Storms (Sharani Series Book 2) (33 page)

“They have no mercy,” Nikanor said. “The armies and the Seven Sisters. They don’t often agree, but when they do—and they will about this—there is no power in the world that can stand against them for long. Their archers will come first. They have a habit of shooting but not killing the first wave sent against them. Those hits fuel the Sisters.”

Gavin felt bile rise up in the back of his throat as he thought of Lhaurel’s awesome power in the Oasis. If that were turned against the Rahuli as a whole . . .

“Why would they destroy us?” Gavin repeated.

Nikanor’s eyes slid away from Gavin to Lhaurel. “Because of her. There are only Seven Sisters, seven blood mages. Red hair and nails are their mark, though they can be easily imitated.” Nikanor nodded to Lhaurel, almost in respect, then looked back at Gavin. “I’ve experienced her power and know she’s really a blood mage. That means that one of the current Seven Sisters isn’t. The most powerful force in the Orinai Empire is lying to an entire empire.”

“I don’t understand,” Lhaurel said. “Why would they kill everyone because I’m a blood mage?”

It was Samsin who answered her. “Forgive Nikanor, Sister, but he is correct. I didn’t want to believe it at first, but even I cannot deny it in the face of what I’ve witnessed from you. They would kill everyone here to hide their lie. They’ll kill you too, I believe. Then they’d just have to wait for you to incarnate again where they could find and raise you as one of their own to replace the “fake” Sister.”

“I’m not one of them,” Lhaurel said, shuddering and making the light sway back and forth. “I’m not a monster.”

Gavin shook his head, perhaps even more confused now than he was before. “How long do we have?” he asked.

“There’s no way to know,” Samsin said. “It could be a day, it could be a month.”

“Only if they get told,” Nikanor added. “We still have to pass the message along to the next Earth Ward. When they don’t hear from us this month, they will send scouts, who will then meet with my steward at the plantation who will tell them where we went. It would take nearly a month for the Sisters to get from the Capital up to here. There’s still time for you to get away.”

Samsin shifted behind Nikanor, licking his lips and scratching at the ropes around his wrists.

Gavin narrowed his eyes. “What do you know, Samsin?”

Samsin fidgeted, then Lhaurel was there. Her eyes flashed with suppressed anger. Samsin flinched back from her, but she grabbed his arm.

“What do you know?” She hissed.

“I left scrolls with Nikanor’s steward,” Samsin said. “He was to send them if we hadn’t returned in three days. That was over ten days ago.”

”That’s right,” Nikanor said. “I’d forgotten. Those will take several weeks to reach the Sisters, though.”

Lhaurel released Samsin and stepped toward Gavin, hands shaking again. “We’ve got to go,” she said, voice trembling. “We’ve got to leave before they get here.”

“Let’s not rush into this, Lhaurel,” Gavin said. “We don’t even know how to get over the Forbiddence.”

Nikanor looked over at Samsin, who was leaning against a wall now, dejected. “Tell them, Samsin.”

Samsin sniffed. “There’s a jagged set of stairs north of where you found us.”

“Don’t you think we would have found them by now if there were?” Gavin snapped, the tension, confusion, and frustration building within him bursting out in his comment.

“Not if they weren’t there before,” Samsin said.

Gavin tried to picture Samsin carrying Nikanor down a set of steps covered in sand.
Had Nikanor formed them? How had he managed that so wounded?

“There’s no way you could have carried him down that distance without falling.”

Samsin snorted and a trace of his former arrogance returned. “I’m a Storm Ward, you ignorant fool. I called the winds to clear the path for me and keep my step. It wasn’t any harder than pulling the winds down to fill the sails of a ship.”

Gavin had no idea what a ship was, but before he could ask Nikanor was talking again.

“You still have time. If you leave now, you can still make it to the Straights and then north from there—”

The ground suddenly heaved.

Beryl stood within the blazing heat of the forge, finally succumbing to the voice which had been his greatest foe for the last few centuries. The vulcanist reached through him to the reservoirs of heat beneath the warren, drawing on it and pulling it up through the cracks which formed in the metal and stone plug which had kept it contained since the Arena’s construction.

Beryl had used that heat for hundreds of years, slowly drawing it up into the forge, but each time it had cost him a bit more of his sanity. He lost the battle to the vulcanist for a brief moment at least once a year and made the ground shake, the earth tremble, but each time Beryl had been able to wrest back control.

This time, he didn’t even try.

“I understand now, Elyana,” Beryl said softly. “Why you did what you did. I’ve resented it for a thousand years. I’ve been angry with you for a thousand years”

The heat grew so intense behind him that the forge furnace grew red and Beryl’s clothes blackened, though his skin remained whole.

“I’ve lived in this waking dream, battling with the voices of my past and future lives, for what seems an eternity. You didn’t know that could happen, Elyana, did you? I discovered it on the day you died, when my mind and heart shattered and you became the karundin. All the incarnations and each of the Iterations, can exist within the same mind, did you know that?”

The voices within Beryl’s mind argued back and forth, debating whether or not insanity could be considered a true state of existence. They were a distant backdrop, however, to the thundering roars of exultation from the vulcanist, who gleefully pulled on his powers as if they were some sort of addictive drug, which, to the mystics of the third progression, they were.

“I’ve kept control all these years only through sheer force of will, Elyana,” Beryl continued, his voice lost in the roar of the flames. “That and memories of you. I’ve kept them safe, Elyana, the Rahuli people. They are our children, you said, our legacy and our honor, even though they hated and despised you for what you were. They abandoned you to exile and silent study while I led them in pointless battle.”

Memories Beryl had left hidden within partitioned sections of his mind poured through him, stilling all the voices except for his own and the vulcanist.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to help you. I fought physical battles. I gathered the clans. I battled Serthim and his Sister. I formed the Roterralar. I’ve tried to keep the Rahuli people safe.”

Tears formed in his eyes but were burned away by the heat before they could fall down his cheeks.

“You saved them once, at least part of them. Maybe I can save them too.”

Beryl smiled and, after a thousand years of struggle, gave up the fight and let the vulcanist consume the other voices and, finally, his own.

“The Progressions dictate the actions of their followers. There is a Sister for each of them, guiding her specific faction in their quest for radiance and, ultimately, a place in the first hell, rather than the seventh.”

—From
Commentary on the
Schema, Volume I

Gavin fell to the ground, slamming into the bouncing earth and then getting jostled onto his back. Lhaurel’s scream from beside him announced her similar predicament, though Gavin couldn’t see her. The lamp shook loose and crashed to the ground, flames leaping up before a section of stone toppled from the ceiling and smothered them in a shower of dust and bits of rock.

Even in the middle of bouncing along the ground, Gavin turned to look at Samsin and Nikanor. Samsin was on the ground, like Gavin was, but Nikanor stood calmly on his feet as if the earth were his to command. A small section around him remained still and immobile. His broken bonds dangled from his wrists, and his eyes were half-shut in concentration.

“What in the sands,” Gavin shouted, trying hard not to bite his own tongue as he was jostled and bounced along the ground, “is going on?”

The shaking earth subsided and then passed. Gavin rose on unsteady feet. Though the quakes weren’t uncommon in general—Gavin remembered three or four others in his nearly twenty years—three so close together was something else entirely. Gavin felt worry worm its way into his stomach and beginning knowing at his insides.

“I can’t hold it back for long,” Nikanor said through clenched teeth.

Gavin looked over at the man while helping Lhaurel to her feet. The woman’s hand felt unusually thin and bony.

“What?”

“Beryl,” Nikanor said. “He’s now a vulcanist. He’s trying to force an eruption. I can hold the earth in place above it for a while, but—” He gasped suddenly and a small tremble hit the earth, then vanished. “He’s strong. Very strong. I didn’t know vulcanists had this sort of strength.” Sweat beaded on the man’s brow and dripped down his face.

Samsin got to his feet clumsily, hands still bound. “You can’t hold back a volcano, Nikanor. We’ve got to get out of here while we still can. Forget about these people. They’re dead anyway.”

Gavin turned a sharp look over to Samsin, who didn’t look the least bit embarrassed by what he had just said.

“Gavin,” Lhaurel said, “I can feel it too. This isn’t natural, this isn’t normal. Beryl feels
different
somehow. I—I can feel Nikanor and Beryl fighting one another. This is real. We need to leave. Now!”

Gavin was torn for a moment, then made a decision. He stepped over to Samsin and untied his hands. The man frowned down at Gavin, but Gavin ignored him. When he was done, Gavin turned to Nikanor.

“Can you walk and keep Beryl contained at the same time?”

Nikanor shook his head.

Gavin nodded, understanding the full implications and looking at the Orinai with grudging and surprised respect. “How much time can you give us?”

“I don’t know. Hurry.” The strain was plain in his voice.

Why would he do this
? Did it really matter, though? It was what was needed for them to survive. Gavin nodded his respect to the man, hoping to convey some measure of the gratitude he felt.

Samsin moved up alongside Gavin, pushing him aside with one arm.

“What are you doing, Nikanor?” Samsin nearly shouted. “You came all the way here just to die saving these people? You betrayed the Seven Sisters already and then you dragged me into it. I thought we’d talked about this. I thought we were here to observe, not incite another civil war.”

Nikanor turned his head to look down at Gavin. “Go,” he said. “I’ll send Samsin along in a minute. He’s a good man, though he doesn’t know it yet. He’ll show you the way out.”

Gavin opened his mouth to argue, then snapped it shut and nodded. Lhaurel was already waiting for him at the door. She nodded at Nikanor over Gavin’s shoulder and then they rushed out into the passageway beyond.

“Go get Khari,” Gavin said. “Tell her to gather the aevians and send riders out to the other clans. Send them north toward the old Aeril Warren.”

Lhaurel nodded, fear evident in her expression, though it was mixed with the steely resolve Gavin had grown to expect from her. She took off down the hall, red hair bouncing on her shoulders and only a slight limp slowing her.

Gavin waited by the door for a long moment, waiting to see if Samsin would come, but then shrugged and raced off toward the greatroom.

Twenty minutes later the entire populace of the Roterralar clan waited in the eyrie, whatever supplies they could carry strapped either to themselves or to the backs of the aevians they could convince to bear burdens. The aevians themselves were agitated and ill-tempered, dozens simply taking flight of their own volition and flying off without any indication where they were going.

Khari was there, directing people to aevians and making sure they’d gathered what they needed from the eyrie itself. There was a hollow, haunted expression to her eyes, as if something inside her had broken, but Lhaurel remained near her side, careful to provide direction where needed.

Gavin stood calmly in the middle of the chaos, directing the flow of fearful bodies as they pushed and shoved through the throng. There were enough aevians equipped with saddles for nearly everyone, but a few would have to double up. Gavin had been mildly surprised at how easy it had been to convince everyone that they had to leave—the continued tremors had helped—but he wasn’t about to question good fortune when it fell in his lap. Cobb had also been helpful and had sent out additional riders to warn the clans. Gavin only hoped they were fast enough to save them. Depending on how far away from the Roterralar Warren they’d made it, it would take them the better part of a day to get to the section of Forbiddence Nikanor had mentioned, even if they ran the whole way.

“What are you waiting for, lad?” Cobb asked, walking over. Several others followed close behind him, including the man who’d shown deference to Lhaurel earlier and a few others Gavin knew he should probably recognize.

“I’m waiting for the Orinai,” Gavin said. “He knows where we’re going.”

As if speaking of him had drawn the man’s attention, Samsin burst through one of the entrances. The doors flung outward with tremendous force. The Orinai’s face looked thunderous, as if a storm cloud had somehow taken human form. The Roterralar scattered before him, shying away from the massive man. He strode through the crowd with long, powerful strides, making his way directly toward Gavin. Cobb and one of the other men, Lhaurel’s friend from earlier, stepped up beside Gavin.

“Why are you still here?” Samsin snapped, his voice a harsh growl. Gavin noticed the redness of man’s eyes.

“Well, you’re the one that knows the way, after all,” Gavin said. “Perhaps you’d care to show us.”

Samsin grumbled something under his breath. “Fine. But I’m not riding behind someone this time. I get my own bird.”

Cobb chuckled. “I don’t think that will be happening anytime soon.”

“That’s fine, Samsin,” Gavin said, holding up a hand to forestall Cobb’s continued objections. “Khari can help you find an aevian that will carry you. She’s the short one over there. Tell her I sent you.” Gavin pointed toward Khari and Samsin sniffed, before striding off in the indicated direction.

“You can’t be serious, Gavin,” Cobb objected as soon as Samsin had made it a reasonable distance from them. “You’re not going to simply let that—that—”

“Man?” Gavin supplied.

“That
Orinai
walk around free like he’s one of us, are you?”

Gavin shrugged. “Now is not the time to be fighting amongst ourselves. He knows how to get us where we need to go. I don’t have to trust him when helping us is the only way he’ll survive too. Pragmatism is sometimes far more powerful. Now let’s get this group on the move.”

Cobb started to protest again, face growing red and eyebrows coming together like bushy clouds above his nose, but the other man put a placating hand on Cobb’s shoulder and the old man subsided.

Gavin whistled sharply as he turned away and Nabil screeched and leapt from a crag on the wall to land near him. The large white aevian still favored his leg, but it hadn’t slowed his fierce pride any at all. Gavin reached up and scratched the aevian just beneath the eye, then vaulted up into the saddle and clipped himself in. The soft buzz of voices stilled as the assembled Roterralar noticed him up on Nabil’s back. Gavin felt a great weight settle on his shoulders as he regarded the faces of those looking up at him. It appeared Khari had found Samsin a riding harness and aevian. Lhaurel stood not far from her. Gavin found Shallee among the crowd as well, her newborn tied across her chest by several long strips of cloth.

Gavin took a deep breath through his nose and steeled his posture and expression.

“The time has come,” Gavin said in a voice that carried to the back of the eyrie. “Terror comes at us once again. I would say that this a new thing, a new threat, but it’s not, not really anyway. We’re Rahuli, the people of the Sharani Desert. We grew up knowing that the genesauri would come each year. We lived each day knowing that where we called home could and
would
change. This is not new to us. We’re moving again, though this time we won’t be coming back. I know you’re frightened. I know you’re all probably wondering what’s going on. I am too. But we’ve dealt with this before and come out stronger for it. We will do it again because we are Rahuli. Remember that.”

Gavin leaned to the side and Nabil turned in that direction so they were facing out toward the Sharani desert. Storm clouds dotted the horizon, flashing with the occasional burst of lightning. Behind him, Gavin heard several dozen metallic clicks as people snapped into their saddles.

“Samsin,” Gavin called over one shoulder. “Fly alongside me. I’ll get us to where I found you, but then you’ll need to show us the rest of the way.” Gavin leaned down slightly in the saddle and rested a hand on Nabil’s broad back. “Alright then, Nabil,” Gavin whispered. “Let’s go.”

Nabil launched into the sky.

They flew north in a great concourse of aevians, with Gavin, Samsin, and Khari at their head. The aevians had been instructed to follow Nabil and Gwyanth, but most of the new Roterralar had never ridden an aevian before so the process was a slow one. Still, the sands seemed to undulate beneath them, though it was due to the wind rather than shaking earth.

Gavin looked back over his shoulder at those following him frequently, making sure everyone was still safe. Small children rode with their parents or with older siblings. Cobb sat stiffly on the back of his aevian, but his wrinkled, stony face held a note of child-like wonder on it as well. Gavin marveled that the man, so taciturn, straight-forward, and blunt at times, could still marvel in the face of everything that was going on.

In the back of Gavin’s mind, fear was taking root and slowly spreading through him. It wasn’t the fear of the unknown though. As he’d said to the others, they’d dealt with the unknown their entire lives. He truly believed that. They were a strong people, able to adapt to whatever situations came. No, the fear that climbed through him like an insidious vine from the Oasis, was a fear that, once again, he wouldn’t be able to save the people.

His entire life, his grandmother had instilled in him a sense of duty, honor, and compassion. At first, Gavin had thought it only applied to the outcasts, but he’d begun to realize that it was something more. All the Rahuli deserved protection and some measure of unity, if they could manage it. He’d thought the Rahuli safe, despite the nagging doubts. True, Kaiden had still been there and the clans had struggled to work together, but Gavin had thought those things that would eventually work themselves out. But this? The Orinai? Beryl threatening their very existence? Gavin had no idea how long they had, but a small voice inside him knew it would not be enough.