Storms (Sharani Series Book 2) (32 page)

“What was that?” he asked, shaking his head and trying to focus as his mind raced with the implications of his sudden realization. Was Lhaurel one of the Orinai? She couldn’t be, could she?

“Nikanor would like to speak with the Sister,” Samsin said softly. “If that is permitted.”

Gavin looked over at him with a frown.

Khari interrupted before Gavin could reply. She’d drained the rest of the waterskin and had gotten to her feet, though Lhaurel remained seated in the sand.

“We will have plenty to talk about when we arrive back at the warren,” Khari said. “Gavin has some explaining to do as well, I think. Lysand, you stay here and gather the others, then return to the warren. I’ll send scouts out to let the other clans know what’s gone on once we have all the stories straightened out.”

The man who had rushed to Lhaurel’s side nodded, glanced down at Lhaurel as if to assure himself that she was ok, then headed for his aevian. Samsin started to protest, but Gavin walked over to him and laid a hand on his arm. The Orinai’s eyes were still downcast though, oddly, Nikanor was staring at Lhaurel with open-eyed wonder.

“Hold your questions for now,” Gavin said. “I’ll make sure you get your time to talk later.”

“Who is that woman?” Samsin asked, venom in his voice. “She acts as if she were the head of one of the High Families, yet even the Sister listens to her. You Rahuli really are barbarians.”

“Thanks,” Gavin said dryly, then turned to some of the other men. “Make sure they find rides back to the warren. They both have powers, so watch yourselves.”

The men nodded, but shot nervous looks at one another as Gavin pushed past them and made his way to Nabil. The aevian greeted him with a soft, dignified click of his beak.

“Come on then, Nabil,” Gavin said. “Let’s go home.”

“He’s dead,” Gavin repeated, leaning back against the back of the chair. He hadn’t realized how terribly exhausted he was until they’d made it to the Roterralar Warren and he’d had a chance to sit down. For a moment, he thought about drawing in some energy, but dismissed it. He’d spent almost his entire life without the ability. There was no point in becoming dependent on it now.

“Are you sure?” Khari pressed. She sat at the other end of the council table next to Lhaurel, who had recovered enough that she no longer looked like she was going to fall at any given moment.

The other aevian groups hadn’t returned yet, but Khari had wanted to hear Gavin’s story anyway. Samsin and Nikanor sat back against one of the walls, hands and feet bound by thick rope as a precaution. Samsin had protested the treatment, but had quieted when Lhaurel had addressed him. Nikanor bore it all without a word, expression a troubled mask.

“Not even Lhaurel could have saved him,” Gavin said. “Samsin killed him.”

Khari’s eyes flicked over to where the two Orinai sat, then back to Gavin. They were bound, but Khari still had a half dozen guards standing just outside the door.

“What was he after?” she asked. “You said he was in the Aeril Warren. What was he doing there, planning some sort of coup?”

Gavin shook his head. “He was after scrolls down in the underground lake. He seemed to think they were vital to the survival of the Rahuli people, though I don’t know why.” Gavin noticed Lhaurel shift and look at Khari with a concerned and confused expression, but they didn’t say anything, so Gavin continued. “There were similar scrolls hidden in an exact replica of that warren in the Oasis walls. I read some of those when I had a chance.”

“There’s another one here,” Khari said. “Lhaurel and I have been studying them.”

Gavin arched an eyebrow. “Why would there be scrolls hidden in three different places?”

Nikanor stirred in his seat, but didn’t say anything. Gavin looked over at him as Lhaurel and Khari both shrugged.

“The scrolls talk about the mystics and hint at a lot of things, but there are no clear answers,” Lhaurel said. “It’s a frustrating mess. Every time I think I know what’s going on, new questions crop up.”

Khari raised a hand and Lhaurel fell silent.

“They do mention the Orinai, though,” Khari said. “You two. Who are you and how did you get here? The Forbiddence is thought to be impassable.”

Samsin opened his mouth, but Nikanor laid a bound hand on his leg and Samsin snapped his mouth shut, turning to look at his companion. Nikanor didn’t look over at Samsin, instead looking to Lhaurel and Khari.

“I will explain, but you must promise me you will give heed to my words,” Nikanor said. His voice was far less accented than Samsin’s, though it carried a slow deliberateness to it which dripped of sincerity.

“Speak,” Khari said. It wasn’t an affirmation, but it seemed to suffice for Nikanor.

“You appear to have lost much of your heritage here.” Nikanor spoke as if he were choosing his words carefully, though his expression was earnest. “I will explain so that you may understand me later. If this is something you already know, I apologize, but knowledge is key to understanding, and I would have you understand me.

“The Orinai are a people who love their games and rules. They are a people steeped in symbolism, propriety, rules, and struggles for political and religious power. At the height of their power, they ruled from the great Steinacker Ocean in the south to the Felurian Sea to the north of here. Yet there were some who broke the rules, there were people that were conquered and enslaved, and a means of forcing evolution to higher Iterations was sought. To this end, the Seven Sisters, they who preside over the Orinai religion, commissioned an Arena be built high in the mountains to the north inside the crater formed by an ancient volcano.”

“What has this got to do with us?” Khari asked, interrupting him.

“Please have patience,” Nikanor replied, continuing in the same tone as before. “You will soon see. The Seven Sisters and the government of the time decided to send to the Arena those of the slave people they deemed dangerous and revolutionary, along with those of the Orinai who violated rules, traditions, and laws. Within the Arena, these people were pitted against one another and it became a great game, enjoyed by everyone within the Orinai Empire. It united the factions, gave the High Families something in common, and cemented the power of the Seven Sisters and their religion until intense violence between the prisoners in the Arena broke them and forced them through the initial Iterations.”

Gavin glanced around, seeing the same blank looks on his companion’s faces he knew showed in his own expression.

“I believe you would call them ‘mystics.’”

Gavin felt a growing nausea rise in his stomach. Hadn’t Samsin been calling him a slave since he’d first encountered the Orinai? Samsin’s expression was blank, but his posture was stiff, back rigid as Nikanor continued. Gavin saw some flicker of his own emotions reflected on his companion’s faces yet again.

“All was well in the Empire. But something changed within the Arena. The people there, even those who had been Orinai, began to form into alliances and groups over the years, developing into clans much like the High Families of the Orinai. A group of mystics formed who were possessed of the first Iteration in each element. They plotted and planned, trying to figure out how to escape their captors, though the Seven Sisters kept a careful watch over everything there. It wasn’t until one of the Sisters, a blood mage called Elyana, betrayed her Sisters, that the war began.”

Lhaurel gasped and held a hand to her mouth at this, color draining from her face faster than it had when she’d healed Nikanor. He looked at her then and his eyes narrowed, mouth twisting into a fleeting frown. Samsin made a noise, but Gavin was too preoccupied watching Lhaurel and Nikanor to look over at Samsin.

“The details are unimportant, but over several years the Orinai fought against the slaves, who had started to call themselves the Rahuli people. Elyana bolstered their strength, fought with them, and trained some of the mystics who would allow it. Her bondsman helped lead the people as well. He’d once been one of them, in a prior incarnation, and was accepted more readily than Elyana was.”

“Beryl,” Lhaurel said.

“That was one of his names, yes,” Nikanor said. “Though Eldriean was what the Rahuli called him, I believe.”

“You can’t be serious.” Khari interrupted. “Beryl?
Beryl?
”

“Let him continue,” Lhaurel said, and edge in her voice. No, it wasn’t an edge, it was fear. Terror. Horror.

The nausea in Gavin’s stomach grew.
The
Eldriean? No, it couldn’t be.

“Elyana created monsters to drive the Orinai armies out. She died in the process. Enraged by this, her bondsman lead the Rahuli people in a final battle and slew one of the Sisters atop the central viewing platform where our Storm Wards had created an oasis in which the Orinai observers, come to watch the fights in the Arena, could be comfortable. But by then the monsters had turned against their creators. The other Sisters retreated, taking comfort in the knowledge that the Rahuli, in fighting them, had destroyed themselves. Their own creations would be their undoing.”

Gavin remembered the skeleton there atop the Oasis walls, greatsword through its chest. It was easy to think that Nikanor was making this all up, but too much of it made sense, too much of it rang true. What strange nightmare was this? The Oasis, the genesauri, the strange legends the outcasts had told one another and passed down from generation to generation, even the language, it all began to make sense.

“Get to it then,” Khari snapped. “If we’re to believe this pile of goat leavings, why are you here now?”

This time, it was Samsin who answered.

“We’re here because someone sent a message to the Orinai telling them the threat was over and Nikanor had to see this for himself. Your story, that ‘pile of goat leavings’ Nikanor just told you, is a legend among the Orinai. It sparked several hundred years of civil war and unrest. The Seven Sisters finally regained control about a century ago. It’s been long enough now that very few believe this place even exists anymore.”

“What do you mean? Someone sent a message to the Orinai how?”

Samsin opened his mouth to respond, but closed it again as noise sounded from the hall outside the door. It sounded almost like someone was arguing with the guards outside the door.

Gavin turned to look at the door just as it banged open. Everyone jumped as Farah dashed into the room, flight harness still on. She crossed the room in a few quick bounds, ignoring the stunned onlookers and the bound Orinai, heading straight for Gavin. Seeing her expression, Gavin wondered what was wrong, but then she reached him and stopped a foot or so from him, hands shaking.

“Get up, you!” she snapped at Gavin, ignoring Khari’s upraised hand.

Gavin got to his feet. For a moment, he thought Farah was going to hit him, then her arms were around his waist and the air was squeezed out of his lungs.

“Don’t you dare do that to me again,” Farah said, her voice muffled because her face was buried in his chest. “Don’t you dare.”

Despite the situation, despite everything that had gone on that day, Gavin found himself grinning like a fool.

“The final Iterations of all three elements still hold much mystery for even this noted scholar. The members of each are volatile and prone to self-destruction. So few ever achieve this level of mastery. When it does occur, the Seven Sisters are forced to take measures against them.”

—From
Commentary on the
Schema, Volume I

“Are you two quite finished?” Khari snapped.

Farah released Gavin and stepped away from him. Gavin half-frowned guiltily, but Farah simply nodded at Khari and took a seat.

“Quite,” she said, not looking back at Gavin.

Gavin sat down next to her, brow slightly furrowed in confusion. Would Farah ever start making sense?

If she did though, she wouldn’t be nearly as much fun
.

Gavin looked over at Nikanor and Samsin and found the later giving him a small wink. Gavin frowned. Samsin’s brief levity faded into a scowl and he looked away.

“As I was saying,” Khari said. She glanced at Lhaurel who had not spoken since muttering Beryl’s name and who was looking particularly pale. “What do you mean, someone sent a message?”

Nikanor shifted in his seat and wouldn’t meet Khari’s eye, though his gaze did flicker over to Lhaurel more than once. Gavin brought his attention back to them as the solid, square-jawed Orinai began speaking again.

“Earth Wards have a means of communicating with one another through the stone. I am the steward of the northernmost plantation in the Orinai Empire. I received the message some time ago. An Earth Ward must have sent it.”

“Earth Ward?”

“They’re the second Iteration after a magnetelorium,” Lhaurel whispered. “More powerful than they and able to do things with the earth instead of just metal.”

“How do you know that?” Gavin asked.

A look of confusion tinged with horror slowly crept across Khari’s face.

“The scrolls,” Lhaurel said. “There are scrolls down beneath us as well. I’ve been reading them, studying about them because we thought maybe Kaiden had found something in there which motivated him to do what he did. At least, that’s what Beryl implied.”

“Beryl?” Nikanor asked, suddenly alert and his voice sharp. “Surely not
the
Beryl. They say he went mad, just before the end. Started hearing voices.”

“He’s just a blacksmith,” Farah said, joining the conversation for the first time. “What do you mean,
the
Beryl?”

“Quiet,” Khari ordered. “You Orinai still haven’t explained how you got through the Forbiddence or what you want with us.”

Samsin grunted. “Nikanor wanted to be sure this place was real before we informed the Seven Sisters. It appears our caution was unfounded, Sister.” He nodded slightly in Lhaurel’s direction.

“She is not one of the Seven Sisters,” Nikanor said softly, as if to Samsin or himself, Gavin couldn’t tell which.

“Hold your tongue, Nikanor.” Samsin hissed. “I beg your pardon for such blasphemous words, Honored Sister.”

“What are you talking about?” Lhaurel demanded. Gavin was pleased to notice some fire return to her voice.

“This complicates things greatly,” Nikanor said. “We’d thought that maybe one of the current Sisters was simply weaker than the others, but could she be an imposter altogether? There’s no way they’ll leave survivors.”

“What are you talking about?” Lhaurel demanded again, louder and this time with her words echoed by Khari.

“You must all leave this place,” Nikanor said sharply. “Flee into the mountains and hide to the east of here.”

Samsin stared at his companion as if he had suddenly burst into flame.

“Quickly before the Sisters arrive with their armies and kill you all. Having you here, blood mage, will make it worse for those here. They will kill everyone to hide their lies. You must leave. Now! Please listen to me.” Nikanor got to his feet.

Khari shouted for the guards. Lhaurel, Farah, and Gavin all leapt up as Samsin tried to pull Nikanor back down and the guards burst in through the door.

“Please! Speak to Beryl,” Nikanor said in a voice that rumbled like falling stone. “He must have sent the message. Go talk to him. Please listen to me!” He didn’t resist as the guards came in and pulled him and Samsin away. Samsin actually seemed to want to get away from Nikanor, resisting the guards just enough to create a small pocket of distance between him and Nikanor.

“Forgive him, Sister,” Samsin said with a half-bow toward Lhaurel as he was led away.

Gavin leaned back in his chair as silence consumed the room. Khari slumped back down into her chair and Lhaurel massaged her forehead with one hand, head down so that her blood-red hair cascaded down over her face and hid her expression. The only one in the room who didn’t seem perturbed was Farah.

“Well, is someone going to tell me what’s going on? Did someone die?” She somehow seemed oddly light-hearted, despite the insanity that had just occurred.

None of them answered.

“Well?”

Gavin pulled out of his stupor, shaking his head to clear it. His grandmother’s voice admonished him for brooding and not taking some sort of action. She’d always believed in thinking things through, though she had also cautioned against overthinking. Gavin leaned over and told Farah what had transpired, starting with what had happened to him after she’d left him next to the stoneway pillar and ending with what Nikanor had just told them. When he finished, Farah’s eyes twinkled and the edges of her lips tugged upward.

“Well, that’s a good laugh,” she said. “We’ll just go ask Beryl what he thinks of all this and it’ll be settled. We’ll just have to figure out how Kaiden got those two to lie for him and figure out what clan they belong to.”

Gavin opened his mouth and then closed it again. Had she not heard what he’d just told her?

“We already talked to Beryl,” Lhaurel said, not looking up. “He said the same thing.”

“What?” Gavin asked.

“He told us to leave here because the Orinai are coming.”

“Two men are hardly a reason to leave,” Farah interrupted. “No matter how skilled they are at the mystic arts.”

“They
are
Orinai. They’re not
the
Orinai,” Lhaurel said, finally looking up. She looked over at Gavin and Farah and her eyes were red from silent tears. “The Seven Sisters are coming. They’re blood mages, like me. I was able to destroy the genesauri, a threat which has plagued the Sharani Desert for generations. Can you imagine what seven of me could do?”

That silenced Farah.

Khari stirred a little, but her eyes were unfocused and distant. “I thought we were safe now,” Khari muttered as if to herself. “The genesauri were gone and we had a chance at real stability among the clans. Things were changing, but I had hoped they would be for the better.”

“You can’t seriously be considering this?” Farah asked. “Gavin, why are you so quiet over there? I know you have an opinion about all this.”

Gavin nodded, looking the woman in the eye. “I think we need to be prepared either way. Khari, shouldn’t we send out riders to the clans letting them know what’s going on? We can question Samsin and Nikanor again, see if we can’t get any more details out of them. Either way, we should prepare ourselves.”

Farah gave him a look that clearly said she thought he was making this into a far bigger deal than it was. Gavin sighed internally and looked to Khari, waiting for the woman to respond. She didn’t—just kept staring off into the distance. Lhaurel had returned to massaging her forehead.

Gavin got to his feet. “Farah, send out some riders to the clans. Let them know what’s been going on and let them know that they can come back here if they wish. If you see Cobb out there, send him to me, please.”

Farah gave him a flat look, her lips a thin line, then got to her feet as well. “Yes, sir,” she said stiffly and left.

Gavin ran his fingers through his hair, ignoring the filth that had accumulated in it. He figured he must look a sight, dusty and travel-worn, but that really didn’t matter right now.

“Lhaurel.” The woman didn’t look up. “Lhaurel,” Gavin said again.

She looked over at him.

“Show me the scrolls Beryl gave you.”

Lhaurel looked at him as if not seeing him for a few long moments, then nodded. “Alright.”

They left Khari where she was, staring off into the distance.

Gavin set down the scroll, careful not to disturb the lamp in the center of the low stone table. Cobb, who had entered the room a few minutes earlier, cleared his throat, but Gavin ignored him, turning to Lhaurel.

“This is an exact replica of one of the scrolls I read while in the Oasis.” Gavin said. “Except someone has translated them into the Rahuli script. The one I read was in the language of the Orinai, the language my grandmother told me was the tongue of our ancestors.”

“How did she know the language of the Orinai? How did she know?” Lhaurel asked.

“I don’t know if she did,” Gavin answered, rubbing his brow. “It was tradition for her, I think. She’d been one of the outcasts since she was a little girl and it was just something her parents had taught her.”

Cobb, for his part, remained silent. Farah must have told him something about what had transpired, but he kept his thoughts and opinions to himself.

“But what does it mean?” Lhaurel asked. She seemed on the verge of hysterics, hands shaking, face pinched and earnest.

“I don’t know,” Gavin said. “Maybe there’s some credence to it all.”

In truth, he had already formed his own opinion. Though he had no means of fully understanding what was coming, he was sure it was there. He’d always known there was a forgotten history to the Rahuli, a heritage that had been left behind in the face of the genesauri. Too many things added up for the Orinai not to be the Enemy the stories spoke of, though the Rahuli had always considered that enemy to be the genesauri. What he was going to do with that knowledge though, he still didn’t understand.

“Cobb,” Gavin said finally, turning to the man. “Can you please do an inventory of the weapons we have available to us. The forge and armory are sealed, if what Lhaurel tells us is true, but take an inventory of the rest of it.”

Cobb nodded and left, his limp more pronounced without his cane. Gavin found comfort in Cobb’s presence, needing the stability and strength the man radiated.

Gavin turned back to Lhaurel, who was still watching him. Gavin sighed and tried to shake off his growing exhaustion.

“Well Lhaurel,” he said. “I think we need to go chat with the Orinai again. I’ll need your help for that.”

Lhaurel bit her bottom lip, a habit of hers when she was agitated Gavin had discovered, but nodded.

Gavin entered the room where the guards had taken Samsin and Nikanor, the same room where Kaiden had been held prisoner not so very long before. Lhaurel stepped in after him, holding the lantern.

Both Samsin and Nikanor, still bound, got to their feet as they entered. Samsin immediately cast his eyes downward, but Nikanor met Gavin’s gaze with eyes as hard as stone.

Gavin stared back, unflinching. “Tell me everything I need to know about the Seven Sisters and their armies,” Gavin said. “What makes you think they’re coming? Why would they destroy us if what you said earlier is true and this was some grand arena before? How long do we have?”