Birthrights_Revisions to the Truth Page 14

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  Even when faced with impossible odds, men search for reasons to hope. For the Fei, a people starved of hope and facing extinction, discovering the Steward settlement provided such a reason. Their lore foretold that Amon would reward their faith, and they would one day rule the land. Instead of waiting for death in the mines, the remaining Fei escaped and fled to the settlement. There they hoped the Stewards would help them fulfill the prophecy—their destiny.

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  When word of the escape reached the Allyrian rulers, though, they dispatched a delegation to their former allies. Their history of working together during the Dragon Discord was remembered, and the Stewards welcomed the delegation, housing the men in their own homes. But the Allyrians deceived them, rising in the night to slaughter their sleeping hosts.

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  By the time the Allyrian soldiers were forced from the village, only a few Stewards remained alive. Accompanied by the Fei who’d fought by their sides, the survivors retreated deeper into the Crags, to the volcano where Amon’s power is strongest. There, despite their peaceful nature, they plotted revenge.

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  Uniting to draw more of Amon’s power than they could withstand, the Stewards summoned the Breaking. The earth shook with such force buildings collapsed upon their foundations. Waves as tall as mountains crashed into the land. Massive shards of earth rose from the depths of the ocean floor, swirling the currents and leaving the coasts unnavigable. In a single day, a dynasty that had taken generations to build was washed away. The Land of Amon became the Lost Land.

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  Excerpt from The Rise and Fall of Magic—The Faerie Histories

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  The Wildes

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  Stern and Kutan were packed and ready to leave when Whym returned. “Your stuff’s there.” Kutan pointed to a pack leaning against the wall. “We’ll leave shortly.”

  “Tonight?” Whym had counted on at least one evening of good rest.

  Kutan rolled his eyes and shrugged, tilting his head toward their master. Stern sat with his back to them, smoking his pipe. “Rain’s coming,” he grunted without turning, a cloud of white smoke encircling his head. “Bad luck to leave when it’s raining.”

  Stern’s superstitions had at first surprised Whym, but like all matters of faith, couldn’t be opposed with reason. Bury an acorn in the floor each spring to ward off ghosts. Sprinkle salt around the cottage to prevent the plague. Keep a toad’s toe in your pocket for a safe return home. Whym had never seen a ghost nor caught the plague, and Stern had always returned. How could anyone argue against such proof?

  Whym noticed his book of poems and picked it up. He idly flipped through the pages, considering whether to make space in his pack. “Leave it.” Kutan interrupted his contemplation. “Check to make sure you’ve got everything you need.” Whym reluctantly returned the book to the shelf and inspected the contents of his pack.

  “Let’s eat!” Stern stood a short while later and pointed toward the food piled on the table that would spoil before their return. Some they would take with them. The rest they’d leave for Agnis.

  “To safe travels!” Kutan lifted one of the three mugs of wine he’d poured.

  “To safe travels,” Stern and Whym echoed, each grabbing a mug.

  The news of the post to find the Steward had saved Whym from needing to inform his master he wouldn’t join the resistance. Their focus was now on the journey ahead instead of something sure to divide them. For the first time in his apprenticeship, if not his life, he felt like part of a team.

  After downing the contents of the mug, Whym looked at the empty shelves of the small cottage. From the day Stern had returned with the news of the post, Whym had known they’d be gone for an extended time. He’d told his parents and Kira as much. But only then did he understand that not only was his life about to change, what he left behind would change as well. He thought of Kira. Will she still feel the same after so long apart?

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  They were still in the Wildes when the drizzle began, not much farther when it turned into a punishing torrent. Despite the wax-rubbed covers, their packs were getting soaked. “Glad we didn’t wait and leave tomorrow,” Kutan grumbled sarcastically.

  “Better wet than unlucky.” Whym tested his master’s temper. Ever since Stern had revealed his plan for Whym to lead, Whym had considered him more instructor than master.

  They headed east past Riverbend, slogging through the night without stopping, and reached the Dung by the time a dreary gray dawn stretched its arms over the horizon. Whym covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve as they walked. Kutan hadn’t exaggerated. Each step was like sloshing through the muck of a hog wallow.

  “Best get used to it,” Kutan advised. “The Dung clings to you long after you’re finished with her.”

  “Sounds like your lady friends,” Whym teased, referring to Kutan’s supposed exploits with the opposite sex.

  Kutan responded by poking his staff between Whym’s feet, almost sending him face-first into the filth. “Watch your step,” Kutan said without stopping.

  Whym caught his balance in the nick of time. “Watch your back.” He cocked his leg, ready to kick the puddled manure.

  “Boys!” Stern scolded. Whym lowered his leg. “At least pretend to be adults. We’re no longer alone in the Wildes.”

  “Indeed.” A cloaked figure as big as a bear stepped from behind a cart of potatoes. “You’re not alone at all.”

  Stern startled, the first time Whym had seen the experienced seeker taken completely unaware. “Sali, what are you doing here?”

  “Let you leave without a proper goodbye?” Salazar’s lip curled open. He was even more hideous than Whym remembered.

  “But how—”

  “Old friend—” Salazar held out his mammoth hands— “surely after so many turns, I’ve ceased to surprise you.”

  “But—”

  “We can talk at the waterfall.” Salazar stepped past them, heading the way they’d come. Stern surveyed the sleeping community, his body tense, as if he expected to find prying eyes in every nook.

  “They’ll expect three.” Kutan grabbed Whym’s arm and cut down a side street, leaving Stern on the main road. The street narrowed to a footpath as it led toward the hill behind, where a warren of shanties sagged against the beating rain.

  “Who will expect three?” Whym whispered.

  “Dunno.” Kutan’s tone and expression discouraged additional questions.

  Whym held his tongue as he had the first morning in the Maze—following without knowing where he was being led. As he’d been taught, he scanned the periphery without moving his head and used the slight turns in the path to catch quick glimpses behind them. At that time of the morning, in the rain, not even the animals stirred. When they reached the grouping of shanties, they cut up a goat trail toward the woods beyond. Once concealed within the trees, Kutan waited, watching. There was no movement behind them, only the sway of trees in the wind and the leaves and grasses dancing with the pattering rain.

  He turned, and they followed the path deeper into the woods until they could hear the rumble of a waterfall in the distance. “Is Salazar involved with the resistance as well?” Whym asked as the rumble intensified, confident the noise from the falls would drown out his words should someone be near.

  Kutan’s eyes searched the woods before he whispered in Whym’s ear. “There’s no end to Salazar’s scheming. From the way I see it, he’s both for and against every side. But he’s not a man you want as your enemy.” Whym wanted to ask more, but Kutan hurried on toward the falls.

  By the time they arrived, Stern and Salazar were sheltering under a ledge in animated conversation. Ster
n was visibly upset. “What?” Kutan asked as they approached. “Have we been betrayed?”

  “If you’d been betrayed—” Salazar tugged at an eyelash as he spoke—“you would’ve been dismembered before cheering crowds.”

  “Then what? Have you come to mock our ridiculous quest? You’re not the type for sentimental goodbyes.”

  “The Steward’s no myth—no more so than the Faerie,” Salazar corrected, prompting Kutan to roll his eyes. “I’ve come to warn you. Endeling’s a trap.”

  Whym’s eyes widened with fear. “Salazar’s learned that soldiers wait there in ambush,” Stern explained.

  “You learned this how?” Kutan crossed his arms.

  Salazar lifted his eyebrows at the question, with what looked to be a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “Our First Lord has been in a brothel doing some ‘missionary’ work—among other positions. His tongue wags after.”

  Kutan eyed the big man with evident distrust. “The First Lord? If he suspects us, why go to so much trouble? He could just order our hangings.”

  “He suspects nothing. These two—” two big hands pointed to Whym and Stern—“are, in his words, ‘thorns to scrape.’” Salazar noted the shift in Kutan’s expression at being excluded. “What? Jealous of a death sentence? I’ve told you before, go back to the Fringe. No one will notice.”

  Kutan stormed off. Salazar appeared amused; Stern, frustrated. “Why do you provoke the boy?”

  The big man glared at the seeker. He opened his mouth to speak but then glanced at Whym and held back whatever he’d been about to say. “You should skip Endeling. Find the Steward. Lord Fen won’t forget about you, but it’ll buy some time.”

  “You can’t tease me like the boy, Sali. I know better.”

  Salazar shook his head. “Right, I remember. No Stewards. No Faerie. No magic. You know better.”

  “If ArWhym and my father had won, such fiction would no longer taint the Truth.”

  “They didn’t win, did they? All you really know of ArWhym Ellenrond is that he bounced you on his bony knee. Everything else is from your father, a notorious traitor according to history.”

  “Enough! My father raised me to seek truth for myself. I won’t believe in children’s tales.”

  “I suppose there’s no acorn buried beneath your cottage? No toad’s toe in your pocket? Try actually seeking truth instead of looking for what you believe. You’ll be surprised by what you find.” Salazar picked up the satchel he’d set on the ground beside him and pulled out a letter he handed to Stern. “In Colodor, find Seph at the Tarried Tinker. He can supply what you need.”

  “Colodor?” Stern took the letter and placed it in a small wooden tube he’d pulled from his pack. “That’ll take moons to deliver!”

  “You’ve planned for two generations, and now you worry about moons? He’s the only one I trust in the Lost Land to deliver without raising suspicions.”

  “Thank you.” Stern gave a curt nod of appreciation then knelt to return the tube to beneath the damp clothing in his pack. Salazar winked at Whym, then left in the direction Kutan had departed.

  After recovering his pack, Stern ambled over to the edge of the water and looked upstream to where it cascaded down three rock shelves. “The falls come to life in the rain,” he remarked as Whym joined him.

  “Do you trust Salazar?” Whym asked, wondering how they could ever return to Riverbend if the First Lord wanted them dead.

  “Kutan blames Sali for his father’s death,” Stern answered one of Whym’s questions, but not the one he’d asked. “And Sali never tires of needling the boy.”

  Whym wanted to ask why Kutan would blame Salazar, but he’d studied under Stern long enough to know the question would be deferred to his fellow apprentice. He’d wait and ask Kutan later. “Do you believe Salazar?” Whym asked again.

  Stern lifted the edge of a rock with the toe of his boot. A black salamander wriggled out and scurried toward the water. “I believe Endeling’s a trap. The post felt wrong from the start.”

  “And the Steward?”

  Stern looked at Whym as if he should know better than to ask. He flipped the rock over all the way so it clacked against the one behind it. Water seeped from the dirt to puddle where the rock had been. “We must go to Endeling, but we’ll take precautions.”

  “What about Colodor?”

  “We’ll stop there on the way,” Stern said casually, as if Colodor was on their way instead of a detour that would add moons to their journey. Whym waited for him to elaborate. Instead, he looked over his shoulder, checking for Kutan’s return. When he turned back, he stared at the water, leaving the question unanswered.

  Patience. You’ve got moons of journey ahead to ask questions. There’ll be time to get your answers later. Whym left Stern gazing at the waterfall and returned to the shelter of the overhang. He assumed the trip to Colodor had something to do with the resistance. If that were the case, he guessed he might be better off not knowing.

  When Kutan returned a short while later, Stern said nothing. He grabbed his pack from under the ledge and led them away, walking several paces ahead. They trekked in the rain all morning and most of the afternoon before Whym summoned the courage to speak. “Did Salazar find you?”

  “Yes,” Kutan answered tersely. “He told me to leave Stern.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Salazar’s a swollen knob who makes up stories about my mother. She left when I was a baby, so I can’t prove he’s a liar.”

  Whym thought back to the night on Sentinel Mountain and hesitated before asking, “What type of stories?”

  “Stupid kid stuff,” Kutan huffed. “That she was Faerie.”

  “Faerie?”

  “Like I said, swollen knob.”

  Stern had stopped and was waiting on them, so Whym let the conversation drop. “We can camp there tonight,” the seeker said, pointing to a rocky overhang. “I think we could all use a rest and some time to air out our clothes. Maybe by morning the rain will have stopped.”

  They set straight to work stripping off their wet clothes, then removed the damp items from their packs and laid them out to dry. After the day’s trek to consider, there were so many questions Whym wanted answered—about the resistance, Salazar, Kutan. His mind spun with everything that had happened in less than one moon. When they’d left the Wildes, he’d believed that not knowing the answers somehow insulated him, that he could finish his apprenticeship and leave with Kira. But if the First Lord was targeting him, he’d need to change his plan. Joining the resistance might be my only option. It was a sobering thought, and not something he wanted to voice until he was certain.

  After finishing with his clothes, Whym prepared for sleep. There was no spot under the rock ledge to hang his hammock, so he spread a thin straw mat on the ground. He resigned himself to another night of anxious thoughts and little rest, but was sound asleep almost as soon as he lay down—a hard, empty sleep, where the drum of the pounding rain kept his worries at bay.

  When he’d left Riverbend to return to the Wildes, he’d felt pulled in several directions. Oddly, the death sentence had freed him. He was a bird pushed from the nest, the existential need to fly trumping every other concern. Why fret about the next turn when the next step could be my last?

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  When Whym woke, he studied the cloudless sky and guessed they’d have a fair day to travel. “How far is Colodor?” He began to stuff the damp clothes back into his pack. Without fire, the clothes weren’t much drier than when he’d spread them across the rock the night before.

  “Four moons by foot.” Stern had finished packing and was sitting with Kutan, chewing on a dried strip of meat.

  “So less than one by horseback?” Whym assumed that if cost were the reason they were on foot, Salazar’s news would have changed Stern’s thinking.


  “Yes, which will give me time to catch up.”

  Whym dropped the clothes he was holding. “Catch up? You’re not coming with us?”

  Stern brushed back the fringe of white hair matted against his forehead then paused to take a swig of water and swallow the half-chewed jerky before answering. “I’ll meet you in Colodor. There are matters I must attend to before Endeling.”

  “But—”

  Stern forestalled Whym’s objection. “You wanted an adventure. You’ve got one. Kutan will train you on the way.” He stood and slung his pack over his shoulders. “This isn’t practice anymore. You’re afforded one mistake—your last.”

  “But where will you go?”

  Stern turned to face him. “When you’re ready to lead, I’ll tell you.”

  Whym could sense his irritation. The post hadn’t removed all the tension.

  “Find the Tarried Tinker and wait for me. I’ll be there before the fourth moon.”

  “And if you’re not?” Whym called as Stern walked away.

  “You’re on your own,” he replied without turning.

  Whym watched him go, frowning as he considered what Stern might be planning.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll be there,” Kutan reassured, not understanding the source of Whym’s frown.

  Yeah, that’s what Ansel thought.

  Riverbend, Chapter 22

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  A Mother Mourning

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  “Your duty to the faith.”

  He wrapped the news in shiny quips ‘bout honor.

  “Your duty to the land.”

  The others nodded as he spoke.

  “Not a gift, a loan—

  Back good as new, maybe better.”

  But the borrowed are buried

  In a place both far and unfamiliar.

  And he returns to take again.

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  —Unknown

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  Riverbend

  One Moon Later

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