Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1)
Read Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) Online
Authors: Michael Watson
for Grandma Kay
of Contents
Prologue: Story Tellers and World Enders
Part Two: Two Sides of the Coin
Part Three: Wind Chasers and Stone Shapers
Part Four: The Ceaseless Gales
Story Tellers and World Enders
As I write this entry, Tyrissa stands at the
edge of our shadow-cloaked campsite. She gazes out across this twisted,
unearthly landscape at the eldritch light blazing beyond the horizon to the
southwest. This is her nightly ritual: a solitary, defiant vigil staring down
whatever may lie at our goal. She leans on her spear, the weapon that has
carried her through so many struggles with stoic, unquestioning support. The
Va—
The rest of the sentence emerged as vanishing
scratches as the pen ran out of ink again. Giroon let out a short sigh, set
aside the nearly full book, and reached into his pack for a stoic companion of
his own: a corked ink bottle. A slight wind stirred through the evening air as
Giroon refilled his pen and he shivered despite the warmth of the nearby
roaring campfire. At least, it was roaring
now
. At any moment it could
gutter down to fickle matchstick flames or flare six feet into the air. Giroon
kept his distance just in case it was the latter. The firelight cast out twenty
feet and came to an abrupt stop. There, a ring of deep shadow swallowed the
light whole, concealing their party of seven from the various walking horrors
that lurked in this hellscape’s night. ‘Night’ was a generous term here, where
the broken boundaries between their world and the elemental planes caused all
manner of chaos in the sky, toying with the natural order of light and
darkness.
Giroon had spent his entire life entertaining
others with stories of heroes marching off to accomplish the impossible and
saving the world in the process. Through his adult years he traveled far and
wide, delving into any and every culture’s repository of lore and myths,
looking for new stories to tell and clues to long-held mysteries. Giroon never
thought he’d experience such a journey first hand, much less chronicle the
conclusion as it occurred. He simply wasn’t that
creative. But it felt
as he expected: bleak but defiant, desperate but noble, insane but necessary.
Her ritual complete, Tyrissa returned to the
fireside and sat crossed-legged next to Giroon. Her proximity steadied the
campfire, the flames dropping in intensity. She laid her spear across her lap.
The shaft was built of a deep gray wood run through with silver threads, like
lightning boiling through a stormy sky. The bladed tip was crafted of an
utterly black metal and seemed to only devour the light, just like the sculpted
shadows that surrounded their campsite.
“Writing away as usual, I see,” Tyrissa said, “Is
it going well?”
“It is. Very much so,” Giroon said. That was an
understatement. The composition was effortless. Perhaps the apocalyptic mood
hovering over their party eased the flow of words. They marched toward what
might be the end of the world, and Giroon found the prospect of no future
liberating to his writing. “However,” he added, “I’m finding the title to be
the most vexing part.”
“
Tyrissa’s Saga
.” She gave him her usual
broad and toothy smile that never failed to brighten her face.
Giroon returned the smile, but shook his head at
the suggestion. “Much too simple. It needs to be truly grand for this is an
epic to tower above all others.” Giroon thought for a moment, tapping the pen
against his knuckles. Titles usually presented themselves in the process. Not
so this time. “There must be something in the embarrassment of granted titles
and honored epithets you’ve earned. There’s too many to choose from. Tyrissa,
Fist of the Stars? Tyrissa, Of Ten and None? The Lance of Dawn, Titanbreaker—”
“World Ender,” Tyrissa whispered, her face now
clouded over with doubt. Giroon’s eyes darted to the heavily wrapped bundle
sitting a prudent distance from the party’s gear. The air rippled around it like
a heat shimmer and the earth below already bore faint cracks that weren’t
present an hour ago. It would need to be moved every few hours to prevent it
from burying itself overnight.
“That part is yet unwritten,” he said. He hoped
that Tyrissa was wrong, but feared that she was right. “I prefer ‘Bringer of
the World’s Rebirth’ instead.”
“Not bad,” she said, “If a little long.”
Tyrissa fell into thoughtful silence, blue eyes
sparkling as she stared into the campfire, face framed by loose strands of
golden hair. In one hand she idly rotated her charm necklace in a slow circuit,
coiling the chain to her neck and guiding the process in reverse. The charm was
a simple steel circle monogrammed with two initials that were not her own and
attached to an equally simple silver chain.
Giroon recapped his pen, returned it and the
unfinished chronicle to his pack, and joined Tyrissa in watching the crackling
flames. Through the sheen of shadow above them the sky still bore hints of what
passed for twilight here, and none of their party yet slept. Each day they made
camp early for fear of getting caught in dangerous or indefensible terrain at
nightfall. The warping touch of the raging Elemental Powers made this land
unpredictable. An impossibly dense forest could give way to a volcanic rock
waste, which in turn disintegrated into tenuous bridges of marble with nothing
but sky above and below. Giroon couldn’t help but, in a grim way, find his
companions’ caution amusing. The actions of the people sharing this campfire have
shaken the world and realms beyond. History would see each enshrined as a
legend, yet here they feared the night. Dinner rations were passed around in a
reverent silence. Though they were close friends and allies, there was little
to chat about anymore. Everything had been said, their choices were made, and
they all knew what they soon must do. Such times lent themselves towards
considerable inward reflection and quiet nightly firesides.
“Tell us a story, Giroon,” Tyrissa said after
many minutes of silence.
“Ty, you must know all the stories worth telling
as well as I do by now.” That was how they first met, ten years ago, a
determined girl forcing down his inn room door with a challenge for Giroon, the
master bard and storyteller from the Evelands. Since then, they’d combed
through mankind’s tapestry of tales, parsing truth from fiction but finding
value in both. He hardly recognized that girl now, re-forged by the will of
old, slumbering gods into a woman of legend.
“Well, how about what you’re writing about me?”
“Ah, that would be… premature.” Giroon guarded
his work in progress from their prying eyes with a zealotry that would give the
berserkers of his homeland pause. This would be his masterpiece. If they
succeeded. If there would be anyone left to read it. “Besides,” he said,
turning to sweep his hand toward the horizon that burned with dreadful beauty,
“This particular story is nearing its conclusion.”
“You and I both know that the ending is only a
fraction of a good story,” Tyrissa said, undeterred. Giroon expected no less
from her. “Endings have an inevitability to them: the hero succeeds or fails,
and that’s it. What people really care about is the journey, the beginnings and
middles, the victories and defeats along the way.” Tyrissa looked around the
campfire at her companions. “Friends made, enemies slain, the loves and losses.
That’s what people really want to hear.”
“On that, you’ll get no argument from me,” said
the bard. The book in his pack was only the last few weeks of the chronicle. He
left the rest with his apprentice in a safe place. ‘Safe’ was, of course, as
relative as this land’s night. Should he not return from this land that lay on
no maps, Giroon trusted that his apprentice would be able to complete the
chronicle, if in vague terms. The concluding pages in his pack hardly mattered
beyond the binary resolution, and
that
would be obvious to everyone in
the world soon enough.
“You rattled off all those silly titles. Why
don’t you tell us about the beginning? Before the titles, the plane-shifting,
the titan-breaking. When I was just… me.”
A well-practiced jester’s grin split the bard’s
face. “Do you need a refresher on your own youth?”
“No,” Tyrissa said, her smile making another
appearance. “I just want to hear your version so I can correct the glaring
flaws and ridiculous embellishments. While I still can.”
Giroon feigned shock, ignoring Tyrissa’s casual
assumption of her imminent death. That particular argument only led in circles.
“Miss, those pages only contain the raw, unvarnished truth.”
“Of course they do. Come on; tell us about
Tyrissa Jorensen, the carpenter’s daughter. I want to hear about
her
.”
