The Realm of the Deathless, page 1
PRAISE FOR GREG KEYES
THE REIGN OF THE DEPARTED
“Keyes is a master of world building and of quirky characters who grow into their relationships in unexpected ways. Fans of his Age of Unreason and his Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone fantasy series will want to get in on the ground floor of the High and Faraway series.”— Booklist
“I liked a lot of what Keyes was doing in the novel, in terms of the story itself, the characters, and laying the groundwork for a multi-book narrative. The world where Errol awakens in his new body has a lived-in feel, a world with history and mythology of its own.... the story reminded me of Kate Elliott’s Crown of Stars.”— SFFWorld
“Starts in the realm of normalcy and quickly descends into the favorably bizarre and surprising ... there was not one character that was uninteresting. The world building is epic.
A magical realm that mirrors earth while residing under a curse was not only inventive but enthralling.”
— Koeur’s Book Reviews, 4.4/5 stars
THE BRIAR KING
“A wonderful tale ... It crackles with suspense and excitement from start to finish.” —Terry Brooks
“The characters in The Briar King absolutely brim with life ... Keyes hooked me from the first page and I’ll now be eagerly anticipating sitting down with each future volume of The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series.”
— Charles de Lint
“A thrill ride to the end, with plenty of treachery, revelation, and even a few bombshell surprises.”
—Monroe News-Star (LA)
THE AGE OF UNREASON
“Features the classic elements of science fiction: high-tech gadgetry, world-threatening superpower conflict, a quest to save the world, and a teen hero who’s smarter than most of the adults ... Powerful.”—USA Today
“Seems likely to establish Keyes as one of the more significant and original new fantasy writers to appear in recent years.” —Science Fiction Chronicle
THE REALM Of THE DEATHLESS
THE HIGH AND FARAWAY BOOK THREE
ALSO BY GREG KEYES
The High and Faraway
The Reign of the Departed
Kingdoms of the Cursed
Chosen of the Changeling
The Waterborn
The Blackgod
The Hounds of Ash: and Other Tales of Fool Wolf
The Age of Unreason
Newton’s Cannon
A Calculus of Angels
Empire of Unreason
The Shadows of God
The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone
The Briar King
The Charnel Prince
The Blood Knight The Born Queen
Babylon 5: The Psi Corps Trilogy
Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps
Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendent
Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester
Star Wars: The New Jedi Order
Edge of Victory I: Conquest
Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
The Final Prophecy
The Elder Scrolls
The Infernal City
Lord of Souls
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm
War for the Planet of the Apes: Revelations
XCOM 2: Resurrection
Independence Day: Crucible
Pacific Rim Uprising: Ascension
For Joyce Bowen
THE REALM Of THE DEATHLESS
THE HIGH AND FARAWAY BOOK THREE
GREG KEYES
NIGHT SHADE BOOKS
NEW YORK | NEW JERSEY
Copyright © 2022 by Greg Keyes
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Night Shade Books, 221 Rivre Street, 9th Floor, Hoboken, NJ 07030.
Night Shade Books is an imprint of Start Publishing LLC.
Visit our website at www.nightshade.start-publishing.com.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
Cover illustration by Micah Epstein
Cover design by Claudia Noble
Print ISBN: 978-1-949102-56-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-59780-629-9
Printed in the United States of America
PART ONE:
THE BUTCHERED GIANT
ONE
THE SORCERER’S TOWER
Her father’s handwriting appeared on the page as if he were writing it just now, each letter curling into existence in his distinctive style. Neither hand nor pen were present, but Aster smelled the wet ink.
Her vision blurred with tears as she remembered watching him write when she was little. How he had taught her to form the letters of the ancient script, so different from the one she was learning at school. How carefully she had tried to copy him. The smile when she got something right, the frown he gave her when her mind wandered, and the figures were ill-formed. In those days, he had been all there. Body, soul, and mind. Her father.
But then he had diminished. His memory failed, and he could not learn new things. She grew older and older, became a young woman, but he only remembered her as a little girl. She had to explain to him each day who she was. And eventually, each fifteen minutes. He had cursed the universe, and the curse caught up with him.
And now he was gone completely, and she was left with this, what was less than his ghost.
The books in her father’s ancient library were all like this, blank until she opened them. There was much of interest in them: Whimsies and Adjurations, Utterances and Names. The everyday habits of unspeakable terrors, the language of flowers, poems written by no human versifier.
But none of it was what she was looking for. None of it would help her set the wrongs of a cursed world right. And nothing here told her how to bring her father back from the dead.
She sighed, rubbed her weary eyes and stood. She walked across the floor of dark, crystal-seamed stone, passed through an arch and onto a terrace. Her father’s ancient dwelling was a true sorcerer’s tower, a corkscrew spire thrust into the sky, and she stood near its summit.
Above the stars blazed, brightest among them the sun. But only just. It still showed a sphere, and left spots upon her eye when she looked upon it. The sky near it was deep blue, but the horizons were black. Whether the sun was shrinking or getting farther away, Aster did not know. Only that its light was steadily dwindling.
The High and Faraway was running down, like a clock with no one to wind it. And she did not know how to fix it.
She had hoped here, in her father’s ancient demesne, she would discover some answers. A cure for the curse. But this had been his dwelling before he cast the fateful spell, before he met her mother, before her birth. Maybe there were no answers to be found here. But she didn’t know where else to go, or who else to ask.
The only person who might have shown her the next step was her father, and he was gone, struck down by his own dark magic.
She stood there for a while, feeling the night breeze raise bumps on her arms, listening to the calls of the elder beasts that roamed the wilder lands around the castle, watching the dying sun. Everything was damp from a shower earlier, and the scents of moss and pine and granite surrounded her.
Then she turned back to the study and its books. Billy sat sleeping in one of the chairs; he’d been trying to stay up with her and failed. She didn’t disturb him but retired to the little room in the corner and lay on the bed there. She would close her eyes for a few moments, she thought, and then continue her search.
She woke to someone stroking her hair. It felt familiar, and for the beat of a heart she believed it was her father before remembering it couldn’t be. She cracked her eyes open, but she did not move for fear that it was some enemy in disguise. Better to let them think she was still asleep.
A woman sat on the bed next to her; with a start she realized it was Ms. Fincher, who had once been her school guidance counselor and later her father’s lover. Her chin was down, and her long bangs covered her eyes.
“It’s not here,” Ms. Fincher whispered. “It’s not here, Streya. It’s in the house, back in the Reign of the Departed.”
“What?” Aster said. “Ms. Fincher?”
“The Moon,” she whispered. “The Sun. The Morning Star. To guide you.”
Fincher’s hand raised and rested on Aster’s cheek. She lifted her head and looked into Aster’s eyes. “Streya,” she said. Only it was her father’s voice.
Aster jerked awake again, sweating despite the chill in the air. It had been a dream, nothing more.
But was she awake yet? Ms. Fincher was still there.
“Ms. Fincher?” she gasped.
“Aster?” The older woman turned slowly; she lifted her head, so Aster could see her brow was furrowed. Then she quickly stood up, nearly stumbling.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“My father’s demesne,” Aster replied. “His castle.
Remember? We came here in the silver ship?”
“Of course,” Ms. Fincher said. “I was asleep ...”
“Do you remember saying anything to me?” Aster asked.
“About something not being here?”
The woman’s frown deepened. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But it isn’t, here, is it? No.” She backed away a few steps. “What’s happening?” she asked, her voice trembli
“I don’t know,” Aster said. But she knew something was. Only her father called her Streya.
***
Errol had the last watch, so when it was over, he went straight to the tower’s refectory for breakfast. The sun and heavens were no longer keeping time, but something in the ancient building was. It delivered three meals a day; a breakfast, which was usually an assortment of things, a lunch of roasted meat or heavy stew, and a usually some sort of soup for supper. As with the silver ship, they never knew exactly what would appear on the long stone table. That “morning” it was a soft cheese, black bread, honey, plums, and figs. Errol thought it was improvement over the day before, which had featured small, oily fish complete with heads and tails, something like a cross between butter and blue cheese, some sort of pickle that had not started life as a cucumber, and a curiously spongy flatbread.
They had been in this place for five breakfasts; he didn’t know how long it took them to get here, but it hadn’t seemed like it had been that long since Haydevil had arrived with the silver ship to rescue them from the Island of the Othersun. He and his sisters had left soon after, not interested in more adventures with Errol and his friends. Errol couldn’t say he blamed them.
He sat in his usual spot and picked up the goblet furnished there. He sipped it tentatively and found it to be some sort of fruit juice with a slight flavor of licorice. That wasn’t too bad.
He was hungry, but decided to wait until someone joined him before digging in. Dusk had had the watch before him, so she would probably sleep for a little longer, but usually someone else was down by now.
A few minutes later, Aster arrived, alone.
“Morning,” he said.
She nodded, took a seat. She looked at the food but didn’t seem in a hurry to eat anything. He decided he had been polite enough and reached for some bread and cheese.
“Find anything yet?” he asked, before taking a bite. The bread tasted peppery, and the cheese was pungent but decent. He dribbled a little honey on it using the little wooden spoon in the jar, which improved it considerably.
“Maybe,” she said.
“That’s good.”
The plums were good, but the figs were pure heaven; they took him back to when he was five, eating them off of his grandfather’s tree, everything still wet with morning dew, the cicadas just starting to churr as he climbed, barefoot, into the higher branches searching for more.
“What we’re looking for isn’t here,” she said. “It’s back at my house. In Sowashee.”
“Seriously?”
“I should have considered that first,” she said. “It was stupid of me to seek out this place. He lived here before the curse. I thought I might find whatever spell he used to do it here, but now I think he made it up on the spot. Any thoughts he might have had about ending it would be back home, where we landed after the curse.”
“Yeah,” Errol said. “That does make sense. Too bad. It’s comfortable here.”
“You can stay if you want,” she said.
“You know better than that.”
Her lips turned up in that minimal little smile of hers. “Yes,” she said.
“When do we go?”
“We eat,” she said. “We pack, and we go.”
***
They kept watches from an abundance of caution, but once the tower recognized Aster as being Kostye’s daughter, it had been a safe enough place, so Errol hadn’t put on his armor in days. The same couldn’t be said of the forest outside, so after breakfast he took a basin bath and then donned his gear. It was amazing stuff; Dusk had had it made for him from the remains of the automaton his soul had once inhabited, and when he placed a piece of it against him in the appropriate place, it sort of fused to his skin. When he’d first put it on, he didn’t think he could take it off, but Dusk eventually got around to telling him how to do it. The armor came with a sword made of the same stuff. He didn’t know much about sword fighting, but fortunately the sword knew plenty.
“Are you clothed in there, Errol?”
None of the rooms had doors on them, but when he glanced over, he couldn’t see Dusk.
“You can come in,” he said. “I’m decent.”
“That’s not what I asked,” she said.
Oh, God, she’s flirting, he thought. What do I do? Then he realized she really might not have understood him.
“I mean yes, I’m dressed,” he clarified.
“Very well,” she said, stepping around the corner. Grinning. So she had been flirting.
She was also armored, head-to-toe except for her helmet. It was a look she pulled off exceptionally well.
“Back to the whale-roads, I guess,” she said.
“Looks like it,” he replied.
“It’s just as well,” she said. “It doesn’t sit well with me to do nothing for any length of time.”
“Yeah, I kind of gathered that about you,” he said. “Are we ready to go?”
“I’m ready,” she said. “Are you?”
“Ah,” he said. “Yes, I think so. I didn’t bring much in with me that I’m not wearing.”
***
Delia had found the garden within hours of their arrival at the tower. It was almost as if she had known it was there, and when she saw it, she had a powerful sense of déjà vu. From what she could tell, the tower had been carved from a natural spire of rock, and though it generally grew narrower as it grew taller—like any good tower—it wasn’t entirely regular or uniform. The garden jutted out from the main structure. It dropped down in three tiers connected by stairways and by a little stream; the final tier had a balcony overlooking the forest below. The stream passed through an opening in the balcony and became a waterfall. Bromeliads clung to the stone walls, and blooming vines clambered everywhere. Pines and hemlock twisted from cracks in the stone, resembling bonsai. The top terrace was mostly moss and fern, the next a meadow theme with a weeping willow shading the creek and wildflowers underfoot. The third was a small orchard with apples, pears, and peaches. It was clear to her that someone or something tended it, but she never saw anyone, and she’d spent much of her time in it since they had arrived at the castle. She thought she felt Kostye’s presence her, or at least the Kostye she knew. The rest of the tower felt—well, evil.
She was surprised to find Aster already there, at the balcony. “Aster?” she said.
“Hello Delia,” she said. “I thought you would come here.”
“To say goodbye,” she said. “I have enjoyed this place.”
“It’s beautiful,” Aster said. “And I know you like gardens.”
“That’s true.”
Aster turned toward her; the little star on her forehead flickered with light.
“Do you remember anything, Delia?” she asked. “Anything from when you spoke to me last night?”
“I thought it was a dream,” Delia said. “I was speaking a language I couldn’t understand. The only thing I can remember now is that we’re supposed to go home. Back to Sowashee.”
“My father used to call me ‘Streya’, sometimes. Did he ever say that to you?”
“I don’t think so,” she said.
“But you said it,” Aster pressed.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Delia said. “But ... but I have been dreaming about him.”
“What kind of dreams?”
“I’ll be doing something ordinary,” she said. “Gardening or doing dishes —something like that. And then I’ll turn and just see him. And in my dreams, it isn’t strange. I don’t remember that he’s not supposed to be there.”
“You never said anything about this,” Aster said.
“Because It’s normal, Aster. It’s part of the grieving process. I was trained in this, you know.”
“I know,” Aster said. “But whatever happened two nights ago—that was more than a dream. I think he’s found some way to talk to us, through you. He’s trying to help us. So if ... if he says something to you in your dreams, would you please tell me?”
“Absolutely,” Delia said.
“I’ll leave you alone for a few moments,” Aster said. “But we need to leave soon.”
