Gift of the Shaper, page 8
"What would make tracks shallower?" Kethras asked, not wanting to give the answer directly.
Thornton grimaced and looked at the tracks again, hoping that inspiration would suddenly strike. It did not, and he looked again at Kethras. The Kienari eyed him up and down, settling finally upon his hammer, which was strapped to his back. "Take a step and look at your tracks," he said. Thornton did as he was told. "Now put your hammer on the ground and take another step."
He did so, standing it on its head so that the handle was facing the sky. When he looked at his shallower tracks, his face flushed red. "They rid themselves of whatever they were carrying," he said to the ground.
"And this is the most important part—" Kethras said, ignoring his embarrassment and pointing nearby, "a new set of footprints."
Ynara turned to Miera and whispered, "He'll take any opportunity to show off."
The stifled laughter from both of them drew a stern look from Kethras.
"The tracks split here," he continued. "Three going this way, to the southwest, and the rest going off to the east." Standing up, he said, "If you can tell me which direction we should follow, I won't make you catch your own dinner tonight."
Thornton looked carefully at the tracks. His eyes went back and forth over the hoof prints and the footprints. He stood up and looked at Kethras, his eyebrows arched in a look of uncertainty. "East?"
"Ynara?" Kethras said over his shoulder.
"The poor boy will starve," she said as she approached them. "The new tracks lead southwest, toward Lusk."
Thornton put his hands in his face. He was not looking forward to hunting tonight.
They kept the sun in front of them as they traveled, always keeping an eye on the tracks. Kethras walked beside Thornton, who rode atop Jericho, and Ynara walked beside Miera. Neither of the Kienari had asked to ride, and Thornton was fairly certain they wouldn't have wanted to. And, despite how subtle he thought he was in staring at the Kienari, Thornton was surprised when Kethras asked, "Is something the matter?" without even taking his eyes off the trail.
Thornton jerked his eyes away quickly when he knew that he was caught. "Sorry. It's just, I thought Kienari were only stories. I still can't believe you're real."
This caused a hint of a smile to appear on Kethras's lips. "We do not venture much outside the forests of Kienar, it is true. Has it really been that long?"
Thornton looked puzzled. "That long?"
"Humans and Kienari have not always been strangers." His voice sounded distant as he spoke. "No doubt the stories you've heard are evidence of this. Once, we walked among you."
"What happened?" Thornton asked.
"The Khyth happened," he spat, like he had taken in a mouthful of poison.
Thornton was quiet, but the curiosity that showed on his face urged Kethras to continue. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled it loudly, hesitating.
"Our Mother is very old," he started. "She was old even when humans were young. She watched them as they grew, as they multiplied, and as they became enlightened. She watched them when they first felt the energy that is abundant in the Otherworld. Unlike Kienari, who are children of this world, humans are children of both. Their bodies are merely vessels for the energy inside them, which comes from the Otherworld. When humans were young, it was only their dreams that connected them to the Otherworld. They were never supposed . . . They were never meant to control that power. The energies that exist in the Otherworld are the powers of creation and destruction themselves."
He paused to look at the sky, which was starting to become red and purple as the sun sank lower and lower in front of them. "But the draw of power is not easily ignored. From the Otherworld came whispers—whispers with promises of power, promises of mastery over the energies that shaped the world. Its pull was too strong and humans were too weak. What they wanted was mastery over life and death. The true danger, though, was getting what they wanted."
He sighed as if the retelling was hard. "To have the power over death, they embraced the Breaker—they became death. And there was no room left for their humanity. Our Mother saw the darkness in them, and it made her sad and afraid—afraid for her children. She knew that humans had tasted the Breaker's power and would only spread his destruction to all that they touched. She could not stop them, so she withdrew. She took her children and left."
"But you humans—you saw it too. Those of you that embraced the darkness were forced out and set apart. They were the first Khyth."
"Was that what caused the Shaping War?" Thornton asked quietly.
"Yes. Because no matter how great the power of death, it will always be but a part of life. And a small pocket of humanity cried out for life, turning their backs on the Khyth, who once had the audacity to call themselves human. They cried out against the power that their own blood had embraced. Though they could not know it, their cries reached the ears of the Shaper of Ages Herself—and She listened. Knowing She could never erase the mark that the Breaker had laid upon humanity, She gave up Her own power in response, abandoning the Otherworld for this one and empowering the Athrani—those touched by the Shaper Herself. Using the gift She gave them through Her very being, they struck down the Khyth and pushed them out, pushed them away, into the depths of Khala Val'ur."
"That was a long, long time ago," said Miera, "so long that most of us have forgotten it ever happened."
"Humans do not have long memories," Ynara said flatly.
"But the Athrani are still young," Kethras continued, "and think highly of themselves. They think themselves greater than humans but conveniently forget that they were once human too. They only have to look to the Khyth to see what they are capable of."
Thornton pondered this quietly as the sun sank below the horizon and left just a sliver of the moon to light their path.
Chapter 11
Athrani Prison, Outside of Lusk
Olson
Getting Aidren up the stairs was treacherous in its own right, and every step that Olson took was met with groans from the decrepit wood. When they reached the top, they kept on, straight down the hallway that led to the site of their earlier encounter.
As they approached the corridor where they had fought only moments before, they stepped past the translucent cage where Dailus had trapped their two assailants, who still pounded at its walls pleadingly. Olson eyed the body of Rimbal, who still lay on the ground in the same position he'd left him after he finished smashing his fist into his well-scarred face. He wasn't moving, and that suited Olson just fine.
"Let's get out of here," he said. Dailus and Aidren had no objections.
Just as they were about to leave the room, though, Olson heard a noise come from Rimbal's direction. He couldn't quite make it out—it sounded like a grunt of desperation more than anything—but it was followed by what sounded like a bone bouncing off the stone floor. He turned just in time to see the room flood with light.
Shielding his eyes from the emerald glow filling the room, Olson squinted in confusion as the walls began to tremble. He looked to Rimbal, who was still lying on the floor, to make sure he wasn't seeing things.
"What did you do?" Olson shouted.
"Like I'd tell you," Rimbal grunted. He followed it up with a sound like strained laughter.
Something on the edge of Olson's vision caught his eyes as he looked back to the trembling walls, from which progressively bigger and bigger chunks of gray stone had begun dropping onto the floor. Enough of them had come loose that he was sure the walls were about to collapse around them.
He watched as the stones on the floor came together in the same way that iron filings would attack a magnet. Then, when the pile of stone had grown large enough, it stood up.
"Dailus," Olson said as he backed up, "are you seeing this?"
The Athrani half-eye was staring at the pile of stone that had taken a human-like form. It was huge and sturdy-looking, despite being cobbled together from dregs of the prison walls.
"I am," was all Dailus said.
The hulking figure lumbered toward Olson, its feet sinking into the ground with each thunderous step that it took. Keeping his eyes on it, Olson knelt to place Aidren on the ground as he shouted gruffly to Dailus, "I hope you got some really great rest back there."
Dailus's eyes were white-hot. "We shall see," he said flatly. The stone creature continued toward Olson, who was gathering himself for either impact or counterattack. Dailus raised his hands into the air, and the fog that had come before began to swirl and thicken around the creature. The whole room seemed steeped in clouds that thickened and turned to a solid gray.
Olson watched, impressed, as the creature stopped in its tracks, trapped inside the impenetrable prison that Dailus had conjured from thin air.
"Nicely done," Olson said, dropping his guard.
But as the creature's arm burst through the cage, Dailus could do nothing but watch as its other arm broke free followed by a rocky torso and head. Both men stared with growing concern as the rest of the creature emerged and charged once more, straight at Olson.
"I take it back," Olson said, ducking a wildly swung fist from the creature. He lowered his shoulder and charged into the midsection of the great stone golem, driving it back toward the wall. It took every ounce of his strength to move the thing.
"Where did this come from?" he shouted to Dailus as they slammed against the wall.
"I hardly see how that is relevant right now," Dailus said.
Taking a blow to the stomach that knocked him halfway across the room, Olson inhaled sharply and looked up with narrowed eyes at his Athrani compatriot. "Because I'd like to figure out how to stop it."
Aidren had sat up and was looking at Rimbal. "Him," he said with all the strength he could muster. "It came from him."
Watching Rimbal wheeze with laughter between strained breaths, Olson asked, "Is he Athrani?" As the words left his mouth, the creature charged at him again.
"No, but he somehow has the power of Shaping," Aidren answered, confusion in his voice. "The Otherworld does not flow through him, but . . . it surrounds him."
The creature clasped its hands together and brought them down on Olson, who caught the brunt of the blow on his shoulders and dropped to his knees. Defiantly, he stood back up and smashed his fist into the creature's face with just as much pain as futility. He shook his hand in agony as the creature head-butted his chest and sent him staggering backward.
"I've used hammers softer than this thing," he yelled at Dailus, who looked to be wandering around the room in search of something. "Any help you can offer would be nice." Sidestepping a head-on charge from the creature, Olson watched as it crashed straight through the stone wall and into another room.
"Just give me a moment," Dailus said as he deftly checked the pockets of the barely conscious big man.
"Breaker's Hammer, Dailus! You and your moments!" Olson bellowed, trying to get a glimpse of the creature through the dust it had kicked up. He saw it early enough to take a dangling piece of the wall and throw it at the creature's head. The stone smashed to bits and appeared to not even faze the creature, but certainly served to enrage it.
"Ah, here it is," Dailus said. He held aloft the white horn that he'd found near Rimbal. "Catch."
Dailus tossed the bony growth to Olson, who caught it and looked more confused than when the creature had first showed up. "And?" he asked as he raised his forearm to shield himself from the moving statue that bore down on him.
"That horn somehow controls the creature," he answered simply.
Faster than he could think, Olson took the pointed end of the horn and brought it down in a merciless blow to the top of the creature's head. He buried it halfway in and kept going, following through with every bit of strength left in him.
It was enough.
In mid-stride the creature dropped to the ground and broke apart, leaving nothing but clouds of dust and a pile of stones that matched the walls of the prison.
After the air had finally cleared, Olson lowered the arm that shielded his face and looked at Dailus. "I think now is as good a time as any to make our way outside."
Dailus nodded in agreement. "This way," he said to Olson, who gave Rimbal a kick in the ribs before helping up Aidren.
"Just let me catch my breath," Olson mumbled. His fists were throbbing, and he was hoping that the pain in his shoulder wasn't serious. "Otherwise, you're going to have to drag both of us out of here."
A thin smile spread across Dailus's lips. "Of course."
"What do we do with him?" Olson asked as he sat down, nodding to Rimbal. The big man was drifting in and out of consciousness but still represented a threat. Especially if he has any more of those horns, Olson thought.
Dailus paled at the question. "Are you asking . . .," he leaned in to Olson and whispered, "are you asking if we should kill him?"
Olson laughed. "Relax, Dailus. I meant we should probably move him somewhere."
The half-eye visibly relaxed. "Oh, thank goodness," he said. "That's much better than the alternative." He looked back at Olson. "But I don't think any of us are in any shape to do so."
Olson looked at the big man on the floor and felt the pain surging through his shoulders and arms.
Dailus is right, he thought. After the beating he had just taken, he could barely help Aidren, who weighed maybe half as much. He watched Rimbal's chest moving up and down, as it looked like the big man had slipped into unconsciousness.
"He's not going anywhere," Olson finally said. He knew that the longer they rested there, the less chance they had of escape. With a grimace, he stood up and said, "Leave him. Let's go."
Dailus helped Aidren to his feet, and the three of them made their way out of the room and toward some promising rays of light that seemed to point to an exit. After a fair amount of walking, the three of them found themselves in an entryway of sorts with a large set of double doors.
Olson eyed them warily and turned to Dailus. "I don't know too much about the men who captured us," he started. "Could this be rigged with a trap of some sort? With . . . Shaping?"
Dailus stepped forward and looked them over. The doors were huge and as ornate as they were massive. They had carvings from top to bottom depicting scenes from history and myth. A carving near the bottom showed a group of people raising their hands skyward and one figure surrounded by a light with a hammer in one hand and a glowing chain in the other, poised to strike an anvil. Another picture portrayed a dark figure reaching out his hand and a cluster of smaller figures reaching out for it. On the very top of both was a giant white skeletal hand about the size of a man.
"I don't think they're trapped," Dailus said. He reached out and traced one of the carvings on the door with his finger. "But what is this place?"
"I don't know," Olson answered. Besides the carving on the doors, he didn't see anything else remarkable about where they were being held. From what he could tell, it was nothing more than a prison. "And I'd really rather not find out. Help me get these doors open. Aidren is starting to get heavy."
Dailus shot an annoyed look back at Olson but did as he was asked. Pushing on one of the heavy doors, it opened with a groan.
The last of the light had retreated from the sky, leaving only darkness outside, with a tiny fingernail of a moon above.
Before them stretched trees in all directions, and the walls of the prison were overgrown with ivy. It looked like it had been abandoned for quite some time but had clearly been repurposed and revitalized for . . . whatever these men were using it for. Olson looked back at the huge stone structure and scratched his head, wondering just how many Athrani had seen the insides of it—and how many had managed to make it back out.
"This way," Dailus said, emerging from a trail that led into the woods. Olson turned and followed, with Aidren leaning on him heavily for support. When they were well clear of the prison, Olson stooped and helped Aidren to the ground, then stood up and stretched.
"We need to get him home," Dailus said to him, "to Ellenos."
The younger Athrani's face was pale, and his now-human eyes were focused on something in the distance.
"Oh no," Olson said sternly. "He's your problem. I have to get back to my son."
"Olson," Aidren said weakly; the words were soft, but enough to make both men stop and listen. "Whatever the Khyth have done to me, it's clear that there is more at stake here than your own life or even the life of your son. Know this: they will not stop with just one Athrani." He paused. "If the Khyth have their way, a missing father will be the least of your son's concerns."
"He's right," Dailus said. "Ellenos must be warned. If the Khyth have figured out a way to take our power, there may be no stopping them."
Aidren coughed and took a breath, "The one who did this . . ." He coughed again. " . . . D'kane—he is after the Hammer of the Worldforge."
Dailus stood up and stared into the emptiness of the night. "Then we have no choice."
Olson turned from both of them and looked at the sky, taking in the faint light of the moon, and put one hand on his chin, stroking the length of his beard in thought. "How far is Ellenos?"
"We would never make it in time by traveling on foot," Aidren admitted.
"Whatever the Khyth are planning," said Dailus, "must be dealt with swiftly and soon. We need horses—fast ones. Once we find some that suit our needs, we can make it in a few days' travel."
Olson scratched his head and frowned. He looked at Dailus, then at Aidren. One is almost too weak to walk, and the other can barely handle himself in a fight. He took a deep breath and resigned himself to help. "Fine, but we stop when I say, and you pay for my horse." He tossed Dailus a few coins. "This might help. I took it off one of the guards."
The half-eye smiled at the sight of coins. "Agreed. Now let's get him on his feet so we can put as much ground as possible between this place and us."
Olson and Dailus each took one of Aidren's hands and helped him up.
"Thank you," Aidren said weakly.
