this morning.

Here was the collected knowledge and art of a culture that had disappeared from Recindia a thousand years ago, and had existed for a thousand years before that.  Taran wanted to run down and read every book and inspect every artifact.  This was one of humankind’s greatest treasures.

He did not hear Fatimah approach until she spoke.  “I believe I would have the same look on my face if I stood in one of your libraries,” she said.

“There’s nothing magical about Recindian libraries,” Taran said.  “You won’t find any bowls that make you understand foreign languages or windows that show you what is happening hundreds of miles away.”

“All vessels containing wisdom are magical,” Fatimah said, “even if they are not blessed with the Aspects.  The knowledge contained in your libraries is just as valuable and just as interesting as the knowledge down there.”

Taran smiled.  “I suppose you’re right.”

He glanced beyond her shoulder.  A book sat on a stone pedestal similar to the one which held the Crucible.  It was two hands long and a hand and a half wide, bound in brown leather with a symbol on the cover that Taran recognized.

“I know that book,” he said, hurrying past Fatimah toward the pedestal.  It was the same book he had in his basement office.  It was the book with blank pages and symbols on the cover that he could never decipher.

He looked back at Fatimah.  “I have a copy of this in Calaman.”

Fatimah’s mouth opened in shock.  “You have a copy of the Book of Ahura?”

“The ‘Book of Ahura,’” Taran said, staring at it.  “Yes, I’m sure of it.  But the pages are all blank, and I could never decipher the runes on the cover.  What is it?”

“It is the only book known to us that tells us how to Wield the Aspects of Ahura as the ancient Tuathans did.  For a thousand years our copy has also been blank.  But when the Barrier fell, the words suddenly flared onto the page.”

Fatimah stepped forward, opened the book, and gently turned the old pages.  Every page displayed words, diagrams, tables, and hand drawn pictures in all colors.  Taran even recognized the script in which it was written—a stylized calligraphic version of ancient Tuathan.

“May I?” Taran asked.  Fatimah nodded, smiling at his eagerness.

Taran turned each page as if it was made of spider webs, but to his surprise the pages felt as sturdy as any page in a book published in the Compact.  The copy in Calaman was the same, which had been one of the things that sustained Taran’s faith in the Mystics.  For how could a book a thousand years old stay in such good condition without magic?

“How many copies were made?” Taran asked Fatimah as he studied an index in the front of the book.

“We do not know,” she said, “but we believe it was not many.  When the Barrier went up and my ancestors retreated into the Beldamark, they lost almost every book and artifact they had created.  What you see in our library is all they could save, a mere fraction of what once existed.  Even copies of the Book of Ahura, the very book that would help us remember our abilities, could not be saved.”

Taran shook his head.  “I could spend years studying this one book.”  He suddenly laughed.  “It looks like I will.  I have my own copy.”

Fatimah looked uncomfortable.  “The Tuatha will need that copy if we are to regain our strength and become what we used to be.  The Fomorians are already becoming more powerful than—”

“Fomorians?” Taran asked.

“What you call the harrowers,” she said.  “Fomorians were like the Tuatha once, but thousands of years ago they chose to follow Angra.  Harrowers are their creations, slaves who were once people, warped and twisted and tortured by Angra until they become—”

“Fatimah!”  Ollis Gray strode over to them, his brow furrowed, his glare resting on Taran.  He reached to the Book of Ahura and slammed it shut.  “This is not for your eyes,” he said to Taran.

“Dr. Abraeu,” Edoss called from the top of the stairs leading down to the library’s lower levels, “we’re leaving.”

“Leaving?” Taran asked.  “We just got here.”

“We invited the Speaker of the Recindian Compact,” Ollis said.  “Mr. Edoss is no longer the Speaker, therefore he is no longer welcome.”

Taran looked at Fatimah, who in turn stared at Melahara with shock.  Melahara glared at Ollis’ back, but she said nothing.

“You mean we have to leave the Beldamark?”

Ollis turned and walked to the stairs where Edoss was standing.  He passed the Speaker—former Speaker—without looking at him, then said over his shoulder, “Fatimah, please take the Recindians back to their encampment.  They need their rest for their return journey tomorrow morning.”

Fatimah said to Melahara, “Holy Seat?”

“Do as he says,” Melahara said, then turned to Edoss.  “I apologize, but the Worldly Seat has final authority in all governing matters.  You must take a message back to your new Speaker asking her to come here.”

Edoss shook his head.  “I will be back, once I’ve sorted out this mess in my country.  But if I don’t come back, nobody else will.  Adellia is an initiated Pathist Teacher.  She will never come here.  It would be an admission that supernaturalism is a real force in the world.  If you understand anything about us, you must know that’s something she cannot admit.”

Melahara smiled wearily.  “Some among my people have the same sort of…bias about you.  As the Worldly Seat just demonstrated.”  Then she said to Fatimah, “Escort our guests back to their camp.”

Fatimah bowed her head, then asked Edoss and the other Recindians to follow her.  Taran could not hold back his anger and frustration at the turn of events.

“This is ridiculous,” he said, not moving.  “We’ve come too far and endured too much to get here.  We can’t go back without at least learning who you are, what you can do.  And you can learn from us.  We have a lot to offer you.  We can give you food, technology to keep you warm in the winters—”

“Dr. Abraeu,” Edoss said in a commanding tone.

“No!” Taran shouted.  “We can’t go back without them!  Mara will die.”

Taran closed his mouth, and then sat down on a bench nearby, his head in his hands.  He would not go back to Calaman empty-handed, not when his daughter’s life depended on him.  He remembered Fatimah’s explanations that they could not heal diseases, but he would not think about that now.  Maybe there was something in the Book of Ahura he possessed that would tell him something different.  After all, Fatimah admitted that the Tuatha had only begun to learn about the powers the ancient Mystics possessed.  Perhaps there was something in the Book that enabled them to cure diseases.

There had to be.

There was a soft hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Fatimah regarding him with sympathy.  “I will come to your camp later on and we can talk about whatever you want.”

Taran saw Edoss’s three Shadarlak standing behind her, looking at him as if they were trying to decide how they would carry him out.

Taran sighed, then stood and followed Fatimah, Edoss, and the other Recindians down the stairs, with the Shadarlak behind him.

Taran took in the entire library and tried to burn it into his memory.  It might be the last time he saw it, and he wanted to remember it.  For the first time in his life, he gave a silent prayer to Ahura.

Don’t let Mara die because of my failure here.