The Hidden Relic (The Evermen Saga, Book Two) (54 page)

"Long ago, the Evermen ruled the world. Not just these lands here that you call the Tingaran Empire. No, I speak of long before the empire even existed. The Evermen ruled all of Merralya, and everyone in it."

The crashing of the waves against the island sounded against Evrin's words. Evrin closed his eyes for a moment and then resumed.

"Humans were our workers. You could use the term slaves. Like all slaves, you were given work."

Evrin looked into the distance, and Ella wondered what he saw.

"Some of you processed essence for our use. You were taught to use the machines, but you didn't need lore of your own, and were never taught any."

"Templars," Amber murmured.

"Some of you, however, were taught to utilise lore. You built our cities and you manufactured our tools and gadgets. You constructed machines to do the labour that you were not capable of doing yourselves. Some of you created illusions to entertain us."

Evrin moved his leg and winced, looking at Ella, before he continued.

"Ours was a beautiful world, filled with wonder. Yet when I say ours, I do not include you humans, I refer to my brothers and myself. You were our playthings, our toys, our servants and our slaves. You did what we commanded, and we did with you what we willed. Your lives were in our hands, and you lived and died, loved and gave birth at our command. You were no threat to us, for we were all-powerful. We could kill you with barely more than a thought. We lived forever and we knew everything."

Evrin licked his lips. "Or so we thought."

Ella looked up at the Sentinel, and thought about Stonewater, and the Pinnacle, and the incredible power the Evermen had possessed.

"My brothers and I each took a god-name to impress our subjects. There was Varian Vitrix, who you might know as the Lord of the Earth. Pyrax Pohlen was the Lord of the Sun. I am Evrin Evenstar, but you would know me as the Lord of the Sky."

Ella couldn't believe what she was hearing. It turned upside down everything she had ever been taught about the Evermen. She could understand now why Evrin had kept them all in ignorance. Who would cast down their own gods?

"There was one of us, Sentar Scythran, the Lord of the Night…"

Dain Barden looked up, his gaze intent.

"You," Evrin said. "Dain of the Akari. You need to hear this most of all."

Barden's knuckles were white as he gripped the hammer at his belt.

"Sentar Scythran found his slaves' free will to be offensive. He didn't humans having emotions or singing songs. He didn't want his subjects speaking to him out of turn, or breeding without his permission. Sentar Scythran preferred to be served by the dead."

Ella wondered how the Dain would react to Evrin's words.

"None of us took much notice. We were powerful and knowledgeable, and we could do almost anything we set our minds to. Drawing runes on a corpse and teaching it to pour wine was nothing to us."

Evrin coughed for a moment, and in the break Ella looked over at Seranthia, wondering if the world would ever be the same again.

"However something happened that made us take notice. For, being constantly around the dead as he was, the Lord of the Night discovered a new source of power. Sentar discovered that essence's power comes from life. We all knew that, of course, but we always thought the essence itself had to come from lignite, from below the ground, where the life energy of a thousand trees or a million blades of grass condenses over eons.

"Yet, Sentar Scythran, the Lord of the Night, made a new discovery. He found a way to harness the life energy of humans."

Evrin looked down at the ground as if filled with shame.

"My brothers, the Evermen, began to adopt this process. At first we were pleased. We had found a use for the dead humans, and our power was never greater. We could do anything. We pooled our knowledge and we discussed ways of exploring worlds beyond this one."

Ella thought about the hidden relic, a portal to another world. She wondered if Killian was lost to her forever.

Evrin looked up again. "But then I fell in love with a human."

He took a deep breath. ""You have to understand, this was something unheard of among my people. Unimaginable, perhaps that might be a better word. We Evermen did with our slaves whatever we willed. We bedded those who we ruled whenever the mood was on us. Yet never was the fruit of our passion allowed to survive. Never did we feel anything more than lust. How could we? We were your gods. We were as far above you as the stars."

"Who was she?" Shani asked.

"She was different. Her people had made her a leader, which is how we met, and it didn't take me long to see why. I had never met a human before who saw herself as my equal. Not until I met her. She was intelligent, and charming, and filled with new ideas. She was beautiful, and I took her to my bed.

"Yet even as I did so, I knew it was only with her permission. She would have rather died than give in to anyone who sought to control her by intimidation or force. My feelings crept up on me. I thought I was ruled by my passion, but it was more. I was in love.

"Suddenly I felt that I could see for the first time. With her to open my eyes, I came to realise that my brothers had lowered the cost of human life to nothing. You were worth more to us dead than alive. The slightest provocation and you were killed — one more body for the vats. I started to feel sick to the stomach. What we were doing was wrong.

"I confronted my brothers, but they would not give up their ways. They were disgusted that I had taken a human lover and tried to bring me back into the fold. We argued, and I left.

"You have to understand how hard this was for me. They were my brethren, and together we dreamed of wonders you cannot possibly imagine. Yet I loved her even more than I loved my brothers. I felt responsible for the humans in my dominion, as well as for those in my brothers' dominions. I made my decision, and chose a path I would never be able to turn away from."

The expression on Evrin's face told Ella how hard the decision had been.

"I gathered nine of the human loremasters to me. Looking at these men and women with my newly-opened eyes, I saw that these were bright, intelligent people who deserved to be given the opportunity to be all they could be.

"I presented the loremasters with nine Lexicons, one for each school of lore. With these books, not only would the humans have the knowledge they needed, they would have a source of power that the Evermen would not be able to take away.

"I then told them the truth. My love was shocked beyond belief to discover we were no longer obtaining our essence from the lignite ore we found below the ground. The loremasters couldn't believe their gods had betrayed them.

"I let them think. They needed to come to the conclusions that I had on their own — it is no easy thing, to rise up against your gods. The shock was replaced with rage, as I knew it would be.

"Yet the revelations did not stop there. When I next spoke with these ten humans — my lover and the nine loremasters— I had their full attention. This is when I told them.

"The Evermen planned a great project. My brothers wanted to open their first door to another world. For this they would need essence, always more essence. A great number of humans were to be harvested like wheat.

"The humans rose up, all of them. And so I, Evrin Evenstar, Lord of the Sky, led the revolt against the gods. The struggle was long and bitter, and in the process I was captured by my former brothers.

"They stripped my powers from me. I was rescued by my human allies, but my love was… killed… while I was held captive."

Ella looked at Miro, and then at Amber with her babe in her arms. She saw Bartolo and Shani standing close together. Rogan had a far off look in his eyes. Jehral had a wife back in the desert, Ella remembered. Ella shied away from looking at the prince.

"I'm sorry," Ella said.

"I won't say more, but against all odds we won. You… won. You cast off the shackles of your overlords.

"Yet even in victory, and even with the death of my love, I could not kill my brethren. I gave them a choice: to die, or to flee through the portal into their new world. They left, but not before the Lord of the Night said his parting words. He said you humans would not be able to control your emotions; you are too filled with love and hate, ambition and aggression. You would not be able to rule yourselves, and if you called, the Evermen would return.

"I vowed not to rule the humans as my brothers had. Instead, I looked on and stayed silent as you fought amongst yourselves, though it pained me to see. I watched and did nothing as the nine loremasters formed nine separate houses. Each house took a land for their own, and a colour, and then I watched in silence as builders fought enchanters, animators fought illusionists, and chaos took the land.

"With no lore of their own, the templars stayed neutral, and as they were the only ones who knew how to operate the machines in Stonewater, they enjoyed a special status, able to shape the events of the war of the houses and bide their time until a victor became clear.

"I stayed silent, deciding my role was to intervene only when the most dangerous magic came into your possession, such as the Primate with his elixir, and the discovery of the portal inside the Sentinel.

"Eventually the Tingarans became dominant, leading to the formation of the Tingaran Empire and the banishment of the Akari — who were never one of the nine — to the north.

"The templars continued to occupy Stonewater, a sacred place even for the Evermen, and a distorted truth was put out, what you call the Evermen Cycles. Still, I did nothing as my brothers came to be worshipped, and the story of the brave humans who cast off their overlords was forgotten.

"At least…" Evrin said. "At least now some of those who will shape what the Tingaran Empire will become have heard this story. Perhaps this was my fault. Perhaps I should have let the truth be known earlier. But who would have listened? Would you believe me, if you hadn't been here to witness what happened today?

"There are so many of you who revere the Evermen. If they ever return, you will not only face their incredible powers, unlike anything you have ever seen before… You will face your own people, those who will mindlessly follow their god wherever he leads."

There was silence except for the sound of the waves crashing against the Sentinel's island as they each digested Evrin's words.

"If that ever happens," Miro finally said. "You will fight by our side, as you once did?"

"I will," Evrin said, "although since my powers were taken from me, there is little I can do. I have my knowledge of the runes, but that is all."

"Your lover…" Amber said. "Did you ever have a child?"

All eyes were suddenly on the old man. Ella looked again at his piercing blue eyes and the flecks of ginger in his beard. When Evrin hung his head, and a look of infinite sadness crossed his visage, Ella felt the blood drain from her face.

"Yes," Evrin said. "I never knew for sure, but yes, I believe we did have a child. And I think my child might have had a child of their own, and that perhaps I have a descendant, living today.

"I think I might have just sent him to his death."

Epilogue

P
RIMATE
Melovar Aspen had one last surprise left in store for the world he had plunged into war and then departed with his death.

His veins had flowed with
raj nilas
, the substance he had called elixir. Never had so much of essence's opposite taken residence in a man's body. Never had the two liquids been brought together in such concentration.

When the Primate perished, the violent clash of
raj nilas
meeting
raj ichor
caused his body to disintegrate, a result not attributable to essence alone. His skin fell off in slabs, the limbs fell from his body, and his face came away from his skull.

Deep within the individual cells that joined to make up the rapidly dissolving tissues, the
raj nilas
bubbled and fizzed angrily. Each miniscule droplet struggled to retain its form, desperate to maintain a separate identity to the
raj ichor
around it. It was a fight with an inevitable outcome, as finally the two liquids met and combined.

The essence easily swallowed the elixir within its much greater volume, but nevertheless, the
raj ichor
was changed.

The Primate's burning blood was now part of the pool.

The shift in the nature of the liquid that resided in the pool would have first been noticed by a new odour, tart and unpleasant. Yet the chamber within the Sentinel was empty and devoid of life.

As the sun passed over the Sentinel day after day, the composition of the fluid slowly altered. It retained most of the properties of essence, but it also developed some new properties.

Slowly, steadily, the liquid began to eat through the stone of the low wall around it.

Little by little, day by day, the fluid chipped at the stone, finding infinitely small cracks and dissolving the edges of the fissures until a seam opened up. When the seam tunnelled through to the wall's outer edge, a single droplet of black liquid spilled out and onto the floor of the chamber with a hiss.

More time passed, and the steady steam of droplets became a trickle. The eating away of the wall now increased rapidly as the fluid hungrily found the path of escape, burrowing like a creature in the dirt, increasing the size of the opening with each moment that passed.

A watcher would have seen the level of the liquid decrease at a noticeable pace.

The liquid ran down the floor and found the spiral stairs. As it flowed down it ate into the soft stone of the stairs, until the stairway was gone, and the fluid ran down from above like a small waterfall.

And then the pool was dry.

The three seals on the portal went first. They worked by draining the power from the pool; with no power left to drain, the seals ceased to function.

The shimmering silver surface of the portal shifted to burnt gold as it came to life.