Erish... chapter one
``````` Erish edged his body forward, one booted foot poised at the edge of the slick bronzed lintel beneath the windowsill. Far below stretched a line of smoldering cold-fire lamps, a dozen steadfast sentinels that defined the harbor’s edge. Their bluish light glistened in the waters beside the quay, a mirror of the shrouded heavens above—still a predawn curtain of darkness.
``````` He took a slow, deliberate breath, letting his lips relax. Never had he felt such fear in all his sixteen summers; never had his life ridden on such a moment.
``````` Heart pounding, he extended his wings...
``````` Go!
``````` Arching his arms, Erish leapt from the tower window, the broad sweep of feathers bowing beneath his weight. A sea-born updraft struck squarely on, his new found pinions issuing a thousand rustled warnings—each whisper more sensed than heard. He pushed down with determined strokes as if this invisible current he rode were some grand staircase, every riser somehow fitted to his lean muscular frame. He levered himself skyward, labored thrusts made all the more easy as his forward momentum increased. His apprehension melded into an intuitive sense of stability as he worked his way upward...
``````` Higher still!
``````` His curly blonde hair flew free like a disheveled mane.
``````` Erish dared look down for the first time...
``````` The East Gate lay behind him, the broad waterfront quay almost directly below. A cargo schooner topped with twin riding lamps lay alongside, one of several such vessels that had sought sanctuary in Hegon Harbor the previous afternoon.
``````` Hopefully they had posted a guard!
``````` While Nor’wall’s twisting alleys were home to those who made their living from the Nameless Sea, there was no shortage of others who thought nothing of preying upon unwary strangers; others who given the chance would slit the throat of nobleman or seaman alike.
``````` He had no regrets leaving this all behind!
``````` One momentary regret...
``````` That there were no witnesses to his departure.
``````` In the morning old T’oddh would enter Erish’s private chambers atop Hegon’s keep and discover him gone. Cursing in his native Badash, the ancient servant would hobble to the adjoining quarters where he’d rouse out Justin Aarrst, his father’s personal Hawk-Master. Aarrst too, would damn all youthful adventurers; order a futile search of the fortress and grounds.
``````` To no avail!
``````` Erish couldn’t help but grin...
``````` Certainly his meddling step-mother, Lady Deanna, would come running, no doubt followed by her inseparable confidant, the golden eyed Wai’min sorceress known as J’ania. Could it be true—the whispers in the Great Hall—that those two secretly shared a bed together?
``````` No wonder his Lord-Governor father, Rolaand Devereaux, drank heavily. Under similar circumstances he would too.
``````` Women!
``````` How he’d love to see the look on his Aunt Deanna’s face; her calculating marriage plans for her Reshegon niece, Laraday Cha’nya, knocked array by his sudden disappearance. What man in his right mind would want such a woman in the first place: a haughty off-slander whose veins ran as blue as the reptilian Mateek’s, the non-human mercenaries with whom the Cha’nyas were said to share lineage.
``````` Not hard to believe, that legend!
``````` Laraday rode silently like a Mateek, barely touching the reins, her horse fairly flying over hillside meadows as if driven by some inaudible call; a soundless cry which quickened the blood; which ignited a competitive flame almost male in recklessness...
``````` Win at any cost!
``````` Not that he preferred the dull-witted females who somehow managed to attend the Great Hall whenever he was around! But Laraday was... Her manner was as unsettling as she was beautiful. She met a man’s gaze directly...
``````` No, let her wonder.
``````` Let them all wonder!
``````` Certainly the open window would be cause enough for speculation. His whereabouts would be as mysterious as his mother’s tragic disappearance some sixteen summers ago, back when he’d been but a newborn.
``````` But now...
``````` Now he would be one with Aarrst’s hawks, fly free of the tether. The rush of wind felt soothing; his wings flexed rhythmically without conscious effort. He could feel the boundless energy suffuse his body—an urge to ride upward.
``````` Go where they couldn’t follow...
```````
Kerry... chapter two
``````` “I’ll see ya six. Damned if ya’s luck will hold.”
``````` “Now there’s what I’d like to see on close inspection... Hey, ya... Missy!”
``````` The serving maid twisted from the offending grip with deft expertise, her hood flying back as her glossy dark braids whipped across her face. The pot of Hegon ale she carried chopped into the pitted table top, foam spattering over closely held cards.
``````` “Sir, ya’s three be strangers here!” she hissed.
``````` Again the arm reached out, her veiled threat unheeded. “How’s about we celebrate tha end of tha world, my Nor’wall beauty?”
``````` She made no pretext of politeness now…
``````` “Ya stinking fisherman! Ya keep ya’s hands on the table or Jonz, there, will have ya’s out on ya ear.”
``````` Her sharp protest penetrated the dimly lit room, severing a dozen conversations with the ease of a hunter’s lance. Just as quickly a roar of laughter shook the waterfront tavern—applauding her outburst—her tormentor’s anonymity cast aside; his indiscretion marking him for all who would come to her defense.
``````` Sean Kerry slouched back against the tavern wall, carefully shifting position on the wooden bench as he surveyed the two card players visible through the taproom doorway. Had they kept to themselves they would have attracted little notice in this smoke-filled warren of tiny rooms. Short cropped hair, baggy canvas work pants and open necked blouses were of a cut favored by fisherman throughout the Briadies. Yet their clothing appeared hardly soiled enough to have worked a net. Kerry’s bemused expression faded, becoming one of casual scrutiny.
``````` Perhaps not all they seemed...
``````` But then who here was not?
``````` That he chose life as a simple ship’s master was belied by his appearance. Pressed linen trousers bloused into knee high shiilskin boots proclaimed his appreciation for the finest hand-tooled leather and fine silk; his long sleeved shirt embroidered with a traditional Wai’min design—the interlocking olive ovals known as big fish/little fish.
``````` Though beards were in fashion among society’s well-to-do, his personal standards aboard ship decreed that all aboard be clean shaven though the look served to accent the youthfulness of his thirty two summers. His one concession to individuality was his shoulder length dark hair tied back with a family keepsake—a silver Rowsegh clasp embossed with three eight pointed stars, the sign of the Wai’min Majiska, those who worked the dark mysteries.
``````` A table of Devereaux’s Militia raucously jeered from the back of the tavern as the barmaid stalked across the low-beamed room. Kerry eyed them with calculated interest, his suspicions now fanned to the utmost. Too early tobe in from their night shift...
``````` By chance or on someone’s order?
``````` He fingered his half-emptied ale mug, drawing it up on edge, his gaze returning to the young woman as she levered the tap for another tray load of drinks. She was known as Swee; a dark haired Nor’wall beauty indeed; thin as forestay; a bare twenty summers if that. She had not exaggerated her husband’s prowess. Big boned Jonz stood poised behind the serving divider, one meaty fist frozen above the counter in mid-wipe.
``````` Good fortune to have snatched such a lovely...
``````` Kerry smiled grimly.
``````` Bad fortune that day he and Jonz clung to the same broken spar, both swept seaward by the sluggish current of the E’dahn River, its waters assuming a crimson cast not of the Nameless Sea but of blood from a battle gone wrong. They had both been but eighteen summers that day, each thinking himself a man following a righteous cause. Kerry had commanded a stone lugger, one of fifteen such vessels serving as a troop transports for the forces of Rowsegh. Their mission: to put a massive party ashore on this Northern river delta; test the mettle of occupying troops belonging to the House of Kaodah; even drive them from the Bht Hoshe Territories if possible.
``````` That so many lives had been sacrificed for a hodgepodge of mountainous domains was testimony to a mismanaged campaign fought by children. In the space of a single morning he and Jonz had joined the initiated; both chance survivors among two hundred and fifty slain during that ill-fated sea borne invasion that would come to be known as the Battle of Biele Isle.
``````` That they’d been on opposite sides.
``````` No matter.
```````Though a decade plus four had passed, they remained brothers, sired by the greed of powerful old men who little appreciated the tenuousness of life—one of whom bore his own surname. While a few self-styled “Kings” claimed family lines back to the beginnings of Orion’s so-called coming, his father insisted on a more humble title...
``````` Lord-Governor for Life!
``````` This time Kerry slugged down a drought of ale, waving off Swee’s proposed refill as she swept along the opposite side of the tap room. Biele Isle... Trust in no other but one’s self; a code that served him well since that fateful day. For all the current hysterical talk of the end of the world, he found it hard to believe that the dark suns known as the Twins Above would choose his own lifetime to work their wrath. Not that those of Orion did themselves proud; their shabby treatment of the indigenous Mateek and Wai-peoples an indictment beyond logical defense. No matter whether one believed Orion to be a true god or merely the name of some undistinguished vessel that had long ago made landfall on these shores.
``````` They deserved whatever their fate...
``````` Nonetheless the prospect of whatever was to come had forced him to take stock; seriously consider what gains he’ had acquired during his thirty two summers. For too long he had let chance rule; let others dictate to which corner of the Nameless Sea he’d sail to next—his existence comfortably unpredictable.
``````` A boisterous chorus echoed from the back room...
``````` Bye the bye, fair maids of the town,
``````` Fare the well, I say oh,
``````` If I be dead in battle, you’ll a babe in your arms,
``````` Chances are he’ll look like me, oh!
``````` Truth indeed that in a waterfront tavern more counsel might be gained from a single off-hand verse than from all the self-serving speeches of great and powerful despots. That he would treat his own son thus…
``````` T’Nosh!
``````` He had a son here in Nor’wall, a child fostered by an innkeeper’s wife in honor of the promise he had made to the birth mother: that never would he take the boy from Hegon though she herself refused to acknowledge the child publicly. To this day Kerry remained sworn to secrecy; T’Nosh believing his mother dead.
``````` Sixteen summers old now...
``````` He had done well by the lad! Had his son not been privileged by the Kerry name to attend the Great Hall at Hegon; accept an offer of tutoring as well as companion to none other than Lord-Governor Devereaux’s son, Erish?
``````` Kerry could hear Swee laughing from somewhere in back, the incident of moments ago seemingly forgotten. Again he toyed with his ale, lost in contemplation. Was it communion with shore bound humanity he had sought at this predawn hour or was it companionship?
``````` “Weep not for me...”
``````` That song a cruel mirror...
``````` In a few days he’d be away once more; make passage for the north. He would take T’Nosh with him, no matter the consequences. No doubt the boy would be thrilled to sail with his father at long last. Little chance anyway of finding a proper charter in Hegon the way things were. Still there was another matter he had to face; a certain woman...
``````` Most likely she would refuse to leave!
``````` Acutely aware of his fatigue, Kerry again turned his gaze to the card players beyond the taproom. They had already been seated when he had first entered the tavern, having turned over the mid-morning watch to his mate.
``````` “It’s not fish they reek of,” muttered someone at his elbow.
``````` The tavern owner had moved forward, a short wooden cudgel clutched tightly in one hand, its knobby head held low against his knee.
``````` Jonz would always be the survivor...
```````
Deanna... chapter three
``````` The Twins Above rose from the eastern edge of the Nameless Sea, their dark bodied ovals rimmed with a silver flame that slowly melted the pre-dawn layers of ochre and orange. Far to the western horizon lay the great red disk known as Nubb’laa, an ever-glowering moon long worshiped by the non-human Mateek as the true sun of old. Always with the coming of autumn Nubb’laa would noticeably darken, as if draining the Nameless Sea of its crimson cast, the ocean's cobalt transformation heralding colder days to follow; harsh winter rains along the coasts and deep valley snows in the rugged highlands to the north. But nowadays the Sagamen made dire predictions...
``````` Of an endless summer to come!
``````` A radiant finger streaked across the waters of Hegon Harbor, momentarily painting the crimson wavelets with glints of gold; only to shoot deeper into the half-hidden streets and darkened alleyways; probing with relentless precision as those who favored the night, shrank back with alarm. Only the black metal harbor fortress above stood defiant, presenting a solid barrier to morning’s first light. Hegon’s sprawling fortification ascended the gentle slopes above Nor’wall like an unbroken ribbon; its walls forged by shadowy smiths whose mysterious origins lay cloaked in the mists of the passing centuries.
``````` From the darkened shadows of the East Gate emerged three women on horseback proceeded by four bridled mollossers, dark stocky mastiffs wearing leather neck armor who glanced neither left nor right as apprehensive muzhik peasants flattened themselves against still shuttered shops. Well that they did for a small contingent of Mateek Guard accompanied in close formation: two riding to each side, four more to the rear; all ready to put down the slightest threat without mercy.
``````` The tallest of the three women separated from the others, urging her horse to a trot. She called upon her dogs to keep pace, at the same time waving off the escort’s attempts to hold her back. She was tall as were most Di’Weren nobles who hailed from the mountainous province of Hiledge, her skin a light brown; her eyes a shade deeper than emerald. Yet her braided black hair was already streaked with gray, at odds with her otherwise youthful appearance.
``````` She glanced about, delighting in the familiar, yet allowing her imagination to indulge in an age old game: that she was still her long ago self—the child, Deanna, of six summers, not thirty, coming down from the isolated crags and valleys of Hiledge to view the sophisticated outside world for the first time. How wondrous Hegon Fortress appeared even now with its flowing metal walls seemingly cast of a single pouring; the cobble stoned streets lined with shops of ancient red brick…
``````` It was here in Hegon that she had first encountered these pale blue riders who now formed her guard, an enigmatic race who were said to have once ruled the Nameless Sea as far south as the Emzebee deserts. Not surprising that they scorned the horse, preferring instead the long limbed catyh—slender shaggy single horned beasts whose turquoise eyes burned with a sentient intelligence belying their animal form. That these fearsome warriors sat freely in the saddle, disdaining use of a bridle was perhaps proof indeed, for their mounts deftly responded to a wordless mind-linkage refined over the passing centuries.
``````` The Mateek were a proud, dignified people...
``````` Their relationship with their beasts to be envied though the Wai’min considered the catyh most sacred, never to be ridden or used for domestic purpose. It was said that the legendary Wai’min patriarch, Ram’hagan, had granted the catyh its freedom, in gratitude for...
``````` For what?
``````` The rest of that legend lost in vagaries...
``````` Or perhaps, deliberately forgotten.
``````` Certainly the catyh proved all but impossible to manage as far as humans were concerned; the beasts perhaps confused by the myriad of conflicting emotions that emanated from the human subconscious. There was one notable exception. Her Lord-Governor husband, Rolaand Devereaux, had mastered the catyh as easily as he had dominated those about him—intolerant of any defiance to his will. Like the Mateek he appeared immune to frivolous musing, single-mindedly pursuing whatever task he undertook.
``````` Perhaps an unfair assessment, she mused, for who truly knew what the Mateek thought? In any event they would undoubtedly survive any end of the world. Deanna steeled her thoughts...
``````` Nothing would come of it!
``````` Hadn’t she herself been born during a string of so-called endless winters? Killing frosts had gripped the countryside season round; the entire population of Hiledge forced into a mean existence from the sea, though truly to this day she secretly loved the taste of salt fish!
``````` Certainly no doomsday this dawn...
``````` Not that the morning heat wasn’t welcome considering the season. She glanced down at her highland’s saddle; the row of copper snaps along the blackened leather awaiting the seasonal wool-lined parka that would protect a rider from the slashing sleets of autumn. But this morning her hooded cloak remained in her chambers; a black satin tunic over muzhik riding leathers sufficing.
``````` That such attire was ill-befitting a Lord-Governor’s Lady was hardly the case for embroidered within the delicate fabric were tiny gold mirrored sequins that swirled about her shoulders like miniature meteors, an embellishment that betrayed her as a woman of means if not outright royal lineage. To an awed muzhik her appearance might have been that of the Seven Sisters of Dak’alow, her celestial body radiating showers of sparks as she danced down from the nighttime heavens. Deanna flushed with momentary pride.
``````` She was a Di’Weren...
``````` Her House no less equal than any other of Orion’s own.
``````` Though some would cast dispersions... That it was said that the Di’Werens shared blood with the bronzed skin Wai’min she considered a source of pride, not shame, for the Wai’min were once a proud people; a people who had innocently welcomed the Children of Orion as fellow human beings, little knowing that within a few short generations their reward would be social degradation.
```````Yet all these scornful aspersions were but hushed asides, perhaps never truly believed even by those who cast doubts. Certainly any of these whisperers of the Great Hall would have gladly traded their pale skin and thin hair for the influence and prestige of a Di’Weren. Her House was one of the oldest and most respected of all the Briadies.
The Di’Werens, it was said, once ruled at Orion’s right hand...
``````` She brought herself back to the moment.
```````A supreme morning, almost spring-like in its clarity; every indentation in the cobblestone street underfoot etched in sharp relief as if everything had been prepared for the final judgment...
``````` All was as it should be!
``````` Deanna turned her gaze upward, shading her eyes with one hand; staring directly above the twin suns; searching for the faint white pathway that even now should be forming against the dawn sky. It was there, the broad sweeping arch known as Savan T’nia’s Bow, its span stretching from horizon to horizon; its pale daylight appearance in stark contrast to the blues and rippling violets associated with its sundown display. The Wai’min considered the bow a daily a reminder of Ram’hagan’s promise: that as long as the old ways were maintained, the world they knew as N’Ayu would exist forever.
``````` “Look, Aunt Deanna! The shadows move visibly at this hour!”
``````` Her niece Laraday closed in beside her, her muzhik leathers and tunic top boldly emblazoned with glistening blue and white daggers above a crescent lake—the crest of the House of Cha’nya. Though her velvet riding cape lay bundled behind her saddle, Deanna noted with alarm that she had come armed, a short sword resting in a saddle scabbard by her right knee.
``````` As always Laraday’s physical appearance was unnerving in that she was the incarnation of her mother both in statuesque beauty as well as stubborn independence. While her niece’s green eyes might have come from either family, her lighter skin reflected her father’s off-island lineage, even down to the faint blue sheen that raised many an eyebrow within the Great Hall—the women of Reshegon marked forever in the eyes of those who fed on rumor and innuendo.
``````` Legend had it that Mateek blood ran in their veins.
``````` “If not for you, Aunt Deanna, I’d have slept through this splendid morning!”
``````` “Only lovers sleep late, Laraday” Deanna immediately bit her lip. Doubtful her niece would allow this ill attempt at humor to pass. Laraday’s red hair was close cropped, signifying that she had passed into her seventeenth summer; that she was now a woman of marriageable age.
``````` Not that Deanna was totally unsympathetic to the young woman’s reluctance to accept Erish as her betrothed. Life after all, like this unaccustomed warmth, was at best a two edged sword to be suffered without complaint. But her niece’s resemblance to her own estranged sister was forever a reminder of their bitter parting of ways...
``````` Even now Laraday regarded her with those same intense green eyes and determined jaw. “My betrothal to Erish is a cruel joke, Aunt Deanna. He’s unbelievably shallow! We’ve said all that’s to be said to each other in the space of a ten-day. This sharing of sleeping quarters that’s to be foisted on us—no matter that it will end by winter—is nothing but a cruel sham.”
``````` She’s so certain there would be a winter...
``````
