The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two (32 page)

At that cue, the musicians struck up a joyous tune, and the onlookers crowded around Tris to embrace him. When he had greeted all of those gathered around the fire, Talwyn motioned for them to sit, and gestured for Tris to sit next to her.

“When a child is born among our people, we share
vass
and bread and
tepik
together,” she said. Tris glanced toward the loaf of hard bread and flagon of
vass
set next to a wide bowl of
tepik
, a heavily seasoned vegetable mash. “By joining in our birth feast, you become one of the sons and daughters of the Sworn.” Talwyn lifted the hard loaf of bread, broke off a piece of it, and then handed it to Tris who did the same. Next, she dipped the bread into the
tepik
and ate her portion, passing the bowl to Tris to follow her example. She took a drink from the flagon of
vass
, and as Tris gave the bowl and bread to Jair, he took the flagon and steeled himself for a mouthful of the strong liquor. Slowly, bread, bowl, and flagon moved around the circle, until all had partaken.

Pevre was the last to eat and drink, consuming the last piece of bread and bit of
tepik
and then emptying the flagon. He held the empty vessels aloft. “Rejoice. Our numbers are increased. Together, we renew our bond to each other, to the Spirit Guides, and to the Sacred Lady as keepers of the Dread.”

Once again, joyous songs rose from the musicians, and everyone in the camp began to dance, drawing Tris in among them. Amid the celebration, Tris saw Pevre take the candle that had spread into a puddle of warm wax in its stone holder and reshape the soft wax into a new candle. Still singing and dancing, the group followed Pevre down the path to the barrow.

The sun was quite low in the sky, just a candlemark before sundown. At the barrows, Pevre and Talwyn stepped forward. Pevre lit the candle and held it aloft.

“Ancient Dread, keepers of the barrows and what lies within, accept the renewal of our vow to defend your sacred places from all who would desecrate them.” Pevre
repeated the oath in the consonant-heavy language of the Sworn, a language that sounded to Tris like the murmur of the wind. To Tris’s amazement, the language now needed no interpretation, and he realized he understood every word.

“Yes, it’s an effect of the ritual,” Jair murmured to him. “Be glad. I had to learn it the hard way.”

Talwyn moved to stand beside Pevre, and Tris saw that she carried a tray with an offering of bread,
tepik
, and
vass
. “Honored Ones, keep the feast with us. Accept our gifts and accept our oath. As in the past, so tomorrow, and for all days.” She set the offering next to the burning candle.

The song of the crowd became a chant. Tris could feel old magic rising around them. The magic rose from the ground and every living thing around them, and was answered by a wave of magic from the barrows.

The air around the candle and food offering began to shimmer, like the ripple of heat in the air on the hottest of days. The air itself bent and shimmered, and when it cleared, the offering was gone. Where the offering had been, the ground was scorched bare. Talwyn raised her hands and turned to the cheering crowd. Slowly, the group made its way back to camp.

Tris remained behind, along with Jair, Pevre, and Talwyn. Tris felt his stomach tighten, knowing that the time had come for him to enter the barrows. He thought again about Scaith’s attack on Cwynn, and fierce anger dispelled his fear.

“I’m ready,” he said, meeting Pevre’s gaze.

Pevre held out a leather bag to Tris. Inside were the passage tokens the Dread had given him. He put on the items that could be worn and left the other gifts in the bag.
Nexus hung in his scabbard, and his steel sword was a reassuring weight in the scabbard on his back.

Talwyn motioned for Tris to lie down. He stretched out on the ground near the barrow, while Talwyn and Pevre set eight candles in an outline around his form. Jair stood back and was soon joined by Emil, both of them heavily armed with daggers and their
stelians
. Tris knew that their task was to keep Talwyn and Pevre from being disturbed during the working.

“Can you work the keeping spell?” Tris hoped his voice did not belie his nervousness.

Talwyn nodded. “It’s as you said: Breath and the beating of the heart are like bellows and pump. I will keep them going while you enter the Underrealm.”

“If I don’t return—”

“We will wait for you for as long as your journey takes,” Pevre said. “We will break our vigil only upon your return, or upon the report of the Dread that you are lost to Konost.” He met Tris’s gaze. “I believe you will return to us. Know that it is not just Talwyn and I keeping vigil. The whole camp keeps vigil with you. Such a thing has its own magic.” Pevre paused.

“Remember that you’ll have to pass a series of gates. Each gatekeeper will demand a gift. Make your offerings, and you should be able to pass.” Pevre raised a hand in blessing.

“It’s time for your journey. May the Spirit Guides and the Sacred Lady walk with you.”

Tris closed his eyes and centered his magic. He could feel Talwyn’s magic close to him, reassuring and strong. With a thought, he loosed the bonds that connected his soul to his body. He felt his body still for a moment, and
then a rush of Talwyn’s magic began the rhythm of breath and heartbeat as he moved away from the pale, prone form on the ground.

Already, he could feel the power of the Dread. He took another step toward the barrow, and where its surface had been unbroken only moments before, now Tris saw a dark gash in the mound. Cold, ancient power radiated from the barrow, unlike any magic he had encountered in the mortal world. He moved into the Plains of Spirit and entered the barrow.

Welcome, Summoner-King
. The voice that greeted him was the same as the one he had encountered before, and as Tris neared the opening in the mound, he saw the shadows shift and move. He kept a firm grip on Nexus’s pommel as he stepped into the shadows.

What are you?
Tris sensed the presence of the Dread guide with his magic, able with his mage senses to separate the animate shadow from the darkness around them.

Millennia ago, we were much like your people. Magic was more common among us, and it bred true so that as the years went by, nearly all of our people harbored some power. Ours was not the elemental magic your people possess, the magic of air, land, water, and fire. Nor was it exactly like your summoning magic. Our gift was thought magic, and we had the power to read, shape, and alter the thoughts of outsiders and even of supernatural beings. The stronger among us could also manipulate those who were younger or weaker. Magic of any kind invites corruption, as you have learned yourself
.

How did you come to be the guardians of the Nachele?

We grew bored with the conquest of other mortals, and we grew arrogant in our power. We turned our attention to
the beings of the Nether, and of other realms best left untouched. We awakened beings that were beyond our power to control, and because of our magic, gave them a new and dangerous sentience. We loosed a bloodbath upon our time that nearly wiped out all living beings from the lands you know as the Winter Kingdoms—and beyond their borders
.

A War of Unmaking
.

If so, then the gods had no part in bringing cataclysm down upon us. We did that to ourselves
.

The Nachele were the beings that you set loose?

Our discovery, and our burden. In our desperation, when only a few of the most powerful among us were left, we found a way to bind what we had loosed—but at a terrible price. So long as any of our kind remained among the living, the Nachele would also roam the world. To bind them, we would have to become their jailers, for eternity. So you see, Summoner-King, why we cannot allow the Nachele to be awakened once more
.

I see. Must I pass among the Nachele to find Konost?

No. We bound the Nachele in a place between realms that is not of the living, but also not of the Underrealm. Even with our power, we were not gods. Yet the opening to the Underrealm lies near here. I can take you to the first gate, but no farther. When—and if—you return, I will guide you back to your body
.

Tris followed the voice through the long descent into the gray half light of the Underrealm. It was silent, without the distant sound of insects or animals, or even of wind through dry branches. There was no scent from the moist ground, the vegetation, or the wind, just the distant smell of the grave.

Tris looked down at himself. He wore the spirit-remnants of his clothing, as well as the passage tokens the Dread had given to him. He drew Nexus and as it cleared the scabbard, its runes flared and rearranged themselves.
Light sustains
, read the inscription. It was the same message that the sword had given him on the occasion of Cwynn’s birth, and he hoped it was a good omen.

Ahead of him stood a large stone wall. It seemed to go on forever in either direction. The stone was weathered, ancient, and thick. In the center of the wall was an arched opening with an iron gate and a large lock molded into the shape of a serpent. Tris fingered the silver vambrace on his left arm, and squared his shoulders. He strode up to the gate.

“Gatekeeper! A word with you.”

The lock came apart, reshaping itself into the form of a large gray metallic serpent. The serpent languorously twined itself over and through the wrought-iron bars. The snake stopped and raised its head to look at Tris. Tris saw that the serpent was as thick as his upper arm, and its coiled body looked powerful. Black, depthless eyes fixed on his.

“I bring a gift to pass this gate. Allow me to enter and return and the gift is yours.”

The serpent stretched forward, its long fangs plainly visible. Just as Tris thought that the snake meant to strike him, it stopped, head raised, as if waiting. Tris removed the silver vambrace from his arm and slipped it over the snake’s head.

As soon as the snake’s body passed through the silver vambrace, its skin lost its metallic luster, and as Tris watched, the snake took on the supple, scaled appearance
of a normal serpent. The vambrace fell to the ground, and the serpent uncoiled itself from around the gate, letting the doors swing apart to admit Tris.

Wary that he had passed the first gate only to enter a more dangerous place, Tris nodded his thanks to the serpent and followed an overgrown and long-disused path that stretched from the stone wall down a long, rocky hill. Tris could hear no rustle of his passage on the path, no footsteps in the dead grass, no whisper of his breath.

He continued down the path until he reached the edge of a large forest. Like the stone wall, the forest stretched to the horizon on either side. Where the path entered the tree line, there stood a gate with two intricately carved posts and an equally ornate lintel. It appeared possible to go around the posts and lintel, but an indentation in the ground showed that the pathway led through the wooden gate.

Tris stopped just short of the gate. When he grew closer to the posts, he could see that the carvings were of totemic animals, each atop the other, and that carved into the lintel was the wide wingspan of an eagle. At the foot of the right post was a large blank space, as if the carved animal figure had been removed.

A movement at the edge of Tris’s peripheral vision made him turn sharply, Nexus drawn. A figure was emerging from the forest with the low, menacing growl of a large watchdog. As the figure moved into the dim light, Tris saw that it was the skeletal remains of a dog nearly as big as his own mastiff.

“Allow me to pass and return, and my gift is yours.”

The skeletal dog lowered its head threateningly, but Tris did not move. It circled him, and its bones made a
cold, rattling noise. Tris loosened the neck plate and held it out toward the bone dog without moving closer. The dog sat down next to the blank space on the right post of the gateway and lowered its head as if awaiting the neck plate. Tris bent down and fastened the neck plate around the dog’s throat like a collar, and then stood back.

As he watched, flesh formed over the bones and the skeleton became a living dog. Then the dog leaned back against the post and the wood expanded, forming a sheath over the dog until, at last, the dog appeared as a perfect carving, completing the post. Around the throat of the carved dog was the neck plate.

Tris opened the wooden gate and walked cautiously into the forest. He summoned a ball of blue hand fire to light his way. The sky was a uniform gray that gave no indication of the movement of sun or moon. Time meant nothing here.

The canopy of the forest closed over Tris’s head. A trail wound through the forest and stopped at the edge of a rocky cliff. A large canyon split the forest floor. It was too steep to climb down and cross on foot, and much too far to leap across.

Tris stood at the edge of the cliff and looked over the divide. He saw no gateway, and the path ended abruptly in the shattered rock at the lip of the gorge. Yet when he turned back to the forest, he could see the path clearly. There had been no branching paths. Unsure of what to do, Tris looked out over the cliff.

“Gatekeeper, I have a gift for you. Show yourself. Permit me to pass and return and the gift is yours.”

From behind him in the darkness of the forest came a loud scuffing sound and the snort of a wild animal. Tris
turned, Nexus in hand, to see a large black boar charging at him. With the cliff at his back, Tris had nowhere to go. The canyon floor was far below the edge, and Tris was sure that a fall here in the Underrealm would be just as lethal as in the mortal world.