THE IMMORTALS
PART ONE: SHADOWS & STARSTONE
Cheryl S. Mackey
Copyright © 2014 Cheryl S. Mackey
License Notes: This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
DEDICATION AND AUTHOR’S NOTE:
This book is dedicated to my husband and my sons. Without them I could never have dreamed so big and accomplished so much. I am eternally grateful for their love, support, and understanding.
Inspiration for the main characters goes to my friends, Jessica, Neal, and my husband, David. Without them there would be no adventures in Ein-Aral. Thank you so much my dear friends!
Special thanks to Wlop, owner of the cover image, who gave me special written license to use his magnificent artwork as the cover of this novella. Please check out his amazing work here: https://wlop.deviantart.com/ . Huge thanks as well to my cover artist Victoria for the awe- inspiring lettering and detail work to make the cover perfect! Her work can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/whitandware.
This is a novella and is intended as a prequel to another set of works currently in progress. The first book of that trilogy, THE UNKNOWN SUN, is available now. As a prequel, THE IMMORTALS contains events and characters relevant to THE UNKNOWN SUN. However, this novella is quite readily a standalone, and can be enjoyed as it is. Please note that the events in this book and the rest of the upcoming prequels occur long before the events in THE UNKNOWN SUN.
Chapter One
2nd Dawn of the year 2099, Burning Desert, Ein-Aral
At first they didn’t see her atop the horse. She sat low, riding bareback, frayed robes blending into the brown stallion. Her narrow shoulders hunched beneath a worn cloak and two long, blonde plaits of hair tumbled from beneath a shadow-darkened hood.
The villagers who first noted that the horse had a rider were closest to her path. They stopped to study the stranger with wary, hollow eyes. When she didn’t ask their leave to enter the village, a low murmur swelled among the throng of people. More villagers halted, most too startled by the sight of the stranger to do much but stare and mutter. The women gathered their laundry, wares, and children, and hurried into their flimsy clapboard homes.
At the center of the village a communal fire provided most of the light, warmth, and cooking needed for everyone. The buildings themselves encircled the bonfire, so that each door faced it, but perched several feet off the rocky ground on platforms. Summer flooding in the desert was a trial. The stranger guided the horse toward the fire with little effort. The beast stopped short, but well within the radius of the comforting light and warmth.
She slid down from the beast in a blur of motion. The villagers, who now had all paused to watch, stared agape. They noted that she was now before the fire, gloved palms stretched toward the flickering flames. Standing, she still seemed petite and where her clothing touched the dry ground the colors blended so that they were indistinguishable from earth and shadow.
More villagers hustled away, and all around the village flimsy wood doors clattered shut. A few brave souls remained determined to get answers from their uninvited guest.
They approached her in a solid mob, but with no one declared leader to parley, they were at a loss for a long moment. The small figure took no notice of their approach and continued warming her gloved hands. The closer they shuffled to her the more they realized just how slight she was.
“Why, she’s but a little girl!” Aggie Crower cried out. She pushed to the front of the mob. They halted, murmuring, as Aggie moved to stand just behind the girl.
“Little Lady?” Aggie asked. She stopped short of touching the strange girl. “Do you need help?”
“No.”
Their collective gasp would have been comical if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Her voice was low, soft, yet grainy—the voice of a child mixed with the voice of an elder. Aggie licked her lips and stepped closer.
The hood moved this time and Aggie caught a flash of a gold eye shine within the depths. Maybe it was just the fire reflecting…but Aggie didn’t think so.
The figure turned back to the fire again, her flowing plaits sliding against her clothing.
“It is you who need my help,” the girl said, puncturing the stunned silence so that it erupted into a chaos of cries and protests as the remaining villagers cried out in terror.
“What do you mean?” Aggie wasn’t sure who which feared more—the mysterious child or what she meant.
“Evil is coming. I am charged with protecting you,” she said. Her words rang out, firm, commanding, and confident.
“What evil? Who are you?” Aggie hushed the clamoring crowd with her bold words. They waited, all eyes on the small figure silhouetted against the crackling bonfire.
The hood turned again and another glint of gold flared in its depths.
“I am called Emaranthe.”
The hood slid free of the pale braids and the entire crowd gasped. Her beauty was vivid and unmistakable— as was her youth. Blonde waves, loosely braided into two streamers, hung to her waist. Fair skin glowed in the firelight.
It was her gaze, however, that held everyone still.
Blazing eyes, sad and weary, studied their reactions. Only a slightly arched eyebrow betrayed any inner humor at the situation. The firelight caught her gaze and they glowed even brighter though the suns were sinking fast and shading the southern desert valley.
“Emaranthe? I am Aggie,” Aggie said. She swallowed, finding it hard to speak in the face of such youth and beauty—deadly beauty, she realized.
“I mean none harm here, but I do come charged to aid your village,” Emaranthe said. She turned back to the fire again, tugging the thin hood back up and once again returning her gaze to the shadows.
“Aid us? How can you aid us? You are but a child!” Igoras Morne ducked around Aggie and brandished a small stick.
“A child? I haven’t been a child for over three hundred years.” Emaranthe sighed. She studied the small group of villagers from the shadows of the cloak. Her uncanny gaze settled on Igoras, noting the old woman’s withered body and silvered hair that strung unkemptly from a loose chignon. This woman was knowledgeable, an elder.
“Hah, you can’t be more than ten summers!” A man’s voice huffed from the throng, but he did not dare show himself.
“Eighteen. I was eighteen summers,” Emaranthe said so softly that only the village elder and Aggie heard. Her eyes glittered in the firelight as the biggest sun sank behind the red and orange cliffs to the south. Heat waves swirled. “I think. I’m afraid I no longer remember that lifetime.”
“Immortal... she’s an Immortal.” Igoras gasped and licked her cracked lips. Aggie, barely hearing her, looked up in time to catch the flare from within the shadowed hood.
Igoras dropped to her knees and bowed her head in absolute respect, her gnarled fingers clutching at the hapless stick. Streamers of silver hair dragged loose and tangled in the stiff desert breeze.
“Please, forgive us Immortal. We meant no disrespect!” Aggie said. She took the cue from the elder and bowed, followed quickly by the remaining villagers, until even those cowering within the rickety shacks bowed low as well.
The silence grew agonizingly long. Saddened, Emaranthe studied the cowering, humbled, group. Ghost
ly fire swirled around golden irises.
“Please, rise. I ask no one for homage,” Emaranthe said. When all had risen again, she let the hood slide free and once more people wondered at her youth. “I am here to help. That is all.”
They watched in silent awe as she reached over her shoulder and slid free a long, slender, twisted wood staff. It appeared out of thin air in a swirl of flames. It appeared to be an entire tree branch grown for the sole purpose of arcane use. At the peak the staff was partially curled, like a shepherd’s crook, but was charred and splintered midway through the curve. She held it away from her, over the bonfire, and the flames flickered, twisted, and swirled over and up it. Neither the staff nor her hand blackened or burned. Proof of her identity.
“How can one so young be an Immortal?” Aggie watched the mesmerizing fire dance along the staff. “I thought The Four forbade it, that only warriors were called. Yet I see a Child of Fire standing before my very eyes.”
Emaranthe caught and held Aggie’s gaze for a long moment, her full lips quirked in a bittersweet smile. A glimmer of sorrow crossed her face like a shadow, and her thin shoulders hunched deeper into the threadbare cloak. The smile faded.
“Please, tell us, child,” Igoras pleaded. She sank to the ground. “I have never heard of one called so young before.”
Emaranthe closed her eyes and leaned on the fiery staff for support. Tendrils of flame wove along the twisted wood and along her arms and fingers. They caressed, not burned.
“All I remember is that it was cold and growing dark. The easterly winds were bringing a wild spring storm. I remember seeing the clouds gather over the mountains and hiding the suns, but I could not leave my flock,” Emaranthe whispered. She swallowed. “I built a small fire beneath a large ledge and hoped to escape the worst of the storm.”
The villagers leaned forward in rapt attention.
“My goats and sheep huddled near and I was confident we could weather it,” she continued after a slight pause. “But something else was moving within the storm as well; I could feel it in the wind—a warmth, a fire, a hunger. Rage. Destruction.”
More than one villager gasped.
“I stayed put, my crook in hand as my only defense, and watched as the thing moved with the storm ever closer. Lightning tore the sky and rain fell before it. I held a vain hope it would pass me by and leave me in peace.” Emaranthe swallowed. She opened her eyes and Aggie saw a depth of pain in them that she had never seen before in anyone.
“It came, wreathed in fire and an ancient sorcery I had no hope of defeating. Fire and torment were its weapons of war. I held it off for a short while, brandishing my crook as pitiful weapon,” her voice faltered and she swayed. “It tore my crook from my bloodied fingers and tossed it into the fire. I wrenched free of the thing and dragged it from the flames in desperation.”
Aggie flinched at the terror glittering in Emaranthe's unusual eyes.
“Burning, smoking, I wielded the staff, crying to the sky for a savior— but none came and I was at my end.”
Emaranthe lifted the smoldering staff and returned it to its place at her back where it once again vanished into shadow. Tears streamed down Igoras’ wizened face, tracking through her wrinkled flesh like paths of a river way.
“I don’t know why, but the thing vanished and my broken, burned body was left beside the fire, in the cold rain…alone. I could only wait to die as I clutched my charred staff and felt the darkness calling me within the thunder and rain.” Emaranthe turned back toward the fire and held her gloved hands out to the flames again.
“The next thing I knew I was standing, gripping my fiery staff and gasping. I was back, my face unchanged, my soul scarred but unyielding to death. Immortal and powerful at the last. Why and how the gods chose me, I do not know.”
The silence was long and awed until Emaranthe turned to face the crowd. She peered into the growing darkness behind them. A smile, small and sad, twisted her lips.
“Good. They approach.”
“What?”
“Ahh!”
The throng of villagers turned and stumbled about, looking for an unseen foe.
“Hold, friends. I do not mean evil approaches,” Emaranthe said. She moved toward the large horse that stood unconcernedly nipping at a patch of weeds at the edge of the firelight. “My companions approach from the west. We are here to help your village keep its secret.”
She led the horse further from the bonfire and to a weedy field behind the shacks.
“What? How does she know?”
“Oh no!”
Igoras followed the girl at a reverent distance, struggling to think of something to say. The clamor of the worried villagers behind them rose in fear and anger.
“Madam Igoras, three of my companions will arrive any moment,” Emaranthe tipped her head to study the old woman. Fiery eyes burned in the darkness. “I will need to lead them here. You must keep the villagers calm until we return.”
The girl leaped atop the huge horse and was gone.
Igoras stared into the darkness, watching the black shadows play and dance over the desert landscape behind their village as the bonfire snapped and popped behind her.
“Thank The Four. Oh, thank The Four.” She cried softly into her patched apron. Hope had arrived.
Chapter Two