Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset (33 page)

Almost instantly, Owein saw light again.

He was standing in a field of green grass. There were hills beyond. It was unmistakably the Gresadian countryside. How did he get here?

And why?

It was the middle of the afternoon and the sun shone brightly from overhead. Puffy clouds hung low in the sky and cast enormous shadows. Owein heard voices behind him, and when he turned around he saw the crew of
Gilderam
. Shazahd was there, and Vrei, with Galif, Jerahd and Levwit. Behind them he could see Gorahem, Fulo and Cavada.

Among them were two strangers. One was a young man, solidly built, wearing the medieval armor of a Wralish knight. His face was lean and his countenance intense. The other was a wrinkled old man in scholarly robes, leaning on a staff. He was bald, but had a white beard and electric blue eyes.

Both of the strangers were looking straight at Owein. Or maybe through him. Owein got the suspicion that they were trying to look
inside
of him.

The younger one, the knight, pointed to the horizon. Owein looked in that direction and saw a churning darkness pouring over the hills like a tidal wave of smoke. It stretched from one end of the sky to the other, violently boiling like some kind of unearthly storm. And it was moving, spreading everywhere – rushing toward them.

Owein felt his heart leap with the sense of impending danger. He shouted to the others to bid them follow, and ran.

But the darkness was coming too fast, and was quickly closing the distance to catch up with them. No amount of human speed could have outrun it. It whipped over the plains at hundreds of
entilum
per second.

Owein thought he heard chanting somewhere behind the blasting winds of the storm – the thunderous cadence of a million voices shouting in unison. The sound grew louder as the darkness neared. It blotted out the sun.

Could it be the storm itself?

Soon the chant was roaring in his ears, and he realized what the voices were saying: “
Owein! Owein! Owein
…
!
”

He ran even harder. The others tried to keep up with him, but he outpaced them. Then the storm arrived, and overtook them at last. It swooped down like the arm of a hurricane and plunged them into a tempestuous blackness. Owein felt his body thrown high in the air and then brought back down, smashing him into the ground.

Without warning the storm suddenly evaporated. It had just vanished – disappeared entirely. Owein crawled to his feet.

How am I still alive?

In the aftermath of the storm, the landscape had changed considerably. The earth was charred, blackened – burnt to a smoldering crisp. The same countryside that moments ago had been green and full of life was now barren and smoking. Soot rained down from a swirling sky of ash overhead. In the rubble around him lay his friends, struggling to regain themselves. Their bodies were racked and broken.

He found Shazahd and helped her to her feet. She leaned on him for support, and he felt a hand grip his ankle. To his horror, he saw that the hand had sprung right out of a crack in the earth. Another shot up from the dirt to grab Shazahd. She screamed.

Owein kicked his leg free and tore her loose. But more hands popped up all around, and they seized the others still on the ground. The hands pulled them down, into the ground, back to Underearth where they had come from. The rest of the crew was dragged below, screaming until their voices were choked out by the enveloping soil.

Some of the hands dug themselves out of the ground, and Owein was dismayed to discover that they were connected to whole, rotting corpses. The festering bodies were mottled and decaying, and moved with the action of crude puppets rather than living creatures. They shuffled, twitched and spasmed unnaturally, crawling their way to Owein and Shazahd.

He ran again, pulling her along, but Shazahd tripped and fell. As he lifted her up, the dirt-covered body of a zombie child rose with her out of the ground, clutching her corset and screaming.

Owein recognized something familiar in the child’s face. Perhaps he had seen this boy before, alive, but he couldn’t be sure while its cold, dead eyes were broken and disconnected.
Were those Jerahd’s eyes
…
?
One looked at Shazahd, the other at him.

Owein drove the little creature back into the ground with his boot, but the child tore the heartroot necklace from Shazahd’s neck and took it with him back under the dirt.

Immediately after, a spindly plant popped up from the gritty soil to replace him. It grew at an incredible rate, and when Owein blinked his eyes it was already taller than him. It exploded skyward, rocketing for the heavens, and its expanding trunk pushed he and Shazahd backward. They would’ve fallen, but a humongous branch broke out of the ground to catch them, and carried them up.

They soared high into the air, propelled by the tree limb, and immobilized against it by the crushing wind of the ascent. The blue sky darkened, and Owein felt the pressure of the blowing air lessen and lessen until it was gone entirely. They were free from Vuora’s atmosphere.

The blackness of outer space was surprisingly well lit by an infinite canopy of stars. Owein stood up on the branch, and offered a hand to Shazahd. They saw a band of light reaching all the way around the universe – like a belt made of densely packed clusters of stars. At one point along it, another band intersected perpendicularly, forming a cross. Owein tried to imagine how far away those stars must be.

Looking down, they could see their whole planet below them, growing smaller as the tree continued ever upward. Owein saw his home continent from end to end. The mountains of Saria, the little tan patch of desert that was Val, the green blob of Divar, and the white arm of Zunir arcing over it all. The whole landmass, he could see, was only a tiny part of one corner of the world. The rest was a vast blue ocean of water. There was so much water….

But there, south of the mainland, obscured by the blurred edge of the globe, Owein thought he could almost see the coastline of another continent.

“Owein, look!”

Shazahd directed his attention upward. Above their heads, Aelmuligo was widening to frightening proportions. It was far bigger than Vuora, maybe twenty times as big, and stretched far beyond the reach of the sprouting tree leaves overhead.

They entered Aelmuligo’s atmosphere and began to sense its gravity. Up became down, and Owein and Shazahd were now falling. The tree was falling with them, canopy-first. They screamed together as they tumbled down, rolling in a cloud of leaves and branches.

Owein didn’t remember reaching the ground, but he heard Shazahd wailing and that jarred him. They were on a hill, a big hill, and could see for hundreds of
itthum
in every direction. They were encircled by a shadowy ring of faraway purple mountains, but Owein could only guess at their true distance and size. There was something strange about this world – something noticeably different than Vuora.

Was it the light?

Owein felt something else that unsettled him. Aside from waving grass, there was nothing to be seen in any direction. No cities, no villages, no roads – no trace of any kind of sentient life. He was overwhelmed by the feeling of supreme emptiness. If this was the House of the Gods, then…
where are all the gods?

Shazahd cried out again. She was in terrible pain, holding her abdomen. Owein tried to help her stand, but she didn’t have the strength. He saw a river of blood flow out from beneath her dress.

Shazahd slackened in his arms, deathly weak, and Owein felt himself shake with fear. She summoned up the last of her strength to bend over, reach under her dress, and brought back a tiny, squealing baby.

Owein was barely sensible enough to receive the child as she set it in his arms. After she’d given it to him, her face lined over with wrinkles and her hair turned grey, then pure white. The child Owein held was already a toddler when next he looked at it, and a second later it was too big to hold.

He set the boy down, who could now stand on his own, and returned to Shazahd, whose flesh was blowing away in the wind like a powdery dust. A single gust took everything but the bones, and even those disintegrated as they fell, so that there was nothing left of her at all.

The child grew into a young man, a very familiar looking man. The youth aged before his very eyes until Owein could no longer deny that the person standing naked before him was…
himself
.

Owein stood face to face with his own doppelgänger, now at his exact age. The twin stepped forward and whispered:

“Help us.”

Owein stared back into his own eyes, unable to reply – mute. Those eyes, at once intimately familiar and strange, grew paler. The skin around them drooped and sagged. The twin was now a grandfatherly version of himself.

“
Help us!
” he screamed at Owein in a rasp. Then he winced in pain, doubled over, and collapsed. Owein caught him, but the body was still aging, and began to wither away just as Shazahd’s had done. He faded into the wind.

A figure caught Owein’s attention beyond, standing at the base of the hill.

It was a thin man wearing only a cloth about his waist. His skin was a brightly glowing white, and snaked over with little blue veins. Scraggy locks of dead hair hung over a sneering face.

The stranger’s eyes were zeroed in on Owein, and he chuckled hoarsely. The chuckle grew into a laugh, and then a full-out howling. Then – in a flash – the man flew at Owein. The last thing he remembered was the beady, black pupils of his bloodshot eyes.

“Owein!
Owein!
”

Someone gripped him by the shoulders and jostled him around. When he opened his eyes he saw Shazahd above him, her hair braided around her head in the elvish fashion.

“Owein! Wake up!”

“Yeah, okay… I’m awake,” he said groggily, and forced himself to sit up. “What’s the matter?”

“The armada has arrived in Divar. You need to come with me.” She rose and headed for a doorless portal leading outside. Owein was on the floor of large and empty tree-room. Someone had covered him with skins… or blankets… or something. He threw them off and crawled to his feet.

“Oh, and….” Shazahd stopped just outside the door. “…And you were screaming in your sleep.”

She was deathly serious when she said it. Owein was too alarmed by the news to be embarrassed.

“Bad dream, I suppose,” he said nonchalantly, joining her by the door. “Did I say anything?”

“Yes. Well… no. You….”

“I what?”

Owein tried to see her eyes, but she dodged him.

“Never mind. Come on,” and she sped off down a footbridge.

“Mistress Ranaloc!” Galif called out. He hurried across an oversized vine that served as a catwalk. It ran alongside the walkway Shazahd and Owein traversed.

“Galif, what is it?”

“The repairs! I need to talk to you about the repairs the elves are making to the ship!”

“Is there a problem?”

Their two paths met at a large trunk just ahead. A massive knot in its side served as the connection hub for several citywide conduits.

“Not a problem, exactly….” He was wheezing. His old, short legs struggled to keep up with their speed walking. “Bullet holes! The bullet holes, Mistress!”

They met at the knot.

“Galif, slow down. What are you talking about?”

He paused to take a few breaths. “The… bullet holes. They’ve healed over.”

“You mean the elves patched them up?” asked Owein.

The engineer shook his head fervently.

“No, not patched.
Healed!
” They stared at him. “You can still see where they were. There’re marks left in the darkwood! But it’s… it’s… grown over. Like a scar. And that’s not the worst of it!”

“Worst of it?” said Owein.

“Come on, Galif, we’re in a hurry.” Shazahd pressed on, leading them onto another branch protruding from the knot. It was a long, skinny arm of wood that flattened out as it arced across the Inner City. Galif gripped the back of Owein’s waistcoat as they processed down it. It was fairly narrow, and they could see scores of
entilum
of open space under them before crisscrossing boles obscured the shadowy depths of the great tree.

“They said they ‘fixed’
the ballasts, Mistress.
Fixed
the ballasts! I didn’t know the
mlec
ballasts were broken in the first place!”

“Well, what have they done?”

As they moved further along the branch, their weight gradually bent it downward. Ahead, the thin limb split apart like a serpent’s tongue into two smaller branches, and each bent around a vertical trunk. Owein noticed that their branch didn’t seem to connect to any part of the tree.

“Uh… Mistress Ranaloc,” he said.

“What have they done?!” Galif huffed. “That’s a good question – I have no idea what the
mlec
they’ve done! But now our ballast operators are out a job.”

“Mistress,” Owein said more anxiously, eyeing the end of their branch as it slowly dipped lower and lower. It scaled down the trunk it straddled, but was still too far away for them to transfer across. At some point they would surely slide off and plummet to the forest floor. “Mistress!”

“Out of a job? How?” Shazahd ignored Owein and walked on. The forked branch bowed even further, steepening as they neared its end.

“Well, now when you adjust the ballast lever, it just fills up or dumps on its own. There’s no response anymore. The buzzer doesn’t work. And the ballasts intakes themselves are filled with–with… some kind of living –”

“
Shazahd!
” Owein cried out as the bridge under his feet sank so steeply that he began to slide down it. He tried to scurry back up, but Galif was blocking him, and the engineer’s weight forced them both down the branch. 

He heard a
knock
of wood-on-wood, and instead of falling to his death, Owein stumbled onto a terrace. The branch had lowered onto another platform grown from the side of the trunk. He hadn’t seen it from above.

“What
is
it, Owein?!” Shazahd was annoyed.

Owein was embarrassed. Then he jumped, startled, as the bridge snapped back up behind them when Galif stepped off. It swung back up into the air with a mighty
whoosh!

“I… eh…” Owein stammered, watching the branch bob overhead. “Nothing, I guess.”

Captain Vrei, Owein’s men, and the rest of the crew were gathered together in a large room with Chancellor Eridanean, Audim and a collection of dour-faced elves. A lattice of slender, crisscrossing tree limbs formed a dome around them in place of a ceiling. In the center stood a shallow font. Everyone’s eyes fell on Owein when he entered.

“Ah, Maeriod,” said Eridanean. “Excellent. Come and take a look, will you?” He gestured to the font basin.

Owein walked up to it and saw the strangest reflection in the water. The liquid, as rigidly motionless as ice, reflected the semitransparent image of a richly wooded forest. The view was not from within it, however, but from high above, as if one were looking down from the sky. Owein glanced up at the lattice ceiling, searching for the source of the reflection.

“Oh yes,” said Eridanean. “Forgive me. I forgot you might be unfamiliar with our elvish technology. This is called a Seer’s Font. It’s a window across the world. A pool of water that shows you things far away.” Owein leveled eyes with the elf, incredulous. “You probably thought such a thing didn’t exist,” he went on, “but go ahead. Look for yourself.”

He did. Looking more closely this time, he saw the forest in the water was blackened by a swath of charred, burning wreckage that cut through it like the slime trail of some colossal, fiery slug. The flaming timbers sent billowing mountains of smoke spewing skyward.

“
Jatha
…. Well, if you wanted to show me magic,” he said to Shazahd, “why didn’t you bring me here first?”

She smiled at him. Owein smiled back, but lingered for just a moment too long. He cleared his throat and returned to the water.

There was so much smoke in the air above the trees that Owein could barely discern the swarm of airships passing over the cinders. Then, just entering the font’s field of vision, he saw the unmistakable prow of the Imperial flagship,
Vacthor
. The other airships were like a cloud of flies around that hulking beast of a craft.

“That’s the Empress’ ship…” Owein breathed. “That’s the armada!”

“Indeed it is,” Eridanean said solemnly. “They are passing through Divar as we speak.”

“Whatever happened to
‘that’s as far as they’ll go,’
huh?” Owein thought he was clever, but the room full of piercing stares told him he was the only one. “Um… uh…. How long till they reach the Inner City?”

“They won’t.” The resolute answer came from Audim. Their eyes flashed at each other across the basin.

“Looks like it’s only a matter of time,” said Owein, indicating the font, “the way they’re slicing through your defenses.” Then he said to Eridanean, “I thought you said you had this all figured out. Years of planning?”

“Which is why I am surprised at your presumption. What you see before you has all been carefully calculated. The armada is being lured into a trap.”

“It would be foolish to try and destroy them too early,” said Audim, coolly circling the Seer’s Font. “At this distance they can still retreat back to their homeland. If we wait until they are hopelessly entrenched in Divaran territory… then there will be no chance of escape.”

“And when will that be?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?!” Owein balked. “They’ll be
here
by tomorrow.”

“They will never get within range of the Inner City,” said Eridanean. “You have my word.”

“Great! That’s great.” Owein looked around at all the staring faces. No one, it seemed, was on his side. “So we’re just going to wait here until the entire Imperial Navy shows up? Is that the idea?”

“I assure you,” said Eridanean calmly, “this city is the safest place on Vuora. You have nothing to fear.”

“You must trust them, Owein,” said Shazahd. “They know what they’re doing. This is their home, after all. And mine, too.”

Owein scoffed and crossed his arms. Looking back into the pool, he said, “Just seems like a bad idea to me….”

“It’s not up to you,” said Audim.

Owein met his eyes, and saw they were braced for confrontation. He flexed his jaw involuntarily.

“Owein,” said Shazahd, and he felt a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. We’re going to be all right.”

“Yeah, take it easy,” added Audim, rounding the font. “I’m in charge of the city’s defense. If anything goes wrong out there, I’ll make sure it doesn’t get here.” He smiled broadly and slapped Owein on the shoulder with a little too much force.

Owein smiled back queasily.

“That makes me feel a lot better. Thanks.” Then to Shazahd, “As your Chief of Security, I must insist that we leave immediately. It’s too dangerous to stay here with the armada this close.”

“Thank you for your appraisal, Commander,” said Mentrat Ranaloc from the doorway. A shockwave of surprise ran across the room. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“What? …
Really?
” Owein was stunned.

“Really.” Mentrat took a few decisive steps into the center of the room. The others backed away from him as though he might be dangerous. He appeared collected and himself again – not at all the crazed man Owein had liberated in Zarothus.

“Chancellor,” Mentrat said, “this city is home to hundreds of thousands of elves. You should evacuate it immediately and begin negotiating the terms of your surrender with the Empress.”

“Terms of
surrender?!
” Audim exclaimed. “Are you serious?”

“Are
you
serious in thinking you can outgun this armada? Do you have any comprehension of the arsenal they carry? Just look at what they’re doing to your forest!” Owein wondered how long Mentrat had been observing their conversation before he’d made his presence known.

“Chancellor,” said a page hurrying in from another entrance. He bowed. “News from The Abiding. They have… they have –”

“They’ve
what?
” Audim snapped.

The page gulped. “They’ve declined our request, Your Eminence. Officially.”

Eridanean nodded gravely.

“Thank you,” he said, and waived the page away.

“The Abiding?” Owein asked.

“Avladia,” an elf clarified. “Our neighbors to the west, and our closest allies.”

“They’re also Gresadia’s ally…” Vrei noted softly.

“Declined what request?” asked Fulo.

“For a naval contingent,” said Eridanean. “Divar, as you know, has no airships of her own. We were hoping to use hers.”

“So now we’re down a piece of your almighty plan?” Owein jabbed. He expected the chancellor to scald him with a glare, but instead all he got was an unruffled response.

“Avladia was never an integral part of our plan. They were only to provide auxiliary support. Their skyships were going to be used as a distraction – nothing more.”

“It seems Gresadia’s stranglehold over her varride industry is more persuasive than we realized,” said another elf.

“It is of little consequence,” Audim said. “We are more than able to repel the Gresadian invasion force without them. The Called Upon shall stand alone.”

“Oh,” said Owein. “Wonderful.”

“How about you tell the rest of us your plan, then?” said Vrei. “So that we might…
share
in your certainty?”

Eridanean smiled at her with genuine kindness.

“Of course.” The chancellor gestured to the image in the font. “What you see there, those bolts firing upon the armada… that is but a taste of what is to come.”

Owein watched the watery forest as, now and again, tiny slivers sprung up from the trees and tore through a ship. The skewered vessels broke into pieces and sank, vanishing into the canopy below.

“We have enough firepower available at any given moment to bring the entire armada down six times over. So far, we have only demonstrated a fraction of our capability to the enemy.”