Chapter II
“The Message”
After a few minutes, not knowing what else to do, Alirah stalked over to the nearest of the stump chairs and sat down to wait. At first she felt indignant, but it was a relief to be off her feet after the long day of walking. After a while she decided she would rather not have helped wash up some filthy stranger anyway. From inside the tent she could clearly hear her mother issuing commands in a firm but gentle voice, each followed by a quiet, monosyllabic reply from Berun.
Overhead the first stars began to twinkle in the east. In the west the sun sank below the horizon in a conflagration of orange and red. As it became obvious that no more information about the stranger would be forthcoming, life in the camp began to return to normal. Soon the smells of roasting venison and baking flatbread filled the air. Alirah’s stomach rumbled angrily. She hadn’t eaten anything since a few strips of dried meat and a dense round of flatbread at midday. She was about to get up and go in search of food, when a voice called out to her.
“Hey Princess.”
She looked up, startled, and saw her father striding toward her.
“Dad!”
Almost before she knew what she was doing, Alirah leapt up and flung her arms around him.
“Whoa, hey there,” he said, laughing with surprise. He hugged her back tightly then stood her out at arm’s length, gazing into her eyes. “Are you okay?”
All of a sudden she felt anything but okay. Some horror from her vision still lingered deep inside. Now as she looked into his eyes she had the irrational sensation that it was the last time she’d ever see them. Her stomach clenched inside her, but she forced out a smile nonetheless. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
His smile broadened but became bittersweet. He reached up to caress her cheek tenderly.
“Liar.”
She sighed heavily. Then to her own surprise and frustration, tears sprang to her eyes. She wiped them away roughly. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “Your sister told me the stranger was badly wounded. It isn’t easy to see such things, especially for the first time. Kaya looked pretty shaken up herself.”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” Alirah said quickly, although the memory of the young man covered in blood and staring at her so desperately made her shudder. “It’s… I saw something, Dad. Again. And it was worse than usual. I thought everything was really happening right then and there. And I just can’t stop feeling all cold and scared. I’m afraid of… of I don’t even know what!”
“Shh…” he murmured, drawing her close again.
Ethyrin was not a large man. He was sparely built and stood only a handful of inches taller than she did. Now as she hugged him she could lay her cheek against the crook of his neck. His complexion was a shade or two fairer than her own and had an olive tinge rather than a coppery one. He had dark brown hair, now streaked with gray, and sea gray eyes with crinkles of laughter about their edges. Although most Kwi’Kiri men grew neat beards once they were old enough to have raised a family, Ethyrin was clean-shaven and had been for as long as she could remember.
“It’s okay,” he murmured at length. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I saw the Taragi,” she said. At first she mumbled, but as she spoke her voice grew almost to a cry. “I saw thousands of them. Coming toward me. Coming here. And… Oh, I just wish I could stop it! What good is it to see something you’re already afraid of? And then a completely different person shows up anyway! And he wants something from you…”
With a great effort she controlled her tears, but a solitary sob escaped her. He sighed and held her more tightly.
“I’d give anything to help you, Princess,” he murmured, half to himself. “But I’ve never had the Sight. Not beyond funny dreams anyway. I don’t know what it’s like, or what to do about it. In Arandia, young girls who have the Sight so strongly that it bothers them go to Illmaryn and learn from the Priestesses of Illana there how to control it. Boys go too, of course, though it’s always seemed as if more women have the Sight than men, or else have it more strongly. If we lived closer, I would say you should go there. But the Priestesses aren’t the only ones who have the Sight or who learn to deal with it. I’m sure in time you’ll learn to control it better.”
“I know,” murmured Alirah, though she felt no such certainty.
For a moment they just stood together in silence. Alirah recalled the words of the stranger and his desperate look. I seek the Prince Ethyrin… Abruptly she realized she was clinging to her father as if he might be taken away from her at any moment. She forced herself to loosen her hold and she took a step back. Wiping her eyes again, she tried to smile as she changed the subject.
“So how did the council go?”
Ethyrin sighed. “Good. Or not good, depending on what you wanted out of it. The panas are going to move again.”
Alirah’s shoulders drooped. “But we just got here a month ago!”
He nodded. “I’m not looking forward to tearing everything down and setting it back up again either. But we cannot stay. Every day there are stories of violence and death at the hands of the Taragi. There’s no doubt that there are many thousands of them, and that they’re coming west. We’ll be killed or enslaved if we stay here much longer. We’re going to head back to the sea, and then south along the coast. The lands are still empty there, so far as we know. Hopefully we’ll be safe.”
At that moment Nuara pushed her way out of the tent. Berun followed her quickly, looking relieved. He gave Alirah a brief, meaningful glance, then mumbled something about getting dinner and fled. Ethyrin strode to his wife and kissed her briefly.
“So I hear someone’s been asking for me,” he said lightly.
Nuara smirked. “He’s been raving is what he’s been doing. Talking about war and death and Darksouls, whatever they are. His wounds aren’t that severe, but there was a poison of some sort in them. I think I’ve drawn it out, but only time will tell. For the moment he’s sleeping. But he’s desperate to see you for some reason. Though he can’t have been alive yet when you ran away with me. Where’s Kaya? I sent her to find you.”
“I heard her stomach rumbling. I sent her and her friends to get some dinner,” said Ethyrin. Then he frowned. “Did he really use that word? Darksoul?”
“Yes. Several times.”
Ethyrin’s frown deepened. He stared at the closed flap of the tent as if his gaze might pierce it and discern the wounded man within. He looked more grave than Alirah could ever remember seeing him.
“What is it, Dad?” She asked. “What does that word mean?”
Ethyrin did not answer her for a long moment. Finally he shook himself and gazed back at his daughter with a sigh.
“I’m not sure I really know,” he said. “When I was little, it was a bogey-man word. Any monster you wanted to invent to frighten a child was a Darksoul. Or else you would say it of a really awful person. But what the word really means, what it meant long ago anyway, was a person who’d given their soul to the Deceiver: one of the Sa’Hadran.”
Alirah’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. She’d heard the term Sa’Hadran before, but only in old ghost stories told around the campfires late at night. They were legends, and different in every story though they were always evil. They weren’t something real that a person might actually find in the world under the sun. Nuara must have shared her opinion, for she shook her head.
“Do any of them still exist?” asked Nuara. “If they were ever real in the first place, that is. And even if they were, what could that have to do with you, today? You were fourteen years old when you left Arandia.”
Ethyrin shook his head. “They were real. But I have no idea what it could have to do with me, and there’s no point in guessing. As soon as he’s well enough I’ll speak to him. We all will. I will tell the
leaders of the pana. Those of us who speak the common tongue will hold a council and hear what this man has to say. But for the moment, I’m starving. Let’s go get some food. There’ll be time for questions and answers later.”
Night had fallen and a big, waxing moon had risen far into the clear sky before the council was convened. They gathered in one of the large communal pavilions which stood at the center of the encampment. This particular pavilion was the Council Tent, where the elders of the pana would meet for formal councils or ceremonies. Alirah had rarely been inside it, and probably was allowed in that night only because the stranger had asked for her father by name.
The Council Tent was circular, and big enough to accommodate thirty or forty people in a pinch, but now less than two dozen were gathered inside it. They sat around a small fire that burned upon bare ground at the center of the tent. It sent its little smoke and few sparks up through a hole in the canvas roof above. The air inside the tent was warm and smelled strongly of steeping tea.
The stranger sat propped up on soft cushions and pillows. He’d changed out of his bloodstained clothes, but his new garments were still travel stained and somewhat threadbare. They also looked a bit too big for him, as if they were hand-me-downs from some heavier brother, or as if he’d lost weight on his long journey. Bandages wound about his shoulder and thigh made bulges under his clothing, but his sword still hung at his side. Despite the heat in the tent he wore his big green cloak around his shoulders, and he did not look warm.
Ethyrin and Nuara sat close together, directly across the fire from him. Each held one hand beside and a little behind them, to clasp the other’s out of the stranger’s sight. Between them and the stranger, forming a rough circle around the little blaze, were some of the older men and women of the pana who were accounted elders and who helped to make such decisions as would affect the whole encampment. They all sat cross-legged upon woven rugs and cushions. At that moment those seated were half chanting, half singing the ritual prayer-song with which all councils were begun. At the same time a young man and woman, attendants to the elders, were distributing steaming tea in little earthenware cups.
Alirah sat with Kaya and Berun upon cushions of their own. After the long day in the sun, Berun’s eyes were now half closed with sleep. Kaya lay against Alirah on her other side as if ready for sleep herself, but Alirah could feel her sister’s heart beating fast and she knew the younger girl was wide awake. Butterflies danced in Alirah’s own belly. She fidgeted constantly upon her cushion like a restless child.
For the evening Alirah had tied back her hair and covered much of it with a light scarf the way her mother and most of the grown women among the Kwi’Kiri always did. Alirah herself seldom wore a headscarf. While it was traditional there was no strict requirement to do so, and now many of the youngest women of the tribe were forgoing them. But it would never have occurred to Alirah to walk into the Council Tent with her hair uncovered. Even Kaya had donned a headscarf for the night.
When all the tea had been served and the ritual song had concluded, a heavy silence filled the tent. Everybody gazed at the young stranger. He looked dreadfully uncomfortable under their stares. Every so often he would look up to meet Ethyrin’s eyes, but then after a while he would lose his nerve. His gaze would dart right or left, only to find the sunned, wrinkled faces of the elders staring back at him with grave expressions. Finally he would look down at his own lap again, abashed. But he was either too proud or too determined to stay that way for long, and after a moment he would raise his head and start the process all over again.
Finally Ethyrin stirred. He cleared his throat and spoke in would-be friendly tones, although his voice sounded strained.
“Why don’t you start by telling us all who you are, and where you’ve come from?”
“I… I am Kelorn, son of Kardir,” said the young man shakily. “I am a Druid in the service of Illana and the Lady of the Holy Isle…”
“You’re a Druid?” Ethyrin exclaimed in surprise, interrupting him.
“I… yes, I am. Why shouldn’t I be?”
“You’re not old enough, are you?”
“I’m twenty-four,” said Kelorn, coloring slightly. “It’s been almost a year since I took my vows on the Isle of Illmaryn.”
“He’s not too young. You’re too old,” said one of the Kwi’Kiri elders. A wave of gentle laughter spread around the room. Kelorn grinned faintly. Ethyrin grimaced, but then after a moment managed a smile of his own.
“Alright then. So why have you come here, Druid?”
Kelorn’s smile vanished. He took a deep breath before he spoke. “I have come here searching for Prince Ethyrin, who was the son of Prince Elidan the Repentant, and who vanished thirty years ago and has been presumed dead. Are you him?”
Ethyrin waited a long time before he answered. Before he spoke he looked at Nuara and into her darkling eyes. A moment passed before she nodded, once. Then Ethyrin turned back to Kelorn.
“I am.”
Alirah thought he looked and sounded almost like someone confessing to a crime. She felt a surge of hot anger within her, and she fidgeted even more restlessly on her cushions.
“Be still,” whispered Kaya.
“Well he’s acting like it’s something to be ashamed of!” she hissed back.
“Shh!”
This was not Kaya but her older brother, Elidan, who sat nearby in the second ring behind the elders. He was three years older than she was. In that time he had gotten married and had a child, though now his wife and baby son were back in their own tent and probably fast asleep. Elidan himself looked a lot like Ethyrin, only with a Kwi’Kiri’s coppery complexion. He had deep gray eyes and darkish hair that was always half wild. Alirah glared at her brother but fell silent.
Meanwhile Kelorn stared at Ethyrin for a moment, blinking, as if taken by surprise. “Oh… good… I mean, what am I saying? Then you are my liege lord.”
Suddenly, though it cost him an obvious, painful struggle, he rose to his feet and then dropped formally to one knee. He started to say something, but before he could get the words out Ethyrin had leapt to his own feet in turn.
“Get up!” he cried. “Get up. Stop that!”
Ethyrin half helped, half forced the astonished young man back onto his cushions. Then he sat down alongside his wife once more. Alirah thought her father looked pale, like a haunted man.
“You came here searching for Prince Ethyrin? Well, you have found him. Now why have you come here? And how did you find me, since no one in Arandia ever knew where I had gone?”
“I have come on behalf of the Lady Aila,” Kelorn began.
“Lady Aila? The same Aila who was a maiden of the Light in Arandinar thirty years ago?”
“Yes. Or, I mean, I think so. She is a full Priestess of Illana now, at any rate. She believed that you were still alive and she sent us to find you.”
“Us?”
“There were three of us who set out,” said Kelorn. “Beyond the borders of Arandia we each went our separate ways. Aila thought that you would have gone west, but that you would have gone west from Calimshaan. So that probably meant south as well as west, for us.”
Ethyrin stared at the young Druid. The eyes of everyone in the room had swiveled back and forth between him and Kelorn as they’d volleyed questions and answers. Finally Nuara gave her husband’s hand a squeeze.
“Why don’t you tell your story, from the beginning,” she said to Kelorn. “And we’ll see if we can keep from interrupting you anymore.”
“Okay…” said Kelorn. He paused for a long moment, gathering his thoughts. “Well, to start with, I should say that times are growing dark in Arandia. Archandir is now High King, and for those of us still loyal to the old laws and the old ways, he is an even worse Tyrant than his father Artan was.”
“Under his rule, we are on the brink of open war with the Northmen, and one spark woul
d send any or all of the Tributary Kingdoms into open rebellion. But Archandir is not troubled by this at all; if anything he’s anxious for the fight. He’s talked about sending the legions into both places and conquering them: making them part of Arandia itself. As if he could do that by force. Anyone who stands up to him, or speaks against his views too loudly, is arrested for treason. Even worse, in these last few years, they just disappear. There’s no talk of a crime or a punishment. One day a person is there and the next day he’s gone and nobody ever knows what happened to him.”
“And worse things are happening too. Or, if not worse, at least more mysterious. Dragons are stirring in the northern wastes. Goblins and trolls are spreading down from their holes in the mountains. Rumors say that Darksouls have arisen again. Certainly isolated homesteads and even whole villages have been suddenly destroyed, with the Black Star marked amidst their ruin. It’s even whispered that Archandir himself has begun to worship the Deceiver.”
“With all this happening, Lady Aila gathered a few of us younger Druids together. She told us that you had not stolen away with Irudan’s envoy on a whim, as was believed, but had fled to escape assassination by King Artan. She said she believed, as many do, that you were still alive. Stories of the Lost Prince Ethyrin have spread like wildfire in Arandia ever since Prince Irudan returned alone from Calimshaan all those years ago. Lady Aila said that for Arandia to be saved you must be found, and that time was short.
“We rode out in secret while snow still lay upon the ground. We made our way through the Tributary Kingdoms, always south and west. But nobody that we encountered knew anything about Prince Ethyrin beyond the legends we’d all heard already. At last, when we had passed beyond the Tributary Kingdoms to lands that none of us knew well, we decided to split up and search separately.”
“I journeyed on through lands that were mostly empty. On the maps in Arandia that extend so far, those lands are called the Red Desert, but I don’t think the name is very good, for it was a beautiful place. The land was dry and very red, but forests of pine grew atop the hills and little streams of clear water cut through them.”
“At last, beyond the Red Desert, I reached the city of Rusukhor north of here. It was the first real city I had seen for many weeks. It was there that I heard a rumor that one of the Lords of the East, by which the speaker meant an Arandian noble of some sort, was living in exile with a little tribe of people to the south called the Kwi’Kiri.”
“I rode south at once as fast as I could. Then two days ago I saw a great plume of smoke rising far off to the west. It was much too large and black to be a campfire, and too narrow for the grasslands themselves to be ablaze. I rode west to investigate, but I never saw what was burning.”
“Coming over a ridge I ran straight into three riders armed and armored like none I had seen before. They had long, curved swords: not heavy scimitars like the Jeddein use but longer, slimmer blades. They wore armor like folded hides. Either they did not speak any of the common tongue, or they just chose to attack me without answering my questions. I… I killed two of them…”
Kelorn faltered for a moment as if stricken by the memory, but then grit his teeth and plowed on. “At least… At least I think I did. I didn’t stick around to find out. The other rider fled from me, but I fled too. I was hurt. I did my best to bind the wounds, but I think there was some poison in them. I got more and more sick. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just kept riding south. I must have passed out in the saddle. The next thing I remember I was on the ground, looking up at a young… at… at her.”
For the first time since she’d entered the Council Tent, Kelorn looked directly at Alirah. Until that moment she’d assumed he wouldn’t remember speaking to her; he’d been so delirious before. Now as their eyes met she saw him blush deeply. After less than a second he looked away. At the same time her own gaze dropped to her lap. She felt her own cheeks burning, though she could not have said why.
For a few moments a tense silence hung in the air. Ethyrin, Nuara, and the elders waited for Kelorn to go on with his story, but of course he did not have much more to say. Whatever words he’d meant to conclude with now seemed to stick in his throat. At last, to Alirah’s surprise, her brother Elidan stirred and broke the silence.
“You say you fought three of them?” He asked. “Three Taragi warriors, I’m guessing. You killed two and sent the other one running?”
Kelorn swallowed audibly.
“I… yeah. I did.”
A quiet murmur of approval spread through the tent. After more than a year of hearing the Taragi spoken of only with fear and dread, there was something savagely wonderful about hearing that even a few of them had been slain. Elidan himself was normally a gentle person. He’d passed through his entire boyhood with hardly a scuffle; but he had become almost fierce since the birth of his son. Now he grinned faintly.
When the murmuring subsided another long silence fell. This time Ethyrin broke it, speaking in a slow, grim voice. “So my daughter and her friend found you and brought you here. And here you have found me: Ethyrin son of Elidan son of Artanimir, the last rightful king of Arandia. But what is it that you want me to do?”
Kelorn looked relieved at the change of subject. His eyes lit up with hope. “Isn’t it obvious, your Majesty? Come back with me! Your kingdom is in peril. Your home is in peril! You are the true High King, and Arandia needs you. Give up this life of exile and return to her!”
Alirah caught her breath. Beside her she felt Kaya stiffen with fright. For just a moment she felt certain it would be so. Ethyrin would stand, take up his old sword, and ride away with this stranger to the rescue of his faraway kingdom. And they would never see him again. Fear and grief surged like ice through her veins. Then Ethyrin shook his head and gave a grunt of a laugh.
“And I thought Druids were supposed to be wise.”
Kelorn looked as if he’d been struck, but Alirah started to breathe again.
“This life of exile is my life,” said Ethyrin. “I sit beside my wife, whom I love. My son and my daughters sit behind me. One little grandchild sleeps in a tent not far from here, and another is on its way to being born. Shall I bring them all back with me, to a land they’ve never seen? To a land I haven’t seen since I was a boy?”
He did not wait for an answer but continued, now raising one arm to encompass the tent and the unseen encampment all around it. “You say my home is in peril? You’re right. The Taragi are in our backyard. Many thousands of them bent on conquest and plunder, and only a few hundred of us. Shall I abandon my people now, when their peril is greatest? Would you do that? You’re too late, son of Kardir. You’re almost thirty years too late.”
For a minute Kelorn, visibly crestfallen, could only stare back at his King. Then he cast his gaze around the room, as if searching for a friendly face or a new idea to help him. All at once he seemed to find something, for his eyes lit up again.
“No, your Majesty, I would not. I would stay and fight. But… But think how much more good you could do there than here. Here you are one man fighting with his small people. There you are the High King of by far the most powerful nation in the world! More than one horde of barbarians has met its end against the Legions of Arandia! For seventeen hundred years our nation has stood as a light against such darkness. Now by our own hands that light is going out. You could change that!”
As Kelorn spoke, a vision took hold of Alirah. It came so suddenly and so intensely that she squeezed her eyes shut and covered them with her hands. Even so, she beheld a great army, tens of thousands strong. Their helms and swords and mail were wrought of bright steel, and their raiment was blue. A hundred blue banners bearing the emblem of a golden dragon floated above their ranks. Before them all rode her father. He sat astride a white horse and wore a jeweled crown upon his head. His hair looked grayer and his face was more lined with care, but his eyes loo
ked bright and young. He roared at the top of his lungs, and in response his great army marched towards their opponents like an oncoming tide.
The men of Arandia fought against an army that was shrouded in darkness. Alirah thought at first that they were the Taragi, but she could not see them clearly. Yet the longer she strained her eyes against the shadows, the more she was certain that many kinds of people marched in that host: tall and short, dark and fair. They marched from many places and across many years. While they marched under many different banners, each bore upon it somewhere the device of a black star. Likewise, when she looked again at the Arandians she saw that they but formed the vanguard of a host innumerable. And not only soldiers marched in that host. Behind the warriors came a great press of women and children and the aged: everyone who would live free and unafraid under the sun. Some had come to fight, while some could only watch with hope and fear.
As the hosts met she heard the ring of steel upon steel, shouts of triumph and screams of pain. The scent of blood assailed her with such intensity that she almost threw up. Yet though many of them fell, the Arandians and their allies were victorious. Their enemies fled, and the awful darkness they’d brought with them passed way.
At the same time she saw and heard the terrible battle, she could also hear her father answering Kelorn. His voice sounded dim and far away, as if it were he and the young Druid that were only dreams, while her vision was real.
“No doubt I could do a great deal of good there,” said Ethyrin. “Any High King who ruled with wisdom and justice again, or who even just tried to do so, would do great things for Arandia. But not for my people here. Arandia lies hundreds of leagues away. Even if the Taragi keep heading west, it’ll be years before they reach her borders. And I could only do good if once I claimed the throne; if I went back there and started a war. Archandir would not give up his kingship without a fight. Lady Sedura warned me long ago that Arandia would never recover from the civil war I’d drag her into. Things may have changed in thirty years, but my heart tells me they have not. I will not return to Arandia, Kelorn son of Kardir. Not right now, anyway. And I will never go back there to take the throne by force.”
Alirah’s vision blurred and changed. In the midst of their victory, the men in blue wavered and vanished. Shadows rushed forth and overwhelmed the men and women who remained, then bloomed and billowed further until they blotted out all sight. In the dark Alirah heard the echoes of marching feet, and screams, and the crackle of flames.
For a few seconds she groped blindly in utter darkness. Then abruptly she saw herself. She wore an elegant blue gown that glittered faintly as if set with distant stars. A beautiful, delicate crown sat upon her own head, but in her hand she held a naked sword. The legions of men in blue and silver rallied again behind her. Before her eyes the shadowy host surged forth again. This time a tall man strode before them all.
Alirah knew in her heart he was the same one she had seen before, leading the Taragi, though now his features were even less clear. He seemed to be wreathed in shadow. He came forward until he stood just before her and towered over her. Dark mail glinted upon his breast and in his hands he held a long sword like a tongue of red flame. With a cry, the man raised his sword. She flung her own up in defense…
Then everything was gone. Alirah found herself blinking in the semi-darkness of the Council Tent. Her heart pounded in her chest and her breath came in quick gasps. She’d unconsciously raised one arm to ward off the man’s blow. Kaya and Berun were both staring at her in wide-eyed alarm. She gazed back at them in silence. She could not speak, and had no idea what she’d have said anyhow. But she knew suddenly what she had to do.
Nobody else in the tent had noticed her distress. Kelorn still sat before Ethyrin and Nuara, looking defeated. He started to speak twice, but failed both times. At last, as if he could no longer endure Ethyrin’s gaze, he looked down at the floor.
“But… I’ve come so far.”
He murmured the words very softly, as if to himself, but they carried in the utter silence. Many of his listeners snickered or gave derisive snorts. Ethyrin only sighed heavily. Kelorn turned red as a beet and was stammering some retort when Nuara spoke. Her quiet voice silenced the tent again.
“How far have you come?”
“I don’t know,” said Kelorn, shaking his head miserably. “I have travelled for eighty-seven days. I have no idea how far I’ve gone in leagues. But that doesn’t matter. I don’t expect anything from any of you just because it’s been hard to get here! I’m just… not sure what I’m going to tell Lady Aila. And I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to ride all the way back alone.”
“You won’t,” said Alirah. Her voice was so breathless and quiet she was amazed that anyone heard her, yet everyone did. Everyone turned toward her in surprise. She swallowed in a throat that had grown very dry, and stood up slowly.
“You don’t have to go back alone. I’ll go with you.”