Chapter Forty-Three Felnir #2
“The journey was hard, and many of the old ones perished, but in time we came here, to this, the Jewel promised to Mother in her visions. A place of abundance in the midst of a barren land. Here we made a new home in these red canyons, and thanks to the gifts my brother and I possess, we flourished. But Mother knew it would only ever be a temporary respite, for your people are so very greedy, so keen to see what lies beyond every horizon. The wasteland protected us, but could not do so forever. Not unless it became the deadliest trap.”
She paused, approaching the wall to extend a hand to one of the carved figures.
Felnir noticed how her fingertips hovered near the stone but didn’t touch it.
“It was this stone that had called to Mother. A source of great power, she said. A place where it is possible to reach between worlds and call forth that power. She had, of course, foreseen what would happen if she did so, but refused to turn from her fate. And so, ten short years after we first settled in the Jewel, she bade my brother and I watch as she gave herself to this wall of stone. In doing so, she used its power to unleash a curse upon the wasteland so that any of Ascarlian blood who walked there would succumb to a sorrow so great the very will to live would be shorn from them. She made but two exceptions.”
Turning from the wall, Kurin rested a hand upon Wohtin’s shoulder. “My father she spared for the sake of the love they had shared and the children she had borne him. Even though he had left us, refused to join her sojourn to the Jewel. Can you even remember why, Father?”
Wohtin pressed his hands to the blank face of the figure in the stone, as if willing it to life. “I…” he faltered, lowering his head in shame. “I loved your mother, but was also burdened by the love I still held for my king, for the vision we had shared of what our people could be.”
“You left us,” Antak said, his tone a hard, accusatory contrast to his sister. “I can still remember the tears I shed as I watched you walk away, refusing to turn even as our mother begged you.”
“My ambition was the same as hers,” Wohtin insisted in a sob. “I wanted to save my people. I thought…” He sagged, his next words emerging in a gasp of grief. “I thought I had found the means to do so. But I failed. I am sorry.”
He began to weep, slumping against the wall and slipping to the ground. Kurin knelt to embrace him while her brother watched in inexpressive silence. Clearly, a grudge nursed over the course of centuries wouldn’t fade at the sight of a few tears.
“You said there were two exceptions,” Felnir said, finding himself equally unmoved by Wohtin’s sorrow.
“Yes.” Kurin pressed a kiss to her father’s temple and straightened. When she met Felnir’s gaze, he saw the same pity from their first meeting, except it had deepened considerably. “Our father, and the Sword Bearer.”
As if in response, Felnir felt a thrum from the sword.
A bright yet wavering glow seeped from the edges of its sheath.
Drawing it forth, he found the luminescence of the revealed blade was different now, varied shades of blue coiling and merging like a flame.
Feeling an insistent tug, Felnir turned so that it pointed to the wall.
“She said you would march an army across the wasteland,” Kurin said.
“But all save you and our father would perish. It is rare for one of her visions to prove false. But she always warned us that, though fate may be inscribed upon the foundations of the world, like any mark upon stone, it can be altered.”
“The sword,” Felnir realised. “It protected them from the curse.” He felt a pulse of anger as memories of the dreadful trek across the Swathe crowded his mind.
All those bodies left rotting in marshes and dusty scrubland.
So many lives lost, all without fighting a single battle.
“But not all of them.” The words came in a harsh grate as his anger twisted, shifting into painful, lacerating guilt.
They followed me. Walked blindly to their own deaths on the word of the Sea King.
“I should never have led them on this march.”
“You were always going to stand here,” Kurin said. “Your fate has been altered, but not erased.”
The sword shuddered in Felnir’s grasp, jerking him forward to shorten the distance to the wall.
The flaming shimmer of the blade was brighter than ever, the multi-hued swirls of blue escaping the confines of the steel.
Instinctively, Felnir tried to pull away but found the weapon locked in position, as if held by some invisible vice.
Also, when he tried to loosen his grip, his fingers refused to obey.
“What is this…?” His demand was smothered by the sound of grinding stone, a vast scrape punctuated by the boom and crack of rock being reordered deep within this edifice.
Impossibly, the various faceless carvings began to move.
Emitting a fine dust, each one coiled and shifted with a smooth, liquid grace that belied the accompanying cacophony.
Increasingly unnerved, Felnir could only stand, his hands still clamped to the sword as the carvings merged into one.
It stood taller than the others, and its face differed from their blank masks.
It was vague at first, but swiftly took on more detail, forming high cheekbones and a pointed chin that made it a near reflection of Kurin’s visage.
Also, though the eyes were rendered in sandstone, Felnir had no doubt he looked upon something that looked back.
“Tanira!” Wohtin said, rushing towards the carving only to reel back when the sword let out a flare of brilliant light.
Dazzled and close to panic, Felnir tried again to wrest his hands from the sword, but it was hopeless.
When his vision cleared, he saw the blade still glowing but was also now clutched in the stone woman’s hands.
Through the flickering haze, he saw her eyes meet his, whereupon the panic that had begun to blossom into terror faded instantly.
Long have I awaited you. And yet, now you stand before me, I feel I should kill you.
The words were spoken by a voice Felnir couldn’t hear, yet they rang in his mind with purposeful clarity.
“I did not come here to do harm,” Felnir replied. “I am grateful for the aid your people have given us.”
That is the way of your kind. The stone eyes narrowed, the voice taking on a hard edge of judgement. Words of friendship spoken as a mask for betrayal. A mountain of bones lies in your wake.
“I had no part in what happened to your folk,” Felnir said. “I came to that land only recently…”
You bear the same blood and the same ambition. I sense your story, Felnir Skyrnrak. You can hide nothing from me. Yours is a tale of slaughter. In a few short months you made yourself a king. Spare me the pretence that you do not look upon every fresh scrap of land with a conqueror’s eye.
“That is not why I came here. My brother…”
A wordless shout filled his mind then, rich in frustration and despair.
I know your brother’s fate, the voice said when it faded, now suffused with a dull resignation.
As I know yours. They must both come to pass.
Though it torments me, the greater ill lies in killing you for this sword was placed in your hand for a reason.
But that can only be if I lift the curse upon the Swathe.
If I do not and you journey beyond the bounds of the Jewel, you perish along with all who follow you.
Even the protection of this sword, which has sustained you until now, will not suffice.
“Lift it,” Felnir said. “And I shall swear in the names of all the Altvar that my kingdom shall never trouble yours.”
A promise from your kind means nothing. The stone woman’s head turned to regard Wohtin who stood beyond the reach of the sword’s light.
The old man’s expression was one of deep, aching grief.
My husband once promised to stay at my side until my dying breath.
Yet, when I surrendered my life to this place, he was nowhere to be found.
“I am the Sea King!” Felnir stated, voice raised in sudden anger.
“Not an embittered soul haunted by failure. I am Felnir Skyrnrak who has sailed many seas. I have walked across deserts and hacked my way through jungles. Yes, my tale is one of slaughter, for I have been a warrior and none who fights a war does so with clean hands. But never, in all my days, have I broken an oath. If you can sense my heart, then you know I speak true.”
The stone eyes retained their narrow scrutiny while their owner fell silent.
Then, without warning, she tightened her grip on the sword and drew Felnir closer, so that their faces almost touched.
I’ll take your oath as given, she said. And will hold your bloodline to it.
If you or they ever break it, know that I have other curses.
Removing one hand from the blade, she turned again to Wohtin.
From the shuddering sob that escaped his lips, Felnir divined that he too could now hear her voice.
To craft a curse cost a life, Tanira said, extending a hand to her husband.
Lifting it will cost another. Will you sacrifice yourself, husband?
To save those you once abandoned me for?
“Will we…?” Wohtin faltered, stumbling towards her outstretched hand. “Will we be together?”
In a way. But know that your life upon this earth ends the moment you take my hand. And I offer no promise regarding my heart. All I know is that it has ever been our fate to be joined together in this stone, there to stand as sentinels between this world and another. For how long, I cannot say.