Age of Empyre Read online

  The fall had left the woman crushed on the hard frost: the price of admission to the worst level of existence. Iver surmised that every bone was broken, her skull shattered. Most of her body was lost in crumpled cloth, but Iver based the diagnosis on his own experience. It had taken an eternity to pull himself together. Even now, he had no idea how successful he’d been. In the Abyss, there were no reflections.

  Reaching the woman’s crumpled form, Iver realized she seemed to have fared better than he. Even so, her body was unnaturally twisted—her eyes open, alert, and still in her head. When they spotted him, both went wide. She attempted to scream again, but the only thing that came out was a wet gurgle.

  “Roan,” Iver said, shocked to discover his voice worked. “It is you!”

  Broken as she was, the woman struggled to inch away. Mounted on a broken neck, her head swiveled to one side.

  “Roan, you’ve come back to me.”

  “Nooo . . .” she managed to moan through broken teeth and pooling blood.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “I’m here. We’ll get you fixed up in no time. Won’t that be nice?”

  At the comment, her eyes grew wider still.

  They might yet fall out.

  Iver bent down and gathered Roan in his arms. Her snapped bones hung limp, feeling eerily like a bag of split firewood.

  She moaned and a tear slipped down her cheek and fell to the frozen ground.

  “Don’t worry, my dear.” He grinned at her. “Once you’re put back together, it’ll be like old times.”

  The moment Brin’s fingers slipped off the edge of the bridge and she felt herself plunge into the Abyss, panic had taken hold. At first, her mind froze, locked by a singular idea: This can’t be happening. Then, as she fell deeper into darkness, she wondered what hitting the bottom would feel like. She hoped she would bounce but figured the effect to be more like a dropped icicle.

  Will I shatter into a million pieces?

  After an inexplicably long time, Brin discovered she wanted it to be over. There was no avoiding the collision, no saving herself, and the waiting threatened to drive her insane. Anticipating the impact, knowing it could come at any time was the real terror. She closed her eyes, didn’t want to see.

  Get it over with already!

  Then it happened. Brin touched down with all the force of having leapt from the front porch of the lodge, a whopping four steps. Landing feetfirst, the momentum pushed her torso forward. Her palms slapped the ground and prevented any real harm. Only the heel of her left hand suffered a wound—a slight abrasion from scraping the granular frost that covered the ground. It stung for a moment. She straightened and stood, staring at the frozen rock that formed the bottom of the world. Imagining herself breathing, Brin saw her exhalation created a fog, the way it always had in the depths of winter.

  That wasn’t so bad, she thought, relief pouring in.

  The light, however, did catch her by surprise. Pure white and without an apparent source, it illuminated the new world around her. She could see from one side of the canyon to the other. Cliffs rose, their tops disappearing into darkness. She was at the bottom of the Abyss, and nothing was there except a vast, frost-covered plain of uneven ground and miserly ripples of snow that had been blown by a long-extinct wind.

  “Roan?” she called out but got no answer. Brin had seen her friend fall, so she should be close by.

  Perhaps she wandered off? It would be exactly like her to go exploring, curiosity eclipsing everything else.

  Wondering if anyone else had slipped over the edge the way she had, Brin looked up but saw nothing.

  I hope everyone else is all right. I’m alone down here—except for Roan. I really need to find her.

  Walking in no particular direction, Brin found herself in a maze of fissures, which branched off into narrow canyons that zigzagged into the dark. These gashes were no doubt the reason for the many bridges they had traversed while traveling across the Plain of Kilcorth on their way to King Mideon’s castle. The impossibly high walls were as porous as a sponge. Dark holes and caves peppered its surface: some were at ground level, others higher up and extending as far as she could see.

  From time to time, Brin paused and called out for Roan. Her voice didn’t travel far. The Abyss was a quiet place, its silence broken by the harsh crackle of her feet on the frosty ground. Roan didn’t respond, so Brin picked an offshoot at random and ventured down one of the side branches. She guessed there were dozens of these tributaries, perhaps hundreds, and it could take a long while to search each one, but time was all she had now. Eventually, she would find Roan. This would be the Keeper’s quest for as long as it took, and the reward would be maintaining her sanity. Searching gave her something to do beyond wallowing in self-pity for her failure.

  The deeper into the ravine she went, the narrower it became. Given the open space where she had touched down, this confinement gave her an unexpected sense of security. Her dog, Darby, had often crawled under a table or bed when frightened, and Brin’s father had explained that animals sometimes found small spaces comforting. Brin now felt that same sense of sheltered protection, and she was surprised that the Abyss wasn’t frightening. The worst she could say about it was that it seemed more than a little cold.

  And lonely. The idea popped into her head. What if each person falls into their own separate Abyss? Is that why I can’t find Roan?

  Now she was scared, and she recoiled from the notion the way she instinctively pulled back her hand after touching a hot pot. She tried to calm herself.

  No reason to think like that . . . not yet.

  She shook off the possibility and tried to focus. Roan might have crawled into one of the many caves the way Darby had wriggled under the bed. “Roannnnnn,” she called out again.

  This time she was rewarded by movement. From where she stood, she could see a shifting shadow some way up the cliff’s craggy face where no vegetation grew. She watched, hoping to see the familiar figure of her friend. Crossing to the opposite side of the gorge, she got a better look and wondered why Roan would be up so high. Then Brin realized it wasn’t Roan. This silhouette was too short and wide. Whatever it was, she didn’t think it was human.

  What would Moya do?

  After taking a calming breath, Brin set her jaw, squared her shoulders, and inched closer. As she did, she spotted more holes in the honeycombed cliff. Most weren’t big enough to be considered true caves, just little cracks and fractures. Drawing nearer, Brin saw more shadows. Figures crawled out of holes, each of them with two arms, two legs, and one head. They were generally in the shape of people, but it was obvious they weren’t Rhunes, Fhrey, or dwarfs. These figures appeared to be made of partially melted wax. Shoulders were sloped and limbs elongated. Faces were merely vague contours with lumps where noses or cheeks ought to be. Some only had a slight indentation instead of a mouth.

  Brin felt her stomach twist.

  Dozens, scores, perhaps hundreds slipped out from cracks and ledges. Many appeared as shriveled as raisins. Others were not much more than lumps. And in some places, she saw only oozing pools of thick slime.

  Brin stayed clear of the moving shadows, which was easy to do given how slowly they crawled. With them came a sliding, dragging slurp—the noise a snail might make if it were five feet long.

  Splat!

  The sound was so close, Brin jumped. Spinning, she discovered that one of the creatures had fallen from the heights, landing near her heels. Little more than a glob of ooze, it had one eye that peered up at her. Its mouth moved like a sock puppet, silently opening and closing.

  Terrified, Brin stumbled backward, grimacing. What in the name of the Grand Mother of All is that?

  Plop. Slip. Plop. Clap.

  Dozens more fell from everywhere at once. They landed near and far, in front and behind. Hundreds oozed out of the ground-level caves, creeping, sliding, and dragging their misshapen bodies across the crackling frost—each one coming toward her.

  Gif
ford hit the ground, twisting an ankle and hammering a knee and a hip. The impact hurt, but it wasn’t too bad. A lifetime of tumbling had made him an expert at falling and dealing with the aftermath. Despite the infamous reputation of the Abyss, Gifford didn’t even think this was his worst fall. After only a moment to collect himself, he was able to stand. A fortifying breath allowed him to shake off the pain, and he straightened up to search for Roan.

  When he’d last seen his wife, a flying creature had pulled her off the bridge. Moya had tried to save Roan by hitting her attacker with an arrow, but she’d been too late. When the bankor dropped Roan, she was a long way up and too far out to land on the span leading to the Alysin Door. Burned into his memory was Roan’s terrified scream, which faded only with distance. He’d tried to follow, ran for the edge of the bridge, and planned to dive, but Rain had stopped him. Well-intentioned as the dwarf had been, he simply didn’t understand. Rain wasn’t saving Gifford’s life; Gifford’s life had already fallen into the Abyss.

  Pivoting completely around, Gifford didn’t find Roan. What he did see was . . . snow.

  No flakes fell, but the ground was covered—a white sheet as far as he could see, which wasn’t far. A light was nearby, but it had a limited distance. Where the brilliance came from, Gifford couldn’t tell. Neither from above nor from behind, the radiance extended outward in every direction, casting back the eternal night like a lantern. Gifford was back in his traveling clothes. The armor made by Alberich Berling had disappeared, so that wasn’t the source.

  Getting to his feet, he took a step, and the light moved with him.

  It’s me!

  He looked at his hands, but they weren’t glowing.

  I’m seeing what I expect, and I wouldn’t be pleased with glowing hands. That would be more than strange; it would be frightening.

  This new world was a barren landscape of frozen rock and washboard snowdrifts. Dark walls surrounded him—their height lost to the darkness beyond his radiance. Gifford took a few steps. Snow crackled under his feet. Nothing so pretty or welcome as deep fluff. This was a thin, bitter crust—more a frost than flakes.

  Again, he made a quick circle, searching for Roan but finding nothing.

  Then he heard screaming. From overhead and growing in volume came a pair of cries. They wailed toward him at an astonishing speed before being silenced by massive claps.

  Gifford ran toward the nearest impact and found a woman lying unnaturally splayed out, one leg bent backward, her neck twisted too far, her head crushed the way one might expect a melon to appear after a drop from a second-story window. Her eyes were open but unseeing. A small stream of blood trailed from one nostril.

  “Tressa?” he said.

  No reaction.

  The edge of Gifford’s light revealed the other person.

  Tesh lay facedown, arms and legs spread out. The left side of his face appeared to be driven halfway into the ground. Gifford guessed the stone was undamaged. It was Tesh’s skull that had caved in. His jaw was unhinged, his teeth scattered in a spray of now-pinkish blood.

  “You can’t be dead,” Gifford told them, or maybe he was trying to assure himself. At that moment, he couldn’t be certain. There was something about seeing Tesh’s scattered teeth that made Gifford want to vomit, yet he had no stomach or bile, just the horror revealed through his nonexistent eyes.

  As he tried to cope with being trapped in a bad dream wrapped in a nightmare, Gifford was nearly crushed by a huge rock that smashed into the permafrost. Another boulder struck, then two more. Huge slabs fell, shaking the ground and exploding the ice into clouds of snow. He suspected Ferrol was lobbing stones to crush them. Gifford grabbed hold of Tesh and Tressa and dragged their bodies toward the nearest cliff wall, hoping for shelter. As it turned out, the rain of stone didn’t last long.

  “Gif . . . ford.” The coarse croaking voice came from Tressa, a sound that scared him well past death. Her eyes were still open and remained unfocused. “Help me . . . Gifford . . . please. It hurts . . . please . . .”

  The onetime-crippled potter looked from Tressa to Tesh. Both of them were stretched out from being dragged, and bits and pieces of each were left behind. Helplessness was too simple a concept for what he felt. “I don’t know how.”

  “Fin . . . elp,” Tesh managed to say, his jaw still attached, but just barely.

  Find help? Here? Gifford looked around. All he saw was a vast, empty, and uninviting plain of cruel crystal-white frost.

  There would be no aid. They’d reached the end, their eternal resting place. This was the Abyss.

  Chapter Two

  Seasons Shift to Winter

  Winter has a tendency to creep up like an old woman with a blanket who is intent on smothering the world. — The Book of Brin

  Nolyn got up and rushed outside when they heard the shouting.

  At five and a half years old, Persephone’s sandy-haired son was as excited as a squirrel with two acorns and as agile as a mountain goat. The former she chalked up to being a child; the latter came from his father. Nolyn halted and waited for her. “Mama?”

  Persephone drew back the flap. Snow was still falling, heavy flakes taking their time. This was the fourth snow of the season but the first stubborn enough to stick. The tent roofs were already white. The brown grass was covered, and the pathways that had been a muddy mess the day before were now pristine except for a pair of tracks left by an early riser. Persephone had always wondered at the irony of winter, a season that bestowed beauty and death in equal measure. The world had been transformed overnight in both appearance and sound. Even at such an early hour, the camp was usually ringing with activity, but the white blanket had smothered everything, leaving the world muffled until the shouts arrived with undeniable intent.

  Cries of joy, they are not.

  “What’s happening?” Nolyn asked. Too short to see, he futilely jumped in place to get a look, tapping the endless reserve of energy that all children possessed. Persephone wished she could borrow some. The days were getting shorter, and she still didn’t have the strength to push through them. She was forty-five going on eternity, but her age was only part of the problem. Guilt played its part, and fear took its toll.

  Sikar appeared an instant later, hood up, his breath puffing clouds. As promised, Nyphron had appointed him as her new Shield. The onetime captain of Alon Rhist hadn’t said so, but Persephone was certain he resented babysitting a Rhune.

  “Back inside and get your cloak,” she said to her son.

  Nolyn looked at her, eyes wide, his little mouth forming a big O. For him, taking that additional minute to dress against the weather was absurd.

  “Go on. You won’t see what’s happening until you have your wool.”

  Even with this threat, she still had to pull her son inside.

  Justine was sleeping, curled up at the foot of the bed. Nolyn started to wake her, but Persephone stopped him. “Leave her be.”

  Persephone wrapped Nolyn in his mini leigh mor, pinning the shoulder while he huffed but didn’t move. His effort to stand still was admirable but also calculated. He’d do anything to speed up the process. When she was done, he was a perfect image of a Clan Rhen child—except for the green eyes.

  What does that mean?

  In a world of brown-eyed Rhunes and blue-eyed Fhrey, Nolyn was unique. Snowflakes had stuck to her son’s eyelashes, making him more striking than usual. Even taking into account her motherly bias, Persephone believed there had never been so beautiful a child. The brutish features of men were smoothed by the elegance of his Fhrey blood. Likewise, his Rhune heritage helped to dampen the inherent appearance of contemptuous superiority worn by his father’s kin. Her job would be to ensure that Nolyn never rose to his full potential—an odd task for a mother, but no woman had ever birthed a son like Nolyn.

  Persephone wasn’t so naïve as to assume that her people would win the war, but if they did somehow, everything would change, and her child of two worlds could one day ru
le all of mankind. She had to make him worthy, and with Nyphron as a father, that would be a challenge. She needed to fight his influence, battle against Nyphron’s unconscious prejudice and arrogance. And she’d have to get lucky. Persephone was concerned that being half human, Nolyn might have a shorter life span than his father. She wasn’t certain of this, but the boy did look primarily human. He lacked the pointed ears and delicate frame of the Fhrey, and his hair was sandy-colored rather than a startlingly bright blond.

  If the gods denied him a long life, what would happen when Nolyn, who would be raised as a prince-in-waiting, learned his father would outlive him by centuries? This made her worry that an egotistical son might resent an eternal father who blocked ascension to the First Chair. Either way, she wouldn’t live to see the outcome and had only a handful of years to direct the course the future would take. She was swinging blindly into a fog at a foe that might not exist, and the fate of humanity lay in the balance. But that was a concern for tomorrow. On this snowy morning, she took the hand of an innocent boy who grinned up at her without a care. For him, the world seemed a wondrous place, and at that moment, it was for her as well.

  In a heartbeat, all that changed.

  Soldiers raced through the fresh snow, moving as if chased. Eight men in woodland armor ran across the field toward the camp. Bursts of white kicked up in front of their feet. Any deeper and they wouldn’t have been able to run, but the snow was still falling, still building.

  If it keeps up, no one will be able to walk, let alone run. Persephone reflected on the thought as if it were an unwanted prophecy. She hadn’t been thinking in terms of flight, but seeing the dread in the faces of the men running at her, she wondered if she should have.

  Persephone, Nolyn, and Sikar made it to the broad pathway that separated the Healing Quarter from the area where auxiliary troops were housed. The shouts had carried, and everywhere men opened tent flaps and exited with cautious eyes. Some threw on boots and cloaks, but still more remained wrapped in blankets, peering at the uninviting dawn and the unwanted gifts it delivered.