Zant
Prologue
He knew he was dead. He could feel it, could feel the otherworld around him. Cold, dark, quiet. He was pulled slowly beyond, away from his body and from earth, and he could feel his heart slowing in his far-away chest. He knew the feel of life slipping away, could feel his soul half drawn, half carried toward the divine world, toward the End.
He felt the barrier going up behind him. His accursed sister had murdered him and now she had blocked his only way back to his cooling body. He felt the energy of his family running through the wall, and he had to chuckle wryly. In order to make a barrier that was specially designed for him, his twin sister must have needed to use her own blood. While the knowledge of her impending death was a small comfort to him, it also flared his anger. His treacherous sister was personally keeping him trapped here.
She probably expected that he would have no choice but to give in to the pull of the current and allow himself to fully die. With the Shasza river guardians prowling the passage it would seem that she expected him to be caught if he resisted. She thought that she had won.
As a necromancer, however, he knew how to cling to life. He knew secrets and tricks that few were meant to know, that even she with all her power did not know. He had been in this dark misty place more times than he could count. He knew every unseen nook and cranny. He felt around the murky, shadowy dark looking for a familiar handhold. When he found one he seized it and pulled himself away from the eerie current and into a little hovel where the pull to the End was not as strong. He had hidden here many times, waiting for others to drift through. But now he was not waiting for a soul to float by. He was waiting for his own retrieval. He stroked the life charm around his neck, finding it easily among the other talismans and charms that hung on the leather cord, and he hunkered down, folding himself into what was now his resting place. He closed his eyes to the dark and softly chanted a spell, drawing the necessary runes in his mind, his voice hollow in the ethereal space. When it was complete he felt the blanket of power that would protect him from discovery by the Shasza. When the blanket of power faded he would renew the spell, as many times as he needed to before his retrieval.
But now it was time to rest. The battle that had killed him had taken much of his spiritual energy as well. He did not know how long he would be in the dark, but he hoped those buffoons would work quickly.
He had much work to do.
Chapter I
Fat drops of rain brought the smells of the forest alive, and the boy thought back on his last birthday. He was hunkered down under a thickly healthy tree with his horse standing protectively over him. He thoughtfully pushed his hood back and looked up at the large brown face of his only companion.
“Blu,” he said conversationally, “do you remember my last birthday?” He pulled his pack to himself and rummaged around in it. When he spoke next, he imitated the gruff old voice of his grandmother. “Only one year left as a child, Atchisan,” he quoted. “Your next birthday you’ll be thirteen and you’ll need to take some responsibility. So, get as much tomfoolery out of this year as you can.” He fondly remembered her toothy grin. With a triumphant sound he found the apple he’d been fishing for and held it up over his head. The horse gratefully took the fruit and munched loudly as the young boy sobered.
“I think I beat myself,” he said. “To the responsibility, I mean.”
He was not yet thirteen, but here he was, out alone, his family depending on him. Atchisan stood and shook water from himself even as more dribbled from the branches above. He peered up at the sky.
“Looks like it’s letting up, a little. We should cover some ground while we can.”
He brushed water off Blu’s saddle and climbed on with a practiced awkwardness, and they set off again through the rain damp forest.
They moved at an easy pace. Though it rained steadily, the mid-spring season kept the air pleasantly warm. Atchisan kept his thick hood up, but he peered curiously around the forest, searching for clues he feared he wouldn’t recognize.
“Remember Blue,” he murmured, “follow any trace of fairies. Any whiff you get.”
Could animals sense magic? he wondered. Maybe then it would be easy to find the fairies. Not for the first time, Atchisan wished his mother hadn’t stopped him from bringing any books. He understood weight concerns, but besides being unbearably restless once they stopped for the night, he was certain they would have been helpful. It was his book on the races, after all, that had led him to his suggestion to come looking for a magical cure. He wracked his brain for what the volume said specifically.
“Uhm, the Realm is somewhere in the middle of the Kailyn Wood,” he recalled aloud to Blu. “As far as we know, no human has ever found it without a fairy guide. But, people have seen it. A lot of different people describe it the same. A big beautiful glass castle.”
He grinned, imagining it.
“Can you feel them Blu?” He patted his horse’s neck and the animal made a responding sound. “Boy, I hope that’s an ‘of course, we’re headed straight there, you just hold tight.’” He loosened up on the already lax reigns.
“Bring us there, boy. Dad needs them.”
Night fell, and the rain stopped. Atchisan made a small fire and hunkered close to it, and once the fire warmed the chill that the night had begun to set in, he rummaged through his bag. He searched until his fingers brushed a wooden box, and he carefully wiggled it free. The top was gracefully carved with the intricate design of the butterfly, the earthly symbol of the Servant. The box had belonged to and had been engraved by Atchisan’s paternal grandfather, a man the boy had never met. His own father hadn’t talked about either of his parents much, but Atchisan was grateful for at least this piece of his grandfather.
Shifting to kneel facing the setting sun, Atchisan gently pushed the box open. He removed his long loop of prayer beads, simple white wood, well worn from decades of use by people Atchisan had never known. He and his sister both had plain wooden beads; they were inexpensive and easy to come by. Once he got his own set of nice stone beads, the ones he would be buried with, he would donate these back, and someone else would inherit them.
Atchisan wrapped the string several times around his thin wrist and then laid his palms on his knees. His bright eyes fell closed and he slowly murmured the dusk tribute to his patron god.
“Servant, god of the day and of those things that dwell openly in light, those who are natural and constant, watch over us even in the night hours when light is gone from us. Keep us as we sleep, and wake us with your desire to serve as we might. We give thanks for this passed day and for the rising of the sun on the morrow. Your purity delights us, and your spirit of sacrifice awes us.” He laid his hands on the ground and bowed until his forehead touched it also. “Your light will guide my actions and speech; fill me ever with the desire to assist.” He straightened and took a long, deep breath. The formal prayer complete, Atchisan added his own pleas: “Keep my father, also born under your power, alive. Help me serve him. My sister, she is a child of the Mother and I can save them both. I want to help them, I want him to get better. I believe that you want that, too. Help me save them.”
Atchisan quickly bowed again, and knuckled his stinging eyes.
“Gods of power, we acknowledge your wisdom and might. Dear Mother goddess, in your wisdom you create us all and give us unto the earth. God of the End, leave us in life as long as is our time, and, in your wisdom,” Atchisan choked and had to clear his throat. “In your wisdom, take us from the earth when our time has come. Nocturnal god, watch over your night with diligence and mercy, as we of the day take our rest. And Queen goddess, master of all magic and all creatures, protect us and the balance that keeps us.”
Atchisan bowed once more, and then took up the box again. He laid the beads back inside, nestled in a small bed of butterfly wings, and carefully tucked it into his bag.
A rough nudge on his shoulder distracted his attention.
“I know, I know,” he said with a smile, finding another apple. “Go through them too quick and you’ll run out soon,” he told the animal, passing the apple up to him before finding some dried meat for himself. “Kinda feels like home, though, doesn’t it? You and I, hanging out in the woods. It’s almost like the farm is just there, through that thick patch and down that hill. Wish I had a book I could read us. Too bad the rain has all the bugs hiding.”
Atchisan was used to solitude by now. Back home, his mother and grandmother were very busy trying to keep his father alive. Oba Bo had been raised a healer, and she had raised Atchisan’s mother learning the skills as well. His older sister was more content to spend her own time alone, usually working on some chore or project or another, which gave Atchisan plenty of time to wander. A’ella had taken over hunting for the family. She’d always been the best shooter. Five years his senior, Atchisan’s sister was pretty much better at everything, and so most of the household responsibility had fallen to her when their father had fallen ill. Atchisan had done what he could to help, gathering firewood and whatnot, and though he was really good at setting rabbit and raccoon traps, he wasn’t a good enough hunter to provide for the family. A’ella should be here, should be the one looking for the fairies, and she might have been too, if she hadn’t been infected by what was killing their father. But maybe he could do it. She didn’t know what he did, about fairies and elves and dragons. He was capable of fending and foraging for himself, and he knew the stuff that really counted.
At least, he hoped he did.
He chatted with Blu, as he had every night, and then curled up in his bedroll. Each night it was harder to get to sleep, however.
The next day was warm and beautiful, dappled sunlight streaming green and yellow between branches and leaves and dancing on the forest floor. Atchisan rose with his morning prayers and stretched as he ate, looking around.
“Not much difference in any direction,” he mused. He could recognize the way he had come fairly easily, but it was difficult to know which way to go. He was beginning to realize that his plan to wander the woods in a northward direction until he stumbled upon a fairy who would help him was just as foolish as it had sounded, but the open air and the movement eased his nerves a bit. It was better than sitting at home, watching the women worry and doing nothing himself.
He took out his compass and turned to orient himself, and then he took out a neatly folded up parchment. He plopped cross legged in the dirt and carefully unfolded it. He sat studying his old markings for a long time and finally decided to continue venturing north.
“More likely than not, the Realm is somewhere in here,” he told Blu, pointing to the center of the fat circle of forest. The circle thinned out as it went south and ended near the base of the Lonara Mountains, where his family’s cabin was. “We’ve got a long way to go, buddy. Maybe we should pick up the pace. I was hoping they’d find us here, and I could bring some straight to Papa. The higher north we go, the more likely I’d bet we are to run into a fairy.”
He packed up and mounted Blu, who seemed happy to travel at a quicker pace. Sometimes, though, he slowed, his ears flicking around, and Atchisan would urge him forward.
Several careful, quickly navigated hours passed and Atchisan was thinking to stop for lunch. He needed to find a stream to fill his water skin.
Blu’s ears pricked up and Atchisan felt the horse’s body tense and still for an instant before he lurched. The boy scrambled with the reigns, and then a heavy, cold force crashed into him, sending him flying out of the saddle and onto the ground hard as it landed heavily on top of him.
Atchisan scrambled in the dirt. An inky black blob with misshapen arms was grabbing at him as he tried to scramble away. It looked like a moving puddle but it was terribly heavy, and its hand clamped on his arm with an unbelievable grip. Atchisan cried out and kicked at it, and with its free arm it raised a fist and thumped it firmly against the boy’s chest. The air jumped out of him and as he started the thing crawled on top of him, pinning him firmly and disallowing any desperate inhalations. Blu was screaming and Atchisan struggled for the hunting knife at his hip.
His heart went cold and his body froze with it as he watched the creature rear back and open a mouth. No, it was not opening a mouth as much as forming one; the shadows shifted and Atchisan watched as a great, wide jaw appeared, lined with thin teeth each as long as Atchisan’s finger and slimming to a needle thin point.
He barely had time, not realizing he moved, to thrust his free arm between the maw and his throat as the creature lunged down. The jaws snapped over his forearm, the teeth ripping into his skin.
Atchisan screamed.
When the sound tearing from his own throat stopped, another cry could still be heard. A weight thudded into him, and a moment later the shadow was hauled off of him. Eyes blurred with tears and pain, Atchisan hugged his arm to his chest and searched for the monster.
A blue girl had it. Her arm was around its pitch black neck and they were both screaming. It thrashed in her arms but she seemed to hold it easily. Atchisan’s head spun and he blinked it back. The shadow slipped from her arms like fluid and turned to face her.
Atchisan’s stomach spun, and he rolled to retch into the dirt. He heard Blu, looked to see him bucking at the ink with his shod hooves. There was so much noise, screaming and neighing and a rushing. Pain was shooting up his arm, into his shoulder, down his spine. His eyes welled with tears again and, still hugging his arm to himself, managed to get onto hand and knees so he could be sick again.
He felt like he was spinning and falling. Red fell into the puddle beneath him; it seemed as though he could feel the blood leaving his arm. He could only vaguely make out the sounds of the struggle behind him.
He screamed when it touched him, rolled away from it, kicking and swinging. It was the blue girl. She was speaking, strangely, like she was far away. The irises of her eyes were bright red, striking against the whites. He felt himself screaming again. She reached for his arm, held to his chest, and he jerked away. Again she tried, again he fought.
The slap across the face brought startling clarity.
“You’re poisoned. Give it to me.”
He stared at her. She was blonde, she looked stern. She reached for his arm again and he let her pry it from his chest. She ripped his sleeve open and bent her head over the wound.
The clarity was gone, and his head spun and lolled, too heavy but too light. He turned away to be sick again but his stomach was empty. His arm was somehow numb with pain and trees above him twisted wildly before he collapsed into blackness.