The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) (11 page)

“Exactly,” Bardoc said. “And just think,” he set the bottles on the floor beside chair. “The Elders had two more sets of beads inside their bottles.”

Hunter sat back. “So then, what happened? Was it the unraveling?”   

“The
Great
Unraveling,” Bardoc corrected, getting comfortable in his seat once more. “During the Surgance period, more than four hundred years ago, the world systems started to crumble. People were lost between the pages of portal books for days—sometimes whole seasons. Sometimes permanently.”

Lost in the books? In that awful tearing, compressing, disorienting state of the passage? He shuddered. “How? Where did they go?”

Bardoc shrugged. “Our worlds are stacked neatly on top of one another, yet they are so far away that one could never travel between them amongst the stars. We are separated by rifts in time and space. I imagine those who were lost got caught in a rift. Perhaps they found themselves on a small world, not among the Nine. Perhaps they winked out of existence. We may never know. As for how: There was an imbalance of power in the etâme that no one could explain—not even the Proficients.”

“Proficients?” It seemed new terms were thrown at him the moment he felt comfortable with the ones he’d just learned.

“Expert Masters of a particular area of etâme. A Proficient's job, in the days of the Elders, was one of great power and even greater responsibility. They kept order, solved problems, invented most of the things we still use today.”

“Impressive.”

“Oh, yes.” Bardoc’s face became stony, serious. “But for the first time, during the Surgance, they'd come upon a problem with no solution. People were scared. Some expressed a desire to focus their etâme on a single element.”

“Why?” Controlling every element seemed like a greater advantage, especially now, to Hunter, whose life depended on his ability to defend himself should he ever meet the man who hunted him. He shuddered at the thought.

“Their argument, if we refer to my demonstration again,” he picked up the bottle-Ariana. “They believed that all of the 'beads' of etâme that they possessed would shift and become one. Become stronger.” He shook the bottle-Ariana and wrinkled his forehead. The white beads shrank, the blue beads paled—began to sweat the tiny white beads from their slowly shrinking forms until the entire bottle was filled with nothing but grains of white sand.

A wild giggle wriggled out of Hunter's throat. Etâme. It never ceased to surprise him.

Bardoc waited to continue.

Hunter checked himself and refocused. “Well, it must have worked.”

Bardoc’s smile was a grimace. “Not exactly.”

Hunter straightened.

“Changing your etâme isn’t like changing your mind. It is, quite literally, altering a part of one’s soul.”

“Oh.” Hunter deflated. How was that even possible?

“The decision was difficult. But the members of the Proficient Council eventually agreed to perform the procedure.”

“Why?”

“Because such a change would save the worlds of etâme from falling into ruin.”

“Who could possibly know something like that?”

“A prophetess by the name of Drea Dobalye.” Bardoc stood, glided into the other room, and returned with a large midnight blue book. He flipped through the pages and set the open book on Hunter’s lap. "It was a different time. A time when we still believed that Prophecies held any credibility."

The Prophecy of Drea Dobalye

On Spring Solstice, Dawn of night,

Three disturb the course of life.

Elemental bonds unravel,

From one there will be four.

As strong divided as is whole:

World’s plight will be no more.

The residing Proficient of Marania, TW Spencer, translated Madame Dobalye’s vague speech into what is now considered the historical reference translation, and this is where the Great Unraveling derives its name.

The Prophecy of Drea Dobalye

As interpreted by TW Spencer

When the sun sets on the Spring Solstice,

Three new races will emerge.

And there will be a great unraveling

From which all four elements will separate.

The strength of the abilities before,

Combined, will be equaled

In the strength of the new, independent element.

And this will end the ending of the worlds,

Rebalancing them.

Hunter looked up. “This is what happened? The way they said?”

Bardoc lifted the book off Hunter’s lap. “Yes.” He gazed at the words a moment before closing it and setting it aside.

“How did they do it?” It had to hurt, to alter the soul.

“You will get a different answer from every person you ask. Many swear the Proficients opened a channel to the core of Ionia and siphoned the ancient etâme stored in the world’s very bones. Some believe it was the etâme of the Onyx Vial, though the only recorded occurrences of it over the years have been linked to instant deaths. Still others say that the prophecy itself changed the races—that the Proficients’ choice was irrelevant. That it was fate. The truth, I’m afraid, has been lost in history.” Bardoc finally sat. “What we can say for certain is that, on the Spring Solstice, the High Proficient and the members of the Council performed the procedure on every person who wished it to be done.”

“Were there a lot?”

“Oh, yes. The highest percent were the Mervais race, followed by the Eerden. And then the Fyydor, which was an especially small percentage.”

“Why?”

“The prevalence was determined by the strength of the element. Water is a shaper—a changer by nature. The alteration was almost natural for the Mervais. Earth maintains a certain shifting sense of self—slower, perhaps, than water—but it meant the change wasn’t too hard on the Eerdens either.”

“Now, fire. Fire is unpredictable. It’s both dangerous and a provision of comfort. It does not play well with others unsupervised. It's covetous and stubborn. It wants what it wants when it wants it. Some were eager to grow more powerful, some were hesitant to part from the other elements, afraid they couldn't survive.”

Bardoc lifted his hands. “And then there’s air. The element that touches everything.”

Hunter sat forward. “You didn’t mention Aeriels before. Did they not change when the others did?”

“Oh, they did,” came a familiar voice.

Hunter turned.

Tehya smiled at them from her perch on the top step, wisps of her hair brushed her face where they hung. The rest was pulled into a loose braid over her left shoulder. She clutched a large red mug with both hands. “But only because something went wrong,” she said.

Hunter couldn’t help but stare. She’d changed out of her pajamas and now wore a flaxen-white shin-length dress, its lace collar peeking out from under a dark green overcoat.

“Ah, my leaf,” Bardoc said. “I see you've brought a bribe. I imagine you'd like to listen in?”

Tehya grinned, but said nothing.

“Come sit, then,” he said, and returned his attention to Hunter.

Tehya descended the stairs, the end of her dress swishing over her dark leather boots. Hunter blinked and turned from her as she neared them, determined to stay focused on the subject and not on the finer details of his Instructor’s daughter.

Tehya handed her father the drink. The smell of butterscotch wafted into the air.

Bardoc took the cup in his long fingers and gave her a little nod. “For reasons unknown, even to the Council,” he went on, “the procedure shifted everyone, whether it had been performed on them or not.”

“Really?” Hunter breathed.

“Only the High Proficient’s Original Race remained intact,” Bardoc said. “For many years, he was plagued with the task of subduing riots.”

“Riots? Why?”

“Because he was the only one left who had the abilities necessary to reverse the procedure.”

“But he told them he couldn’t,” Tehya said, pulling her chair beside Hunter's. "So people were angry."

“It would be safe to assume,” Bardoc said, “that he simply
wouldn’t
. The change had done as it was foreseen. The imbalance was corrected and the worlds were saved. As High Proficient, he had to do what was best for the worlds as a whole.”

“So all the people who hadn’t wanted change became Aeriels?” Hunter asked.

“No,” Bardoc said. “The change was true to each individual, pulling out three elements and leaving the one the soul favored most. Not every single person from the other races had wanted change. Just most of them. So the Mervais and Fyydors and Eerdens who chose not to change... changed anyway. And the Aeriels became Aeriels.”

That made sense. “But, eventually the rioting stopped, right?”

“Eventually. Yes.” Bardoc tapped his spidery fingers against the mug. “The rioters settled into satisfaction, once they realized what new things they could achieve.” Bardoc paused. “But there was one who would not be satisfied. Who would
kill
to become an Elder again.”

“Who?”

“Gunnar Fyrenn.”

The name stabbed him in the stomach. “Fyrenn? As in…?”

Tehya wrinkled her nose in distaste. “That’s the one.”

So. Murderous tendencies ran in the family. Great.

“For Gunnar, the passage of time did nothing to ease his determination to revert.” Bardoc set the mug by the bottles on the ground, then clasped his fingers. “The Council involved in the Great Unraveling remembered little of the procedure, for they were old by this time and their memories fading. But Gunnar would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. So he
made
them remember.”

“How?”

“Torture,” Tehya said.

A chill raced up Hunter’s spine. Yes. That sounded like the Fyrenn from his grandpa's stories. Just a different version of the same evil.

“Then he went after the High Proficient,” Tehya said. “And killed him.”

“So… he got what he wanted?”

“Yes,” Bardoc answered, his eyes clouded. “The very thing that had been used to change the etâme.”

Hunter pitied the old man. “If this High Proficient guy wasn’t going to use it anymore, why did he keep it?”

“No one’s sure what it was that he used,” Bardoc said.

“Some say it was the Onyx Vial,” Tehya interjected.

Bardoc sighed. “Yes.
Some
do say that, my leaf. But all anyone knows for sure is that the etâme was too great to be destroyed.”

“How could no one know?”

“The High Proficient was a very secretive man,” Bardoc replied. “It’s been said that he was an owner of many highly etâmic creatures, and was therefore distrustful of humans.”

“For good reason, seeing how he died,” Hunter muttered.

“Indeed,” Bardoc said, standing. He paced back and forth in front of them. “So whatever it was, Gunnar got it. But when he performed the etâme upon himself, it reacted in a way that no one could have anticipated.”

Hunter figured it was foolish to imagine anything good had come of it, what with the name Fyrenn attached to it.

“Gunnar’s true nature was Fyydor. But it was not the gentle Fyydor that we’re familiar with in day to day interactions,” Bardoc said. “He desired nothing but the power to control every element. As a raging fire consumes the earth, battles with water, and devours the air, so the fire in him wanted the same. And when he completed the procedure, he became Fvudor.”

Bardoc stopped pacing and looked Hunter in the eye. “Because of Gunnar’s volatile nature, he created in his offspring a malicious inconsistency in the Fyydor race. The Fvudor.” He resumed his pacing.

“The sixth race,” Tehya said. "Wyldfire."

Another sneaky new race Grandpa had neglected to mention. "Wild fire?"

"It's... like lightning and molten metal," she explained dramatically. "A dash of water, a touch of earth, a breath of air. It's the closest thing to an Elder that has been since the Great Unraveling." She was clearly in her element, delighting in the telling of it.

“I will spare you the details of how the inconsistency passed through so many generations. But what you need to know is that the last of Gunnar’s Fyydor-Fvudor line has become the latest glitch in our otherwise peaceful history: The Heledian King, Linwood Fortus Fyrenn, and his firstborn son, heir to the throne, Dominic Linwood Fyrenn, were murdered by the second son, the man we must now call King of the Nine Worlds of Etâme.”

Hunter’s mouth went dry. “Falken Fyrenn? How old was he?”

“Our age,” Tehya answered, slumping to one side of her chair.

Hunter’s jaw dropped. He couldn’t even fathom the idea. His parents had left him in Grandpa's care before he was old enough to form a memory of them, and, sure, he was resentful. But he didn’t want to
kill
them. He wanted to find and help them, if he could. The only reason they never returned for him was because they were still in danger, he was sure of it.