Vultures Read online

  “Truth be told you all could use a bath,” the barkeep said, setting three mugs of ale on the bar. “You’ve got a scent about you—summer sewage soaking in the sun, I’d say. Drink up, then wash up, and I’ll see that your clothes get a good rinse as well.” He snapped his fingers at a barmaid and two barmen, then wandered off, barking orders.

  Cailean slipped his flask away and hoisted up the mug. “Cheers! May your nightmares vanish like the men Leyandra courts.”

  * * *

  When Theailys closed his eyes, he saw leering silhouettes. When he was awake every shadow seemed to move, and every breeze seemed a whisper begging he fall back into his dream and see what lay behind that door beneath the city. He’d dreamt a few more times to no avail, each time ejected by a blinding flash of light. He took a sip of rum from his flask and sighed, the alcohol smooth and warm against his throat.

  “You look haunted, love,” Leyandra said. “You have since we arrived, and even through the drink.” She dropped onto the porch stair beside him, wrapped in a cloak, hair pushed back out of her face. “You want to try talkin’ about it again?”

  Theailys rubbed his thumb and index finger together, conjuring a wisp that set the inn’s porch aglow. “I think it’s driving me a bit mad,” he said, chewing at his lower lip as the end of the dream flashed across his mind. “The chamber door, the woman, Ana… I don’t think this is just some dream. I haven’t since Remy walked me through it that night.” He’d come clean to Cailean and Leyandra about the new voice and the new dream. “It feels like a…vision, or a memory.”

  “You think the drink’ll help you puzzle it out?” Leyandra said, chuckling softly. Her smiled faded and she moved a bit closer to Theailys. “It may do Cailean good, but I think it’s important you look at this dream with a clear head.”

  Theailys nodded, watching people wander through the night, the street lamps casting shadows here and there. They grinned eyeless grins and Theailys blinked them away. “You said the other night you’d been pretty adept at illumancy before the lokyns stole your light. Am I going crazy or do you think there might be something to these dreams?”

  “Hard to tell without havin’ seen or felt what you did for myself,” Leyandra said. “I’d wager you’re probably right, though—that your dream is something more. An omen, perhaps.”

  “But of what?” Theailys murmured, more to himself than Leyandra.

  “Only time will tell,” Leyandra said, nudging his hand. “Mind if I have a toss?”

  Theailys handed her the flask. Goose pimples surfaced as he lingered on her words and the bitter taste of ale and dinner teased his tongue. “I’m going to destroy the Heart,” he whispered through a rictus. “Maybe that’ll put a stop to all this madness in my head.”

  Leyandra touched his arm and gave it a squeeze. “We’ll all be rootin’ for you,” she murmured. Then with a chuckle: “When you do, you come find me for a drink. I daresay you’ll have earned one.”

  She took another sip from the flask and leaned against Theailys, the pair looking out at Avar, the inn tavern at their backs and bursting at the seams with drunken mirth.

  * * *

  Ana screamed and everything was bathed in light.

  But Theailys did not wake. The brilliance dispersed and he found himself before an open door, beyond which lay a darkness colder and more smothering than anything he’d ever felt. He set foot into the blackness without a moment’s thought, immediately overcome by an aura of profound sorrow and guilt. A pain unlike anything he’d known before, yet at the same time felt he had.

  “Endurfaithe,” hissed something from the back of the chamber. More words came, but they were gurgled. Theailys hastened his steps, eyes searching for the source of the disembodied voice.

  “Endurfaithe,” it came again, and a chill washed over Theailys as he realized the word was his. A pained screech erupted from his mouth as he dropped to the ground. His head was spinning. It felt as though his body had turned to smoke.

  Then Varésh was standing before him, one wing aglow with illum.

  Garbled, ethereal words escaped Theailys. Varésh shook his head. “I am sorry. I do not understand.”

  Theailys cried out indiscernibly, then in a rush of smoke retreated to the back of the chamber. It was here, he knew, and he needed Varésh to see, to take the journal for his own. The winged man followed suit and knelt before Theailys, looking deep into his eyes. Theailys mewed weakly and extended a wispy thread of a hand toward his old journal.

  Please…he thought at Varésh. Please! The journal was everything.

  Varésh plucked it from the ground.

  “Please!” Theailys wailed, and in a burst of mirkúr ceased to be.

  * * *

  Theailys jolted, tumbling out of bed, body slick with sweat. A scream caught in his throat and instead came out as a hoarse gasp. He picked himself up off the floor and sat at the edge of the mattress, face resting in his hands, body trembling as the feeling of incorporeality gradually faded from his mind.

  What the hell was that?

  He gnashed his teeth as the dream persisted in his thoughts, as the emotion of its nightmare end endured. The pain, the sorrow, the guilt…but why? What had he—what had whatever he’d become done to evoke such profound anguish?

  Theailys squeezed his eyes tightly shut.

  “Breathe,” came Remy’s voice, soft and soothing from the center of Theailys’ mind. “You are safe. You are in the waking world.” Despite his placid tone, Theailys could tell Remy too was shaken by whatever that had been. “We are…whole.”

  Sometimes dreams are more than dreams, Theailys thought at Remy. If so, then what did any of that mean? The question festered like an open wound, and for a moment he imagined Faro’s distant cackling in his mind.

  Be silent, Theailys commanded, though his thoughts were shaky, insecure at best. Just leave me be. I’m done with you, you were banished. Obey!

  The star-eyed silhouette manifested in his mind, its chasm-mouth stretched into an endless grin. “You cannot run from who you are, Theailys An,” the ghost of Faro seemed to say. “You are shadow, shade, and silhouette—humanity’s fear of the dark. Embrace reality lest you falter like the light.”

  Theailys opened his eyes and the room rushed into focus. Faro’s disembodied voice faded into silence, his final, taunting whisper tickling Theailys’ ears.

  “Will you be able to find sleep this night?” inquired Remy.

  Theailys laughed.

  And laughed.

  And laughed.

  * * *

  It was a dark dawn.

  Theailys sat atop his shaghound at the edge of Avar, just beyond the gate. Cailean sat mounted to his left; they were waiting on Leyandra. Theailys tugged his hood up so it rested just above his eyes. He heaved a sigh, listening to the distant thunder rumbling overhead.

  “You look like you hardly slept,” Cailean said, turning to face Theailys. “Keepers, you look worse than I’ve felt after a night of nursing bottles. You’re haunted, aren’t you?”

  “Leyandra said the same thing last night,” Theailys said. “Is that the proper term?”

  “’S the easier term,” Cailean said. “People flinch at the mention of trauma. Don’t like to think they’ve been afflicted.” He brought his mount beside Theailys and clapped him on the shoulder. “I can’t claim to understand what’s going on inside your head, to understand the things you see behind the darkness of closed eyes, but I damn well feel your pain, you know I do.”

  Theailys swallowed. He wasn’t sure he was ready to tell either of them about the dream he’d had last night, about the chamber door opening and the progression of events. “I just want to know what they mean. I can feel it, this new dream driving me insane. How do you keep yourself from dreaming such horribly profound things?”

  “The drink,” Cailean said. “Sometimes, and you knew that already. Honestly, talking helps me sort through shit. ’S not the answer you’re looking for, I can tell, but it’s
the hard truth. Ain’t any illum that’s going to erase nightmares from your mind.”

  “Being out there, fighting on the front lines,” Theailys whispered. “Facing down the lokyns, facing down nightmares incarnate for days and months and years…how does anyone stomach that?”

  “’S what we’re trained to do,” Cailean said. “Training as a Faithbringer or a Warden…’s not all fun and games. Often times it makes you wish the lokyns were laughing in your face. We braved darkness of a different kind in order to combat and vanquish Te Mirkvahíl. I can’t explain it any better than that.

  “But hey.” Cailean squeezed Theailys’ shoulder and held his grip. “When you complete The Keepers’ Wrath and take it to the Heart, you can be damn sure I’ll be there with you. That’s a promise.”

  Theailys smiled despite his gloom. “Thank you.”

  “Sorry for the hold up,” Leyandra apologized, riding up behind them.

  “Let’s get a move on,” said Cailean. He squeezed his mount into action and led them west, their trots becoming gallops, the cobblestone highway rattling beneath their haste.

  * * *

  The guard was far tighter at the southern peripheral gate than it had been when Theailys had departed Helveden roughly three weeks ago. Theailys noticed a great many more Illumurgists, Wardens, and Faithbringers peppered in between the usual longsword and heater shield-bearing gate watch.

  They were met halfway toward the gate by a platoon of mounted soldiers, who drew rein to block their way. The captain was a Faithbringer of some import, judging by the length, width, and black coloring of the scabbard at his waist.

  “Identification if you would be so kind,” he requested, extending a gauntleted hand, his words measured but firm. The other guardsmen around him looked equally tense.

  Theailys nodded, rolling up his sleeve to reveal the glyph announcing him as an Illumurgist; Leyandra did the same. Cailean showed a similar symbol on his arm marking him a Warden.

  “Your cooperation is appreciated,” the Faithbringer said. “With the way things have been the last several days we can ill afford to take any chances with who we let in and out of the city.”

  Cailean raised an eyebrow. “Care to explain?”

  “Dissident insurgency,” the Faithbringer said, and Theailys knew the man was full of shit. It was doubtful they would learn much more than that.

  “Right.”

  Theailys gave a half-hearted salute and squeezed his shaghound into motion. He felt little, if any relief as he rode through the farmlands, Cailean and Leyandra at his heels, the pair muttering to one another about the Faithbringer’s bullshit response. A simple man would have seen the distant spires of Helveden as a welcome sign, an indication of normality falling into place. To Theailys they were the teeth of something monstrous, and the path he rode its maw.

  “What’re you going to do?” Cailean asked, pulling up beside Theailys.

  “After we return the hounds?” Theailys thumbed his nose. “Not sure, really.” There were several options, and nearly all of them were shit. “Maybe I’ll drink myself to sleep. Not like I slept a lot the last few days. Not well, at least. What about you?”

  “Pay my respects to Searyn,” Cailean replied, expression softening. “You know, provided they gave her a proper burial, the hiltstroking fucks. Khoren better pray I don’t get drunk enough to seek him out in prison.”

  Theailys allowed himself a smirk. Khoren had never been the most physically intimidating man. Even with a lame arm and hand Cailean could probably break the general in half.

  But it’s probably better if he doesn’t. Theailys wished death on Khoren, but not before the general stood trial for his crimes. Not before Theailys got to look him in his traitorous eyes.

  “What do you think that shit at the gate was all about?” Theailys asked.

  “Dunno,” Cailean said. “Nothing good, I’ll tell you that. Someone must have pissed off Khoren if the Faithbringers are crying insurgency. Probably sweeping the city hoping to find the poor bastards.”

  “May the Keepers bring them luck, then,” said Theailys. After a moment: “I expect we’ll be back on the road within a week. Once I’ve forged The Keepers’ Wrath.”

  Cailean nodded. “No sleep ’til death or victory. Not a proper one at least. I’ll make damn sure I’m out there with you when the Heart’s destroyed, and we can have a piss and a drink atop the ruins of that shithole once we’ve brought it down.”

  They rode in a silence a while longer, thunder rumbling intermittently.

  “I’m going to leave when this is done,” Theailys said eventually. Mar. Anayela. Searyn. He could feel his anguish of their deaths trying desperately to root him here in Ariath, as if suffering was what the world meant for him to do until his final breath.

  “I understand,” Cailean said. “All this death…” His expression darkened, and he furrowed his brow. “Any thoughts on where?”

  “No,” Theailys said. “Just…somewhere.” Someplace he could breathe and forget this nightmare of a life he’d lived thus far. Somewhere dreams were only dreams, devoid of talking birds and corpses rising from a pile of ash.

  Anywhere but here.

  1 3

  Atrocities

  “I saw somethin’ last night,” Fenrin said.

  He and Serece had withdrawn from Helveden in the dark of night. General Khoren was dead by demon hands unknown. His mutilated corpse had turned up in the farmlands yesterday. In retaliation, a sect of Khoren’s followers had rounded up any dissident they could find—men, women, and children—and cut them down in cold blood. If you weren’t an Ariathan human, you were as good as dead. If you were of demon blood, you were absolutely fucked. Suffice it to say neither Serece nor Fenrin had been keen on the prospect of running afoul of the murderous lot.

  Serece peeked out the window of the ruined home they’d taken refuge in. Dawn shone faint behind a sea of black and gray. “What was it?”

  “A ruin. Banerowos,” Fenrin said.

  The Dead City. A Place Where the Sun is Silent. Serece shivered at the name, at the distant memory of its touch. She wished this recollection dead and gone, yet somehow it persisted to torment her on occasion. “What do you think it means, you seeing that? How much did you see? What, exactly, did you see?”

  “Black spires wreathed in illum,” Fenrin said. “Mirkúr emanatin’ from the streets to permeate the world without.” Serece looked back at him, his silver eyes aglow. “The end time, maybe.”

  Serece withdrew to Fenrin’s side. “Anything else? Anyone else?”

  Fenrin shook his head. “Wasn’t anyone there to begin with.”

  Serece leaned against the wall and sighed. Truthfully, she hadn’t a clue as to what to do now. Helveden was swarming with opposition, seen and unseen, severely limiting the ease with which she and Fenrin could gather information. Paranoia had kept them laying low, sneaking whispers from the streets and stealing thus-far-fruitless moments in the city archives when they could. Keepers, but she wished her aunt was here. Fiel would know what to do.

  “You think Banerowos is the key?” Fenrin sounded more uncertain than usual.

  “To what?” Serece asked, grinding her teeth at the name.

  “To learnin’ what the endgame is,” Fenrin said. “Maybe we need to go there.”

  Again, Serece shivered. “I hope not.”

  Fenrin perked up. “Why not? You been there before?”

  “Once.” Serece swallowed. “I don’t know what the city used to be or what it housed but there’s a curse about its ruin now. One of rot and resurrection of the blackest kind.”

  “I see,” Fenrin mused. “What d’you know of this…curse?”

  “It brings the dead to life,” Serece said. “But… Look, let’s talk about something else, all right?”

  Fenrin eyed her, relenting with a firm but gentle hand upon her knee. “All right.”

  Serece grasped the crystal vial hanging from her neck, allowing the chill of the snow withi
n to momentarily occupy her thoughts. It permeated her dry, plagued flesh, soothing her from the inside out. Her urge to scratch dissipated quickly and a low sigh escaped her lips.

  “Do you have children?” Serece asked. She caught Fenrin’s melancholy smile in the corner of her eye.

  “Did.” His words were soft, reminiscent. “Haven’t talked about them for a while, now. Memories are painful enough, you know?”

  The question sounded, felt almost accusatory. As if Serece couldn’t comprehend the agony of such things! Memories of children, babes bundled in their blankets… A malevolent chill emanated outward from the center of her chest. She turned to Fenrin, looking deep into his forlorn eyes, her ugly blue-eyed likeness staring back. She hated him for having dreamt of Banerowos and she loathed herself for having ever sought deliverance from its poisoned depths.

  She collapsed into Fenrin’s arms, sobbing into his chest as the brief but vivid memories of her daughter bloomed.

  “There, now,” Fenrin murmured, holding her. She tried to speak but could only manage gulping breaths between each sob. It’d been so long since the last time she had wept over that night. “Let it come, let it out. Far worse to keep it in, that pain. Far worse…”

  “…Why did she have to die?” Serece finally whispered. “She… Keepers, she was my child…” Eyes like the sun, soft sunset-purple skin, a tuft of black hair atop her tiny head. Vhora, the phantaxian word for spring. “My own little season.”

  She remained in Fenrin’s arms a while longer. They were silent as the clouds withdrew to let the sunlight peek into the ruin, as a gust bestowed upon Serece’s sense of smell a scent like earth, stone, and snow. Her ears twitched at muffled words, and she stood from Fenrin’s hold to peek outside, overwhelmed with desperate joy and puzzlement.

  There, within the shadow of the trees and growing nearer, was a giant white wolf, atop which sat a pair of grinning twins, both of whom were waving vigorously at Serece.

  Serece rushed from the ruin, stopping just short of the newcomers as the twins dismounted and her aunt transformed. Serece leapt into Fiel’s arms and hugged her tight, for a moment afraid if she let her go, her aunt might disappear for good. Fiel returned the embrace, stroking Serece’s hair.