The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) (4 page)

“Come, they will be waiting for us,” Grace motioned for them to follow her around the colonnade a ways before stairs sloped down leading them to the main street.

Once in the stone street, Jovian looked to his right, away from where Grace was leading them. The road that way seemed to be busier and warmer than most. Noise could be heard coming from that direction, a strange metallic ringing and roaring as if produced from gigantic forges.

“What is that?” Jovian asked. A warm breeze issued from the direction in question.

“That leads to the White Mines; that is where they mine ivory. It is not the way we go, and I think if you turn around you might find what Angelica and Joya are speechless about.” Sure enough, as Jovian turned around and looked down the street he saw a massive statue looming over them. When they were on top of the colonnade it had been hidden from sight, but now he looked on the large sculpture with awe.

“Who’s it of?” Joya asked as she took in the sight of the dwarf in long flowing robes with flowers both carved and real about his feet. In his cupped palms a single flame licked the air fluttering in the warm breeze from the mines at the extreme opposite of the city. An altar had been set up some time ago, overflowing with marigolds, candles, and a pitcher of what Jovian imagined to be wine.

“That’s Dungan Steelbender, isn’t it?” Angelica asked, always having a mind for religion. “He’s the God of the dwarves. It was said he could shape steel into beautiful relief with nothing more than his bare hands.”

“The one and only Dungan Steelbender,” Grace started out as if they were back at the plantation in her classroom and the statue was nothing more than a painting on the wall in which they observed. “The pitcher is filled with palisum wine, the sacred wine of Dungan Steelbender, and the marigolds were his favorite flower. Now they are considered sacred.”

“Why does he have fire in his hands?” Joya asked.

“That’s because he’s the God of the forge and mining,” Angelica answered before Grace could. “Fire’s his symbol as much as the anvil, pick, and hammer.”

“Correct,” Grace led them down the street. “Though it is said that he never used those tools, he is still thought to be patron over them, and the miners believe prayer over their tools will bless them with Dungan’s mining prowess.”

The group didn’t see much of the surrounding city after looking at Dungan.

Before they knew it, Grace had stopped before one of the many houses tunneled into the stone walls of Dellenbore. The face of the rock had been carved to resemble any normal home with a wooden door while a deck extended from the front of the house covered with a peeked stone roof held up by pillars similar to the colonnade they just ventured from. The glassless windows opened into the dining room of a home where Jovian could see a fire burning in the fireplace, and he could hear the sounds of dishes rattling around as food was being prepared.

Stone steps led up to the home front, and to either side of the door on knee-high platforms sat stone basins filled with multi-colored marigolds.

“Come on; they are expecting us.” Grace led them up the stairs and through the door as if she were nothing less than family. “They think it is rude to knock,” Grace reported with a whisper over her shoulder.

Female dwarves, Angelica decided, were nothing like people explained them to be. Most often people would say the females were indistinguishable from the males, but Angelica found both of the women in the room pleasing to the eye. Though they were short and stout, they did not fall short in beauty.

Earthen colored hair cascaded down their backs, unbraided marking them as unmarried. Their skin was darker than normal, supple, and smooth—a combination that only added to their appeal. Their eyes startled her in their clarity. The eyes weren’t exactly brighter than normal, nor were they as odd as the elves’, but instead they were alight from inside with an awareness no human could grasp. It was as if they had been allowed to look into the eyes of the nependier, had survived that glimpse, and now knew secrets no other race could ever know. Angelica never thought dwarves to be so learned and welcoming as she found these two.

The dwarves rushed for Grace, an action made odd as their knees did not bend easily; a hurried waddle in all actuality. They each hugged her tightly, bowed to the humans accompanying her, and went back to their preparations without as much as a word of greeting.

There were no questions of the outside world as Angelica would have expected. The dwarves had no need or desire to know the dealings of humans.

No sooner had the humans found themselves absorbing the modest dwelling when a dwarf guided them all in an eager shuffle into stone chairs around a round stone table in the center of the room. The chairs and table were small for them, but the company made do. The dwarves continued cutting and preparing the meal, setting it before them as they went.

One of the strange palisum was sat before them and quickly prepared for their consumption.

“Take care with this. There has been a slight shortage this time around. Someone, it seems, has been somewhat greedy with the fruit and has been hording it,” the dwarf informed them.

“Will you have enough?” Grace asked her, to which the dwarf only nodded in response.

The inside of the palisum looked like a pumpkin, only blue.. The seeds were removed and placed in a stone bowl to the side while the other dwarf filled clay goblets with purple liquid he could only guess was juice. If he knew anything about dwarves, he would have known they rarely drank anything as mild as juice.

As the dwarves arranged breads and cheeses, the group settled around the table for their talk. Jovian reached for some of the fruit, but Grace slapped his hand away from the palisum.

“Eat the seeds first; the flesh is poisonous unless you first retain the juice from the seeds, which will nullify the sweet toxins in the meat of the palisum. It is then, after having taken the antidote first, that the fruit will do what it is meant to do: invigorate and restore your body.” Jovian wondered how long (and how many lives) it took to figure that out.

The seed was resilient in his hand, but the moment it touched his teeth it popped and his tongue was flooded with the sweetest taste imaginable. He then tried part of the flesh, and immediately decided any kind of painful death would have been welcome so long as he got to taste this succulently sweet meat.

In his euphoria Jovian missed the setting of the table. Roasted pork and vegetables, including carrots, potatoes, onions, and beets—root vegetables he imagined were much easier to grow here. Cheese and bread followed, along with a strange paste like butter. One taste of the concoction told him the creamy substance was much better than any butter he had ever enjoyed.

Clay goblets were filled with the purple liquid Grace informed him (with a smile) was palisum wine. A sip later Jovian found himself coughing and gasping for air. Grace picked her goblet up and took a professional gulp of it.

“Strong, but addictive; you will develop a taste for it.” She was write, though it burned his insides, Jovian couldn’t get enough of it. He decided a moment later, his head reeling, the substance could be potentially hazardous for the trip back to Whitewood Haven.

“Now,” Grace said. “I am sure you all have some things you want to know?”

“Yes,” Angelica started the moment the words left Grace’s mouth. “Like who’s that woman with Amber?”

“And why was Amber acting so funny?” Joya chimed in.

Jovian sat silently, and Grace appraised him as if waiting for him to ask any of the number of questions that remained.
What did she mean by us being unordinary? Why did she call my sword a shin-buto? What’s with the medallion, and why does everyone act so strangely toward it? Who are we?
All of these questions he wanted to know, yet none of them he voiced; instead he waited patiently expecting they would all be answered in time.

“Joya’s question first,” Grace lit her pipe and nodded thanks at the tankard their hostess sat before her. “She was acting strange because Porillon is tampering with her change, tampering with her elemental trials. Amber, it would do for all of you to know, is going through her trials as we speak. Now, if a sorcerer is not allowed to go through their transformation properly—in this case if they are forced to stay conscious—they will be possessed by the wyrd. In essence, they will go insane. This makes them very powerful and very dangerous. Wyrd knows no limitation, which makes the host powerful. Nor does wyrd know right and wrong, order and chaos. Those are human concepts. The wyrd is taking over her body, slowly driving Amber insane.” Grace took a long puff on her pipe as if considering something.

“A sorcerer is supposed to rest when they are undergoing their trials. They need all of their mental focus on the tasks they are undergoing. If they do not focus on what is happening within, on the ethereal plane, mentally—wherever these trials take place—then they are taxed too greatly. They are split between being in this world and the other. This causes something close to double vision. This double vision, however, is the blending of one reality with another. They are no longer able to see what is real (in the physical sense) and what is not real (in the etheric sense). More or less they are no longer able to tell what is corporeal from what is incorporeal.”

Joya leaned forward, intent on hearing everything said. She knew this had a lot to do with her own transformation. According to Grace, this blending of worlds was to last throughout the training, and she was apt to do some very strange things when in this state, this trance.

“Amber, it would seem,” Grace went on, “is being forced to stay aware of both of these worlds, and I can only imagine as to what the reasons are for Porillon’s doing so.”

“Why would Porillon target Amber? And what will she do with her?” Angelica asked. “I just don’t understand why so much focus has been placed on us of all families. What’s it about us, Grace? Porillon said that we’re no ordinary family. What did she mean by that? What’s that sword that Jovian is carrying? Honestly, what the Otherworld
is
it, Grace?” Angelica was now half-risen from her chair frantic with questions she obviously thought Grace was not answering soon enough.

A reproving look from the old lady sent Angelica grudgingly back to her seat in silence. Jovian wasn’t surprised how Angelica’s questions mirrored his own. It seemed ever since their excursion in the Temple of Badock, the two of them were growing closer than they had ever been. So close, in fact, that often they shared one another’s exact thoughts.

“Those are all good questions,” Grace said. “In fact, that is why we are here today.”

“Does the insanity last for good?” Joya interceded, looking at her hands, fearing what the answer might be. It was apparent to all of them that Joya asked this question as much for her sister’s sake as her own. Joya would be undergoing her trials this very year, and it was obvious that she was shaken by this concept of never again being mentally whole if something happened to disrupt her trials.

“No one knows. It is a very unpredictable thing with sorcerers who are forced into consciousness during their trials. Again, I can only imagine that such a thing depends on the strength of mind the sorcerer has. The mind is ultimately the deciding factor in such things.” Grace leaned across the stone table and placed her hand comfortingly on Joya’s fidgeting ones. “Don’t fret, child. Amber has a very strong mind. I am sure she will come through it without being harmed.”

“What about that woman Porillon? The markings on her face that glowed with Wyrd, does that mean she was … do you think she is the Mask?” Angelica toyed with her goblet.

Grace appraised her with satisfaction.

“The Mask is definitely something Rosalee and I have been concerned with for some time. I never thought too much about Porillon being the Mask. Rosalee was convinced she was not, but after seeing her now, I am not so sure. Rosalee never really gave me the time to formulate the evidence proving how Porillon could be the Mask, her insistence that the woman was nothing but misled always cut short any of my speculations.”

“You know her?” Jovian asked. They all looked at him.

“Yes, I know her, and her appearance also explains the golem we faced. She was the most powerful sorceress of her time, second only to Pharoh. Mind you, Porillon never had the markings on her face that she bore tonight—another reason I think she is the Mask—but she was very powerful. In fact, I think she could have done us all in at the Foothills of Nependier, and I wonder why she didn’t.”

“But who is she?” Angelica pressed.

“Now, that is part of a longer story. That story is the reason I have brought you all here today.” She looked at each of them in turn. “I did intend on telling you everything in time. In fact, I was planning for this very thing to happen here, in Dellenbore. You may not believe that, but it is the truth.”

Grace leaned back in her chair, stretching her sandaled feet out under the table, nudging Angelica and Jovian’s feet out of the way to make room for her legs to stretch out. She gripped her tankard in one hand; her pipe wedged between her teeth and her other hand. She puffed deeply, settling her white elven wrap around her with a shrug.

“The rightful story starts with two women whom you all know well, and whom you will know even better after we are done here. The story of which I speak is of Pharoh and Sylvie LaFaye …”