Storms (Sharani Series Book 2) (26 page)

The smithy lay in darkness except for the dull, reddish glow which permeated a small area around the forge itself. Beryl worked the bellows of the forge with a single-minded determination. It wasn’t the heat he needed, that was simple to get if he wanted to give the vulcanist a little more sway within the discordant battle of voices within his mind. No, he needed the work. It cleared his mind.

He used to work with wood as often as he worked with metal. Part of his abilities from a prior Iteration as an Earth Ward allowed him a certain capacity with wood. That capacity granted him the ability to revitalize and mold the wood, almost as he would stone or earth, but that no longer placated the voices.

The clamoring voices in his head started shouting as their argument escalated and Beryl had to heave so hard on the bellows to quiet them that the metal arm bent. Beryl growled and, almost without thinking, reached out to his powers and straightened it back out. It was
still
Lhaurel’s fault. As a blood mage, she would be one of the Seven Sisters.

Beryl froze and color drained from his face. The pale skin highlighted the dozens of flecks of metal embedded in his skin.

Where had
that
memory come from? He’d thought memories of the Sisters were buried deep, beneath the voices even. Even the most powerful of the voices, the part of Beryl’s past that was a vulcanist, feared the Sisters. That same fear trickled through the voices, silencing them all, and latched onto Lhaurel. She was one of
them
.

Beryl found himself suddenly sitting, his crippled leg twisted awkwardly to one side. He’d sent a message to the Orinai. He’d sent a message to the Seven Sisters, the Guardians of the gates to the Seven Hells and the Seven Progressions. He’d sent a message to the Seven Sisters.

“What have I done?” Beryl growled.

Images from all corners of the Dominions washed over him. Memories of family, friends, politics, and wars assaulted his mind and tore through him, as piercing as flaming arrows. He cried out and the earth shook in response to the powers, emotion, and pain that flowed through him. Only a small circle of earth around Beryl remained motionless.

More memories flooded through him. The Seven Sisters at the head of armies, destroying the slave rebellions with ruthless efficiency. He saw, as if reliving the experience over again, the rise and fall of political houses, the crushing of the extant neighboring kingdoms in the Southern and Eastern Dominions, the death of Elyana at her own hands.

The forge flared with a white-hot heat, ash and coal spewing out onto the sand. A few landed on wooden bins and supplies Beryl had scattered about and flames leapt up in a dozen different places.

Beryl remembered the creation of the Sharani Arena, back before it was a desert, remembered the volcano half a dozen vulcanists forced into existence, and the work of tens of thousands of slaves making the stoneways connecting the viewing platforms the Rahuli now used as warrens. He remembered a time when he’d worked alongside the slaves as one of them. And he remembered Elyana reminding him of his past when he’d been reborn.

The Rahuli. They would be scattered like grains of sand in the storm if the Seven Sisters came, and they surely would. And they’d bring armies with them, pitiless armies who would kill and destroy. If the Rahuli were here when the Seven Sisters arrived, they would not survive. The Seven Sisters would kill every single one of them, they’d take Lhaurel and torture her until she served them, and then they would begin using the Sharani Arena to punish those who deserved execution once more. At least, that is how it would start.

If the Rahuli were here . . .

The rumbling, jostling earth calmed around Beryl, though he only barely noticed.

If the Rahuli weren’t here when the Sister’s arrived, maybe they would stand a chance out on their own. Maybe . . . Beryl remembered a time when another people, the Amberdal, hid from the Sisters for centuries as they moved about in the area above the Northern Dominion. This area. Could Beryl get the Rahuli to leave?

The question bounced around inside his mind, which was surprisingly empty now with the quieted voices. Then one of the voices spoke, a quiet pragmatic one Beryl heard from infrequently at best.

Remember the look on Lhaurel’s face.

Beryl growled. The girl thought him crazy. They all did, at least a little. He would sooner be able to hold back a sandstorm with his bare hands as convince them they needed to leave their home.

“What would Elyana do?” he whispered, as if to himself.

The voices swelled with responses.
Force them to understand. Make them listen. Push them out. FORCE THEM!

The last was almost a scream and Beryl winced at the sharp mental pain that accompanied it. The ground
heaved
beneath Beryl, tossing him about with more force than any of the previous earthquakes.

He couldn’t force them, could he?

If you don’t, they’ll die.

Beryl wrapped his arms around his head, trying to stop the pain, stop the voices. The Rahuli were like children to him, the only family he’d ever known. He and Elyana had done what had to be done in order to protect them. He’d thought his job was done, but then Lhaurel had appeared. The genesauri drove the Sisters out the first time, them and Elyana’s self-sacrifice, but now they were gone.

Beryl let his head slip out of his hands and hang. He had to force the Rahuli to leave. For their own good. Their own good.

“A thorough look into the subject of the Seven Sisters must include millennia of horrors, atrocities, and a religion bordering on tyranny. However, there is neither time nor space in this text to include the necessary information. Suffice it to say, they are the controlling force among the Orinai and without them, the Schema would not exist, nor would the Orinai Empire function as it does.”

—From
Commentary on the
Schema, Volume I

“By all that is sacred and holy,” Samsin shouted, “open this door at once.”

He fell silent and the lingering echoes of his words died a moment later. In contrast to the almost deafening bellows, the silence was equally harsh.

After a long moment, the only sound their respective breathing, Gavin broke the silence.

“Are you happy now?” Gavin hissed. “I don’t know where you come from, or what you want here, but you’re not some high and mighty god. People won’t just bow to your whims just because you yell at them. Now get out of my way while I figure out how to get us out of here. Unless, that is, you can think of something actually useful to do.”

For a moment, the darkness was the only accompaniment to the silence which greeted Gavin’s barbed response. Then white light burst into the room as crackling energy appeared in Samsin’s hands, illuminating the Orinai’s face. Samsin’s face was tight with suppressed anger. The energy danced up Samsin’s arms, then seemed to pool in his hands.

“Do not
ever
speak to me that way again,” Samsin almost yelled, then slammed both fists against the door. The energy exploded outward and tore a hole right through the door. An acrid-smelling smoke filled the air, wafting up from the gently glowing wound left in the wall.

Gavin stepped back as the energy around Samsin’s hands died. The smoldering wood illuminated the immediate area with a faint reddish light, but Gavin didn’t move forward to open the door.

Samsin stuck one arm through the glowing hold and pulled open the door from the other side. “Get out there and see what’s waiting for us,” he ordered.

For half an instant Gavin almost cowed. Then his resolve firmed and he took a step forward.

“Together or not at all, Orinai,” Gavin said.

“I should kill you for your insolence.”

Gavin shrugged, though the effect was lost in the darkness. “Go ahead. Then you’ll really be left on your own without anyone knowing where you are or how to get your friend to the help he needs. At least come to the door with me.”

Gavin walked out into the unlit hall, not waiting for the protests he knew were coming on Samsin’s lips. His steps were a careful kiss against the sand, as he fully expected there to be guards waiting just around the bend. But would they really be watching in complete darkness? Samsin shuffled out behind him, his steps like the pounding of a drum.

“So where are these ‘others’ you claim captured us?” Samsin asked in a whisper that had no resemblance at all to the actual meaning of the word.

Gavin shushed him as best he could while trying to remain as quiet as possible, though the gesture was mostly futile now. If anyone
hadn’t
heard Samsin’s question it was either because they were stone deaf or dead. Maybe bringing him along wasn’t a good idea.

“Follow me,” Gavin whispered and tugged on the Orinai’s arm to indicate which direction he was headed. Samsin pulled his arm free almost immediately, but Gavin heard him shuffle along behind him as he walked. Gavin gritted his teeth, but did his best to ignore the man and his throbbing skull, instead focusing on trying to hear any indication of Kaiden and his captors. Since neither Sarial nor her body had been found in the cell, Gavin expected to find her somewhere in here as well.

The passage met a wall only a few steps further down. Alternate passages veered off to the right and to the left. A faint pinprick of orange light danced down the left passage. Gavin sifted through his memories, but couldn’t recall this area from either his wanderings before encountering Taren and the hidden clans or after escaping with Lhaurel. The distant light tugged at him, like an insect to flame.

Gavin stepped toward it. A massive hand clasped down hard on his shoulder, jerking him to a stop. Gavin reacted instinctively, reaching out and drawing in energy from the rocks and himself, amplifying it within himself and pushing it out into his hands. White sparks shot up and down his hands in a cascading shower and Gavin spun out of the grip, dropping into a defensive posture. The light from his hands illuminated Samsin’s surprised face.

“Sorry.” Gavin muttered, releasing his hold on the energy and allowing the sparks to vanish from his hands.

“Where are you going?” Samsin asked, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. “We can’t leave Nikanor alone back there. What if these others circle back while we’re gone?”

A good point.

Sands. So much for together or not at all.

“Fine, you go back and stay with him. I’m going to go see what’s down there.”

Samsin grunted. Gavin couldn’t tell if was in agreement or not, but took it as such.

“Be careful,” Samsin said grudgingly, then Gavin heard him shuffle away.

Gavin shook his head and ran a hand through his hair, though he immediately regretted that action as his fingers brushed the tender knob on his scalp. Samsin was a pompous, arrogant sailfin of a man, but at least he cared about what happened to his friend. Then again, one redeeming quality was not enough to counter every negative aspect. Kaiden, for example, was now far beyond redemption.

Gavin cast one last look back down the hall after Samsin, then moved down the left passageway. The light grew brighter as he approached, resolving into a small oil lamp hanging from a bracket in the wall. Gavin approached cautiously, though he couldn’t see anyone inside the small pool of light. He waited at the very edge of the lantern’s reach, on the very verge of light and shadow, for a long, long moment. Then he crept into the light.

No one jumped out at him and nothing bad happened. If anything, it appeared that no one had been through the area in ages, which defied logic. Obviously someone had been there to place the lamp and put them in the cell. With how large Samsin and Nikanor were, there were at least a half dozen strong men with Kaiden somewhere. The oil in the lamp was full. It had been recently placed.

Gavin stopped there, in the light, blinking until his eyes adjusted. He knew he should not let his eyes grow accustomed to the light—he’d be blind when he stepped back into the darkness—but he wasn’t sure if he was going to move or on turn around.

In the end, he took the lamp, doused the flame, and moved onward.

An hour later found Gavin crouched at the end of a passage, peering around the edge out over the massive lake he’d stumbled across when he’d first discovered this network of caves and passages through the Oasis walls. When they’d left the Oasis behind, Gavin had thought the passages destroyed by whatever it was that had caused the walls to crumble along one edge and let the genesauri in. That was one of the reasons they had returned to the Roterralar Warren to regroup and tend to the wounded and broken. But none of this looked like it had even been touched. Something wasn’t settling right. An itch crawled along the base of his skull.

Lights glowed brightly across the massive lake. Gavin tried to pierce both the distance and the light, but the lanterns were placed behind the people moving about on the other side of the cavern. The half dozen figures made dark silhouettes against the brilliant backdrop. Luckily, just as last time, the cavernous room was much better at carrying sound than it was in helping Gavin see the people at work on the other side.

“Why is all this important?” a man’s voice asked. Gavin didn’t recognize the voice, though he knew he would never forget it moving forward. There was an odd rasping sound to the voice, as if of rough fabric over flesh or stone.

“Just get it done, Daelyn,” a woman’s voice said. Her exasperation and impatience were plain. It was obvious that Gavin was overhearing just one small part of a long argument.

“But what do a bunch of scrolls give us? We’ve got what we need to get out of here. What’s wrong with just leaving now while we can?”

“You’re not a very bright one, are you?” This voice made Gavin’s hands clench into fists. Kaiden. “These scrolls are what warned us to prepare. How else do you think I figured out what I did?”

There was a long moment of silence. There could have been a low murmur of voices, or a muted whisper, but the sound didn’t carry over the lake to where Gavin was hiding. After a time, the silence was shattered by a horrible, grating noise Gavin hoped wasn’t laughter, for it bore no real humor in it.

“A prophet?” Kaiden’s voice wheezed, a bitter, angry edge cutting through the low wheeze and tremble Gavin had grown used to. “Your superstitious ways will be the end of you, one day. I claim no visions of the future, no great access to powers from the heavens above or the seven hells beneath. No, what
I
have you will always lack. Knowledge. Now get back to work and don’t you dare damage a single one of those scrolls.”

A soft, low sound wafted across the waters to Gavin’s listening point, but Gavin couldn’t make out what it was. Perhaps it was Daelyn muttering some reply, but in any case, the hum of voices faded and only the occasional faint click reverberated off the wall and reached Gavin’s ears.

Gavin pulled his head back around the cavern’s entrance and leaned back on his haunches, unsure of what to do. He could go back and grab the two Orinai and make a run for it. With Samsin’s help, Gavin was sure they could manage to carry Nikanor. But Kaiden and his lackeys would soon discover their escape and be down on them in only a matter of a few minutes. No, if Gavin was to get out of here alive, he really only had two options, either act the dutiful prisoner or make it so there was no one to follow them.

The question was how.

There were at least six of them, which was far too many for him to attempt to take on at once. But if he could get them separated . . .

A plan began to form.

The shadows hugged Gavin like a cloak, hiding him from prying eyes that passed near his hiding place. Gavin waited, careful not to move or make a sound. Kaiden passed by first, walking side-by-side with a blonde-haired woman Gavin thought he should recognize. They didn’t even glance to the side and Gavin gave an internal sigh of relief, though he remained motionless.

Three others came in a group after the couple. They were tall, muscular men Gavin didn’t recognize. They carried several large sacks and two of them carried lanterns.

Gavin fought against the instinct to draw back from the light. It was more often the motion that gave people away than actually being seen. More than a few times he’d had to hide in the desert sands while raiding parties from the clans passed or else from the wandering huntings of a starving sandtiger. Outcasts who didn’t learn to properly hide were not outcasts that lived very long.

The three men passed by without seeing him.

The last man came a few steps behind, barely at the edge of the light. He grumbled and muttered under his breath as he dragged an even larger sack behind him along the ground. Gavin studied him carefully from his hiding place, not believing his luck. The man was not tall, but he
was
well muscled and wore a stiff leather vest over a loose shirt and tight pants. His hair was shaved on the sides, leaving only a long tail which was tied back in a topknot, marking him as having once belonged to the Londik or Mornal clan, though both these clans now followed Evrouin. The thick black beard on his chin and cheeks hid the man’s youth, but his attitude and soft-looking hands spoke the truth. A sword hung from the belt at his waist.