Riven (The Arinthian Line Book 2) Read online

  The prince slowly nodded, still staring at the imposter.

  Mya reached for his hand. “Come, Your Highness, we shall endure together.”

  Her touching his hand made Augum’s heart constrict. He turned away only to catch Bridget staring at Mya and Sydo too. She flashed a hesitant smile and pretended to be busy fixing her robe.

  Mrs. Stone stepped apart from the group, invoked arcane words, and imploded with a mighty THWOMP. Augum wondered where she was off to now.

  The trio turned to Thomas, who started by going over what they had learned yesterday. He then went on to show examples of the use of Centarro in situations other than combat, such as jumping onto an exact spot; focusing and remembering details such as clothing, surroundings, and words; accomplishing complex tasks like throwing something and having it rebound a certain way; running from pursuers, and a host of other creative uses. He also spent a lot of time explaining how to deal with the after-effects.

  Although at first they had failed to cast the spell on their own, Thomas would say, “Let us situation together,” and cast it on them for the experience. It was the most fun they ever had learning a spell, but it was also very challenging, for Thomas pushed them to concentrate unlike ever before. The after-effects of the spell were particularly draining, fogging and slowing the mind and reflexes. The trio soon came to understand just how dangerous those effects could be.

  When Augum was running from a mock pursuer, he slammed into a tree. In that stupid state, if it had been a cliff there, he was sure he would have run straight off it. Even just walking around, he would trip and get tangled, not to mention the countless times he got lost—a remarkable accomplishment in such a small area.

  They also went over the pronunciation again. Centeratoraye xao xen —a difficult phrase to utter under any circumstance, let alone in the heat of battle.

  Nonetheless, by the end of that morning, with Thomas’ efficient teaching methods, Augum became the first to successfully cast Centarro on his own. The duration was short but felt much longer. Leera and Bridget congratulated him, even asking for pointers. He was more than happy to explain how he did it.

  Thomas reminded them that with diligent practice, they could learn to minimize the side effects, extend the duration, and increase the focus. “… nuance, awareness, assertiveness, forethought, and creativity,” he said, hands loosely by his side, “that is the key to this spell.”

  The morning passed quickly, and at midday Mrs. Stone materialized with a loud THWOMP, gnarled walking stick in hand.

  “Welcome, Anna,” Thomas said.

  Mrs. Stone gave her much younger-looking husband a curt nod. “Thomas.”

  Watching the way they greeted each other, with neither warmth nor affection, made Augum wonder if there were any feelings left between the old married couple. Perhaps the fact that Thomas was Leyan prohibited it, or perhaps the years simply washed those affections away. In any case, they appeared to be mere acquaintances now. Yet Augum hoped that that would never happen to him. If he was ever going to get married, he wanted to be with his love forever.

  Mya appeared from the woods carrying a handful of different-colored leaves, while Sydo stopped his training with Oba and approached, cheeks red, hair askew. Earlier, he had made the mistake of whining to Oba, receiving quite the rebuke in turn, something to the effect of donkey droppings having more courage.

  Mrs. Stone straightened. “The time has come to speak with the millennials.” Her eyes flicked between the trio. “You are to be silent and civil. Are we clear?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Stone,” they chorused.

  Thomas gestured at the swaying oaks. “As custom demands, we shall walk. Prepare yourselves—the song of the wastes is as strong as the wind.” He led them through the forest and out into the open where a ripping gale raked bare skin with sand. The visibility was almost nil. Those that had hoods drew them. Sydo hid his face in the crook of his elbow. Thomas and Oba were the only ones seemingly unaffected by the blasting, not even closing their eyes.

  Mrs. Stone let the young pass, taking the rear with Oba. As Augum put one foot in front of the other, he felt his thoughts slowly darken. Why couldn’t Thomas arcane something up to block the wind, or even teleport them there? Why did they always have to do things the hard way? Why why why …

  So immersed was he in shadowy ruminations he tripped over something.

  “Watch yourself, peasant!” the prince shouted, standing and brushing himself off. “You blind clod—did you not seen me stumble?”

  Augum felt his anger rise. “Well I was going to apologize—”

  “Take that apology and—”

  “Why are you two always fighting!” Bridget yelled above the din, turning on them. “I’m so sick of it!”

  “What are you talking about,” Augum began, “I didn’t—”

  Leera grabbed her head. “Ugh, why don’t you all just shut up—”

  “Enough!” Mrs. Stone said, waving her stick to shoo them along. “Keep walking and think of good tidings, we dare not dally.” She removed the scion from within her robe and released it to hover around her. “This should help,” she said before returning to the rear of the line.

  “Lowly commoner,” Sydo muttered as the group resumed the march.

  Augum restrained himself from replying and followed, but his eyes kept returning to Sydo, bumbling along just ahead. That stupid doublet, the nasty hair—he hasn’t changed one bit. It just went to show that even a Leyan’s ancient arcanery couldn’t change a brat.

  He simmered like this for a while, until eventually his thoughts boiled over and he “accidentally” stepped on the prince’s heel.

  Sydo whirled about, face purple. “How dare you step on the royal heel, you insolent bumpkin cur, you base bastard of the lowest breeding, you gutterborn—”

  Augum saw the Penderson brats dancing around the tree he took cover in, calling him names, throwing things until he fell. He listened to poor old Meli’s pulse fade and disappear beneath him. He felt Dap’s fist buckle his innards and drain his breath. He saw Robin Scarson leading an entire village with laughter …

  He did not feel the single lightning ring form around his wrist. What he did feel was a gratifying electrical surge rage up his body, discharge through his arm, and strike Sydo square in the stomach. The prince shot backward as if hit by a battering ram, plowing into Bridget and Leera, toppling them.

  For a moment, Augum didn’t know where he was. He expected all those villains he saw laying in a heap, yet there was only Sydo, Bridget and Leera, along with the brief scent of burnt flesh.

  Mrs. Stone ran past him. “In the name of all that is good, child, what have you done—” Mya ran from the front of the line to help too. He saw her face and his stomach plummeted. Please not her. Someone stop her from seeing this—

  A dark metallic hand gripped his shoulder and swung him around. “Cowardly dog …” A curved blade loosened from a belt.

  Augum collapsed to his knees, eyes unfocused.

  “He’s hurt something awful!” Mya called from behind, a voice whose sweetness would never be directed at him again, not after what he had just done.

  “Oh, no no no—” he heard Bridget say.

  Oba’s curved blade rose into the air. “Such treachery never has Oba seen. Death Augum Stone deserves!”

  Augum closed his eyes, heart beating like a war drum, ready for the slash that would end his miserable and guilty existence—

  “Oba Sassone, the childling has fallen prey to the song of the wastes.” It was the deep voice of his great-grandfather.

  “Thomas Stone, to death he must be put for such betrayal—”

  “Oba Sassone also listens to the song,” Thomas replied, voice as cool as the wind.

  Augum opened his eyes to see Mrs. Stone standing over him alongside Oba, her face livid, eyes full of terrible disappointment.

  “Nana, I … I don’t know what … I didn’t mean for—”

  “You have the madness of you
r father. I was a fool to accept you as my apprentice.”

  “No, please, you don’t mean that—”

  “Oh, I do, Augum Stone, I do. You are no longer my great-grandson! I hereby disown you and cast you out!” The scion floated near him, darkening with a silent storm, the hum sounding like a thousand angry wasps.

  “Kill him!” shrieked a girl’s voice. Augum turned to find Bridget’s face contorted with a wild fury he had never seen before.

  “It’s your fault!” Leera said, pointing a finger in his face. “You killed my parents, you killed everyone!”

  “Not you too,” he whispered.

  Mrs. Stone’s eyes flashed as she readied to smite him into oblivion. “Anna—” Thomas placed a bronze hand on her raised arm. “Enough. Something has changed. Not even the scion protects you as before. Allow me.”

  She turned to look at him. He smiled before moving on to touch each of them in turn, until they were all watching him. “Let us focus together. Examine yourselves outside of your thoughts, in this moment, and nothing more. You have succumbed to the Song of the Wastes. Do not listen to it. Instead, listen to my voice as we walk.”

  He extended a bronze hand to Augum and helped him to his feet. What Augum saw in those night-black eyes was nothing short of pure compassion.

  “Walk with me, as we pass through the winds.” His pants fluttered ceaselessly.

  Even Oba followed. When the big warrior came upon Sydo’s body, he put away his blade and picked him up.

  “We walk knowing dark thoughts plead for our attention,” Thomas continued, a shepherd herding sheep, “knowing that we mean ourselves no harm. We walk with calm spirits, the winds of anxiety doing us no injury …” His voice was melodic, piercing the wind and the darkness. “… knowing each step brings us closer to our destination, conscious of the eternal moment in which we dwell …”

  Something was near, a series of stones.

  “… we move unhindered by our emotions, unfazed by our fears, and unafraid of the great unknown …”

  The wind faded to a dull background roar. Augum rubbed his eyes. They seemed to have walked into a calm spot in the middle of the orange desert. What he mistook for a series of stones was in fact nine Leyans, each one different in clothing and skin color. Four were men, five women. All were hairless, metallic-skinned, gray-eyed instead of black, and wrinkled as if having spent years soaking in water.

  Oba Sassone lowered the prince to the ground. When Augum spotted the large burn mark on his doublet, his heart skipped a beat. Neither Bridget, Leera, Mya, nor his great-grandmother would meet his eyes. What had he done? Was the prince … he dare not finish the thought.

  Thomas bowed to the nine millennials. “Wise elders—greetings. If I may begin by asking for the healing of this boy.”

  “Ancient vow Thomas Stone and Oba Sassone break,” an old woman wearing deer hide said. She had a wild accent, her skin was the color of wood, and antlers sprouted from her head. “Life for uninvited childling mortal Thomas Stone now asks. Elders—life do we give this boy?” She turned to the others, each of them quietly returning her gaze, as if speaking in thoughts. She nodded, shuffled to the stricken prince, and held out a withered hand that began glowing. Augum watched the wound shrink until disappearing altogether. The glow faded away and her hand withdrew, only to make a final quick gesture. Sydo jolted to life, coughing and gasping for air, hair frazzled.

  Augum quickly stepped forward and offered a hand. “I … I’m so sorry …” he managed to say. He felt terrible, like one of the bullies he thought he had smote.

  Sydo refused his hand and stood up on his own, an obstinate look on his face, eyes narrow. He said nothing.

  “Augum, I’m sorry too,” Leera said as the antlered millennial moved back to the others, her back as crooked as a scythe. “I—I don’t know what I was saying … I don’t know what happened out there …”

  “Yes, overcome by song was Oba.” Oba bowed his hairless head. “Forgiveness Oba asks. Much to learn he still has.”

  “We all have much to learn, Oba Sassone,” Thomas replied.

  Mrs. Stone cleared her throat. “I apologize for my words, Great-grandson. I did not mean what I said. It appears I, too, was overcome by the song.”

  Augum gave his great-grandmother a heartfelt look. He wanted to hug her but held back—she wasn’t exactly the hugging type.

  “Change has quickened in our land,” an elder Leyan man said with dark citron skin. He wore a tattered ochre shawl painted with leaves and held a simple wooden staff. “We break our Vow of Isolation for mortals entering with a scion. Two kin break this vow to train the mortals, who seek council. We will hold this council on behalf of one Thomas Stone, who shall reap penance.”

  Augum’s stomach tightened. What did they mean by “penance”?

  Mrs. Stone stepped forward and bowed. “Great elders, forgive our intrusion and our mortal follies. We come by necessity. We come with questions.”

  “Speak your piece,” the antlered woman said.

  “I am grateful. My first question is of the wastes. Why has the Song become so deadly?”

  “Never has one held more than two before,” replied a withered old man in sealskin, bent so far forward he was shorter than Leera. His skin was as white as snow, a bone stuck through his nose, and there was a thick black line tattooed down the middle of his bald head.

  “The elder refers to the scions—” Mrs. Stone said.

  “That is so.”

  “Then Lividius has at least three now.”

  Augum exchanged looks with Bridget and Leera. That’s not good.

  “Do the scions have power over Ley?” Mrs. Stone continued after a thoughtful pause.

  The snow-skinned man looked to his right. “I petition to hear from the oldest among us, one who has not spoken in many a year. Krakatos the Ancient, will you break your silence to speak on the subject at hand?”

  All eyes turned to an extremely wrinkled man with dark bronze skin wearing a simple white loincloth. Perched on his bulbous nose were square spectacles with pink lenses. The man stared at Mrs. Stone for so long Augum thought he had chosen to remain silent, until quite suddenly he began speaking in a rapid sharp accent.

  “The aforementioned scions are symbiotically linked to Ley, yet we can only scrutinize the observable effects of said link. Apropos, we failed to anticipate the inherent attachment upon forging. Incongruously, we foresaw the seven could fall under the influence of a single mind, and thus took appropriate precautions. You may be under the impression possibilities are as invisible to us as they are inversely visible to the Seers. Let us agree that in this era we Leyans endeavor to occupy the moment and must accept the consequence of an opaque future.

  “In addendum, and you will forgive my alliteration, the scions appertain to an epoch prior to the covenant, wherein the dissemination of Leyan sapience was the norm, from which you are the unwitting benefit. As a stalwart weed begets an entire field, so you stand as the latest harvest of countless procreations, yet perhaps only the middling step of a super process in search of the singularity.

  “The first concurrent summary is therefore a question—was withdrawal beneficial to the whole? Upon examination, I judge the answer inconclusive, though you must factor my limitations of practicality. The second concurrent summary is a statement you may find vacuous—the link is real, the outcomes and subsurface effects unknown, at least to this base body. I therefore conclude advising skepticism and humbly beg forgiveness for the capricious traipsing of an impertinent mind eternally sizzling under the Leyan sun.”

  Guests and Leyans stirred alike. Augum blinked, trying to understand a single phrase. Might as well have been spoken in Nodian though. There was one thing he did understand, however—Krakatos was very old. Maybe even so old that he might have been around when Atrius Arinthian became a Leyan. He might have even known him! The thought made his blood flow a little quicker.

  “You have my thanks, Krakatos the Ancient,” Mrs. Stone
said at last. “Though I admit it will take me much time to digest your thoughts. Now, my husband, Thomas Stone, suggests the only way to destroy one who yields multiple scions is to let him have them all. Can I assume this is what you meant by ‘precautions’?”

  “That is so,” answered an ancient man with almond shaped eyes, not unlike Mya’s. He wore a simple scarlet robe that hid his entire body, except for his bronze colored head.

  “I know my grandson. He will butcher half the world in the process of acquiring the scions. Surely there must be another way—”

  “There may be, but we are unaware of it.”

  “For that you must seek the wisdom of the Seers—” said a pink-skinned woman in a servant’s outfit.

  “—past the Northern Peaks—” continued an ivory-skinned woman wearing a queenly gown.

  “—in the Kingdom of Ohm,” finished another ancient woman with avocado skin and sunken eyes, wearing a puffy-sleeved wide-skirt dress fringed with elegant ruffles.

  “I will think on this. I know he will not stop until his goals have been achieved, and many would die in the mean …”

  “The future is as yet unwritten,” said an old woman with pale skin, the only one with milky eyes. Her hair was tangled and black as night. A tattered raven cloak hung loosely around her neck, a triangle with a black dot at the tip of each point emblazoned on the chest. The sharpness of her somehow reminded Augum of the claw at Hangman’s Rock.

  “He lusts for the powers of Ley, particularly eternal life,” Mrs. Stone said.

  “The eternal can only come to those with peace in their hearts,” the avocado-skinned woman said.

  “My grandson has become the Lord of the Legion and the Lord of Dreadnoughts. He seeks Occulus’ old throne as the Lord of Death, and now wishes to become the Lord of Scions as well. Perhaps … perhaps there is a way his heart could be mended.”

  Krakatos the Ancient, his gray eyes an echo of time itself, tilted his head ever slightly. “The Lord of Death is by title an elevated evil, his deeds extolled to allegorical proportions. He is not the first, nor will he be the last. On the whole of history, the subsequent idiom can be said to be veritable: those we dread we hesitate to fathom. Yet we can deduce the Lord of Death is mortal, with mortal failings.” His eyes fell upon Augum. “Let the following stand exemplar: I purport he desires the company of his son.”