King of Sword and Sky
Page 84
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The Eye began to gleam with inner radiance, turning the opaque globe into a glowing orb of deepest red. Small rainbows sparked and swirled within the Eye's crystalline center. Slowly, gradually, the darkness lightened. The cloudy depths of the Eye became a window to a time when the Fading Lands were green and lush and rich with life. Water ran in abundant rivers through forests and flowering meadows and snaked across a wide, grassy plain that led to a towering range of volcanic mountains. Smoke and clouds wreathed the majestic peaks, and soaring high above, too numerous to count, tairen filled the air. Their roars rang like thunder claps, and fire shot from their muzzles like flashes of lightning in a distant cloudbank.
"So many," Rain breathed on Spirit as his voice continued to sing. «There were never so many in all my lifetime. Nor my father's. Nor his father's before him.»
Fey'Bahren wasn't the only lair in the Feyls. Other tairen could be seen emerging from caves in peaks both near and far, leaping into the sky to join their pride-mates, swooping low to hunt the scattering herds grazing on the plains below.
«Do you think the Eye is showing us the time when it was a tairen?» Ellysetta asked.
«I do not know, shei'tani. The Eye has been in Dharsa since before the dawn of the First Age.»
In the forests below, tiny figures crept along the banks of a stream. A dozen, clad in cloaks, tunics, and leggings that blended well with the surrounding woods. Hunters. Half had quivers strapped to their backs, arrows notched and bowstrings drawn. The other half glowed with silvery luminescence and clutched curving steel in their hands. Slowly, quietly, they crept forward. Ahead, their prey, a small herd of pronghorns, was grazing and drinking by the riverbank.
The vision swooped close with abrupt swiftness. A tairen-shaped shadow darkened the ground. The prong-horns lifted their heads in fear, caught sight of the predator overhead, then sprang from the riverbank and bounded into the thick brush of the forest. The hunters looked up, and Ellysetta caught a glimpse of pointed ears in silken hair, and faces of stunning beauty, some laughing, others shaking fists in mock anger. Elves and Fey, hunting together, clearly friends, and there were at least two women in the group, one Elf, one Fey, both armed with bow and blades. The leader gestured, and the hunters raced after their prey, disappearing beneath the forest canopy.
When the pride-song ended, and the images faded. The Eye dimmed, but the rainbow lights continued to sparkle in its depths. It was almost as if the tairen song had awakened the oracle and roused a once-living being's ancient memories.
Ellysetta's hand went to the large Tairen's Eye crystal on her wrist, the sorreisu kiyr of Rajahl vel'En Daris, Rain's father. She remembered the faint tingling harmonic in the stone when she'd first put it on, and the way Bel's crystal reacted similarly. And she remembered those steaming, glittering crystals lying in the dark nesting sands of Fey'Bahren: all that remained of the tairen Cahlah and her mate.
Perhaps the pride-song had awakened an ancient's memories: the memories of the once-living tairen whose body had been transformed by the Fire Song into the great Tairen's Eye crystal now called the Eye of Truth.
After a brief lull of silence, Steli started singing a new verse. Not pride-song, but a greeting of a different sort. A greeting and a plea, from creatures Ellysetta had thought possessed no humility. The others' voices dropped back to sing harmonies and croon melodic echoes of Steli's words.
«The tairen of Fey'Bahren sing pride-greetings for the unborn kitting Keralas and for Ellysetta-Feyreisa, the one you commanded Rainier-Eras to bring. She has come, as you desired. Her song is silent, but Sybharukai, makai of the Fey'Bahren pride, offers you our pride-song in its stead. Know that Ellysetta-Feyreisa is a tairen of the Fey'Bahren pride. Help her, as you would help those with whom you once flew. Teach her as once you taught the pride. Guide her to hunt the enemy we cannot see so that she may save our kitlings dying in the egg. Share what knowledge you possess, so our pride may live and grow strong once more and our song will not fall silent in this world.»
This time however, the Eye did not answer. It chose, instead, to remain silent and dark.
«Sing to it, kitling,» Steli urged. «It listens. It will hear. Sing to it. Ask for the knowledge you seek.»
Ellysetta glanced around the circle of tairen and Fey. Marissya nodded encouragingly. Rain and the tairen merely watched her intently, no expression on their faces, waiting.
The song she sang was Fey, selected not so much by conscious thought as by instinct. The notes spilled from her lips, the words bubbling up like water from a spring. It was the song of Fellana the Bright, the tairen who had fallen in love with a Fey king and surrendered her wings and a portion of her soul to the Elden Mages to be with him.
As the chorus built to its crescendo, the Eye began to shimmer. The whirling rainbows in its center started spinning faster, their light becoming a pale blur and spreading until it seemed the interior of the Eye was clouded with mist. Ellysetta lifted her voice, hitting the refrain on a crystalline note that shimmered in the air like starlight, white and pure.
As the last note died away, the misty center of Shei'Kess began to clear, and a light flared in the crystal's untouched depths.
The light pierced Ellysetta, sinking deep into her soul. She gasped at the searing energy of it. So much power…so ancient … so ruthless. The Eye's magic held her in an iron grip while it tore through her memories and ripped open the locked places where she hid her most horrifying nightmares and desperate fears.
"So many," Rain breathed on Spirit as his voice continued to sing. «There were never so many in all my lifetime. Nor my father's. Nor his father's before him.»
Fey'Bahren wasn't the only lair in the Feyls. Other tairen could be seen emerging from caves in peaks both near and far, leaping into the sky to join their pride-mates, swooping low to hunt the scattering herds grazing on the plains below.
«Do you think the Eye is showing us the time when it was a tairen?» Ellysetta asked.
«I do not know, shei'tani. The Eye has been in Dharsa since before the dawn of the First Age.»
In the forests below, tiny figures crept along the banks of a stream. A dozen, clad in cloaks, tunics, and leggings that blended well with the surrounding woods. Hunters. Half had quivers strapped to their backs, arrows notched and bowstrings drawn. The other half glowed with silvery luminescence and clutched curving steel in their hands. Slowly, quietly, they crept forward. Ahead, their prey, a small herd of pronghorns, was grazing and drinking by the riverbank.
The vision swooped close with abrupt swiftness. A tairen-shaped shadow darkened the ground. The prong-horns lifted their heads in fear, caught sight of the predator overhead, then sprang from the riverbank and bounded into the thick brush of the forest. The hunters looked up, and Ellysetta caught a glimpse of pointed ears in silken hair, and faces of stunning beauty, some laughing, others shaking fists in mock anger. Elves and Fey, hunting together, clearly friends, and there were at least two women in the group, one Elf, one Fey, both armed with bow and blades. The leader gestured, and the hunters raced after their prey, disappearing beneath the forest canopy.
When the pride-song ended, and the images faded. The Eye dimmed, but the rainbow lights continued to sparkle in its depths. It was almost as if the tairen song had awakened the oracle and roused a once-living being's ancient memories.
Ellysetta's hand went to the large Tairen's Eye crystal on her wrist, the sorreisu kiyr of Rajahl vel'En Daris, Rain's father. She remembered the faint tingling harmonic in the stone when she'd first put it on, and the way Bel's crystal reacted similarly. And she remembered those steaming, glittering crystals lying in the dark nesting sands of Fey'Bahren: all that remained of the tairen Cahlah and her mate.
Perhaps the pride-song had awakened an ancient's memories: the memories of the once-living tairen whose body had been transformed by the Fire Song into the great Tairen's Eye crystal now called the Eye of Truth.
After a brief lull of silence, Steli started singing a new verse. Not pride-song, but a greeting of a different sort. A greeting and a plea, from creatures Ellysetta had thought possessed no humility. The others' voices dropped back to sing harmonies and croon melodic echoes of Steli's words.
«The tairen of Fey'Bahren sing pride-greetings for the unborn kitting Keralas and for Ellysetta-Feyreisa, the one you commanded Rainier-Eras to bring. She has come, as you desired. Her song is silent, but Sybharukai, makai of the Fey'Bahren pride, offers you our pride-song in its stead. Know that Ellysetta-Feyreisa is a tairen of the Fey'Bahren pride. Help her, as you would help those with whom you once flew. Teach her as once you taught the pride. Guide her to hunt the enemy we cannot see so that she may save our kitlings dying in the egg. Share what knowledge you possess, so our pride may live and grow strong once more and our song will not fall silent in this world.»
This time however, the Eye did not answer. It chose, instead, to remain silent and dark.
«Sing to it, kitling,» Steli urged. «It listens. It will hear. Sing to it. Ask for the knowledge you seek.»
Ellysetta glanced around the circle of tairen and Fey. Marissya nodded encouragingly. Rain and the tairen merely watched her intently, no expression on their faces, waiting.
The song she sang was Fey, selected not so much by conscious thought as by instinct. The notes spilled from her lips, the words bubbling up like water from a spring. It was the song of Fellana the Bright, the tairen who had fallen in love with a Fey king and surrendered her wings and a portion of her soul to the Elden Mages to be with him.
As the chorus built to its crescendo, the Eye began to shimmer. The whirling rainbows in its center started spinning faster, their light becoming a pale blur and spreading until it seemed the interior of the Eye was clouded with mist. Ellysetta lifted her voice, hitting the refrain on a crystalline note that shimmered in the air like starlight, white and pure.
As the last note died away, the misty center of Shei'Kess began to clear, and a light flared in the crystal's untouched depths.
The light pierced Ellysetta, sinking deep into her soul. She gasped at the searing energy of it. So much power…so ancient … so ruthless. The Eye's magic held her in an iron grip while it tore through her memories and ripped open the locked places where she hid her most horrifying nightmares and desperate fears.
