Will Wight - Of Dawn and Darkness

“If your allies are nearby, tell them to stay away . I have no use for you, you Elder-spawned filth, and you can shove yourself back into the hole you came from.” His anger built with every word. “I’m tired of dancing like a puppet for you, so I’m cutting the strings. If you show yourself in front of me again, we’ll see if the Emperor’s armory might, by chance, have something that can make a Great Elder bleed. You turned my wife against me, and light and life, I’ll make sure you pay for it.”

His voice was ringing out by the end, until his shouts filled the storm-lit shrine, and he was panting as he finished. The dream didn’t go away. The marble under his feet remained as solid as ever.

“You’ll be the one to pay the price, little King,” Kelarac said quietly. “Yours is a sad defiance, because defiance requires a choice, and you have none. You are an actor on a stage, speaking lines that have been said a thousand, thousand times before.”

Calder tried to respond, but his throat was stuck. The shrine and the storm faded into darkness, until all that remained was the gleam of the Great Elder’s blindfold. And the echo of his voice:

“Dance on your string, little puppet. Dance…”

Calder returned to reality caked in dust, with Jorin advancing, raising his sword for a strike. He scrambled backwards with hands and feet, trying to stand, knowing that it was all but hopeless.

Still, he’d defied one of the Great Elders to its face. The stories were filled with noble fools who tried that. They usually died horribly, but Calder found the feeling strangely liberating. He might die, but at least he wouldn’t die a slave.

He raised his sword to block the oncoming blow, hoping desperately that the Emperor’s armor would be able to take a hit. When Jorin struck, Calder had no choice but to meet the edge of the Regent’s blade with his own. The clash of Intent seared into his mind, and he slid backwards another few feet.

The dust had cleared away, leaving the sky shockingly blue…except for the dark crack spreading through it. An opening into the void. A fingerhold for the Elders, probably. And below that, the Aion Sea, with a Navigator’s ship just beside him. It loomed over them, so that he was about to die in its shadow.

Perfect. I’m going to die under a Navigator’s ship, and it’s not even mine. Those gold-edged sails were too gaudy for his taste.

Jorin walked forward to finish Calder, but his expression changed. He snapped his head up, looking at the ship, and then leaped backwards. Something—someone—enormous slammed into the ground where he’d been standing. A man in slate-gray armor, with a pair of maces strapped to his belt. He carried a helmet under one arm, leaving his head bare. His hair was black, with wings of silver at the edges.

Baldesar Kern, Head of the Champion’s Guild.

“I see you changed your mind,” Calder said, as soon as he’d caught his breath. The relief was flooding his mind, filling him with elation.

Kern shrugged one shoulder without turning around. “Not quite. I told you, I wouldn’t fight for someone I didn’t trust. If you’re willing to stand up to a Regent, I’ll trust you.”

Jorin had taken out a roll of bandages and had begun wrapping the black blade of his sword. “Baldesar Kern, if I may presume.”

Kern inclined his head.

“I can still make a rousing fight if it’s just the two of us, so I can only assume…” Four more silhouettes stepped up to the edge of the ship, outlined in sunlight. “More Champions, yes, as I thought. Well, that’s just clear as a winter spring, isn’t it? I admit I am overmatched.”

“You’ll come with us,” Kern said. It didn’t sound like a question at all.

Jorin tilted his hat back to look at the Champions on deck. “I doubt it. Unless you happen to have some Harrowing wine onboard, which I can’t imagine you do. You’d have to be five hundred years older than you look.”

Kern shifted his helmet to one hand, still not wearing it, and drew a dark, heavy mace with the other. “If you make me use my Vessel, this doesn’t end well for anyone.”

“Particularly not for you , if I grasp the—”

The Champion shot forward, slamming his mace into Jorin’s chest. Or what should have been Jorin’s chest. Instead, the Regent managed to get his half-bandaged sword between him and the weapon. The force still blasted him backwards as though he’d been fired from a catapult, and when he hit the ground, a cloud of black dust and ash billowed up.

Kern slipped his mace back into his belt, watching the cloud rise. “Too dangerous to chase him. Let him run.”

Calder thought the words were meant for him until the Champions on deck saluted and returned. Gingerly, Calder walked forward. The fight had done no favors for his still-healing leg. “Thank you, Guild Head. If not for you, I’d be one more pile of dust.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kern said, giving him a once-over. “That’s some fine armor you’re wearing.”

“Still, I owe you.”

Kern shook his head. “The debt’s not to you. I was hired.”

A chill seeped back into Calder’s bones. “Hired?”

“Shortly after you spoke with me. A Heartlander man, I imagine a Reader, said he had a good feeling about you. He hired me and as many others from the Guild as we could round up. Paid in goldmarks.”

“He told you to save me?”

“Told me to give you a chance,” Kern said. His face cracked into a small smile. “Said he was confident you’d prove yourself. I didn’t believe him, but I do now.”

Calder didn’t want to ask, but he had to know. “You said he was a Reader. How did you know?”

Kern hung his helmet from a loop on his belt. “Some places, Readers have strange customs. They believe blinding yourself helps you sense Intent more clearly. This man, he seemed like the polite, civilized, educated type, but it looked like he’d blinded himself. He wore a metal blindfold over his eyes.”

Upon realizing that they had been mysteriously transported to a towering library that most likely had connections to a Great Elder, Calder’s first reaction was not fear. It was irritation.

He’d tried to leave a few people behind to protect them, but the entire crew had ended up off the ship anyway. If he’d known it would turn out like this, he wouldn’t have wasted his time worrying.

Petal’s tiny quicklamp expanded the circle of candlelight, allowing everyone to see the surrounding bookshelves in more detail. Each structure stood as tall as any building in the Capital; ten stories or more of endless books stacked to the cavernous ceiling.

After staring into the darkness for any sign of movement, Calder carefully slid a little closer to the books.

On the bottom shelf, dusty scrolls were surrounded by glass cases. On the next, the books were bound by wood and hide—he knelt to examine the spine of one tome bound in polished blackwood, and found that he couldn’t read it.

That fact alone confirmed what he’d already suspected: there were Elders involved. And not the lesser Elderspawn, like Shuffles, who seemed to have little more intelligence than animals, but the higher Elders. Maybe even a Great Elder.

It had been over a thousand years since any language except Imperial was heard among humans. That left two possibilities: either these words did not originate with humans, or they were over a thousand years old.

Either way, that meant Elders.

His memory whispered to him the name of the one sealed underneath Silverreach: Ach’magut.

Without inspecting that thought any further, he turned back to his crew. They had shown their training and experience by standing with their backs to the candlelight, weapons in hand. Even Jerri looked fierce and ready for battle, though she only held a dagger. If Elderspawn attacked, she’d last even less time than Petal, who held a stoppered bottle of acid ready to throw.