Guardians of the Lost (41 page)

The night air was mild. An owl called. Another, at a distance, answered. Damra walked swiftly from the area of the guest houses to the first of many gates she would need to pass in order to reach the Shrine of the Father and Mother. By elven law, no one could stop her.

T
he history of the elven portion of the Sovereign Stone is a bloody one; a sorrowful fact that the late King Tamaros never knew. The good man went to his death believing that the Sovereign Stone would bring the peoples of Loerem together in peace. If the gods are merciful, they still keep the truth from him.

When King Tamaros received the Sovereign Stone and announced that he would give each of its four sections into the hands of each of the four races, the Divine, the father of the current Divine, assumed that the Stone would come to him, as spiritual leader of the Tromek nation. He sent his representative, Lord Mabreton the Elder, to accept the Stone in the name of the Divine. The Shield of the Divine had other ideas. He recognized the extraordinary power the Stone would confer upon the one who possessed it.

With the aid of a minor elven lord, Silwyth, who was ostensibly Prince Dagnarus's chamberlain but was, in reality, a spy planted in the human court, the Shield caused Lord Mabreton to be secretly murdered. The Shield accepted the Sovereign Stone from the unwitting King Tamaros and refused all demands by the Divine to send it to him.

The Shield built a special garden to house the Stone, protected by cunning and powerful magical traps. The Stone did not reside there long, however. When Prince Dagnarus was transformed into the Lord of the Void, he declared war upon Vinnengael, upon his brother, King Helmos. The other races had agreed when they accepted the Sovereign Stone that if one race faced a threat, the other three portions of the Stone would come together in order to preserve peace. Helmos sent messengers asking each of the races to return their portions of the Stone. One by one, the others refused.

Fearful that the elven portion of the Stone might be in danger, the Shield brought it into his own dwelling place. The Shield was secretly allied with Prince Dagnarus. Elven troops fought with Dagnarus and more stood on the border, ready to move in when Dagnarus was victorious, prepared to take over land that had been promised to them in return for their aid.

Many elves died in the destruction of Vinnengael. The Shield was called upon to answer for their lives before the Divine. Still the Shield might have managed to save himself, but that Silwyth came forward and revealed the Shield's crimes, starting with the murder of Lord Mabreton the Elder. The Shield saw himself surrounded by his foes. He requested death at the hands of the Divine, who gave that pleasure into the hands of Lord Mabreton the Younger. House Kinnoth was ruined from that day forward.

As to what happened to Silwyth, none ever knew. By bringing down the Shield, he encompassed his own destruction, for not even the Divine had the power to pardon him. Lord Mabreton the Younger spared no expense to find him, for it was Silwyth who had slain his brother and Silwyth who had helped Dagnarus seduce the Lady Valura, wife of Lord Mabreton. Lord Mabreton offered a reward that was equivalent to a king's ransom for Silwyth's head and many assassins tried their luck, but none ever found him. Now, after two hundred years, most assumed him to be dead, for how could a man survive that long with so many enemies and so few friends? Damra wondered that herself.

With the fall of the Shield's House, the Sovereign Stone was removed by the Divine to the Shrine of the Father and Mother in the
Tromek capital city of Glymrae. Garwina of House Wyval, a lifelong friend of Cedar, was proclaimed Shield of the Divine. To honor his new status, the Divine presented Garwina with a royal palace in Glymrae. This magnificent palace encompassed the grounds on which stood the Shrine of the Father and Mother and the new garden that housed the sacred Sovereign Stone.

The Stone was guarded by soldiers loyal to both the Shield and the Divine. Even when relations between the Divine and his former friend began to sour, the Divine never feared the Sovereign Stone might be in danger. A man of honor and integrity, the Divine would not be able to conceive it possible that the mind of any man would be so corrupt as to consider stealing the sacred object for his own gain.

Damra could not conceive it. If Silwyth was right and the Shield was conspiring with the Vrykyl to steal the Stone for himself, the Shield was stealing not from the Divine, but the elven nation. The Shield had accepted the Stone to hold in trust for the elven people. He bound himself with sacred oaths. If he broke those oaths, the Father and Mother would turn their faces from him. His own ancestors would renounce him. Such a crime would be more heinous than those committed by House Kinnoth. Garwina and his House would be ruined, disgraced, with perhaps no chance for reparation. Houses had been stricken from the rolls, but never had a House been dissolved, disbanded so that it ceased to exist. His might well be the first.

Much as Damra disliked the Shield and his politics, she could not wish such a terrible fate on him, for he would not be the only one to suffer. He would doom many thousands of innocents, those elves who looked to his House for protection. If he fell, he would take them down with him.

Damra came to the first of the many guardhouses that lay between her and the Shrine of the Ancestors. The guards were alert and wide awake. They halted her, regarded her with cool and wary looks. She told them she felt the need to pray this night. They passed her on, as they were bound to do. Glancing back unobtrusively as she continued on her way, she saw one of them depart, running toward the main house. He would report her movements
to his superior. Would the superior report to someone higher up? How rapidly would the news eventually reach the Shield?

Damra quickened her steps. She followed the same routine at every guard post along the way. The grounds of the palace of the Shield were extensive, covering an area of perhaps twenty miles or more in diameter. Walkways and paths wound through the gardens from the palace to the Shrine.

The night was clear, lit by a silver moon and radiant stars. Damra had no difficulty finding her way. She walked alone. No one else was abroad this night. Spies might be lurking about, however, and so she dared not run, for that would look suspicious. She walked as rapidly as she could, slowing her pace to a pensive walk as she approached the guards. Impelled by a sense of urgency that increased the nearer she drew to the reliquary, Damra was forced to exert all her control to keep from snapping at the guards or, worse, to dash past them with unseemly haste.

She passed the last checkpoint with an overwhelming sense of relief. Topping a rise, she saw the Shrine of the Father and Mother below her. Elves believe that they are the children of the gods, most specifically, the Father and Mother, who watch over the family of the gods and the family of the dead, the elven ancestors. The elves feel close to their ancestors and thus take all manner of problems and complaints to them. Elves view the Father and Mother with reverence and awe. They seek their counsel only under dire circumstances.

The Divine is the nominal head of the Church, although the priests have their own hierarchy. Unlike the human Church that combines religion and magic, the elven Church works hard to separate the two. The priests have no great power, but they are important in that they are the only people who can cross the strict boundary lines of elven society. A priest, no matter how lowly his birth, may talk to anyone. A peasant who believes that he has been wronged could not take his grievance to the Shield, for the peasant would not be permitted anywhere near the Shield. The peasant takes his grievance to the priest, who, even if he comes from peasant stock himself, can seek an audience with the Shield to relate to him the peasant's woes.

As a structure, the Shrine was not beautiful or imposing. It looked to be little more than a rock cairn with openings left among the stone blocks for windows and a larger opening that served as a door. The Shrine was one of the oldest structures standing on all of Loerem, for the earliest written histories of the elves speak of it as old even then. The rocks that form the walls of the Shrine are said to have been placed there by the hand of the Father and thus is it the holiest of holy sites in Tromek.

Bright light glowed from the windows. The Shrine was open day and night to anyone who sought guidance and counsel. A number of the priests could be seen silhouetted against the light, clustered in the open doorway, peering out into the night. At the sight of her, they called out in alarm. Something was wrong.

Not caring who saw her now, Damra broke into a run. She clasped hold of the pendant she wore around her neck. The armor of the Dominion Lord flowed over her. To reach the reliquary, she would have to pass through a grove of cedar trees, the first defensive barrier.

Arriving at the cedar grove, she halted, stared in consternation. Broken branches lay on the ground or hung, snapped and dangling, from the main trunks. One entire tree was split in two, as if it had been struck by lightning, yet there was no charring visible, no smoke rose from the splintered wood.

The air was tainted with Void magic. Damra could scarcely breathe, so thick was the miasma. The Wyred had placed powerful magicks on the grove to keep out thieves. The magicks had been shattered. The power of the Void had destroyed them.

Gripping the handle of her ceremonial sword, Damra drew it, held it before her as she crept silently through the path of destruction created by her enemy. Having to watch where she placed every footfall, she had reason to bless the Raven Eyes that had been gifted to her by the gods. She reached the edge of the tree line, looked beyond to see the reliquary itself.

A crystal globe hung suspended on a wire made of beaten gold attached to the top of a cage whose bars were made of steel intertwined with gold. Inside the globe, the Sovereign Stone gleamed in
the bright silver light that radiated all around it. The cage stood in the center of a mirrored floor that reflected the cage and the glittering stone hanging above. So smooth was the mirror's surface that the reflected objects were indistinguishable from the real. The mirrored floor extended outward from the cage for a radius of four feet.

Woe betide anyone who stepped on that surface without care, for unless one knew where to walk (and it was said that only two people in the Tromek knew the secret route, the Divine and the Shield of the Divine), the thief would step from solid ground onto nothing, for the mirrored surface was an illusion created by the Wyred. The thief would fall into a deep pit lined with razor-sharp iron spikes, to die a horrible death.

If one managed to safely cross the illusory floor, then one had to pass through the bars of the cage that were locked with seven locks (one for each of the seven major Houses) requiring the use of the seven keys—four keys held by the Divine, three held by the Shield. Then and only then could one reach the Sovereign Stone, held suspended in its crystal globe.

The bodies of several guards lay sprawled on the ground around the reliquary. Some wore the armor of House Trovale of the Divine, others wore the armor of the Shield of the Divine. The battle had been a bloody one, desperately fought on both sides. Guards loyal to the Shield had been victorious, six of them remained standing, but none had escaped unscathed. One guard clutched his bloody arm to his side. Another's face was slashed open to the bone. A third knelt beside a comrade, hastily tying a tourniquet around the man's upper thigh. No soldiers loyal to the Divine remained alive.

Damra could imagine the battle, imagine how vicious, how desperate it had been. Although loyal to different Houses, different causes, these men had served together for years. They must have become friends, comrades, some close as brothers. Then, in a single night of betrayal, some had turned on their friends, their comrades, their brothers. They had obeyed orders. Done their duty. None could reproach them, for duty to one's House took precedence over friendship, love, even family. Yet Damra felt sickened at the thought.

She watched warily, not rushing forward, taking in the situation. The guards appeared to be waiting for someone. They peered into the darkness. They were nervous, uneasy, hearing nothing but the accusing voices of the souls of their murdered victims. Damra began to be uneasy herself. The Vrykyl had blasted her way through the cedar grove. Where was she? Hiding in the shadows of the Void, watching, taking stock of the situation, even as Damra watched?

Movement caught Damra's eye. The soldiers raised their bloody swords, drew together for defense.

A figure emerged from the shadows of the cedars opposite to where Damra stood. The figure was that of a woman. Beautiful, fragile, she made her way with delicate grace across the blood-soaked and trampled grass. The guards lowered their weapons and stood back to let her pass.

Lady Godelieve scarcely noticed them. She looked neither to the left nor the right. Her gaze fixed upon the Sovereign Stone, glittering in its crystal globe.

Damra's first impulse was to rush from her hiding place, strike now, catch the creature in its weakest form. A Vrykyl can don its protective, magical armor as swiftly as a Dominion Lord, but Damra would have the element of surprise and that would count for something, particularly since the Vrykyl must believe her to be dead.

Damra was about to act on this impulse, even though it meant that she would also be fighting the Shield's guards. She gripped the hilt of her sword, shifted her weight forward.

A hand closed over her wrist.

Damra gave a violent start, turned her head.

Silwyth stood beside her.

“What—” she began in an angry, hushed whisper.

The grip on her wrist tightened. The aged hand was exceptionally strong. His lips formed a single word, “Wait.”

Damra calmed her wildly beating heart, relaxed her stance. She had no idea how he came to be here, how he had managed to keep up with her, how he had made his way past the guards, who would have slain a member of House Kinnoth on sight. There was more to this aged elf than appeared on the surface.

The Lady Godelieve halted at the edge of the reliquary and summoned one of the guards.

“Stand watch,” she ordered in her melodious voice.