Circle of Reign (68 page)

“This place? The Lumenatis is here?”

“Do not misunderstand, the Living Light is not an object. It is the source of Influences that promote life and knowledge. Våleira and its lands were created from the Lumenati Light that fills the universe. A spark of that Light resides in all living things. The Dark Mother seeks to devoid the world of the Lumenatis’ Influence and bring darkness and death through her Song of Night.”

“Song of Night?” Reign asked.

Those who follow her can hear it. Tempting them. Binding them. It is said to be a disharmonious melody that is beautiful and impossible to live without once heard
.

“Why?” Reign asked. “What does she gain by this?”

“Oh yes, unlike the Lumenatis, the Dark Mother is truly a person, one who is Dark incarnate. The Ancient Dark itself is like the Lumenatis, a source of chaotic and life-depriving Influences. But Noxmyra, the Dark Mother, sought the dark to an extent that it engulfed and ensnared her forever.”

“But what does it have to gain by bringing decay and destruction?”

No, Reign, it is not a question of gain or motive. That isn’t how the eternal forces operate. It seeks this because it is its nature. Nothing more
. She repeated her father’s words as they sounded in her mind for Jayden’s benefit.

“Thannuel is correct. He has become wiser over the past many years apart from his body.”

“Jayden, what of those who did turn away? The Ancients I mean. What became of them?”

“You might find an answer in the actual name of this land. Before the lands cycled, before there were Arlethians or Hardacheons or Senthary or Borathein or any of the myriad races that once filled Våleira. This continent was known by a different name entirely.”

Reign took in a sharp breath as the name came to her from her father’s memories.

“Helsya,” she said.

Jayden nodded.

“But that means that…that the Helsyans are—”

“All people descended from the Ancients, my dear. This should be no surprise; even the Changrual have this right. Those who fervently followed Noxmyra in the Turning Away were granted powers from Dark Influences that made them stronger than nature ever intended. The Ancient Dark aspired to have its followers spread the work of chaos and entropy across the world unabated. None would be able to stand against them in their unnatural state.”

But the Living Light cursed them as a balance, limiting their powers and changing their appearance
, Thannuel added.

“The scars,” Reign realized. “They are glyphs of the Ancient’s language.”

Jayden nodded. “Yes. They tell the story of their apostasy from the Living Light and embracing of the Dark. But it’s more than this. Their enhanced abilities and strength are only present when they are Charged, or given a
Dahlrak
, as it is called in the ancient tongue. Only he who holds a particular gem, called the
Urlenthi
, can levy a Charge to a Helsyan. Another one of the Light’s checks upon them, disallowing them to run free through the world as if Charged. Chase-givers are immovably loyal to the holder of the
Urlenthi
. Orlack was the first to hold this power over the cursed race, a Hardacheon who led the invasion into this land from the north, long before the Glaciers of Gonfrey were present, when the lands in the far north first started to show signs of decay.”

Their fealty to the
Urlenthi
is not as unbreakable as Jayden says
, Thannuel corrected. Jayden rolled her eyes with impatience.

“I’m not going to debate this again, Thannuel,” Jayden muttered. “We don’t have time for every theory on the subject.”

“The name glyph,” Reign said. “It is the one different symbol on every chase-giver. If someone called a Helsyan by their name, their actual identity, then—”

“No one can read the ancient tongue, not even the Gyldenal anymore,” Jayden said.

But if someone could discern it, they could break the hold the Stone of Orlack has on that Helsyan
.

“So goes the theory,” Jayden admitted, “but it’s a useless waste of intellectual debate and time since it is a dead language, as much as my own is.”

Reign pondered deeply for several moments, retracing her memories and those of her father. Her stare was fixed though she focused on nothing in her physical view, but rather saw with clarity images in her mind.

“I can read it,” she said.

“Don’t be foolish, child. You are something of a wonder, the first we know of since the Turning Away to take in a last breath. I think that says a lot of your father as well as you but—”

“I can read it,” she again insisted.

Jayden looked at her for a moment and then accepted Reign’s claim with a nod. Whether or not she actually believed her, Reign did not know, but she knew at the least that Jayden did not care to continue with that topic.

“Why are we here again?” Reign asked.

The old wolf shepherd scurried around the forest floor curiously, stomping her heel every few paces.

“Well, are you going to help me or not, Elohk?”

The large albino wolf huffed and walked forward to a spot about fifteen paces and looked at his master.

“Ah, right!” Jayden exclaimed. When she came to the spot Elohk had indicated, she again kicked the ground and a hollow thump sounded. She reached down and cleared away leaves and earth to reveal a large slab of wood. Before Reign could ask what it was, she knew.

Will I ever be truly surprised again with you in there?
she sarcastically asked her father.

Jayden found two short pieces of rope and pulled the wooden covering up. Underneath in a pit no more than three feet deep were scores of bows, arrows, spears, maces, swords and shields. The metal was a dark pewter color, different than the silvery gleam of polished steel although this metal still had a luster to it.

“Jarwynian ore,” she said.

Jayden nodded. “Indeed.”

Knowing the Jarwyn Mountains to be hundreds of leagues to the southeast, she asked, “But who—”

Before she could finish, Jayden glanced around. Reign took the cue and looked but saw nothing other than the thick frondescence natural to this environment. Nothing seemed out of—

From behind the trees and plants, silhouetted figures came into focus. The number of them startled Reign and she reflexively reached for the sword at her hip.

“We are only seen when we want to be, especially here,” Jayden explained.

“We?” Reign asked, still tense despite her father’s sense of reassurance in her mind. Crimson Snow was not acting apprehensive, which did speak some comfort to her.

“Reign, these are the Warriors of Light. Better known in myth as the Gyldenal. Welcome to our hallow.”

The land changed before her. Thickets became grassy patches, trees removed themselves and altogether disappeared in some cases. A clearing in the canopy opened above them and a stream flowing westward toward the sea came up from the ground. Where she stood became a pleasant meadow instead of thick jungle growth. She now saw clearly that they were surrounded by hundreds of men and women. She sensed many to be wood-dwellers.

Reign’s apprehension did not abate but increased. “Of what create is this?” she demanded.

“I told you, dear. The Tavaniah lands are protected as the resting place of the Lumenatis. Its Influence is strong here as is the Light of those you now plainly see. They mean you no harm, child.”

Reign looked down at the recessed armory where Jayden still knelt. “And those?”

“We have people placed in all areas of the Realm, even in the High Duke’s court. Several of our members work in the mines of Jarwyn. It has been years in the planning to be able to slowly collect weapons of such difficult craftsmanship and smuggle them here.”

Two men, not wood-dwellers, stepped forward.

“This is Daneris.” Jayden motioned to the man on the left. He was well defined and pleasing to look at for someone not of Arlethia.

“He was in the service of Wellyn as a Khan. The other is Aramith, an ore master from the Jarwyn mines. We have them to thank for the supply of weapons as well as vital information.”

The two men nodded at Reign in greeting.

You were right
, Reign told her father.
I did not understand
.

We knew a time would soon come when the Gyldenal would be needed to preserve the people. Not just of Arlethia or the Realm, but of all Våleira. We were preparing to do whatever was necessary
.

And they found one of your weapons caches
.
The “evidence” they claimed to have
.

A man came forward who was ancient to her eyes and greeted Reign. Long gray hair draped around his face to his shoulders, and he held a staff in one hand made from—
Triarch wood
, she knew in her mind. He seemed oddly familiar to her.

“I am a current,” he said in a thin voice.

Reign answered: “I am a current of friction and light, a spark against the Ancient Dark that cannot be extinguished, a beam of the Lumenatis.” And then she saw it. The gentle breeze lifted the hairs that had covered a portion of his face and revealed a marking on his cheek that was a curve, resembling a wave. Reign’s breath caught as she recalled a time in the forest after her father died, a time that she had believed was perhaps no more than a dream.

“You came to me,” she said. “I remember, but—”

“I did come to you, young one. And do you remember what I told you?”

“To keep my anger close, that it would shield me for a time, that…” She paused as she collected her memories. “That
he
would not blame me. You meant my father.”

The old man nodded. “And so your anger was a shield while you needed it, but that time has passed. What else?”

Reign blinked, trying to scrape free the petrified memories of that time from the inside of her head. “The breath,” she answered. “You said I would see you again when I had taken my father’s last breath. You knew, even then—but how?”

The old man smiled. It touched his eyes and gave off an aura of kindness and depth all at once. “I am Evrin,” he said and gently squeezed her hand. “I am the Keeper of the Living Light, as appointed by my brothers and sisters.” Evrin gestured to those all around them. “We are honored to have Lord Thannuel Kerr’s daughter among us. I perceive that your mind is pure and untainted. With your father’s last breath upon you, you should be prepared for what must be.”

Reign did not know if she liked the sound of that but did not shrink away.

“What is that?” she asked sheepishly. The presence of this elderly man was magnetic. She felt such depth from him, such understanding.

“To lead, of course. The battle about to be fought is greater than one for lands or power or possession. It is for the essence of the world itself, whether it will survive with life and Light, or fall to eternal entropy within the Ancient Dark, as have other worlds.”

She was about to ask what Evrin meant by “other worlds” when the first part of his statement finally hit her.

“I can’t lead!” Reign exclaimed. “I’ll fight. I’ll do whatever I can, but I am not a leader!”

“Ah, but you will be, child. After you are taught the ancient axioms of Light, you will be able to harness the Living Light greater than any other since the Ancients.”

“Why me? I am no one special, not compared to any of you.”

“But you are wrong, my dear,” Evrin assured her. “It was to be your father’s role, he having demonstrated more capacity for Light than any living member of our order could recall witnessing. In order to conceal and save the Living Light from being extinguished completely during the Turning Away of the Ancients, our predecessors buried it deep within the Triarch trees in the Tavaniah Forest. However, it was also a curse; for though we preserved the Light and therefore Våleira, no one had enough capacity to withdraw it again. For thousands of years the Gyldenal have protected and hidden the secrets of the Lumenatis and waited for someone to demonstrate enough capacity for Light to restore the world as it once was before the Turning Away. To restore the Ancients, as the stories often say. Your father showed great promise but even then we could not be certain. Those who buried the Living Light are long passed away. But, alas, Thannuel’s time ended before his purpose could be fully
realized. But, as his daughter, and combined with his knowledge and capacity, you can potentially extract the Lumenati Light in amounts great enough to reverse the effects Noxmyra has spread across the rest of the world.

Unknown to those here on Senthara, there is no life beyond these borders any longer anywhere in the world. All other peoples have perished with the lands turning fallow. It has become time to stand against the Dark, few though we may be.”

Reign did not answer because she did not know what to say. Finally: “What must I do?”

“We are not just protectors and preservers, young Reign. Though your abilities will easily surpass our own with your advantage, we will stand by you and fight this war. It is time for the Warriors of Light to come out of obscurity and once again be known.”

Looking to the wolf, Reign said, “Gather your packs.” Crimson Snow darted at incredible speed northeast toward Jayden’s old cottage. Reign had a fleeting thought regarding the age of that decrepit house and believed it must be as old as Jayden herself.

“There are others coming,” Jayden said.

Evrin nodded. “Yes. We believe over five hundred thousand, less than a span of days from the edge of the glaciers.”

“Who?” Reign asked with concern.

“The remnants of the Borathein people,” Jayden said. “They come because they have nowhere to go and most of the Realm has been promised to them if their armies, already at the edge of Calyn, are successful in the destruction of Arlethia.”

“You and those you choose to work with you will prepare for them,” Evrin said to Jayden. “They will need to be dealt with in either event, should Arlethia survive or succumb to defeat.”

“Hedron,” Reign said, thinking of her twin brother.

Jayden looked grave. “He is not his father, despite Aiden’s best efforts. He is not ready for what comes.”