Rite of Exile: The Silent Tempest, Book 1 (24 page)

At the base of a tree, dwarfed to almost nothingness by its size, a man lifted his arms as if in supplication. The towering monolith before it began to shrink, needles and branches and bristling cones retreating through the countless years. Roots like the limbs of giants sank into the earth and vanished. Soon the tree stood no higher than a tall house, then a healthy sapling, then a seedling.

A piercing scream rent the night as the last curled frond sank into the soil.

“Caleb Stenger—damn your cursed dreams!”

He opened his yes. Soren crouched near, his age-lined skin and long white hair reddened by the nearby light of coals; resinous smoke curled up from a few large cones and pieces of bark he had thrown on the fire. Warren sat to one side, staring at his father as if he were a madman.

Caleb sat up and ran a hand over his sweat-soaked face. “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

Soren studied him. “Perhaps we should have waited a little longer before attempting this.”

A sudden flame drove away the dark, restoring Caleb’s wits. “I’ll be all right.”

The snap of a twig caught their attention. Rennor was walking toward the firelight, carrying a small satchel in one hand and hoisting his pants up with the other. He stopped short at the others staring at him.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yes,” Soren answered slowly. “Where were you?”

Rennor threw down the satchel next to his other belongings. “I don’t believe this. I can’t even shit without your questioning my motives!” He sank to the ground and flung the blankets over himself, turning his back.

Soren shrugged. “We’ll start first light,” he said to Caleb. “Get more sleep, if you can—we’ve got a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

“Gur’alyreiv again?”

“Maybe. I’d rather we put this forest at our backs as soon as possible.”

Caleb nodded
, and laid back down. The last thing he saw was Soren sitting alert near the fire, the yellow flames dancing in his eyes.

♦

No further visions disturbed his sleep until Soren woke him just before dawn.
The momentary compassion the old Raén had displayed during the night was gone, his expression like stone, implacable.
Warren showed no trace of his previous behavior.
Caleb tried to put it out of his mind, telling himself that he was a victim of his own imagination.

By the time the day was in full swing the rain had started again, heavier this time. The huge limbs and spreading boughs gathered it into thick, icy drops that plunged down splattering onto their heads as they rode. Within hours all their belongings were soaked, and the incessant plop and smack of these little missiles did nothing to improve their tempers.

Caleb was happy to let the more experienced Raén lead the way, for it was difficult to navigate in the rain and rising mist. The river to the south might have helped guide them, had not the huge tree roots made passage along its winding banks nearly impossible. Before long it turned sharply to the north, forcing them to ride well out of their way. Soren kept his cool, however, mentioning that the river eventually fed Oné’en, the lake which surrounded Graxmoar.

A few hours later, the swollen waters turned west again. Chilled and wearied from long hours riding in the rain, they made camp while a few hours of daylight remained. Caleb knew they never would have reached the other side of the forest by nightfall. To their relief the rain stopped, but no effort could evoke a flame from the stubborn fuel at hand.

Caleb fretted as he laid out his blankets over the cold ground.
Suddenly he jumped up laughing, startling the others.

“Of course! What a fool I’ve been—ever since Udan. We don’t need a fire. Give me that pot of stew Rennor bought in Enilií, Soren. We deserve a feast tonight.”

“What nonsense is this?” Soren barked.

“More
Earth magic
. Stop gaping, and get the stew.”

Soren shook his head but obeyed, and brought out a large sealed crock of venison stew. It was kept fresh by a method invented by the seafarers of Trethrealm, an art the Adaiani had yet to master: a rare and expensive item. They had been saving it for a really cold night, which Soren testily remarked would be colder than this one.

He held the crock in his hands, his eyebrows raised in cynical expectation, then noticed Caleb fumbling with the laser. “You
have
lost your senses!” Rennor, slowly rising to his feet, stared as though equally shocked at the sight.

Caleb waved a hand to dismiss his fears. “Just listen. I’ll be able to heat it with this thing. Set the pot there on the ground, and move away a little.”

Soren paused, then with a growl stepped forward and placed the crock on the ground. “If you are rash enough to use your magic in this place,” he said with a quick gesture at the trees, “then I hope that whatever forces dwell in these forsaken woods will know I am not responsible!”

Now it was Caleb’s turn to hesitate. He looked at Rennor for reassurance, but the man was still staring at the laser. He finally noticed Caleb’s attention and snapped out of his trance.

“What’s
your
problem?” Caleb asked.

“Er—nothing.”

“Any objections?”

Rennor glanced at Soren. “I don’t think I’m at liberty to voice an opinion.”

Caleb grunted softly, unimpressed. He resumed his task, making a few more adjustments on the laser. Then he took careful aim at the pot where it rested on the ground, and fired.

Soren waited. “Nothing’s happening. Your magic fails.”

“No,” Caleb said, “only your patience. Keep still, and watch.”

Without warning the lid popped off with a bang and shot
spinning into the gloom overhead.
Rennor gasped and fell back, his face peppered with hot stew. Soren leaped for cover, and Warren jumped a foot from the ground where he sat.

“Um … sorry,” Caleb said. “I suppose I should have loosened the seal first.”

Soren sat ten feet away, gravy dripping off the end of his nose. “You suppose correctly!”

“I said I was sorry. Are you hurt?”

But the old Raén did not answer. Slowly he rose to his feet, eyes searching aimlessly.

“What in Ada’s the matter with you?” Caleb asked.

Soren gripped the hilt of his sword. He looked at Rennor, then at Caleb. “Don’t you feel it?”

Caleb glanced around at the trees. “Feel what? Gur’alyreiv again?”

Soren was staring at the ground under his feet now, as if it might open up and swallow him. Rennor, oblivious of the bits of stew still left on his face, steadied himself against a nearby tree. Just when Caleb opened his mouth to demand an explanation, the ground beneath his feet began to quiver.

He pulled Warren to his side and gripped the laser, ready to fire at the first sign of danger. Soren drew his Fetra. But there was nothing visible to defend themselves against, and they stood helpless. Soren returned Caleb’s stare with a clear message: he had overstepped his bounds, and now they would pay for his folly.

The tremors grew.
“Let’s get out of here!” Caleb yelled.

Forty feet away a geyser of soil blew into the air. The shock of it traveled under their feet like a wave. The company stood transfixed, while the horses hauled back on the ropes, screaming. Another quake rocked the earth. As the debris from the explosion fell back down, the ground beneath it began to heave and spill over. Soren gripped his sword, while Rennor backed off, weaponless. Warren clenched his father’s coat in his fists.

The erupting mound gained height, and began to take shape. At first no more than a haphazard melee of stone and soil, as they watched the mass drew inward, compacting until it formed the unmistakable shape of a giant hand.

Yet it barely resembled anything made of flesh and bone. Hard knuckles and short, malformed fingers gripped the earth like a vise. Another hand appeared, and a head rose up so covered in falling dirt and rock that its features were difficult to make out. Then with a mighty heave, the creature emerged from the hole and rose to a stand
, its squat head nearly twenty feet above the ground.

It was made entirely of soil and stone. It towered above them, lumps of clay or strands of pebble-strewn dirt falling from its massive body. Trailing ends of roots dangled out at odd angles like the underside of an uprooted tree. Despite a vague suggestion of rock for bone, soil for sinew, its body was so roughly formed that it seemed to have gotten its arms and legs by freak chance rather than design. Only its head still shifted and trembled, as if struggling to complete its transformation to human form. A ragged slit like a mouth appeared, and a pair of rough, deep holes beneath stony brows like black pits of sorrow. Despite his fear and awe, Caleb once again experienced a strange, familiar pity, like an ancient tragedy that somehow tied the fate of this creature to his own.

Its change now complete, it stood without the slightest motion, as if given birth by the guts of the planet to keep silent vigil for eternity. Then it raised its right arm to point west, speaking with a voice so deep that it shook the ground under Caleb’s feet.

THE WAY FOR YOU IS WEST. LEAVE NOW, AND REMOVE YOURSELF FROM THIS PLACE. YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE.

Soren stepped forward, brandishing his weapon. “Why are you here? We pose no threat to you.”

The creature extended a heavy palm, as if to squash the puny Adaian like a grape.
YOUR THREAT IS REAL!
it boomed. The arm swerved, flinging soil in all directions, and Caleb’s heart skipped at the stony stub of a finger pointed directly at him.
THIS ONE, THIS STRANGE ONE. THE DEVICE HE WIELDS IS AN ABOMINATION.

Now the beast turned his full attention upon Caleb, and took one crashing step in his direction. Caleb gripped his laser, knuckles white, while Soren sprang forward with a cry and hacked at the creature’s leg. Sparks flew as the blade glanced off. What little damage it did to the creature soon vanished, like a hole filled in by the wind and rain.

The beast slowly turned its head, as if amazed at the man’s stupidity. As Soren poised for another swipe, the creature lifted the stump of its foot and flung him into the air.

Fear for Soren snapped Caleb into action. Brandishing his own weapon, he aimed a shot at the living tower he knew would cut it in two.

The giant approached and loomed right over him, unscathed. Caleb stared at the pistol, full of trepidation and shock at its sudden failure. Just as he remembered what setting he had left it on, the creature reached down and grabbed him by the chest.

As he left the ground the pistol fell away, and he gaped breathlessly as the giant’s stony hand threatened to squeeze the life out of him. Soren gasped and groaned somewhere out of sight. Warren, having lost his hold on his father, shouted and threw everything he could find at the monster. Rennor stared, lost in his trance again. Caleb gripped the massive wrist and gritted his teeth. He had never felt anything so irresistibly powerful.

It went no further. It held him, on the verge of snapping every rib, hesitant to kill. Caleb beat weakly on the stone and fought for the slightest breath, a rabbit in the coils of a mighty snake.

It loosened its grip suddenly. Caleb gulped air, filling his chest with agony. The creature stood thus for a long while, as impassive and immovable as a mountain. Then it opened its hand wide, and Caleb thumped hard against the ground.

He was too winded to dive for the laser, which would have proved disastrous anyway. The giant stooped and lifted the pistol between its massive hands. It seemed to study the tiny weapon as it rested gently on its palm.

Finally it returned its attention to Caleb.
SO THAT YOU KNOW HOW CLOSE YOU CAME TO DEATH
,
it said and, instead of finishing the sentence, slapped one hand down upon the other.

A sound like a rifle shot tore through the woods and faded. Tiny stones peppered the tree trunks. The giant tilted its palm, and what was left of the Earthman’s one technological defense trickled down on his chest, barely distinguishable from the graveled earth in which it was mingled.

DO AS YOU WISH TONIGHT, DEPART OR REMAIN. BUT I SAY TO YOU: IF YOU ARE NOT GONE FROM THIS FOREST BY TOMORROW’S SUNSET, YOU WILL PAY THE PRICE WITH YOUR LIVES.

After a tense pause the giant began to disintegrate. Sand, soil and gravel slid to the ground like the age-long death of a hill compressed within a few seconds. First the head, then its arms and shoulders, then its chest, torso and legs—until nothing remained but a mound of earth and small stones, a massive, unmarked grave in the fading light.

Caleb wrenched himself free of the pile, and sat up as Warren came running. Rennor emerged from his trance to help the Master Raén back to the campsite. Luckily the blow had been more of a lifting nature
. A thick mat of needles had softened Soren’s landing; only a few painful bruises and welts would remind him of his flight for a few days.

He pulled away from Rennor, indicating with an impatient gesture that he could walk on his own, and retrieved his sword. He stared at it, his face full of disappointment: it had suffered from its impact with stone. Caleb felt as if his spine had been split like a zipper. But he had no choice but to endure it, and after a few minutes struggled to a stand.

They all stood motionless, recovering from the shock. Rennor braced himself against a tree again, his face still spotted with food. Warren resumed a tight grip on his father’s soiled coat.

Soren finally broke the stunned silence. “A curse on me if I stay in this evil wood another night.” He glanced over to see that the horses were still there, twitching and stamping with their ropes tangled from their struggle to escape. “You others do as you wish. My way lies west, at once!”

His resolve shook them into action, and in minutes they were riding west as the last light of day faded beneath the trees.

19

Descent

Great expectations often spoil the prize.

- Larai, Loremaster of Besa