Hope Betrayed: The Silent Tempest, Book 2 Read online

  HOPE BETRAYED

  Book Two of

  THE SILENT TEMPEST

  by

  E. J. Godwin

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission by the publisher or author.

  Hope Betrayed is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, dead or alive, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by E. J. Godwin.

  Maps copyright © 2015 by E. J. Godwin.

  All rights reserved.

  http://www.ejgodwin.net

  ISBN: 978-0-9849001-3-8

  Edited by Erica Orloff, Editing for Authors.

  Cover art by Anita B. Carroll, Race-Point.

  Contents

  1: Cold Portents

  2: Collision

  3: The Fatalists

  4: Hoarded Secrets

  5: Fading Lights

  6: Escape and Rescue

  7: Disguise and Deception

  8: The Accused

  9: Ancient Surrender

  10: Sires and Swords

  11: Full Circle

  12: An Empty Pyre

  13: Ancient Summons

  14: Warren

  15: Final Capture

  Map of Ada

  What Has Gone Before

  1

  Cold Portents

  History is an endless sequence of choices.

  Mine is but the latest.

  - from Odreld’s letter of resignation to the Master Prophet

  A BULL OF a man held his leathery hands to the fire, his shoulders hunched against the cold. Shadows magnified his brows, and he rubbed his bloodshot eyes, trying to hold off the fleeting visions tormenting his mind.

  Not yet. The old man said I must wait for the right moment.

  The sputtering flames cast the walls of his little cave into a dance, one that seemed to mock his abilities. To his left, a handful of yellowed scrolls stuck out from the top of his duffel. He recalled his very first trance, and his shameless boasting to the Master Prophet the next morning. Long ago. Visions? Fleeting glimpses rather, turned stale by the long, fruitless years of his apprenticeship. They meant nothing to him now, symbols more of vanity than of victory.

  His eyelids kept drooping, so he left the fire and stood at the entrance to revive himself. Moonlit snow smothered the mountainside, and the frigid air stung his bearded face. There was no sign of life this far up—no smoke of a campfire, no cry of a bird, not even the tracks of a mouse—a beautiful, desolate place, with no chance of influence or interruption.

  The apprentice turned his back to the stars, facing the fire. Something extra hung about the unloving walls, transforming mockery to expectation. Tonight was his last chance. He would either join that elite group of seers whose names rang throughout history, or give up his foolish dream and consign himself to a life of tilling and harvesting the fields in Prophet’s Valley. Even the wisest sage still needed to eat.

  He sat down again, and searched his bag until he drew out a small pouch. Holding it open in his lap, he took several slow, deep breaths, then chanted a string of words in the ancient tongue of Urmanaya:

  “Anré té va yaté, ota dé! Anid es av itée atré fdará. Ota, ota! Yru kala onéi.”

  The syllables rolled and echoed against the ragged stone. He upended the bag, filling his palm with yellow powder, and threw the contents into the fire.

  The flames flared high for a moment. A smokeless aroma rose, and he inhaled deeply. Again and again he repeated the chant, blanking out his thoughts, surrendering to the drug.

  The walls began to turn. He no longer felt the heat of the flames, or the stone on which he sat. His voice died, as if controlled by a will other than his own. The crackle of burning wood faded to silence.

  The fire still burned, yet it was blurred, as if seen through a frosted window. It shrank and lost color, and ceased its flickering. Grey shadows formed in a silvery disc. Suddenly he recognized it: a full moon, as clear as the one sailing high outside his small cave.

  He stood at the edge of a wide trench, his hand clasped around a long metal tube, smoke trailing from its forward end. Bodies filled the pit below, hundreds of them, a writhing mass of scorched flesh. He leaped in, desperate to get across, to prevent the shrieking, bloodied sorceress across the trench from regaining the evil device that had nearly destroyed them. Scores of men groped after him, calling Grondolos, Grondolos, their lidless eyes a ghastly plea for mercy. He fought them off, weeping as he struggled through the hideous tide.

  The apprentice cried out in terror. The war against Heradnora!

  Yet as the echo of his scream died so did the vision, replaced instantly by a tall ship. Sails billowed overhead, gleaming in the sun, rising and falling with the ocean swells. A cliff loomed in the distance, where a waterfall roared out of a crevice to pummel the rocks below. He gripped the rail with one hand, while in the other he held a pair of narrow, broken cylinders as black as night, trembling as if ready to cast them into the sea.

  The ship faded, and the sky darkened. Colorful, glowing runes or letters marched by in neat little rows. A boy lay dead or asleep in a bed-like container, his features distorted by a curved glass lid. A man with long black hair stood nearby with his head bowed and his face wet with tears. A second container beyond held another sleeping form, presumably the boy’s father. But the stranger paid no heed, his attention fixed upon the child. Then he vanished, and complete darkness fell.

  The vision ended. The apprentice scanned the walls of his cave, until his slowly-clearing eyes stopped at the entrance. No change had come to the stars, nor to anything within sight of his high mountain perch.

  He sat for a while, the familiar sound of his little fire calming his pounding heart and trembling hands. Is that what I’m supposed to see? The past, and not the future?

  He wanted to leave at once to tell the Master Prophet. He knew it was foolish to risk the slopes of the Iéndrai at night. And the old man would surely lecture him about the dangers of impatience.

  But this was no ordinary vision. He had lived it. Of all the Prophets before him, who could boast that they had stood in the shoes of Grondolos, a man who died over a thousand years ago?

  The apprentice doused the fire, gathered his belongings, and ventured out into the silvery night, his snowshoes whispering across the snow. Over and over he recalled the images, burning them into his mind. Yet a voice kept interrupting his thoughts, words the old Prophet had said to him only a few days before:

  The past is often a window to the future.

  2

  Collision

  You never really understand how precious choice is

  until you have none left.

  -Derré, door warden of Wsaytchen

  CALEB STENGER emerged from the last pine-clad bluff to look down upon the tumbled shore. The raft, still wedged among the rocks, was a far more comforting sight than when he first set foot on it a day ago. Though his son tramped healthy at his side and his joy knew no bounds, he was eager to leave the island and its ancient cavern where the bones of so many Raéni lay covered in dust. The sooner they were away from Graxmoar and whatever dark secret had conquered Ada’s bravest warriors, the better.

  Warren leaped from rock to rock over the breaking foam as Soren gave the raft a quick inspection. “Hey!” Caleb shouted. “You’re gonna bust your head open!” The boy stumped over to the raft, glowering, and Caleb silently berated himself. Now that Warren was healed it was so easy to fall into the trap of overprotectiveness.

  Rennor was still puffing and cursing his way down the tree-tangled slope, no doubt struggling to catch up before Soren took it into his head to leave withou
t him. Caleb was half tempted to give in to the suggestion. Regardless of the outcome, Rennor had been far too willing to let Warren be the first to lay hands on the Broken Lor’yentré—proof that his hidden motives were not so noble as he professed. Caleb’s knuckles still stung from the reward he had delivered to the man’s nose.

  The sun had burned away the morning mists, and the way across the lake shone clear. They dragged the raft out of the maze of rocks and boarded. Caleb and Rennor manned the sculls, while Soren resumed his position holding the sail in place with ropes. Warren sat fore, clasped to the baggage as the craft tossed and heaved over the surf.

  At last they reached open water and headed due west, toward the faint line of trees refracted barely above the horizon. With the wind in their favor now one scull was enough to keep them on course, and Soren reluctantly agreed to Caleb’s request to abandon his post and talk to his son. Yet once Caleb lowered himself to Warren’s side he was at a loss.

  A few minutes passed. Warren peeked at him sideways.

  “Dad! Will you stop staring at me like that? It gives me the creeps.”

  Caleb laughed. “Sorry. I can’t help myself. I keep expecting to wake up and find out it was all a dream.”

  “It’s the other way around for me. Why are we out here in the middle of nowhere?”

  “You realize this isn’t Earth, right?”

  Warren rolled his eyes. “I’m not a dumb kid anymore! Besides, I haven’t forgotten everything since we got here.”

  “Do you remember when the ship crashed?”

  Warren sat cross-legged against the baggage, his hands fidgeting with a shred of bark peeled from the raft. “A little. I remember those people on horses taking us away to that city. Was one of them Soren?”

  “Yes. And Telai.”

  A genuine smile brightened Warren’s face. Then it faded. “I miss her.”

  “I know. You’re not the only one.”

  Warren squirmed a little. “Yeah? Then why did you leave her?”

  The question stole Caleb’s breath away. How so like his mother!—guileless in both affection and criticism. “I didn’t have a choice,” he said at last. “You were sick. And I mean bad sick.”

  “How bad?” Warren asked, staring.

  “The crash damaged your capsule. I couldn’t get you out in time. The medical scanner gave you ten years to live, tops.” Caleb paused for a response, but Warren only waited for him to continue, his face a conflicting jumble of fear and confusion. “Then I discovered something in their archives about an ancient device,” Caleb resumed, “one that would cure any sickness. I had to find out if there was any truth to it.” He smiled. “Looks like it paid off.”

  Warren’s hand drifted toward his coat pocket, but stopped short and returned to his lap. “So we can go back to—um—Ekendoré now, right?”

  Caleb hesitated. He had defied the precepts of an entire nation, sacrificing his own happiness along the way. The last thing he wanted was to place a burden of guilt on his own son. But it was unavoidable. Warren needed to hear the unvarnished truth about their exile, especially if they returned to Ada—and Telai.

  “There’s a lot to tell you,” Caleb said, “and it’s not very pretty.” Warren listened closely as his father related the story, though at times he seemed strangely detached. Caleb finally ended at Graxmoar, telling Warren about the cave and the ancient obelisk of Heradnora they had discovered.

  The boy sat quiet for a while, his sight cast over the sunlit waves. “Dad, that night by the campfire: Why did Soren try to—you know, do what he did with his sword?”

  Caleb tensed, fearing that Soren might have overheard; then he realized that no one on this planet could possibly understand what they were saying. “You remember that?”

  “Are you kidding? Why was he so mad at you?”

  “Mostly because he thought I had broken the Oath of the Raéni.”

  Warren shrugged. “Did you?”

  Caleb chose his words carefully, knowing his son was struggling to navigate the same moral quagmire he fell into that fateful day in Gerentesk. “That’s a matter of debate, I suppose. I’m still trying to work it out myself. But I know one thing: I’ll never regret my decision.”

  A sudden misgiving darkened Caleb’s thoughts—the same vague guilt he had experienced at the first sight of the Broken Lor'yentré. But he suppressed it. His own inner demons were no less a threat to his happiness than those who had forced them into exile—both on Earth and at Udan.

  Warren glanced back at Soren, but he was hidden behind the sail.

  “I haven’t talked to him about it since then, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Caleb said. “To be honest, I’d rather let sleeping dogs lie. But if we ever get back to Ekendoré, I’ll probably have to stand before the Council.”

  “Will we get kicked out again?”

  “I wish I had an answer. It’s possible.”

  Caleb said nothing of the other reckoning that awaited him in that noble city. That evening on Telai’s balcony was still so vivid in his mind—the sights, the smells, the warm touch of her hand on his arm. He ached to hold her, to vow never to leave her again. Whether she believed him or not was a prospect he feared greater than any edict handed down by the Council.

  He reached in his coat and brought out the gift she had presented to him during the ceremony of the Oath atop the Old Wall. The sunlight bouncing off the waves added to its beauty, amplifying every minor crack and imperfection in the amber. The firefly at its center seemed to hover in a lightning-filled tempest of its own making.

  “What is that?”

  Caleb snapped out of his daydreams. “Telai gave it to me. It’s called the Fenta té Esiré, the Gift of Farewell.”

  “Can I see it?”

  Caleb smiled and set it in his palm. Warren turned it over and over, like a typical boy considering another rock for his collection. Then it lay still on his hands for a while, until Caleb wondered what he was thinking.

  A glistening drop fell and wet the stone. “Warren? You all right?”

  “Yeah,” he murmured, quickly drying the stone on his sleeve. He handed it back without looking, then turned and bowed his head.

  Caleb heard nothing beyond the lop of waves and the makeshift sail snapping in the wind, but the tremble in Warren’s shoulders told him all he needed to know. And when he tried to place his arm around those shoulders, Warren shrugged him away.

  A lump passed his throat. How easy it was to feel inadequate as a father, despite everything he had sacrificed! Warren was only now coming to grips with how far he was from Earth, and his father had just told him that everyone in Ada—perhaps even Telai—thought their arrival heralded the Bringer of Evil foretold by the Prophets. Caleb knew there was no way to protect his son from this bitter knowledge. Yet it took none of the sting away.

  ♦

  The morning wore on. Warren dozed on the baggage, one arm dangled past his head and bobbing with each lurch of the raft. Caleb took his turn at the sail, while Soren manned one of the sculls. Rennor curled up to sleep near Warren.

  Now that Caleb was alone his thoughts kept drifting back to that empty summit on Graxmoar and its missing tree. It was like a thing alive, watching him, a continual, whispering accusation that there might be a price to pay beyond what even the Council of Nine demanded. He resisted the notion of mentioning it to Soren. The Master Raén would only validate his fears, declaring the missing tree as some inexplicable sign of doom.

  Holding the sail was more work than Caleb expected. But the wind was in their favor, and they reached the mainland shore in the early afternoon, landing some distance south of their original point of departure. They hauled the raft into a nearby thicket, then built a fire and cooked a large meal, for they were famished.

  He dreaded the thought of trudging for miles searching for the horses without a proper night’s sleep. But it proved less of a chore than he imagined. The dark sand along the lake provided solid footing, and once they reached t
he woods from the day before they had little trouble rounding up the horses before nightfall. As Soren predicted his own came at call, the rest trailing closely behind. After securing the provisions they had left hanging in the trees, they set up camp and surrendered to a long, deep sleep.

  The next day greeted them with a promise of warm weather. Warren, having had some experience with riding back on Earth and loath now to sit in the saddle with his father, rode the pack horse, their supplies divided equally. Thus unburdened they made good speed, heading south.

  Later in the afternoon as they left the lake behind, they heard a faint murmur, growing ever louder. A fog-like cloud rose against the horizon. Suddenly the grasslands ended. They stood at the brink of towering cliffs, beyond which countless miles of tiny, foam-flecked waves dwindled into the distance. Soren pointed east to where the cliffs formed a shallow bay. Wreathed in billowing mist, a subterranean river surged out of a wide fissure to crash like thunder against the rocks far below.

  “Tonorasus,” he shouted above the tumult, “the Throne of the Sea. Trethan mariners used it as a guide in ancient times.”

  Caleb’s awe rendered him silent. Wind-swept plumes of mist twisted and churned along the massive cliffs, while the ocean’s fury boomed like distant cannon fire against the tumbled shore at their feet. He felt no trace of the barrier of fear that, according to legend, protected these shores as well as the forest Tnestiri. But there was no need for it. Anyone who by some miracle survived the relentless surf would never have scaled such a height.

  They rode east along the coast until dusk forced a halt. The next morning dawned even brighter than the day before. Yet Caleb’s fear that they were headed for disaster grew with each passing mile. Gur’alyreiv was not an experience he cared to repeat, but he would have endured its wrenching despair again were it not for the strange creature of stone that had nearly squeezed the life out of him.

  He hurried forward to ride alongside Soren, keeping his silence until the man threw him a glance.