Storm Without End (Requiem for the Rift King Book 1) Page 4

A hand touched his shoulder. He let out a startled yelp and jerked away. The back of his legs smacked against the stones of the well. His knees buckled and Kalen fell hard on the ledge. The wood of the cover splintered when his head cracked into it. His vision darkened and bursts of white danced in front of his eyes while stabbing pain raced down his neck and down to his toes.

  Kalen fell.

  ~~*~~

  Breton closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and tried to pretend he wasn’t doing something incredibly stupid. He pressed close to the spire, and cracked open an eye to stare at the steps. If he looked down, he’d lose what little nerve he had left. Over fifty years of traversing the cliff-side trails of the Rift, and he still couldn’t get over how steep and treacherous the staircase was.

  Maybe the witches liked it that way, perched in the sky, pretending to be birds for all they didn’t have wings. With a few inches between his foot and the ledge, he’d learn what it was like to fly until he found out what it was like to hit the ground hundreds of feet below.

  It was a thousand steps from the bottom to the relative safety of the niche within the spire, and he’d been climbing long enough that his breath rasped in his chest, his legs hurt, and he was ready to sit down, and to deeps with the consequences and risks of falling to his death.

  Maybe if he was lucky, he’d hit the waters of the Foristasa if he fell, although he doubted the river would save him.

  “There must be something truly amiss for you to climb here, Breton,” a melodic voice called out over the hiss of the wind. No one emerged from the shadowed opening above.

  Breton stared at the stones at his feet and worked his way up the final steps. “It is quite the climb,” he acknowledged in a rueful tone.

  “But a quick trip down, yes?” the woman asked with a hint of laughter in her voice. “I didn’t think you, of all men, feared heights.”

  “I don’t. That, however, is a death sentence. You witches climb this every day?” Breton staggered into the niche and drew his hand over his brow. Asaleese smiled at him. At a wave of her hand, a glowing ball of light bobbed over his head.

  “Be welcomed to the Spire of the Eternal, Breton, Guardian of the King. What do you seek?”

  “Knowledge and advice,” he admitted, unable to stop from frowning. “Is Crysallis here?”

  “My sister walks the world. I may be young, but perhaps I can help?” Asaleese cocked her head to the side. Without looking away from him, she reached up and threw back the hood of her cloak to reveal her short-cropped, black hair. “Come, and be as one of us for as long as you can.”

  Breton shoved his hand in his pocket and pulled out the pouch he’d taken from the corpses on the plains. “Do you know of the outsiders?”

  “I did know of them. You will be pleased, I think, to learn that their voices do not pollute the song of our ancestors. One remains, but flees up the trails in fear of the one who follows. I feel for their horses, wretched though they might be. I do not think he will find them worthy.”

  “He?”

  Instead of replying, the witch gestured for him to follow. Stairs circled the entry niche’s walls to vanish through a hole far above.

  Breton swallowed back a sigh and began to climb. “I haven’t seen Crysallis in quite a while.”

  “She wanders far,” Asaleese replied.

  “It seems like a rather contagious disease. I don’t suppose you have a cure for it, do you?” Breton asked in a dry tone.

  “You’ve been keeping company with Maiten again, haven’t you?”

  “Not for half a year or more. He’s in Mithrias.”

  “He’ll be disappointed to learn of all of the excitement he has missed, then.” Asaleese guided him to the next level and sprawled on a stone bench covered with pillows. A thick carpet of furs covered the stone, and another bench lined the far wall. “Sit. Be comfortable. A drink? Perhaps I can tempt you with some Hessis for when we’ve finished talking about what has brought you up here.”

  “I might be tempted,” Breton admitted, flashing the witch a smile. “It may be a while until we cross paths again.”

  “Then allow me to give you a fitting farewell until we meet again. I, for one, will miss your skill in the spearing caves.” Asaleese sighed. “Do try not to get yourself killed chasing after that foal of yours.”

  “And here I thought you’d miss me for other reasons,” Breton replied, feigning disappointment.

  “We’ll discuss this at length—later. Surely that pouch isn’t all that brought you up the Eternal Spire?” The witch held out her hand. Breton dropped the pouch into her palm and sat on the floor beside her.

  “It did, in part. What’s in it?”

  “You haven’t opened it?”

  Breton shook his head. “They had poisoned their weapons.”

  “What do you think is within?”

  “The Three Sisters,” Breton replied with a cringe. “I was hoping it wasn’t.”

  “You’re wise not to open it then.” Asaleese slipped a finger under the string tying the pouch closed and opened it. Three sachets fell out into the palm of her other hand. “It seems your guess may have been correct.” Setting two of the smaller pouches aside, she opened the third and dipped her finger in. She lightly touched the white powder to the tip of her tongue. “Vellest. It seems it is as you feared.”

  “That’s a lot of poison.” Breton shivered at the thought of having carried enough poison to kill everyone in the city.

  “You want to know where it came from.”

  “Yes.”

  “You want to know where the outsiders are from.”

  “Yes.”

  The witch sighed, sealed the sachet, and returned it to the pouch. “I can’t help you. Perhaps Crysallis could, but I am not so skilled. Things now I can see, if the ancestors will it. Things to come, I try not to see. The things which were? I cannot. I’m sorry.”

  “You knew I was attacked,” Breton stated, watching the woman’s face for any reaction.

  Asaleese remained as stoic as the stones. “The ancestors willed me to see, so I did. You are favored, Guardian. They bid me to see your coming long before you knew you’d come to me. Just as I saw you’d stay for Hessis before you leave. I suggest you dance down the chutes instead of taking the stairs. The song of the ancients will not be kind to those who climb the spires by the time we’re finished.”

  “A Scouring?” Breton winced at the alarm in his voice. The violent storms of sand and wind didn’t strike often, but he hoped never to see one again.

  “No, nothing quite so severe. Not yet. Soon, but not yet.”

  “How soon?”

  “You will be far beyond the Rift when it comes, don’t fear.” Asaleese smiled at him. “I have not seen any more than that. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s enough,” Breton replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. It was more than the witches normally gave him, but he wasn’t going to say as much. Half the time, he wasn’t certain if they were making things up just to jerk on his reins. The other half of the time, he was so frightened of their sincerity that he didn’t want them to know how he felt about their existence. “About that foal of mine…”

  “I’ve seen little. You’ll need to rein him in, come time, but he’s as he is. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Stubborn,” Breton muttered.

  “Much like his father.”

  “I think you were mentioning something about some Hessis?”

  Asaleese laughed. “I knew you’d say that. Father and foal. If I didn’t know better, I’d believed you had sired him, too.”

  “I think I could use that drink now,” he muttered, unable to do anything more than wonder if everything would’ve been different if he was capable of siring foals of his own.

  “Yes,” Asaleese whispered, answering his unspoken thought before handing him a jug of the mushroom wine. “You would’ve been King instead.”

  Breton flinched, took the Hessis from the witch, and willed the drink to take
away the sharp edge of his guilt.

  ~~*~~

  Night had fallen over the Rift long before Breton was ready to ride. Perin stood still and calm to his right side. One of the gelding’s elegant ears swiveled forward then back, betraying the animal’s impatience. The witchlights floating overhead reflected on the horse’s glossy black coat. It should have been silent, but the clatter of hooves echoed in the canyon.

  At his left side, the King Stallion pranced in place with his tail lashing from side to side. Glassy, black eyes stared to the east at something Breton couldn’t see. Ferethian was a small horse perfect for an equally small man. And in true Rifter fashion, Ferethian didn’t let something as trivial as his lack of height slow him down.

  Breton shook his head and let out a low chuckle. “Soon,” he promised the horse. Ferethian cocked an ear at him and stilled. “We must wait for the others.”

  He was never certain just what the Rift horses understood, but the stallion quieted and stood so still he resembled a statue carved of onyx rather than a living beast. Breton dared to reach out and pat the black shoulder.

  The horses didn’t seem to think Ferethian’s height a flaw, and no matter how much the Stable Masters protested, Ferethian led the herds and only allowed the Rift King on his back. Breton shook his head and ran his fingers through the stallion’s silky mane.

  “Sorry, Breton. The quartermasters are at wit’s end trying to get everyone supplied,” Artin called out, leading a pair of geldings out of the tunnel that led through the cliffs to the royal stables. Close at his heels, Artin’s brother Voren led two more horses. The horses were packed light so that all of them could be ridden at a moment’s notice. The stable master led two more horses forward. One was Breton’s spare, Gorakas, and the second of was one of Kalen’s mares. The golden chestnut gleamed beneath the witchlights and reminded him of spun metal that burned with the radiance of the sun.

  She was one of the few non-black Rift horses.

  “I’ve learned in my years to listen when the horses have something to say. She refuses to be left behind, and I won’t have a horse suicide in my stables,” Thores said.

  Breton nodded. Things like that happened in the Rift, and he wasn’t about to argue with the man who knew the horses the best of all. Ferethian even let her carry Kalen, a privilege offered to few other horses.

  One day, he’d have to ask Kalen why he’d named the mare Honey. Few wilds let themselves be tamed, and those were the only horses that didn’t have names bestowed upon them based on the names of their sire, their dam, and the season of their birth.

  “Mount up,” Breton ordered. Ferethian’s bridle was packed away in the bags on his back. Thores unclipped the reins from the spare horses and packed them away in case they were needed.

  “Good luck,” Thores said.

  The witchlights hovered in front of Breton and lit the way for the horses. Ferethian led with the pack horses following. Breton didn’t look back and turned Perin up the steep trail that would eventually climb the side of the canyons and out into the mountains of the above world. He tried not to think of the sword-shaped lump in his packs, and hoped that none of the others noticed it. While he’d slipped one of Kalen’s replicas in place of the real Gorishitorik, he wasn’t going to leave the Rift King’s true sword so far from the man meant to wield it.

  He swallowed back his apprehension and forced it out of his mind. “Let’s go,” he said.

  “This is something the ancestors would have done,” Artin said. The younger man twisted around in the saddle to look back at Blind Mare Run. The breeze was hot and dry, but gentle, as they crossed the stone bridge that spanned the Life Giver. Breton stared down at the still waters of the river. Their witchlights reflected on the surface with the same twinkling beauty of the stars in the clear night sky.

  “I don’t think something like this has happened before,” Voren said.

  Breton shook his head. Ferethian hurried up the trail and stopped to stare down at them. Both of the horse’s black ears were laid back against his skull. The witchlight hovered over the stallion’s head in recognition that the real leader of their expedition had four legs instead of two and didn’t speak the Rift tongue at all.

  “We better hurry, else we’ll be left behind,” Breton said. Perin was eager to follow the Rift King’s horse, sliding into a ground-eating trot without much encouragement. So low on the trails, the path was easy and smooth. It’d been long cleared of debris and while sand did blow down from above, it dusted over the ground instead of burying it altogether.

  “Are you certain it is wise to bring him out of the Rift?” Artin brought his horse up next to Breton’s. Voren flanked him on the other side. Both were nearing their fourth decade and they’d been Guardians almost as long as they had been able to hold their swords. Breton neared his fifth decade, and he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t been a Guardian.

  “Do you think he’d be left behind when his master isn’t here?” Breton laughed. “He’d rip the stables apart trying to get out.”

  “They’re made out of stone, Breton,” Artin replied.

  “He’d find a way. He’s just like his master.”

  “Violent,” Voren muttered just loud enough for Breton to hear.

  “I was more thinking stubborn. It isn’t Kalen’s fault that everyone keeps trying to kill him. You’d figure they’d learn by now. Arik taught him, after all.”

  “Too well,” Artin said. “Don’t you ever wonder why, Breton? Why him? Why not someone else? Why didn’t he wait for someone to take their chance? Wouldn’t it be better if…”

  Breton fixed his eyes on Perin’s ears. How many times had he heard someone begin to ask that question without having the courage to finish? How many times had he wondered the same thing himself?

  Death came to everyone, but the Rift King couldn’t hang up his sword and walk away. It was something he was, and it was something he’d always be, until the last breath fled from his body. Breton couldn’t offer any relief from that reality.

  Kalen was the Rift King, and Breton was his Guardian. Gone were the days where Kalen had been just a lost youngling running from his past. Gone were the days where Breton had someone he could consider a son.

  He almost envied the above worlders for their mating rituals. They knew who their sires were.

  “Sometimes I wonder the same. Perhaps it is better that the role was foisted on someone who didn’t want it. It did Arik no favors when he killed Sorakis. Perhaps he wished to erase a past of bloodshed without knowing how many others would die because of it,” Breton said.

  “He couldn’t have known.” Voren shifted in the saddle and shook his head. The beads woven into his braids gleamed in the light. Breton’s lip twitched up in a sad smile. The way Kalen styled his hair was one more thing the Rift King couldn’t let go of. One of the first things the young man had done once within the Rift was shear off most of his hair, leaving his two long braids as a last vestige of his home and heritage.

  It was something that was becoming a part of their heritage. Breton didn’t wear the braids, but the colored beads marking his ancestry were in a pouch at his hip. Day by day, more took to wearing their colors in their hair. If Breton were to wear his beads, it would be when the Rift King tied them into place with the deft fingers of his lone hand.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Breton said. “What matters is finding him. Our first stop will be where he was last seen. Maybe we’ll find something there.”

  “If the nibblers haven’t finished with him by now,” Voren replied.

  “I wasn’t thinking about bones and bodies. He lives. Of that much, I’m certain.”

  “But for how long?” Artin asked.

  Breton wrinkled his nose. “Good question. Wish I knew. Then we wouldn’t be on the trails at night testing our luck in the worst possible ways.”

  “There is no better horse than Ferethian,” Voren said.

  “And no better Rider than his master,” Artik added. />
  Breton wasn’t comforted by it, despite the two speaking the truth. A horse and his Rider were the best when together, not when they were so far apart.

  ~~*~~

  Ferethian stopped in front of the entrance to a niche and refused to move. Breton eyed the opening, wrinkled his nose, and pressed his lips together in a thin line. Cracked boulders formed a slit leading into the darkness beyond. Artin and Voren tried to cajole the stallion, but Ferethian stayed as still and quiet as the cliffs that surrounded them. Not even the wind dared to blow, as though afraid to wipe away whatever trace that might have remained after a month.

  Breton dismounted and unclipped Perin’s reins and threw them over his shoulder. “Ferethian.”

  The stallion cocked an ear toward him. When Breton didn’t try to urge the horse away from the niche, the black head turned to face him. “Was Kalen here?”

  Ferethian stared at the entrance to the niche and waited.

  “I can’t fit in there,” Artin said.

  “Don’t look at me. It’d take a child to…” Voren trailed off and stared at the Rift King’s horse and then at the niche again. “Oh.”

  “‘Oh,’ indeed,” Breton replied. “Open it up.”

  “‘Open it up’, he says,” Voren mumbled. “Because it is so easy to break through rock.”

  That didn’t stop the Guardian from lifting his hands and drawing patterns in the air with his right index finger. There weren’t words to the witch’s incantation. A faint globe of light trailed after Voren’s hands. It didn’t float or follow a soul like a true witchlight, but it was enough to illuminate the entrance.

  Once, the opening in the cliff might have been large enough for mounted men, but stones had fallen from the cavern’s ceiling and piled up at the mouth. “If we tie ropes around these rocks and use the horses, we might be able to get in,” Voren muttered.

  Breton frowned at the scars on the wall. There was no lichen, and dust didn’t cake the gouges.

  “This is recent,” Artin said, echoing Breton’s thoughts. “It might still be unstable, Breton.”