The Complete Rhenwars Saga: An Epic Fantasy Pentalogy Read online

  The mayor looked over at the bearded fellow. The ugly brute stepped forward, gesturing toward Kyel with a wave of his hand. “That bastard was gambling with his money! And we’ve two witnesses who say they saw him near the stable.”

  “I was sleeping!” Kyel was frustrated almost to the point of tears. He had no idea what had happened down in the stable. All he knew was that he had no part in any wrongdoing, and it should be perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain.

  He glanced across the yard, startled to find a mob pouring out the back door of the inn and moving in their direction. Kyel swallowed, looking again at the blade of the axe. His neck was starting to ache. He knew exactly where this was going.

  “All right,” the mayor grumbled, raising his hand to rub his balding head. “Give me a moment.” He fingered Traver’s boot knife, rotating it slowly. He glanced back again toward the body then held the small blade up to dangle in front of Traver’s eyes. “Is this your knife?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  Turning to Kyel, he hefted the coin purse. “And is this your money?”

  “Yes, but—”

  The mayor turned and walked away, by all appearances deep in thought. Kyel hoped he thought long and hard on it. The whole story really didn’t make any sense at all. But the mob gathered around them was getting louder, their shouts growing vicious.

  Kyel’s stomach felt queasy. A town mayor was usually an elected official. The man would be thinking more about his endorsements than he would about true justice for the crime—which lowered their chances considerably. The man would likely yield to the demands of the people he represented. And, by the sound of the turbulent mob, the people were demanding blood.

  “I don’t know, Halbert.” One of the men who had ridden in with the mayor was shaking his head. “You can’t execute two men on evidence this flimsy. Not a soul actually saw them do it.”

  The whole mob started shouting. Someone called out, “They murdered a man! Take their bleedin’ heads off!”

  There was a collective outcry of agreement. Some people shook their fists in the air as others began directing their wrath at the mayor. The poor man walked away, lumbering toward Kyel and Traver. Behind, his men were having a hard time holding back the surging mob.

  “Doesn’t Rothscard send their convicts north to the Front?” the mayor asked.

  “Aye, they do.”

  “Then we’re in luck.” He glanced back at his unruly constituents with a look of relief. “There’s a group of Rothscard Bluecloaks over at the Oak Tree. Perhaps they’ll agree to take these two off our hands. We can even pay for it out of their own coin purse.”

  Kyel gaped. He shook his head and pleaded in a desperate voice, “I can’t go to the Front! I’ve a wife and child at home! And a load of goods I’m supposed to haul out on the morrow!”

  The mayor looked down at him sadly. His expression of sympathy seemed almost genuine. “Sorry, son. But if you really were in just the wrong place at the wrong time, then you’re the unluckiest fellow I’ve ever met.”

  Kyel’s head spun dizzily as all the air in his lungs seemed to rush out all at once. “Damn you, Traver!”

  Traver sighed. “Already am, Archer. Already am.”

  The bearded man chuckled, eyes sparkling with amusement in the glare of the torchlight. “Your name’s Archer? Hope you know how to use a bow.”

  Kyel glared at him vindictively.

  7

  The Bird Man

  Darien was adrift in a sea of golden light that filtered downward in gentle rays. The light shimmered, shifting, and kept fading into darkness before coming back again. Hazy objects hovered overhead and all around. A soft breath of air stirred, making the shapes above him dance and spin. Gradually, the objects came into better focus. But even when he could make out the forms of the strange, fluttering shapes, they still did not make any kind of reasonable sense. The whole image was strangely surreal and utterly bizarre.

  He found himself staring up at the forms of moving birds. Their wings were outstretched in the air overhead, though not in flight. Instead, the birds fluttered and spun on thin and almost transparent strings, dangling from a ceiling that sloped sharply overhead. There were dozens of them. Small sparrows and warblers, finches and jays. Hawks and eagles with great wingspans extended in a strange parody of flight. Above, mounted to a corner against the ceiling, a great horned owl regarded him somberly, eyes round and glassy, its expression perplexed.

  Darien struggled to sit up, but the motion brought such a stunning pain in his head that he fell back again immediately. The light and the birds faded away, and it was a long time before they came back again.

  When they did, he had no idea why they were still there. He had expected them to be gone, just another one of the strange dreams that had plagued his sleep. It took him a long time to come to the conclusion this was no dream. But, if it were not, then this was a peculiar reality.

  He was lying in a soft and comfortable bed. The birds continued spinning overhead, feathers stirring on a breeze admitted by an open window. Dim recollections were coming back to him, filling him more each minute with a tremendous sense of loss and foreboding. He remembered the disaster of the Hall, the column of light that pierced the night, his brother’s cold, malevolent eyes. He remembered falling.

  There was nothing after that until the birds. He tried to sit up again, clenching his jaw against the pain and trying to fight back the queasiness in his stomach. He managed to get almost halfway up before the sound of a hoarse voice stopped him short.

  “I wouldn’t try that just yet.”

  He hadn’t noticed the old man sitting on a stool in the corner of the room. The face was familiar, but Darien couldn’t place it. He knew he had seen this man before, even recently, but couldn’t imagine where. The face that regarded him was quilted with wrinkles, age-stained and weathered. The nose was bird-like, resembling the beak of one of the golden eagles that dangled above his bed. The old man’s puffy blue eyes were what finally made him realize that he was looking at the gatekeeper he had met the day before in the Vale.

  The old man stood stiffly, using his hands to push himself off the stool. With slow, shuffling steps, he moved toward the edge of the bed. He wheezed as he bent over, placing a hand on Darien’s chest. He closed his eyes. As he did, Darien felt a rippling sensation pass through his body. The old man was another mage, and he was using his ability to probe his condition.

  “The ways of healing are not well known to me,” the old man said, removing his hand. “My specialties lie in other areas. I did what I could, but perhaps you can do a fairer job of it yourself when you are feeling a bit better.”

  Darien frowned as the import of the words sank in. Then his eyes widened. He was perfectly capable of healing himself now and hadn’t even remembered it. He reached within and felt for the surge of the magic field inside. It was there, singing quietly in the back of his mind. Waiting to be used.

  “Stop.”

  The urgency of the command made Darien flinch as he forced his mind back from the touch of the field. He opened his eyes, staring up at the old mage in confusion.

  “Never attempt that again with a head injury,” the man admonished, raising a finger. “You ought to know better, boy, especially this close to a vortex. But you’re new, aren’t you? Only yesterday, you passed my gate as an acolyte. Yet now I see a fresh set of markings on your wrist.”

  Darien frowned, staring down at the image of what looked like a heavy iron chain engravened into his flesh. The mark had not been there yesterday. The old man was right.

  He had an identical emblem on his left wrist, which he’d acquired sixteen years before when he had spoken the Acolyte’s Oath. Now, he bore a matching set on both arms, the symbol of a fully Bound mage. Darien held his wrist aloft, staring as he turned it over, admiring the complexity of the pattern that wrapped all the way around his arm, seamless and glimmering in the muted light.

  “I suppose I should i
ntroduce myself,” the old man said. “My apologies, but I’m unused to the ways of civilized manners anymore. My name is Edric Torrence, third-tier Master, if you must know.”

  Darien nodded weakly in acknowledgement then reminded the aged Master of his own name. Only yesterday, he had introduced himself to the same man as “Darien Lauchlin, Acolyte of Aerysius.” But now it felt incredibly odd hearing his own lips uttering his new title, “Grand Master of the Fifth Tier.”

  The old man blinked. Such an elevated ranking was almost unheard of, as the system went. There was only one mage in all of Aerysius who was a level above him, and that was Meiran. He had fallen in love with the only sixth-tier Grand Master in existence. But Meiran was dead. Along with all of the others.

  “The city?” he whispered, though he really didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “Utterly destroyed.”

  Darien closed his eyes as a shiver passed over him. He had guessed that would be the case. His last memory of Aerysius was a shattered, desolate tomb. He wondered if his mother had managed to escape. The explosion of the bridge that had trapped him against the cliff may have offered her a chance to get away.

  “Have there been other survivors?”

  The old man shook his head. “As far as I know, my friend, you and I are the only mages left alive in the entire world. And you are indeed lucky to be alive. The whole Vale was turned out this morning, witnessing the destruction on the cliffs above. Your fall from the mountain was marked by many. Including myself, for which you are most fortunate,” he added with the slightest smile. “I slowed your descent as best I could. Unfortunately, there was not much I could do while you were still within the throes of the vortex.”

  Darien winced, hearing that. He remembered nothing of the fall. The last thing he remembered was thinking of Meiran and holding her image in his mind as he stepped over the edge of the cliff. It was well beyond fortunate Master Edric had just happened to be looking up at just the right time.

  “You have my thanks,” he whispered.

  “I was actually rather shocked at finding you still alive,” the old Master went on. “It took a few townsmen to haul you up from the river bottom. One of them recognized you. Apparently, he knew you from before, from when you lived down here in the Vale. Humph. I’m surprised we never met. Ah, bother, I’m rambling, aren’t I? Please forgive me. I’m no longer used to the company of people, you see. My work is a solitary thing.”

  Darien didn’t know what to say. Whatever the mage’s work was, it was certainly an odd branch of magic, judging by the dozens of dead and yet undecayed birds spinning in the air above his bed. Perhaps something to do with flight, though Darien knew that was an impossibility. The magic field could support accomplishments that were true wonders, but human flight was not one of them. Yet, it did make him think. It was no simple feat the old man had performed, slowing his fall the way he had. Darien wasn’t sure he could duplicate the act himself.

  The sound of a shout made him turn his head in the direction of the window. Now that he was listening, he realized he’d been hearing a constant murmur of voices for some time.

  “What is that?” He wanted to sit up and look out the window, but he knew better. He had no wish to repeat the same mistake.

  Master Edric grimaced, jowls sagging. “It seems that rumor travels swiftly. Folk have been gathering throughout the day. They know that Aerysius has fallen and that some dire evil exists on the mountainside above. The villagers fear for their lives. Many have come here, looking for hope. Looking for you, my young friend. Apparently, they all expect you to save them.”

  The explanation made Darien feel vaguely ill. He closed his eyes, feeling the same frustration he had experienced all his life: wanting to be of help, yet incapable of doing anything meaningful. What was ironic was now he really did have the power to make a difference. Only, he had spoken a vow never to use it, at least not in any way that would prove effective. Darien stared down at the markings on his wrist, resenting them utterly.

  “You know as well as I there’s little I can do,” he muttered.

  “I know absolutely nothing.” Edric gazed wistfully up at the feathered ornaments twirling gently in the air above his head. “But for my birds. That is the one thing I do know.”

  A memory came to Darien. Back when he was a boy, there had been a legend that was seldom spoken, of a crazy old man who lived in Amberlie Grove. Some folks called him the Bird Man. Darien stared up at Edric with renewed interest, wondering if the old mage could possibly be one and the same.

  The aged Master reached down and patted him on the shoulder. “Rest now,” he instructed. “When you awaken, I’ll round you up something to eat.”

  Darien nodded and closed his eyes. It didn’t take him a moment to fall back asleep.

  His rest was plagued by a relentless series of nightmares that repeated over and over again, one only ending to make way for the beginning of another. In his dreams, Darien watched Meiran die a thousand different deaths, each with its own twisted and often brutal variation. Sometimes he was there with her, holding her in his arms as the Hall of the Watchers collapsed on top of them. Other times, he witnessed her death only as an observer, watching as his brother took her life a hundred different ways.

  In one especially vivid dream, he looked on helplessly as Aidan used his own sword to slit Meiran’s wrists and held a crystalline goblet to collect her spilling blood. In the vision, Aidan smiled as he tilted his head back to drink deeply from that terrible cup.

  In other nightmares, he was falling. He fell endlessly, over and over again. Sometimes he felt his body shatter with explosive agony as he collided against a wall of rock. Other times, there was no end to his fall. He plunged downward into darkness, and there was nothing in the world around him but black emptiness. He just continued falling, downward, deeper, into eternity. Sometimes Meiran was falling with him, the fabric of her gown rippling in the wind.

  Darien awoke in a cold sweat, clamping his mouth shut to contain the scream he was feeling inside. The nightmare he had awakened from had been the most terrible of all. In it, he had seen Meiran kneeling at the feet of the Lord of Chaos. She looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, her eyes empty pools of filthy green light.

  Darien lay back into the pillow, panting, sweat streaming down his face. The nightmares had been too real, too vivid. He lay there trembling, trying to slow the pace of his heart, staring upward at the twirling birds. He tried to clear his mind of the image of Meiran with the green light of hell shining in her eyes.

  His breathing finally calmed as the terror of the dreams faded. He watched the birds spinning on their strings, feeling soothed by the warm rays of light that slanted in through the window. It came to him that the quality of the light was altogether different. Before, he had awakened to the golden glow of late afternoon. Now, the hues around him were cooler and had the feel of early morning.

  He glanced around, finding Edric sitting on his stool, eyes poring over a manuscript of some type. The old man looked up at him and, closing the book, rose to his feet. He shuffled toward the bed in a stiff, arthritic stride.

  “How long?” Darien focused his vision on the tiny flecks of dust that swirled around the room, made visible by the broad streaks of light.

  “Two days,” Edric said. “I was growing a bit concerned.”

  Darien felt shocked by the amount of time that had passed. No wonder the nightmares had seemed endless. At least his head felt better, only throbbing mildly as he raised himself into a sitting position. The room spun for a moment then slowly steadied itself. He felt weak, shaky. Probably from three days without anything to eat. But he felt mostly well, maybe even well enough to stand. Perhaps well enough to heal himself.

  As if reading his mind, the old Master nodded permission. “You can try to use the magic field now.”

  Darien closed his eyes and took hold of the pulsating rhythm in his mind. As he did, he felt a sensation almost like vertigo that took a mom
ent to pass. When it did, he opened his eyes and moved his head, testing the feel of it. The pain was gone. The weakness, however, was still there. Hunger was not something that could be healed with magic.

  “Incredible.” Edric gazed down at him with admiration in his eyes. “That took you almost no effort. You would not imagine how difficult healing comes to someone such as myself.”

  Darien understood. As an acolyte, he had been allowed to choose the direction his training would take. There was never a moment in his life when he had wished to become anything other than a Sentinel like his father. The charter of the order was to protect the people of the Rhen from the aggressions of the Enemy, all without the use of offensive techniques. He had spent many years studying the practice of healing, a necessity on the field of battle, and one of the most difficult subjects to master.

  Darien decided to stand, but as he shifted his legs over the edge of the bed, he became aware he was naked. He looked around the small cottage for his clothes but didn’t see them. At last, his eyes fell upon the robes he had worn to his Raising, the formal attire his mother had selected for him. They were folded on the floor beside the bed, looking no better than tattered, filthy rags. Reaching down, he collected the robes and held them up to examine. The black fabric was torn in several places, crusted and rigid with dried blood. What had been a new and expensive garment now looked destroyed beyond repair.

  As he held them, Darien imagined how the robes had looked when he had seen them new.

  And, suddenly, they were.

  In his hands, the fabric had once again taken on a glossy black sheen, the folds of cloth whole and unrent.

  Beside him, he heard Edric draw in a sharp breath. “I was thinking to loan you some of my old clothes, but I had my doubts they would fit.” The old man shook his head in wonder. “It’s better this way. Much better.”

  Edric turned his back as Darien slipped the garment over his head. He found his boots by the door, the same scuffed and dusty pair that had carried him all the way down from the Pass of Lor-Gamorth. It took only a moment of concentration and, suddenly, the boots were clean and renewed. Darien pulled them onto his feet, running his hands over the soft leather. As he did, his gaze was drawn to another object by the window.