Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (7 page)

Sigvid didn’t wait for him to respond, but Caleb followed anyway. The dverger only led him a short distance down the hall and entered a room made entirely of white marble and walls curved in an ovular shape. Black lettering covered the ceiling, carved into the rock, an odd contrast to the beauty of the pure white stone. Square blocks of the white marble sat in rows along both sides of the wall. Long marble pews ran along the ground on a line outward from each square set into the wall; their seats were covered in deep purple silk and their backs exposed to the air. Dvergers occupied each seat in the pews, each of them garbed in gleaming armor and bearing an array of weapons. Bothvar, seated on the last bench, looked back as they entered. His eyes widened in shock and anger.

“You cannot be bringing him here, Sigvid,” he hissed. “You will not be violating the sacred dead.”

Sigvid’s response was cold and immediate. “You’re here, on this side of the Watch, because of him. He is here as part of the Honor Guard.”

“Did the Council be deciding this?”

“We did, Bothvar,” a new voice said. “Now be silent. You do be dishonoring the dead with your anger.”

Caleb turned to see who had spoken. A dverger, hair and beard gone white with age, stood behind him, an anvil clutched in his burly arms. Behind him, four other ancient dvergers stood in similar positions, each one bearing an anvil.

Caleb moved aside so that they could pass.

“That’s right, slink away,” Caleb muttered in a barely audible whisper. “Don’t dishonor your dead unless you care to join them.”

Sigvid gave him a hard, penetrating look but then turned away before Caleb could give him a questioning look.

Bothvar scowled at Caleb beneath his bushy beard and turned back to watch the procession march to the front of the room, where three large marble urns rested.

Sigvid pulled Caleb into a seat on the bench opposite Bothvar.

The dvergers placed their anvils on the ground around the urns, the largest anvil placed in the center. Each dverger took a position behind their anvil and pulled small, ornate hammers from their belts. The hammers glistened with a faint white light, as if they had been ornamented in silver and polished with powdered light. Caleb wanted to lean over and ask Sigvid what was going on, but the solemn atmosphere kept him quiet.

Suddenly, a note rang out, deep and pure. It reverberated off the walls, growing as it echoed. One of the ancient dvergers dropped his hammer onto the anvil in front of him and another note rang out, higher than the first, but melding with it in harmonious unity. More notes sounded as the other anvils were struck, joining in a chorus that sounded as if scores of the instruments were being played.

As one, the dvergers seated on the white marble benches lifted their voices and joined in the song.

“Brothers here, down in the deep, now we guard you as you sleep.

Through battles fought while in this life, now you rest free of strife,

Together now, with your kin, Atelho’s hands you’re sheltered in.

Brothers here, down in the deep, now we guard you as you sleep.

Brothers here, down in the deep, help us as your Watch we keep.

Now in death, your souls unite, to give us strength in the fight,

Atelho’s power come down to us, guide, protect, and shelter us.

Brothers here, down in the deep, help us as your Watch we keep.

Brothers here, down in the deep, we shall not falter, wail, or weep.

When our lives are done and spent, our armor torn and our shields rent,

We’ll join you here, in halls of white, and join our strength with Atelho’s might.

Brothers here, down in the deep, we shall not falter, wail, or weep.”

The dverger voices echoed on for many minutes after the dvergers themselves had stopped singing. It was a simple tune, but Caleb felt the pain and honor in the song. Tears ran in long rivers down his ash-covered face. His hand strayed to the ring against his chest, and he clutched it through his shirt until his knuckles turned white.

Sigvid leaned over and whispered in his ear. “You can’t remain here for the next part, boy; it is too sacred. Come with me.”

Caleb got to his feet and shuffled out of the room.

Sigvid closed the door reverently behind him and then spun on Caleb, his fist flying directly for Caleb’s gut. It struck him with incredible force and knocked the wind out of him.

He doubled over in sudden pain.

Sigvid’s other hand came up and struck him a resounding blow on the temple, knocking him unconscious.

*              *              *              *

“Take a look, human,” Sigvid’s voice said with an intensity that pulled Caleb from unconsciousness.

As his mind came awake, he became aware that he was being held by the scruff of his neck and under one shoulder. He struggled to break free, but the hands gripping him were like iron, and he was slammed none too gently into an earthen berm. Panic built and the hunter reared up within him as the sounds of death and pain reared up in the night. He realized with a marked note of panic that if he were only to look out over the berm, he would see the Raleigh city-fortress.

Screams of terror sliced through the din of gunfire, only to be cut short by equally powerful screams of pain and death. Explosions rocked about, accompanied by small flashes of light that illuminated the sky above the berm and outlined the silhouettes of the dead and broken buildings. Fires blazed and crackled in strange harmony with the sounds of raucous laughter and inglorious revelry that hammered at his ears.

Caleb recognized the sounds, knew the cries of a ravaged city from the moments before Rachel’s death. By sheer luck and happenstance, he had not been one of the ragged screams that night. But he had relived the death of the city-fortress, of Rachel and Benson, every single day since. He did not need to add any more nightmares to his abundant supply.

“I will not,” Caleb said. He kicked out behind him with all the force he could muster.

He connected with Sigvid’s knee.

The hands around Caleb’s neck and armpit slacked, and Caleb instinctively dropped straight down, rolled to his right and leapt to his feet.

Sigvid had already recovered and was standing with his feet and hands spread wide, barring Caleb’s path.

“Why are you doing this?” Caleb shouted.

“Because you are not what you seem to be,” Sigvid said. “I will not be responsible for more of my brethren joining those in the Halls of Honor. Tell me who you are.” The intensity of his gaze pierced even the nighttime gloom.

Caleb glanced over his shoulder and spotted a pair of dvergers in the trench behind him, standing close enough for him to make out the pair of heavy crossbows leveled at his chest.

The hunter screamed for control, longed to dash toward Sigvid and tackle the traitor before escaping into the night. He had thought that Sigvid could be a potential friend, but was now at his mercy, the butt of some twisted and cruel mockery of a joke. Anger turned to a white-hot rage as he came to the realization that there was nowhere for him to run.

“What do you want from me?”

“What do you want from yourself?” Sigvid said, his voice just loud enough to be heard. “What sort of a life do you want to live? Do you think I don’t recognize the berserker’s grief in your eyes? Do you think I don’t know that you live only to kill the next golgent, moving from kill to kill? I heard you muttering in your sleep while you were unconscious just now. Your hair is long and matted; your beard wispy and unkempt. You care for nothing now except your hunger for revenge. You eat only when hunger forces you to your knees. You drink only when thirst blurs your vision. There is only the kill, the sweet joy of revenge.”

Caleb stared at the dverger in stunned silence; the hunter stilled.

“I can see the truth of it in your eyes, human.” Sigvid took a step forward. “I know you were in a city-fortress much like this one. I know that those you loved were killed. I know that you survived, but you’ve come out broken. I’ve seen your scars.”

The tears that had sprung unbidden to Caleb’s eyes spoke louder than any other affirmation he could give. Sigvid had, in only a few short moments, stripped him of all the emotional barriers that he had built and laid bare his soul. He wondered vaguely how raw the wounds still were if a dverger who had only spent a few real hours with him could already see all that Sigvid had seen.

“You live for revenge, Caleb.” The dverger took another step forward so that there were only inches left between them. “But that is only the story you tell yourself. It’s a lie, a shield your mind puts in place to protect itself. You fight, you hunt, and you live because you feel, deep down inside your heart, that their deaths are your fault. You blame yourself, and you hope that your valiant efforts to obliterate the golgent race and the evil you see around you will somehow erase your own inner turmoil and blame.

“My question to you is this: can I trust you? Will your thirst for revenge and penance put more of my brethren in urns?”

Tears streamed down Caleb’s face in torrents. His knees lost their strength as he realized that the dverger was right. He barely felt it as Sigvid gently lowered him to the ground.

“I couldn’t do anything. I left her there, her and Benson.” He sobbed into Sigvid’s shoulder, unable to keep the truth from spilling out of him, as if it had only been waiting just below the surface, eager to be let out. “I should have stayed with them—I could have saved them. They’re dead because of me—because I failed them.”

“It was not your fault, Caleb. In time you’ll come to understand and accept that. I’m not a warrior; I’m a blacksmith. But we’re all soldiers now, and we have all faced the pain of loss and grief. When you figure out what it is you want to live for, you will find yourself again and you’ll find peace.”

Flames danced beneath the altar in the sand-filled bowl atop the sculpture’s headpiece. Somehow, the heat was not enough to melt the ice from which the altar was made, yet the fire’s light was evident through the room. The pale blue light glittered and reflected off the frozen chamber walls, casting odd shadows and shapes across the ceiling and floor. A large, flawless egg was nestled in the sand within the bowl, an image of perfection and tranquility against the backdrop of the Mother-Goddess’s twin statues. A dazzling rainbow pattern sparkled off the stark white of the egg and the statues, cast by the flickering light of soul-fire beneath.

Aeolin sat cross-legged in front of the altar, inwardly calm and focused on feeding the soul-fire at the altar’s heart. She was neither old nor young, but she had spent many centuries as a Keeper, tending the eggs of the White Dragons.

She had been the first. She knew, though, that this egg would be her last.

Already it had changed her, aged her in the few years since it had been laid and entrusted to her care by CeLiana. Once tall, proud, and beautiful, she now had wide streaks of white and gray through her long silver-blond hair. She walked with a slight stoop and a shuffle to her gait that had not been there before. The soul-fire consumed her from the inside out.

A faint brushing on the edges of her consciousness distracted Aeolin from her thoughts, though she recognized the touch. Reflexively, she dropped her mental barriers and allowed one of the dragons to connect with her.

“How proceeds the Watch, Keeper?” Rolaen asked, his voice a deep resonating bass in her mind.

She smiled slightly at the mixed emotions that passed along the link between them. Rolaen and his Dragonsworn, Kaelie, were among the few who supported her prolonged vigil. The Council of Elders and the King disapproved. They claimed she was wasting her experience and Calling on a hopeless cause. She had support from other aylfins, though. And even without them, she had the support of Faerin, their Mother-Goddess, and that was enough.

All of her supporters were dragons and Dragonsworn over whom she had kept the Watch and to whom she was still linked, though none were as loyal or as respectful as Rolaen and Kaelie. Rolaen had been Aeolin’s first Watch,
the
first Watch. He had also been the mate of the dragon who had laid this particular egg before falling during the Breaking.

“She stirs,” she replied. “Her thoughts go out into the world, searching.”

Along their mental link, Aeolin could sense the surprise, hope, and happiness the words caused in the dragon, but she also felt the underlying skepticism and fear that lay beneath them. It was to be expected, even from him. There had been little cause for hope since the Breaking and too much to mourn, especially among the dragons. There were so few of them left, and even fewer Dragonsworn.

“There is always hope, Aeolin. There are enough younglings for now. But I digress. Kaelie requests your presence in the scrying room. She is in need of your assistance with a matter of some delicacy.”

Aeolin’s smile grew wider. That was Kaelie’s way of saying that she and her father were arguing again. It was always the same argument, though the words and topics changed. Their newest fight happened every time Kaelie looked into the scrying pool and saw how the Dragonhosts advanced upon this new world. It was a frequent topic amongst all the aylfins. One that, apparently, had no right answer.

“I’ll come at once.”

Aeolin stood with a silent groan, simultaneously dimming the soul-fire and pushing the portion of her consciousness responsible for its maintenance to a partitioned portion of her mind. That ability set her apart from the other Keepers. With her mind partitioned, she could go about simple daily tasks at her own leisure. As long as she stayed within a mile of the hatchery she could concentrate on other things while maintaining her duty to the Mother-Goddess. The other Keepers were bound to their charges, unable to move more than a few feet from the altars.

She brushed the ice and snow off her thick woolen robes, sweeping her long tresses behind her softly pointed ears. She reached out and placed her palm flat against the wall, as if to shove it away. The light in the room flickered. Part of the wall melted away. Chill air screamed for entrance from the frozen tundra outside, carrying errant flakes of snow into the room.

Aeolin hastily stepped out into the wind to keep the gusts from affecting the egg. The wall reformed behind her.

She paused for a moment, like she always did, and bowed to the statue of the Mother-Goddess at the heart of their frozen community. The statue was all that remained of Eldensar, ice palace of aylfin kings. It was the last legacy of a dying age, a tortured reminder of a splendor and a past that would never be seen again. On this world or any other. She left her head bowed against the wind and crossed the open stretch of tundra in the center of the little group of mounds that reared up against the bleak whiteness like giant snowdrifts, crossing between the statue’s pillar-like legs. She stopped in front of one of the mounds and pressed her hand against a carving in the ice. A section of the wall shimmered and disappeared.

A familiar frustrated voice rang out as she entered. “What would you have us do, Kaelie? Attack? There are too few of us left. The Reds are led by Mortan now. We’ve lost too many of our Dragonsworn to his hand already. I won’t let him have my daughter as well.”

“What sort of king lets evil go unanswered? What sort of king lets those things he loves most slip away from him while he does nothing?”

“Mortan is a son of the Mother-Goddess and ruler of his people, as is your father, Kaelie,” Aeolin said. Her tone was light but reproving. “Do not do yourself the disservice of forgetting that fact.”

Kaelie and her father looked up from the scrying pool over which they had been huddled. Kaelie smiled, instantly bringing warmth and happiness into the room.

“Mother!” she cried.

Aeolin looked over at her and proffered a small, secretive smile. Before becoming the Keeper, she’d been Kaelie’s mother. But that was part of the past.

“Keeper,” the other aylfin said with a slight inclination of his head. Light glinted off the silver circuit on his brow.

“Hasoer, my King.”

He scowled, a sinister expression on his otherwise flawless face.

Aeolin turned to her once-daughter. “Rolaen said that you were in need of my assistance?”

“Yes, Mother,” Kaelie said forcefully, gesturing at the surface of the pool upon which images of the world and the battles being fought played back and forth. “Look at them! Look at how they fall! The humans are being slaughtered by the Red Dragonhosts. The Browns huddle in their holes and dabble in magics and sciences that are best left alone. Either individually or together, they will find us—or we will die here, safe in our hiding places until the end, while the world falls to ruin around us. We should be out trying to fix the Breaking, and yet we do nothing!”

“What would you have us do?” Hasoer demanded again. “There are no more than a score of the Dragonsworn left and fewer still of those who are fit to fight! Would you have us send the only defense we have out into the world to be slaughtered only to save a few humans or a pitiful company of dvergers?” He said the latter scornfully, contempt and anger evident in his voice. “Our race is dying, torn apart by the Breaking. For now we must hide, yes, and rebuild our strength.”

“To what end?” Aeolin said in a calm, yet firm voice. “It is true there are new births amongst us, but they shall not be ready to stand for many decades. Of all the eggs, only one remains, and there are few mated pairs left to give more. The Breaking hit everyone, everywhere—the prospect is not as bleak as you describe. There will be other aylfins, other races here as well, striving as we all do against the hold of their enemies.”

“And where are they?” the King snapped angrily. “Kaelie has not found them in all her sleepless nights spent scrying over this world! There are no others or they would have shown themselves. We are alone.”

“And what if they’re thinking the same thing about us?” Kaelie asked in a voice that bordered on being a whisper. “Don’t the twins keep us shielded from scrying eyes? What if the other aylfins are doing the same? Someone must raise the beacon of hope.”

“I will not go against the decision of the Council of Elders! Especially not when their decision is right.”

“Is that you talking, Father, or Elorin?”

“I will not be spoken to in that manner. I am the King, and you will do well to remember it. My word is law.”

With those words, he strode from the room, opening a door that led deeper into the ice-bound structure and disappearing through it without a backward glance.

“Oh, Mother,” Kaelie said, “You must make him see reason! This is madness!”

Aeolin glanced at her once-daughter and shook her head sadly.

Kaelie’s eyes were fixed on the images of battle shown on the surface of the scrying pool. Tears stained her flawless face with streams of wetness born of frustration and anger. And pain.

With a heavy sigh, Aeolin reached out with her mind to feel the tendrils of water, air, earth and magic that held the scrying in place and willed them apart. The images vanished instantly, leaving only the pool of water behind. Kaelie did not look up from the glassy surface but stared down at her unyielding reflection. Aeolin sighed more heavily still and turned her back on her once-daughter, heading out into the icy chill.

The egg was stirring.