The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

V

The Huntress and the Phoenix

In which the soldiers are roused to battle, and Edana uses a star map

More than an hour passed before they reached the shore fort. Along the way they looked back and saw a green streak flash across the sky—sorcerers at work, putting out the fires.

Edana brooded. She hadn’t beheaded any giants, which meant the ones she dealt with may have regenerated. The green streak gave her hope that Morivassus had reached the Watch, and found them competent to help.

In the meantime, the group took to the barges and sailed the three miles down the coast to the fort. The officers recognized the Philomelos family, for Bessa’s family supplied a goodly amount of the wine the fort enjoyed. The centurion in command of the fort rapidly mustered his men after hearing the report of giants.

The Philomelos house guards presented the pieces they had gathered of the giant’s plate armor. The armor fascinated the soldiers, but Edana’s demonstration of the lightning weapon sent feral smiles rippling through the ranks of the battle sorcerers.

Centurion Ajax Makris examined the weapon and marveled. Created from no metal they knew, the device looked silvery. Yet it was lighter than silver and iron both, and stronger still than antimony.

Edana took Makris and the legion’s first-ranked sorcerer aside, and briefed them on what she had witnessed of the giant’s physiology.

“Regeneration? Like a water dragon?” Pegasus Prime Xylon, the first-ranked sorcerer asked.

Light glinted from the brooch that fastened his cloak. Edana reflexively checked. Fashioned to resemble a right hand over the heart, the coppery sunstone signaled an Oathtaker. A trustworthy sorcerer. So it was said.

Xylon glanced at the centurion. “We have enough Salamandran acid to deal with the regeneration abilities.”

“Assuming the giants are affected the same way water dragons are, sure. But if they’re not?”

“You can always take the head. That does work,” Edana replied, winning a lopsided smile from Makris.

Upon her request, Makris had a soldier lead her to the oraculum. When he left her, Edana shut the door firmly and locked it. She surveyed the room.

Housed in a rotunda like all oracula, this one was built on a smaller scale than Edana was used to. The dome above it was not more than thirty feet in diameter. However, like other oracula, the inner walls of the room under the dome formed an inscribed hexagon—a hexagon inside a circle.

This fortress was not wealthy, so only plaster covered the brick walls, rather than marble. Serviceable enough, as was the shallow pool in the center of the room. Some artist had taken care with the frieze ringing the top outer circle, where the wall met the dome. The frieze, of course, depicted the signs of the zodiac, marked off in thirty degree intervals.

A full-length mirror stood in every corner of the hexagon. Crystal balls rested on pedestals standing before the exact center of each wall. One such pedestal stood in front of the doors Edana had come through.

The domed glass ceiling sported a retractable shutter. A large crystal phial, set like a gem in a ring, hung in suspension in the dome’s center. The phial captured the light of the brightest celestial object in the sky—sun, moon, or a star.

Whenever someone activated the oraculum, the phial’s ring swung upside down, inserting the phial into a barrel that housed lenses and mirrors of different shapes. Usually only one lens was open at a time, to focus the light against the star maps on the upper walls. At noon, the sun would shine directly on the pool.

Edana walked over to the first of three machines next to the pool. Its panel of gears and levers controlled the lens. She cranked the gears until starlight shone on the Restorer’s phoenix constellation in the zodiac, where the sun would not enter in the true sky until midsummer. The phoenix occupied the section of the frieze above the double doors in the center of the northern wall. In front of the doors stood a crystal ball which began to glow, emitting a soft, silvery light.

She studied the second panel. Two concentric rings of polished bronze dominated the front panel. Markings on the outer ring tracked the days of the year, and markings on the inner ring tracked the zodiac. In the center of the panel sat two smaller disks of electrum, the top one exactly half the diameter of the bottom.

The smallest, topmost disk had a gold hand, speared with a golden sphere that represented the sun. The larger disk featured six hands, one with a lapis sphere encircled with silver, to represent the moon. Shadows falling upon the sphere would indicate the moon’s phase.

The other hands represented the Seeker’s Alliance, the wandering stars: Aletheia, the Truth Sayer and Her twin sister Sorcha, the Everbright; Amyntas, the Protector of Innocents; Khratu, the Strategist; and Yadon, the Destroyer. In the heavens at night constellations circled the Seeker’s Eye, the fixed guide star of night travelers.

When Edana turned the crank, the sun moved along the zodiac until she stopped it at the sign of the Huntress, which the sun had passed through two months ago when Edana left Kyanopolis. The Huntress presided over the spring equinox, and so Her sign aligned with the mirror in the corner directly west of the pool.

At the last panel she threw down the lever. At this a silvery light began to form in the west corner’s mirror. Moments later a silvery filament emerged from the mirror and immediately sought, and joined with the starlight shining on the phoenix sign’s crystal ball.

As expected, a third filament emerged from the joining of the beams. By rules she didn’t fully understand, the third beam always aimed itself at a point between the first two beams. In this case, the third beam struck the northwest mirror, below the sign for the lamassu—celestial guardians of Qirû, where all life began.

Edana shook her head, bemused by the process. If she were a seer she could have directly used the pool, the balls, or the mirrors according to her own preference. Unfortunately, everyone who was not a seer had to settle for the convoluted methods she had used just now.

She approached the mirror and softly called out, “Lady Nensela Sideris, Edana Nuriel summons you. Will you answer?”

The mirror shimmered and then, with perfect clarity, the seer stood before her as if she were truly in the room. Standing regal as always, in a violet linen chiton embroidered in silver. So much purple on the seer always unnerved Edana, for the color normally meant one of two things: a priest of the Speaker, or a member of the imperial family. For anyone else it was treason.

However, Lady Nensela hailed from Ta-Seti, a former empire to the south of Rasena Valentis, excusing her from the charge of treason by default.

“You live,” Lady Nensela said without preamble.

Edana had contacted her only once, in Sirônasse, to assure the seer her ship had not sank. Oracula offered the securest means of communicating long distances, without concern for spies, but unfortunately they were not commonly available. Three weeks without news must have grated on the seer’s nerves, Edana supposed. Certainly the enforced silence grated on hers.

Edana’s lips quirked at this rebuke of her prolonged silence. “Indeed. I trust you are pleased?”

Lady Nensela’s eyes, almond shaped as Edana’s were, but dark as a moonless night, narrowed nearly to slits. However, the faint spasm near her lips betrayed her good humor. Her guard was down, assuring Edana it was safe to talk.

“I am pleased,” she replied, in the soft cadences of her accent.

“Good. What I say next will not please you.”

Quickly she recounted the events of the evening starting with the attack, ending with her confrontation with the giant and its strange demise. Through it all Lady Nensela had remained unperturbed, but her eyes flashed when Edana quoted the giant.

“‘We are the children. You are the motes. And the servants will fall,’” Lady Nensela echoed thoughtfully.

“Is that something you recognize?”

Lady Nensela shook her head and began to pace, stepping out of view for a moment and revealing her library. A sanctuary where Edana had spent countless hours herself over the years, studying and receiving lessons from tutors.

Edana checked her portable astrolabe, which was marked with the latitudes of different cities so she could determine her time relative to theirs. In Falcon’s Hollow it was an hour past midnight. Kyanopolis was an hour ahead of Falcon’s Hollow. Had Lady Nensela slept at all? She sometimes spent all night in her library.

The seer stepped back into view. “I will make inquiries. This is progress we needed. I should pray so, anyway.” She stared long at Edana. “Philomelos—I trust your foster sister lives?”

“Yes,” Edana said quickly, before she could be overtaken by the memory of how close a call it had been for Bessa.

Lady Nensela bowed her head, and her expression settled into her old serenity. “That also pleases me. For your sake as well as hers. Your instincts served you well.”

Regret shot through Edana, and she shuddered. “Not well enough. Many of her people are dead.”

“Had there been a way to prevent it, I would have…and so would you. Our enemies are many. Who are their allies, and what is their strength? Take comfort, at least one in their council will soon be in your hand. Do you still have the package?”

“I have yet to deliver it,” Edana said.

In her baggage was her ‘alibi,’ the collection of papers and currency implicating the traitor in crimes. Crimes that guaranteed a death sentence in imperial courts. This would hopefully prevent authorities from looking too closely into the traitor’s death, and keep them from discovering Edana’s involvement.

I need a fulcrum, Lady Nensela had told Edana before she set out for Silura. Lady Nensela needed leverage to convince the emperor to muster the legions.

Right now, most of the political class in Rasena Valentis were focused on what they believed to be higher priorities such as droughts, pirates, and trade disputes. Ephemeral problems.

The giants may signal a bigger crisis, the imperial envoy conceded when Lady Nensela and her fellow prophets brought their vision before him. However, the envoy pointed out the army could not fight shadows. They needed to know who they would fight, and where.

Lady Nensela closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Go with care.”

As it was past midnight when they arrived, the chamberlain arranged accommodations for the refugees. He turned over the senior officers’ quarters to the Philomelos women and children.

The fort only had half the maximum complement of soldiers, which left enough unused barracks space for the laborers. Aurelia’s house guards were to share the occupied barracks, sleeping in shifts.

The centurion ordered a skeletal crew of guards to station themselves amongst the refugees, allowing the Philomelos guards to sleep first.

The senior officers’ quarters included a suite intended for honored guests, which the centurion’s wife gave to Aurelia.

“We will not be more of a disruption than necessary,” Aurelia said by way of apology, for Makris’s wife was heavily pregnant, yet she insisted on getting out of bed to attend to them. Aurelia asked for a healer to help the survivors.

Bessa helped organize the children’s sleeping arrangements and tried to keep them calm. Adopting an upbeat demeanor, she spun a tale of valiant soldiers vanquishing ‘wicked giants.’

The children cheered, and Bessa sighed in relief at her success in keeping their fears, and tears, at bay. In the meantime she kept an eye out for Edana’s return. She had noticed Edana privately conferring with the centurion and the pegasus prime just before they left. Whatever she said seemed to shock them. The night would not pass, Bessa decided, without her learning what Edana knew.

Soon enough Lenora returned and announced the baths were ready for the women. Bessa promptly put the children in her care, then slipped away to search for Edana.

The soldiers made way for her, nodding absently as she passed. They talked excitedly about the giants and she paused to listen. Their accents marked them as Tartessians, who like others in the empire regarded Silura as a boring, barbaric backwater. A place with little opportunity for an up and coming soldier to distinguish himself in battle. Fighting giants would change their fortunes considerably…if they lived to tell of it.

She asked after Edana, and one soldier led her to the oraculum. Her resolve wavered when she was confronted by the locked door. With a sigh, she leaned against the door. To her disappointment, she could hear nothing on the other side of it. Fortunately, it swung open moments later. Bessa scrambled to remain upright, and Edana peered curiously at her through sleepy eyes.

“Bessa?”

“The baths are ready,” Bessa explained. “Are you staying with us?”

For the first time since her arrival, Edana smiled with a touch of the roguishness she possessed in their childhood.

“Would you like me to fill you in along the way?” she asked.

“Please do.”

“The days to complete my task are numbered,” Edana said. “It grieves me that I cannot stay in Silura. But tonight there were only a handful of giants. In the seers’ vision, there was an army, as far as the eye could see. And after tonight, I am less confident our people can defeat them. The giants are not any race known to us.”

Edana’s steps slowed, and she looked sidelong at Bessa, unmistakable appraisal in her eyes. Bessa stopped, and planted herself in Edana’s path so they could stand eye-to-eye.

“Tell me,” she insisted. “You know I’m not one for hysterics.”

“Of course not,” Edana agreed. “But I fear I can’t offer you any hope after this. There is too much unknown, too much we have to learn. And now I must reassess everything.” She paused and added, “I was certain if I kept you in the dark the mercenaries I spoke of would have no reason to collect your head. I hoped too much, and in doing so I wronged you. But I owe you the truth, so that you may prepare.”

Bessa waited, bracing herself when Edana took a deep breath.

“In the vision, the giants arrive during a ‘sunless dawn.’ A solar eclipse, most likely. The imperial astronomers predicted when it would occur. From the time of their vision until the eclipse, a thousand days shall pass.”

Bessa squared her shoulders. Privately she was pleased she had made good on her word to stay calm. As calm as Edana had been in the midst of the night’s crisis. “And you’re concerned because you’re not certain we’ll be able to defeat them when that day comes? Which is when?”

“We have less than two years at this point,” Edana said. “When the latest Star Dragon died I tried to come straight here. I planned to sail to Sirônasse and take a carriage here. Or if necessary, risk sailing the Kraken’s Ladies. But it was too early in the spring, when even the imperial ships will not risk it. They stayed docked until two weeks before the Day of the Sea Lord.”

The Kraken’s Ladies marked the narrow strait separating the Viridian Sea from the Borealis Ocean ever since the Third Cataclysm, over three thousand years ago.

At the strait, ships would meet a powerful whirlpool. If conditions were right—or wrong, as it were—wind and tide from the Viridian would clash with wind and tide from the Borealis. Ships met their fate in the resulting cyclone, smashing against the cliffs of the nations of Tartessia or Ziradra. The bodies of sailors, swept under the sea, would feed the krakens residing in the depths. Worse still, it was not safe to sail at all until the Day of the Sea Lord, which marked the start of the sailing season.

Bessa shivered, considering the risk Edana had taken.

They resumed their walk.

“We know too little, and every answer we get gives us three more questions,” Edana continued.

“Including the traitor?”

“Yes. We know who it is. What we don’t know is why or how, nor where the giants are coming from. A Gate makes the most sense, but it’s obviously not the Cloud Gate or the Karnassus Gate, and those are the only Gates in Rasena Valentis. That we know of. Lady Nensela, the seer who took me in, believes there may have been a third Gate in Rasena Valentis, before the Third Cataclysm. She’s convinced if we find it, we can close it and stop the giants from coming through.”

Bessa stopped in her tracks. “That’s a huge side track, isn’t it? The Third Dark Age came after the Cataclysm. There’s too much mystery from that time, and outlandish legends. Supposedly, a sorceress could control sea dragons and petrify them. Try that now. Allegedly before then the Cataclysm there was a floating city in the clouds, whatever it was called—”

“Zanbil,” Edana supplied.

“Right.” Bessa waved it off. “My point is, what good will it do to focus on myth and legend? It’s a primrose path.”

“You forget she’s immortal. She’s dedicated to making sure the Fourth Dark Age is the final dark age,” Edana said. “And she is not a fluff-brained scholar, with her head floating in the clouds. Lady Nensela leaves nothing to chance; she hired the Star Dragons. As well as echomancers and lorekeepers to investigate the past, in case what will happen has happened before.”

Now they came to the corridor outside of Makris’s office. The wall opposite was dominated by a mural depicting an itinerarium, a road map listing towns and stops along the official roads of Rasena Valentis. The lines marking the roads between cities were annotated with the distances between each city.

Edana gestured at the map. “No one knows if the giants were native to one of these nations. If so they may have been pushed out. Or perhaps they are foreign, but have tried before to invade. If so, how were they defeated? Can we use the methods of the previous victors?”

“Very wise of her,” Bessa conceded. What of this seer? Respect tinged Edana’s voice when she spoke of her, and Bessa never knew Edana to be credulous or foolish.

Edana touched her arm, indicating she did not take offense.

They reached the stairs, and the guards snapped their spears straight to let them pass. Bessa unconsciously began to twirl a strand of her hair, a thought nagging at her. She stared at Edana out of the corner of her eyes and tried to find the words. Finally she exhaled.

“You killed the giants,” she said slowly. “And you believed first that you could do it. As if you had done so before. And you were sent here to find the traitor, and I suppose, to question him and kill him. Or her. Sent by Nensela? Or the Star Dragons?”

Now Edana planted herself in Bessa’s path, facing her eye-to-eye. “Let me clarify that I never saw a giant before tonight. But I did not come empty handed; you will see shortly. As for how I came to be here—I was a watcher at first”

After the massacre, Edana found an imperial garrison in the Scrubs. There she met Lady Nensela, who had stopped at the fortress to resupply on her way to Kyanopolis.

“She was grieving, too. A mighty storm in the Gold Sea destroyed her husband’s ship. Lady Nensela survived, but not her husband and daughter. Her daughter was our age, and I think it made her protective of me. She insisted I join her caravan, because it’s not safe for a girl to travel alone in the Scrubs. Unfortunately when we arrived in Kyanopolis, the sailing season had closed. I had to stay there for the winter.”

During the winter, Lady Nensela gently persuaded Edana that her ‘plan’ to sail to Sirônasse and live off the land as she walked back to Silura was not the wisest idea.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m glad you didn’t try that,” Bessa said.

Edana smiled slightly. “I was foolish. I am grateful Lady Nensela insisted I stay with her. She gave me the grace of time to grieve. And time to figure out how to rebuild my life.”

“What did you come up with?”

“Kyanopolis has silver mines,” Edana said, fingering the silver catoblepas aegis Bessa wore around her neck. An aegis beautifully crafted, as all her father’s work had been. “And it is those mines that have tipped the balance of fortunes.”