James West - The God King

The snowstorm that heralded King Sharaal’s abrupt rise to the Ivory Throne and the death of his son became known as the White Death-a term hitherto used only by northerners of Izutar and Falseth, and perhaps by the Whitehold savages, in their guttural tongue. The deadly blizzard raged for ten days. Snow piled high throughout Ammathor, burying an already suffering city. During that bleak time, soldiers scoured both Ammathor and the Chalice in hopes of finding food, warm clothing, and anything that might burn. People by the hundreds froze to death by day, and more during the dark watches of long brutal nights, never knowing the gradual and unexpected warmth in their limbs, the resting peacefulness that closed their eyes, was death stealing near.

During the first days of the new king’s rule, even as the storm raged, Sharaal gladly earned a title never before given a Kilvar king- the Cruel -after he gave a command of such brutality that men would whisper of it around Aradaner hearth fires for years to come. Those tales would survive far beyond the king’s death, after bitter winters became commonplace to Aradaners, whose fading memories of southern warmth eventually became legend. Yet, the grim stories of Sharaal the Cruel were not the darkest tales men would tell, far from it, only the most palatable….

“When do you think it will end?” Ellonlef asked, her dark eyes turned up to a sky so void of color that even the falling snowflakes looked like dark, swirling spots.

They had departed the palace two days before, but were only now just reaching the frozen banks of the River Malistor, what usually amounted to an afternoon ride. Thankfully, the snow was less deep down from the Pass of Trebuldar, but still deeper than any snow that had ever fallen at the edge of the Kaliayth Desert.

All around, a flat blanket of white covered the land. To the south and west, the depthless sky brooded, growing darker by the hour. Another storm was coming. Warily, Kian had watched it building throughout the day. They would need to seek shelter soon. The road north would be long and hazardous, but none of his company wanted to stay in Aradan, even had King Sharaal allowed it. As it was, the king ordered all peoples not of Aradaner birth to depart his realm before springtime, or choose between the headsman’s ax or a life in chains. In the face of catastrophe, he had given his subjects enemies upon which to focus and blame, and when those enemies were gone, he would find others.

“Winter, I mean,” Ellonlef added, a thick woolen scarf muffling her voice. Small cold flakes lighted on her brow and nose, and melted slowly.

When will it end? Kian tried to mull Ellonlef’s question, but found it difficult. Though he had been absent from his homelands many years, he was a child of the north, and he had readily adopted the garb of his homelands. Like the rest of his companions, he wore many layers of clothing: thick leather leggings lined with soft wool, a similar tunic with two more underneath, a thick fur-and-wool cloak with a deep fur-lined hood, and sturdy boots, stockings, and gloves-all gifts from Hya’s ample stockpile of once nearly useless items.

She had given away much to those in need in the Chalice, and from the rest she had earned a king’s ransom by selling her stockpile to, naturally, King Sharaal. After that, she left for the eastern border of Aradan, to the shores that people had already named the Lost Coast. Recalling the story of Rida’s fate, of the burning mountain that had fallen out of the sky to smash into those eastern shores, shattering the lands, and allowing the flow of molten rock to flow over shore and sea, Kian and the others had tried to talk her out of such a treacherous journey, but she would have none of it.

“There will be those in need” she had said, “perhaps even a few Sisters of Najihar. At the least, people will need a healer.” To Ellonlef, she had explained, “If Pa’amadin favors me, I will begin rebuilding our order. As well, you should embark on such an endeavor to the north. We have never had an Izutarian sister, and I should hope to see one before my spirit leaves this flesh.”

The old woman had departed them in the company of O’naal, of all people, and a few of his followers. After seeing the manner of King Sharaal’s rule, O’naal wisely decided he should earn his way in friendlier realms. Kian guessed that too few would follow O’naal’s path, to their grief.

Hya never mentioned the powers of creation she had seen Ellonlef use to heal Kian, but Kian had noticed a curious gleam in her rheumy eyes every time she looked at either of them. Of course, he knew what she suspected was in fact truth: he and Ellonlef held within them the powers of creation, as did Hazad and Azuri, though they did not know it, not yet. Peropis’s words rose to the surface of his mind. “A new age has dawned….” He suspected that the all the world had been washed in the powers of creation. He could not guess who or how many these powers had sank into, but in time those who had been touched by those powers would learn of them. As was the way of things, some would wield their newfound powers for good, others for evil, and in time a new order would be born from the ashes of the old world.

His thoughts turned as he gazed into the sluggish gray-brown waters of the river, choked with growing floes of squealing and scraping ice. Doubtless, the surface would soon freeze solid. Farther south, those thickening waters held the corpses of thousands of Aradaner soldiers and various highborn, men and women who had stood with Varis, against their will or not. Sharaal had ordered their limbs torn from their bodies, the wounds cauterized, then commanded them thrown screaming into the river-at least, that was one story Kian had heard. As it was the gentlest tale of them all, he chose to believe that one in particular, understanding full well that King Sharaal would embrace the more monstrous tales of his brutality, using them to further his own ends.

Kian feared there would be trouble with Sharaal and others like him, for in times of tragedy bent men always rose up to exploit the weak and fearful with false hope. A battle, he reasoned, had been won against Varis and Peropis, but without question an insidious war had come on the world in the form of destruction and loosed demonic spirits. At the moment, he could not guess who would ultimately prevail.

“Well?” Ellonlef insisted playfully, having no idea what Kian had been thinking about.

Shaking off gloomy thoughts, he gazed at her, enraptured, willfully falling into her dark, liquid eyes. At the moment, there was no need to dwell on Sharaal, or what the burgeoning age might hold, or what the powers of creation held inside him might mean-the same powers he had transferred into his friends when he returned their lives to them. All that mattered now was in front of him.

“Winter?” he muttered, playfully putting on the face of a doddering magus. “Dear one, winter it will end when it always does, with the arrival of spring.”

She rolled her eyes and laughed a girl’s delighted laugh. Azuri and Hazad, at the head of a string of pack horses, added their mirth to hers. Kian-who as child had avoided Kelren slavers and survived vicious cutthroats on the streets of Marso, who had grown into a man and a mercenary to fight innumerable battles, a man who had survived the shattering of the world and witnessed the loosing of the mahk’lar from the Thousand Hells, a man who had stood firm against a diabolical youth with the powers of gods-found himself laughing as well.

For the first time in many long days, he felt absolutely alive and whole. Laughter, shared as it was with lifelong friends and the woman he would wed, drove back the cold and threat of coming hardships, left him as warm as if he were tucked away in a cozy home before a roaring hearth fire. Such was his simple hope, and in that hope he rested.