Embers of a Broken Throne (16 page)

C
hapter 21

T
he sun’s position in the sky, the forest around them, the smells, the flowers, the lake, and the mountain in the distance were all wrong. Irmina had no idea where Ancel had brought them. Even the air felt different. She eased Ancel onto the ground and stood.

They were in a clearing, but trees this big never grew in any of Denestia’s forests. Not the ones she knew. The surrounding canopy was so thick it left much of the woods shrouded in darkness except for the occasional golden lance. Birds sang, and animals called. Creatures small and large rustled in the undergrowth.

Without trying, she sensed power. It weighed on her, thick and heavy, cloying like heat on an especially arid day. She opened her Matersense and gaped.

Essences flowed around her, into her, and throughout the woods in bands and swaths she hardly recognized. Familiar yet different from those she normally Forged. The power brought a torrent of memory. The night she stabbed Sakari repeated: Mater coiling around her, the strength of a thousand Forges, people from temples all across the world in one enormous working, Ancel wielding it all. It coursed through her in such copious amounts that she couldn’t help but to attempt a Forge.

Nothing happened. In fact, she noticed that the voices inhabiting Mater did not clamor for her attention. It was as if they no longer existed.

She glanced down at Ancel. The same forces flowed into him. Some caressed him, slipped within his Etchings. The tattoos glowed until she had to shy away. When the luminance subsided, and she looked once more, the numerous cuts, bruises, slices, and gouges were all gone. Numbed, she could only stare.

Charra was sitting on his haunches to one side regarding his master. Her connection to the daggerpaw hadn’t been severed when they crossed into this place.

“Where are we,” she asked, trying for a semblance of calm.

The answer arrived in a series of images and impressions. They showed the creation of havens between the Planes of Existence and outside of time, each one located at different places around the world, but all leading here to the Entosis.

“What is it?”

A place created by the gods for the advent of the end. Sanctuary.

A longer series of images followed. It replayed a long history of battles between Eztezians, gods, and netherlings. One of the Entosis’ entrances had been ruptured in the process. Some undefined time later, she saw Ryne as he called on the shade to influence a forest, thereby building the Netherwood. A combination of his power and that leaking from the doorway led to the abnormal creatures inhabiting the woods. Ryne set them to protect the opening.

“How is it that Ancel was able to bring us here?”

It is in his power to cross into this realm through one of the few entrances.

She frowned. “How did you know it was there?”

Feelings.

“Whose feelings?”

A picture bloomed of the animals Ancel fought.

“So I’m guessing we can’t return until he’s able to bring us back. Do you know how long before he’s strong enough or before he awakes?”

“I’m awake now,” Ancel muttered, voice etched with pain.

Irmina started, but when she saw his face, pressure eased from her. His cheeks had regained some color.

“I still need time to replenish my power.” Ancel sat up. After a moment, he cocked his head to one side, expression clouded. He twisted around until he was staring at Charra, eyes narrowed. “You have an aura … and how is it you’re speaking to me now?” A pause, and then, “Ah, I see. The link.”

“What is it,” she asked.

“Since we’re cut off from the outside world, the ones like him who could hear us are similarly separated.”

“Like him?”

“Tell her.”

Charra growled, and Irmina got a sense of hesitancy.

“If you don’t, I will. It’s past time that she knows.”

This time, Charra’s growl was an earthquake in the daggerpaw’s chest. The usual words she could decipher from animal calls were lost within it. He rose to his full height, eyes shifting from Ancel to her. When their gazes locked, Irmina had a sense of something deep, bottomless. She swallowed. The sensation increased until she felt as she was being dragged underwater into fathomless depths. It conjured images of another time, of Sakari. Her fear increased.

Images blossomed. Unlike the impressions from before, these were vivid. They lived.

She floated in black nothingness. It stretched in every direction, an umbra that encompassed everything around her. Within it she could make out no form or features. Then came a rustle of sound. A clink. Metal of some sort. Her vision adjusted, and the movement grew visible. Within this deep, dank shadow, she could see plainly as if she were in sunlight.

Nightmare creatures surrounded her by the thousands. Oily smoke wreathed them. Tentacles flickered out from each as they set about some task. Chitinous armor covered their chest and four arms. They had feet to match, all of the same substance. Tiny wriggling creatures darted around them.

As she watched, a slit appeared in the umbra, exposing light beyond. Black strands and swirls swept in from the openings. Somehow, she knew each hole to be a portal, and the strands to be essences. Sela essences.

The netherlings harvested the sela, directing the essence into bulbous, black, pear-shaped things hanging above them. It took a moment to realize it was some type of roof, and she was in a vast storage chamber. The hanging black pears dwarfed the netherlings in number, spanning beyond her vision.

A clink of armor sounded next to her. Lips and chin trembling, fists clenched tight, she turned.

Eyes flecked with silver took her in. They shifted and changed through a rainbow’s worth of color. They focused abruptly. When she gazed into their depths, she knew the creature before her.

Charra.

He nodded toward a group of netherlings. They crowded around one in particular, guiding a stream of shade thicker, stronger, and purer than any she could recall.

The connection broke. Once again they were within the strange forest.

Gasping for breath, Irmina blurted, “You, you’re a netherling?”

“Indeed.” The voice was deep but lacked emotion.

She frowned and rubbed at her eyes, trying to make sense of what she’d seen and heard.

“So you have an actual voice now,” Ancel said.

“Now? I always had a voice. Barks, grunts, howls, roars … they’re simply beyond your capacity to comprehend.” Charra glanced toward Irmina. “She understands when she chooses to listen.”

It took Irmina a moment more before her brain registered that Charra was talking. His jaws weren’t moving, but words came forth regardless.

“That could have saved us a lot of trouble long ago,” Ancel said dryly. “Why talk now? Why not continue using your mind? In fact why is it that you never spoke in my head as you did today?”

“Because communication through our minds had proven to be problematic. You humans lack the ability to fully comprehend every nuance, to capture what I’m saying in every detail. These,” Charra paused, “words, though simplistic, appear to be the best form for your understanding. As for why I did not directly speak to you? It would have given you away to the enemy. Us netherlings are separated by caste, but each caste is interconnected by our minds. The others were too close. They would have known what passed between us if I communicated with you. In the same fashion that they can see much of what the original Eztezians do or think, at least those who have not trained themselves to avoid such thoughts. The Entosis exists outside of that link.”

“You said the original Eztezians.” Ancel’s forehead wrinkled. “Does that mean the newer ones like myself aren’t affected by this netherling ability”

“You are safe unless you are in contact with another netherling’s mind,” Charra confirmed.

Irmina’s thoughts were still racing. “Didn’t Ryne seal off Ostania against your kind and the shade?” she finally managed.

“Yes, but he allowed a passage for those among the refugees.”

“Why let any of you pass? We might be safer today if he’d done that.”

“Not true,” Ancel said. “First, I need Charra. Second, it would have alerted the others that we have a way to tell some of them apart from others.”

“But not all,” Irmina countered.

“No, not all, and neither Ryne nor I can tell friend from foe.”

Irmina grimaced, the potential issues souring her stomach. She turned to Charra. “That place you showed us … what was it?”

“The Nether.”

“Why show us now?” Ancel sat cross-legged with his back to a tree. “And what exactly was happening? It looked as if you were collecting sela, like Amuni’s daemons.”

“Yes,” Charra replied, “we were collecting nethersela in the same fashion as they do.”

Ancel leaned forward, expression stony. His eyes flashed with anger as his Etchings lit up. “As much as I’m grateful for your protection over the years, I think you need to explain yourself.”

“Collecting sela is our job.” Charra settled down on his stomach, appearing relaxed, but his eyes never left Ancel. “Sela is much more than you might think or have learned, much more than simply life and death essences combined. If the soul makes a person what they are, consider nethersela to be the imprint of that soul. It holds a sense of the person, their abilities, their power or lack of. When a person dies, that part of their sela returns to the Nether. We see to it that each imprint is placed into a container until it is ready to be used again.”

“The things hanging from the ceiling,” Irmina said.

“Yes. Every time a person is born, a random container opens to deliver sela, an imprint of what that person will be, what power they might hold. The reason I showed you this is because that randomness has been upset.”

“How?” Ancel’s Etchings no longer glowed.

“By one of the gods.”

“Amuni?”

“That is a possibility,” Charra answered.

“Wait,” Irmina sat in the grass, trying to understand the issue. “How do you know the randomness has been upset, and shouldn’t something like that be ordered anyway?”

“As with Mater itself, and the world, balance is important. Think about if you knew who would be born where and when, and what strength they had. What if you could decide each person’s fate? It would disrupt everything, give you insurmountable power. That cannot be. Without balance, this world is doomed.”

“Since gaining Prima, I understand somewhat,” Ancel said, “but that doesn’t explain how you know sela has been manipulated.”

“I am looking at the last of such manipulations,” Charra declared, eyes focused on Ancel.

“What?” Both Irmina and Ancel said the word at the same time.

“You and your siblings, Ancel, are part of a greater battle involving the gods. When the gods created the Eztezians, they gave them an imitation of their power. In it lay a chance to evolve. But they could not account for the envious netherlings or those who saw themselves as little more than slaves. Or the most violent of us, the ones who hated the gods for their experimentation, for transforming some of our offspring into the abominations that are shadelings. When the Nine formed, they deceived the Eztezians into thinking all the gods meant the world harm. They showed them what power they could achieve, how they could wield Prima through the Etchings.

“Several gods decided the Eztezians were better off dead. Others protested, stating they needed that growing power to increase their own to battle the Nine, to save the world. The first faction went about destroying the Eztezian bloodlines, but they could no more prevent their birth than they could stop sela.

“One of them learned that they could influence sela to limit the possible family lines from which the Aegae could be born. In order to counter the move, a few of the other gods, Ilumni, Bragni, Humelen, and Liganen, created the zyphyl, and allowed the Eztezians the ability to see the Planes of If.

“In turn, the Eztezians recorded what they saw, stating it all as prophecy. At the same time, those four gods removed the knowledge of the Bloodline Affinity. It thwarted the enemy’s plans. Whoever the opposition might be, they could no longer tell who would be born with the power you hold.

“The enemy’s counterstroke was to rely on man’s inherent curiosity, his need for prophecy, for belief, for religion.”

The Chronicles
, Irmina thought to herself.

“Yes,” Charra said. “They used those weaknesses and strengths to start wars. The most powerful among you were then marked. As they died, the enemy followed those marks when the sela returned to the world. It was how they first got wind of the Dorns and others as strong as yourselves, ones who could become an Aegis. It would take them millennia to find the bloodline they sought, but what is time to gods?”

Ancel grimaced. “I keep hearing about this power, about the Aegis. What is it? What am I?”

“Not just you. The world. The beasts and men. The people you gather now. You are a piece, the piece that bears some power, a shield of sorts, hope for when the end comes. Only such as yourselves can combine all the essences within an element.”

“The end?” Ancel whispered. “The end of the world like what the zyphyl spoke of?”

“Exactly.”

“But how can I, how can any of us, or all of us, stop what the gods cannot?” Ancel asked.

“That, I do not know, but it begins with you acquiring the rest of your Etchings. Which is why I brought you to the forest. This fight involves even the animals, and you must call on them for help when you can. Ryne knew the importance of this when he created the Netherwood. They thwarted the Nine once; they can help again.”

“What help can you offer us?” Ancel asked.

“None directly as yet. The pact binds me as it does the others. It is why I could not come to Benez. Some of my kind are there, those of an opposing caste.”

“But weren’t there a few of you among the Pathfinders and the refugees?” Ancel asked.

“Yes. Of my caste and others whose cause is unclear.”

“It would help if you pointed them out to us,” she said.

“Even that much is forbidden unless the contract is broken. None of us among your people have attempted to harm you. In turn, there would need to be a threat to them first.”