(((NikoleSpooni)))
Chapter VI: Of No’s, Knows and Nose
It was Exemplarait Hollichek who woke first from his slumber in the Pool. The Lady Dierdre sprung to meet his desperate gaze. He was panting, shaking, nay seizing with dread. Drips of unintelligible words fell from dumbfounded lips and his eyes darted to their corners in a weariless search for sense.
Dierdre slid into the viscous fluid to hold the frissons of her Lorde and Commander but he was an inconsolable collection of quivering muscles.
She pulled him deeper into the depths of the womb-waters and whispered comforts to him in the tongue of her Mothers.
As the calmness of normalcy returned to his breath and the urgency of doom eked in rhythms from his heart, the Lady requested answer.
“What...have you seen?”
Percival, boy of flaxen hair, son of The Wheel, Commander in Interim, turned to the curious creature that was his wife and parted dread-filled lips.
“He’s twisting the Staff.”
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Stone and metal hit the backside like the force of a kick and Tsymeen and Idrissa rocked up to a wobbly start to see Dome’nce already standing there, glowing green, yet unshaken by the fast travel.
Tsymeen nodded and rolled his head around as the honeyed- man once called Shaw hopped off the rostrum to the dry dirt of this root-heavy underground cove.
He walked off through an archway made of roots.
Whether he cared if they kept pace with him, Tsymeen didn’t know but he rushed his own pace and dodged flashes of zapping green craft jumping from the Third Son’s freshly transported body just to keep up.
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“You’re things?”
“Shove them to me again and there won’t be a brotherhood to heal.”
“Dome’nce...I know this is--”
“Do you even know how long it’s been since I’ve heard that name?” He halted the canter to shoot a hot sentence at Tsymeen. “You’re going to have to give me a minute.”
“Yes, Lorde.” Tsymeen nodded finally understanding how all this must have felt. The last time Dome’nce had been called Dome’nce was when Daemphred’s seventh one—The Beast—had been born, two-hundred and fifty-two cycles prior.
They—being all immortals of the Scerci Kaehn—called their times and ages on Dureyr ’lifetimes’ but Dome’nce was the only Kaehnnah on Dureyr that actually cycled lifetimes. Experiencing countless deaths and rebirths. Like the rings of the Kad’j which pointed out many routes, so the odds of his lives shuffled in roulette. Where he ended up and whose child he would be at the end of one lifetime and beginning of another was a complete mystery. He had been Zshuer, Buraam, giant, human, Jemedh; the list went on. Much like the roots in the walls of this cove, were the lines of his story. Gnarled and without end.
They came upon an underground waterfall beside which a staircase formed from roots and earth wound around a misshapen oval berth. The roots were much larger at the top fattened by the waters running over and thick with mosses and ivies. A single beam of sunlight lit the expanse.
They stepped, sometimes near climbing, up toward the lip of the ledge. When they reached the top they all stopped; Soaking in the sight of this hall of roots and leaves and moss and waterfalls. Dome’nce sighed in almost a grin; as if he were somehow home.
To Tsymeen and Idrissa however, the sight of this hall’s breadth shook there wills as it always had. Wolf pelts lined the rooted walls in patterned and cared-for arrangements. The hall was filled with sweet minty smells from Jopa petals that lightly blanketed
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the ground underneath those hoisted pelts. And the ground—where there was ground to be seen, between the intertwining of root and stone—was coursed with channels guiding waters from the falls above. Waters flowing through and over carvings on the floor and ledge they had just crested. Carvings of circles and lines and measurements in a spiderweb of graphs that seemed to mimic the stars themselves. In the center of the hall, surrounded by all the channels and roots and charts and decorated pelts—stood the tree. The greatest tree in all of Dureyr.
“That was swift.” It growled and hollowed a call from all the roots to the ears of the three standing in front. Her voice echoed like someone speaking through a cask for brewing ales. Wooded and creaking, she echoed. Tsymeen tilted his head. So long since he’d laid eyes on this beauty. He looked up the tree, which seemed to go on forever, rising up out of the ground and on toward the sky like a spout of never-ending greenery. Her branches above umbrella-ed far passed the opening at the base of this sinkhole turned Great Hall.
They knelt.
Honeyed-lips parted. “You are Du’ad yes?”
“Of the Kil’aphae Kaehn—Incorruptible Immortals—that you fine boy have ushered into place? Yes. And for this I offer gratitude.”
He wasn’t sure if her tone was teasing or just playful and he questioned the entirety of her intentions. Was she toying with them at such an odd time?
“But I’ve done nothing.” he baited.
“Oh come now Third Son of Dureyr, you’ve done and will continue to do...everything. Eternally. Even to beg for their lives here at my roots.”
There was that chiding tone again. This tree was definitely trifling with them. But none of them were about to bring that to any attention.
“Yes I have come to make a request of you Du’ad.”
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“Oh, another one?” she quipped. “This age is full of requests.” He perked, remembering the burning wall they asked her to strengthen. “Oh, Calm yourselves, kindred.” One of her fat roots curled up to halt question and worry, “You are right to kneel for I could write you out of this story and erase your roots from this ground in a wolf’s whimper but we are still blood—Rhemakh a Rhem —no need for such formalities. Here, do as the dureyns do and call me Heparin. I am proud to be addressed as such.”
“We would not approach you, again, if it were not dire...Heparin.” Dome’nce reluctantly stated.
“This I know, fellows and I have found the results of our little meeting intriguing...on all worlds.”
“But we’ve done nothing yet.” One of them behind him blurted in a whisper.
“She exists in AllTime; she’s talking about the effect on the universe.” Dome’nce vehemently corrected.
“UniversES.” The tree also corrected. “And no need for the hushed voice. I find it insulting at best.”
“Forgive.” Tsymeen pleaded.
“Was it not already?” she offered. “Speak for your confused silence is staggeringly trying and I have no capacity for patience.”
Dome’nce raised his goggles and stared to the trunk of Heparin; where a wooden face, of sorts, had bent its way to the surface. “We need to turn the cycles. I...” and he shot a corner-eyed glare to the men, “need to turn the cycles. I have to be reborn...sooner than anticipated and—“
“And we must ensure the last one of Wyyt’Phyr grows up without interruption.” Tsymeen started and Idrissa joined.
Heparin gave full breath to her amusement and laughed at the three men kneeling on one leg.
“One thing I can say about you ’Sons’...you certainly do like your women.”
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“Heparin?!” Idrissa called out appalled at her audacity to suggest such.
“She’s a child!” Tsymeen reeled.
“And we want her become a woman.” Idrissa furrowed still moved.
“And I want to take ten inches off my waist.”
“Sister Heparin the girl is our Last Borne.” Tsymeen started.
“First off, I am not your sister. I am his, Scerci Kaehn.” she poked a root at Dome’nce.
Tsymeen poked up a brow. Twice in one day, insulted? he thought. “Secondly, this is what the Phyr does with it’s collective brain power? Cheat time?” she asked.
“Evening the odds.” Dome’nce interjected. His patience with all these people was rapidly waning and his honeyed-skin started to glow a soft green. The same green of the Kad’j.
“Are you vexed...Fifth Ring?” She bit back; stiffly unmoved by his anger.
“The staff. Please.” he commanded, deliberately, between gritted teeth.
“Your staff is injured.” she brightly stated. “Stolen one...too...many...times.” The fat root pointed at the brown dusty one to the left. “Why is that Idrissa? What other curses have your immortal hands forged in the shadows?” He heard the accusation in her voice and opted to address only the answers he wished to give.
“When I retrieved it last it had already been damaged.”
“Like the brotherhoods you now wish to heal?”
“Yes mistress.” Idrissa bit back.
“So you want me to turn a twisted staff? You want me to break the Void?”
“Please.” Dome’nce gritted again, trying to hurry this ordeal along.
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“And this is a sound idea to you, Third Son? Turn a broken thing for a broken future?”
Before he could answer his true heart, Tsymeen jumped to, “Heparin, please we’ve thought through our options.”
“You’ve thought through nothing!” Her voice was full and crashing and the whole hall roared. “You reek of desperation!” She paused letting the whole place rest from the quake in her voice. Then the tree sighed, hollowly. “This is not the first time that staff has ever been used to the perversion of the universes. Nor will it be the last. What it twists stays twisted!” her roots bent in knots toward the King of the Speculah. “What it cracks stays broken! You’re choosing out of fear and confusion to DE-synchronize your rhythms with this time and this space on the chance you’ll land in the unbroken future of this already prophesied Last borne of Wyyt’Phyr—to which the planet whispers her eternal praises—in the hopes you’ll beat Daemphred to the punch?” she paused and lightened her tone. “You doubt what Dureyr and this man have already foreseen? That is why I say you’ve thought through nothing, my brothers.” the hall rumbled as she teased, “Kaehnnah, like myself. Why such mortal reasonings from such immortal shells?”
“...Because we are weak. We have no more call over time.” Tsymeen admitted outside of the apparent chide to family she just gave. “...Our rivals—“
“Daemphred. I live here too. I strengthened the Wall! I watch your wolves.” she again corrected. Her memory was long and they’d not too long passed made that request of her.
“...Daemphred, gain in strength while we’re all but spent having shared our efforts, craft and lives with the people of Dureyr.” Tsymeen confessed. “We are simply too tired to guard this prophecy until she ages.”
“Then you have not been practical. Everyone cannot be saved. And it was she—soul kissed by shadows—who needed to be saved most of all.” she schooled. “Was it not he,” the tree pointed to Dome’nce, “That promised death upon his own father. You speak hypocritical words and I tire of your ill-planning.”
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“DU’AD!” Dome’nce broke in. “I have waited far too long for my words to fall dead at your feet. You will turn these cycles...please.” he commanded in near tears. It was only of Xa’ada he thought now.
The great tree ceased.
“...too far along to go back now, universe to twisted to stop, hmm, Warsun? ...alright. Jemedh eyes were never meant for weeping.” She sounded remorseful and somewhat accommodating. “I only warn you that you may be doubling efforts where there are none needed. If you do this you may break your green-eyed love. She is Void-touched. She will face a choice you’ve given to none of the other Scerci. But you will further damage your cause. And henceforth, Fifth Ring, if you choose to use your immortal craft in the watch-care of your wife, you may yet shift the balance of power forever to the darkness of her blood. Forever to the aims of the Wind.”
Dome’nce sighed “...I’m aware” he paused to consider. There was an indigo patch of light in his palm; the sign of the Jemedh. The patch shifted from indigo to green. With them he had used his powers of creation and uncreation openly; showing them the ways of universe-builders and star-travellers. With this decision now to use this staff he’d do these things no more. “I am very aware.”
Tsymeen and Idrissa both gazed at him with sorrowful eyes. What had they condemned him to do? They had not thought this through.
The tree continued, “...but you trust her and you love us and you love our AllKing...so I will grant your request,” she offered sweetly, “But I keep the staff.” the tree-face shot looks to the other two and Dome’nce began to disrobe.
“Yes, Heparin.” Idrissa conceded. He handed the staff to the near naked man in trousers, whose hurt they could all taste. If they’d only guarded their power and chose their battles with Daemphred wisely Wyyt’Phyr would be strong enough to guard the little Princess. But their efforts had been squandered long before she was even a sparkling thought in her mother’s heart.
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Idrissa watched as Dome’nce shoved the tapered end of his twisted staff into a hole in the center of all the channels and charts at the base of the tree.
“If you consent to this...there are races, beings, peoples who’ve mapped the stars and they will know our story. You are opening Dureyr like a book that will never be closed. Her Power, her places, her people, will all be available to whomever travels the universes. Friend or foe.”
Dome’nce took off his goggles and shoved them to Tsymeen. “Dureyr is mine. When all of this is over, I will meet any and all of them...at the crack in the sky.” Dome’nce finished with flat heat.
“Just know.” She warned.
“We bare the blame.” Tsymeen received.
“No, you bear the shame.” She corrected finally.
Wholly and with all his fingers, Dome’nce gripped the swirled ridges in the stark white twisted staff. Heparin folded and bent and curled roots to grasp hold of its shaft. Together the Fifth Ring and the Tree twisted eternity.
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His meat hurt. Somewhere on his back? His ribs maybe? Whatever it was, it was the lead in a chorus of about a dozen other aches and throbs punching at his body.
An organ moved. Perhaps his spleen? Or maybe a pancreas?
And why was he wet?
If he could just rest from all this hugely non-rythmic bouncing and jostling, he’d be able to tell what was injury and what was just these wooden boards digging into his back. He groaned. At some point, his sword, also, worked its way under his thigh and up over an arm. He tried to work it out but realized he had little command over that elbow. He yelped a tiny whimper.
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A voice reached back to him from over the cart’s edge. Cart. He was in the back of a cart; bouncing without relent. “Lo there, Exemplarait?”
Something in the driver’s voice was familiar.
“Terriman?”
“Yes, Third Son.” Terriman answered. “Are you done weaving?”
“My flesh--” And he groaned out a rolling grimace. Something deep in his bones pinched. He adjusted his body to a more comfortable prop and had only just now noticed he was lying as if he’d fallen from a great height. “weaving—how long?”
“Idrissa says it took about five pachs for you to grow from infant to youth.”
“Five whole hours?!” he rolled his loose head around. “Oh, that’s way too long.” He looked up; finally realizing why he had felt so wet. It was pouring rain.
“It wasn’t storming before.”
“That happened after you all emerged from Heparin’s Polyandrium.”
“Oh, that is not good.”
“The effect of a different timeline maybe?”
“Or one that’s been mussed up.” The waking one popped a shoulder into place as he shifted more.
“Are you well Exemplarait? It was rather repulsive watching your flesh do its...uh...weaving thing.”
“I’ll be fine.” he took several wincing breaths to work himself through the pain of waking up.
“Idrissa said this is what happens when Daegeth Atalleth dreams, or some such?”
He nodded with one eye shut bearing yet more aches. “Never volunteer to travel across time, Speculah.” he poked a peek over the
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cart’s side as the Agent nodded. It was night. A feeling resembling concern invaded his stomach. “...my mother and father?”
“Our mother and father.” Terriman corrected. “You are the second high-born man-child of Carabaan. I am the first.”
“Wait, what cycle is it? how old am I?” he shot up passing a weyship stop where nobly dressed people stood under a port waiting for the next ship to fly by. They bore the crests of Cashtiel on their robes. “Wait, where are we going?”
“Back to Carabaan.” Terriman reminded. “Mother and Father are worried for you in this storm.”
“Riiight...family. Where are Tsymeen and Idrissa?”
“On their way to Anter and Datn; respectively.” Terriman paused glancing at the new yet extremely old addition to his royal blood. “Exemplarait you should rest. Carabaan is still a ways away. I would have booked a weyship but Idrissa said the sound of other voices would agitate your recovery.”
“He’s right.” The aching one rubbed his brow. “who are you, again? I mean, I know I know you but—”
“Quite understandable. Your knew memories will come to you as you settle into yourself. I am First Agent and Prince, Yisef Terriman Carabaan. Your brother, ten cycles your senior—as it were.”
He whined, “Ooh, I’m royalty? Aww please don’t make me royalty. It’s so hard to hide as royalty.” he whined. Then he looked fully at Terriman’s back as he drove. “Wait, who am I?”
“Well I know all about who you really are, but was instructed to address you as Oncyier Carabaan.”
He bolted upright, bouncing all the while, “Idrissa gave me my actual last name as my disguise’s first name?! Oh this is getting worse and worse.” he sagged back down.
“That’s bad? Well what did they call you when you were Jemedh?”
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He searched his memory and drifted, genuinely trying to remember the life he’d only hours ago left. “I have no recollection. Unfortunately. All I remember is purple...and ...wine bottles...” He trailed. “Wait how old did you say I was?”
“I didn’t. you’re well a man. Eighteen.”
“I was suppose to wake up at fourteen!” He again jolted up in the pile of cloths where his body wove itself together. He slapped palm to his forehead. “Oh that’s right, some icehead broke the staff that’s why it’s off...well at least my green eyed love is well.” he laid back to breathe out more growing pains.
“The Princess of Anter? The Green Eyes that will save the world?”
“Yeeesss.” Dome’nce rolled queried eyes to the wood of the cart that separated he and driver. “Does everyone refer to her as such?” Dome’nce suddenly realized the reality of her rarity.
“Eyes like that have never been seen on Dureyr, of course they celebrate her.”
“Eighteen cycles of that kind of reverence must mean she’s heavily courted.” He furrowed. His visions of her nearly an era ago were so frothy and perfect he hadn’t weighed the measure of her appeal to many other men. Or her possible attraction to any of them. He worried.
“Eighteen?” Terriman questioned.
“Yes, were of the same age...correct?”
“no...she is only cresting fourteen in ten moons.”
“What?!” He shot up again and slammed hands down hard on the wood, “Faetzaht STAFF!”
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Of No’s, Knows, & Nose
10236 DCT
It, indeed was a messy night. Rains went ripping through Ashok like a crazed troll hungry for child flesh.
Two travel-weary men sped through the countryside on old immortal legs up towards Rosemine Gate; having freshly arrived by dais transport into the valley of C’fev.
They presumed it to be early Moss, the way the cold rains were smacking at their faces. The waters tasted of death though; bitter, sour and caustic. Somewhere, in this part of the ancient Anteriel wood, something—or things—was dying.
“Idrissa?” Tsymeen started, sick to his stomach with fear. “What time have we landed in?” He wished at least some of Daemphred’s plans had been halted by their reprehensible deed. In turning time they had hoped to forcibly slow the effects of war by causing an unnatural flow of memories and events between mortal lives and immortal lives. It was an unnavigable experiment, at best.
“I am uncertain brother but torrents that occur after eddying the gyre of time indicate only terrible things. I hope it hasn’t reached Anter.” Idrissa answered full of unrest while the rains fell. As cool and nurturing as they were, they served as a reminder that deep in the open country, Dureyr’s bestial heart beat wild. “As soon as I know Anter is safe I will make haste to Datn.”
“You will use the voidhearth in Sjindere?”
Idrissa nodded while running.
The two either ignored or had not noticed an encumbered heap of cloak advancing some hundred paces to their parallel.
It was slumping along through the hillside grasses in an almost desperate canter to the left.
It was dragging something. Something large and bleeding.
Moss-bend rainfall beat with a drenching poundage. Heavy. So heavy in fact, it would many times wash roofs from homes that weren’t finely secured for the season. However, falling homes hadn’t been seen in a long time. In these later cycles, most of Dureyr’s inhabitants were in the routine of nailing and pitching and joisting their homes together. For it was only on Dureyr that every bend
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threatened to fell their domiciles by some means or another; washing, winding, sunning, or snowing.
The torrents of Moss had been romanticized as the thousand- tears Dureyr would weep every rising her wound ached. Kempka ev a Buerna, it was called; the wound. A twelve kilometer long gash in the planet’s surface. Home, in the past, to mages looking to practice in solitude. Now it was home to bandit clans, chieftains, tribal warlords from across the globe looking to find, precious metals and golds and geodes and giant boulder-breaking blue-faced white-furred mounts called Mutti in which to wage their conquests.
Tsymeen had been there, once, to stop one such warring clan from joining the ranks of the Most-Feared. In thick torrential rains, much like what fell now, he and his knifehands fought with them viciously, resulting in the death of many of the warlord’s soldiers. Too many, Tsymeen remembered. Too many to name and too many to convert from their erred lifestyles. A regretful time of head- hunting he rued to this moment. He was Wyyt’Phyr; he shielded life. Not ended it.
He wiped clean, his face, on the steps of Sjindere Heit; unsure if the rains were his own tears or Dureyr’s. He did not feel relieved about turning the staff.
With Idrissa also in silent tow, Tsymeen wrestled with several pounds of soggy wet wools, the dusts finally washing free from their folds as he hoisted exhausted legs up the main corridor’s stairwell. After entering the two huge wood and metal doors of the eastern entrance, he and Idrissa drifted the halls peering through strange eyes at a strange time.
The First Agent known as Dying-Star picked her face up from the floor. It ached and she bled at the corner of her lip where her fang had pierced into it on point of impact.
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Before she could right herself and take proper assessment she turned at the ring on her wrist. Thirteen or so glowing Grui drew a tight net into the center of the room.
“aBn.” She whispered in a pained rush.
A ghostly haze of man struggling to stand formed out of the net around her. He attempted to shake loose the cobwebs that racked his own consciousness.
“Was that the--” Jayed gasped out a cough and peeked the other eye open up toward him.
abn Yggnr drew a healing glyph into himself as he recovered from the jolt of shifting time. “I can only imagine. Heparin said it would hurt but I didn’t think this much.” he shook his head of oil black locks again. “What of you, Queen?”
Jayed held the right of her face with her left hand as she pushed herself up from the stone. “I was writing and now it’s...when is it?”
“Jayed your mark!”
The Queen snatched back her left hand where in it glowed a familiar burning sigil of hot orange light. “Why’s it back?! What else is wrong?” She wrestled to stand. “My girls? I must see.” The room spun for a moment and she arrested her focus on the door. “Don’t let him have taken them.” She went to grip the knob but only passed through its form. “aBn!”
Siin’s eyes were wide with enquiry, “It will take time for some of us to settle more than others, it seems.”
There were so many people in the lower halls of Sjindere this evening, Tsymeen and Idrissa had to shoulder their way through the crowds towards the kitchens and napiary. In the throng, they thought they saw Kai and the youngest Princess but they were gone
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as soon as they’d appeared. About three good laughs roared up over the castle workers and the smell of meats and soups filled the lower halls as platters walked passed the men’s noses.
What had they landed in?
These people were happy. So unlike that torrent outside. Which meant certain terror? Tsymeen and Idrissa looked at each other.
“The Agency?!...Kodlaa?” Jayed was attempting with some fail to quell her anxieties.
Siin twisted his wrist ring and a new net drew in on his end. “She’s here.”
“I’m here.” Kodlaa shot in answer beside a heavy laden Hielta. “Terriman has him. Some of us are just now breaching the gates of Starside to sort this out.” Jayed could now see both she and Hielta were hoisting other time-shocked members of their cherished group. “The Third Son will incontrovertibly not know the breadth of his doings. So we will gaze into the universes for him. Scribe what we can.” Kodlaa seemed lost, spun oddly with a mind roving of an infinite number of minute changes that could have occurred.
Jayed made a disapproving noise and reached again to make purchase on that handle. She found it. “Where are my girls?”
A hand-maiden backed into them and excused herself.
“My apologies, fairest...” Tsymeen started. She bowed many times. Idrissa studied the moving crowds. “What are all of these goings-on?”
“Sire, surely yer jestin’.” Her warm cheeks perked up in a smile. “Oi, yer scholarin’ me knowledge of Dureyn lore, yeah?” She wagged a finger. He blinked at her irreverent use of the language.
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She bowed slightly to begin a formal spiel, “In Moss-bend when the moons are new with morning dew, and the sun returns to beckon cue, we live to feast a cycle in review, for we wake into May Rising with magery in view.” A sparkling burst of magecraft jumped from Hagoniel hands dotted about the room. Tsymeen looked annoyed.
She went on, “...Made extra special by our Lady Xa’ada’s fourteenth cycle and the celebration of her first successful hunt. We, CloseKings of Ashok, will host Cat’an nobles from Havvenchael and all over Dureyr for the festivities under the erudite mastership of their reverences themselves; King Hagar, King Droadh, King Khorl and my King Shor. May their dress of feathers and horns never fall from their heads.” She smiled, nodded and curtsied. “...D’I get it right?”
“Yesyes. Very good, milady.” Tsymeen patted her shoulder feeling a mild assault on his intelligence had just been committed. The benighted maid smiled brightly and rejoined the traffic of napiers headed to some important task.
Tsymeen was unmoved by it being May Rising but he was shaken to his timeless core that it happened to a May Rising held in Ashok. Moss-bend celebration had been only a Cat’an tradition hearkening back to the days of Havvenchael and the White Era. He wondered if their deed had a more far-reaching consequence than just here in Ashok. His heart paced. He searched for a solution only to come to the same end; the Princess. He had to find the Princess. Then in sudden realization, he stopped and picked up his face. Her first successful hunt? She had killed a thing? He’d missed it all. And here he thought she was in utter danger. A sort of relieved but distressed look appeared on his regal brow. The folds of his golden forehead squished into themselves. “Idrissa...”
“I know.” Idrissa had been sagging a bit as he gazed the old man beside him. “I already regret the request to turn it.” he chewed at the inside of his cheek. “I can only hope the effects are as minimal as they seem.” He rolled an irritated expression passed the crowd and toward a stone door.
“They’re almost certainly not.”
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Jayed slid a sore and aching body along the length of the corridor out side the antechamber. She had to fight through the dizziness and unending burning of the mark in her left hand. She cursed the Hallowed Shadow; more in the wake of the knowledge that she would have gladly given him children. But he had stolen her womb and now seemingly her Gift...again.
She mustered strength into her legs and gathered up her gown in the palm of her right hand. She was approaching a group of mages she’d never seen in her halls. They wore the colours and royal seals of Cat’a.
Their happy bursting magecraft skipped across the walls and chandeliers as a flock of twittering Isam children followed them into the Grand Hall. She remembered this. It was the celebration of Cat’a’s independence; may Rising. Unable to contain it she shook a burst of black lightning from her palm. hoping the other mages in the hallway had not seen its burst as they passed.
“May. May Rising is being held here.” She whispered into the ether.
“What have they done?” Kodlaa’s voice answered.
“Scerci Kaehn.” aBn bit.
“Shifted the history of Havvenchael?” Kodlaa surmised.
“Then the scope of this trouble reaches far beyond this twisting...” Dierdre’s usually strong voice quivered for a moment.
“Who’se the Queen? What coast do they run? Does Havvenchael stand?” Jayed rushed a series of questions as the strength of this time entered her walk.
“A Queen out of Thisbe’s line...not her sister’s.”
Jayed groaned.
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“...but the fortress...” Percival could ne’er finish his sentence. “It had been felled.”
“Then he’s done something to the Blue Era also.”
“...we should scribe what we know before it’s gone.” Kodlaa’s voice bent of into the background. Jayed wished she were at Starside to see of this scope and bandage a most certainly bleeding timeline but she could not sense her daughter...she could not find her Last Borne.
“Where is Xa’ada?” Jayed peeled away from the wall in a rush of shroud.
“To the Kad’j, then.” Tsymeen heaved at the door just off one of the kitchens. “I will see you off to Datn. Then...I suppose I will join in sixteen days of merriment to which Ashok is host.” He waved off the notion of imminent danger toward the revelry behind them; utterly dumbfounded.
Two pairs of eyes watched as the two soggy men faded into the darkness of the cellar; a view being slowly obscured by a tall square of kitchen cargo rolling into the hallway as the cellar door thud shut.
“I’d have to work two bends in the Stookbarb fields just to pay for one bottle.” One of the boys scoffed while pulling the ropes of the covered freight, “And here we are clunking a whole sheaf.”
“Maybe boss’ll let us take a sip.” The other boy pushing took a peek under the cloths. Softly glowing bottles of wine cast blue light on his plump face.
“Eat a cull! you’ll get booted by your lonesome.” The one laughed slapping the cloths back down.
The other one laughed once and settled in for a good heave of the pallet of “King’s Draught” they were hauling to be chilled.
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Hagoniel men in the back of the kitchen rubbed hands together slowly building up a thin layer of frost in preparation for the Caesena rolling forth.
The developing alto of a maiden’s voice whispered over to the ear of her brother. “Kai?”
“C’mon.” The young man said urging his sister on with a quick shove on the shoulder. The servants were busy and dazzled by the mages chilling the wines so he curved his thickening well- muscled frame around her shoulder and the kitchen door.
They had been hiding behind the heavy doors so not to be seen by their grandfather, but now Kai, being nineteen and she being six cycles younger, could not hide as well as they could when they were little. So they had to play it much safer.
“Kai, what if Denarah or Karih see us.” Xa’ada hissed with some irritated hesitation. She felt watched.
“Karih can’t talk and Denarah’s too busy brooding. Yeah um not afraid of either.” He started up an old rarely used stairwell beside the napiary where Jayed stood peeking a head around the wall.
She stared at her. For in the woods when she was young, too young to know of her place, the whiteness of flame surrounded her. The promise of prophecy in healing. The richness of pure living energy swaddled her as the furs the King and Queen had won in hunt for her. But here, now, Jayed knew why she had not sensed her. She knew why she could not find her. Darkness enveloped the flame around her and her soul stood there just as shrouded as her mother.
“Xa’ada?”
“Untouched? Where’s Kai?” Kodlaa burst to question.
The Shamed Queen didn’t answer immediately, didn’t want to believe what she was seeing. “...with her.”
“Denarah?”
Jayed stared at her mark, pulsing with a painful burn. She knew where her other daughter had gone but her mouth couldn’t open to answer.
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The brother and sister were stealing away from the bustle of servants decorating and cleaning for the biggest celebration of the cycle up to the quietest portion of the castle keep. Their grandfather’s study. He hadn’t been a talkative man in their youth, seemingly absent of mind at times, but he’d been knowledgeable and always full of fitting advice. He had been missing from the castle for some days now. A perfect time for them to take a peak in his study seeing as how every serving hand, every cleaning hand, every chandler and cook was busy preparing for May Rising.
Giggling servant girls stared at Kai as they emerged on the second floor hallway. They scooped up frilly suede, lace and feather dresses to bend low as their royals passed. The Princess gathered at her own leathers realizing only now she’d been trailing mud in from their training in the torrents earlier. She panicked a little as Kai gave no reaction to the curtsying females bowing pass.
“I don’t think this is such a good idea.” Xa’ada warned eyeing her trail.
“You wouldn’t. Have some guts girl.” He said disappearing around the seal. “You’d think you hadn’t just killed half of what we were all gonna eat for the next sixteen moons.” His voice faded into the room and she knew there was no turning back now, no dashing back down the wood and stone stair case to the safe comforts of her bed chamber, not now that they had entered the most forbidden wing of the palace. The ever dusty study. She quickly dashed into the room.
“Shhh.” Kai said as he felt her face hit his back. She was not expecting him to be standing in the middle of the room like he was.
“Kai, you klutz.”
“My face isn’t in my back.” He jutted a long thumb at his back without looking to her, making clear his point. She tossed him a quick twisted lip and turned to view the study; listening once more for footsteps following them. There were few times Tsymeen was
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long away from Sjindere and his cyclical pilgrimage to Cashtiel was the only real time they had to be nosy.
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