The Gardens of Ash

The lord rode down amid ash and oak, to find the rift in the world.
Dawn tore feathers of scarlet from the frayed clouds above the chasm as it widened before him, a black scar beyond the forest’s edge. Draden’s mount danced to a halt at the edge of the chasm as Sarien’s gelding drew up beside him, the horses’ huffs of breath rasping the stillness.
Draden glanced at his sister. “Do you hear that?”
Sarien surveyed the darkness of the ravine, and cocked her head. “There’s a Tear down there, alright.” A whisper of wind slithered up from the darkness. The wind of another world, frigid and chattering. Brushing the Veil that divided this realm from the next.
Sarien rolled her shoulders, a bow and quiver shifting on her back. “Do you know what world it reaches into?”
He shook his head. “It can’t have been there long.”
“And this business with the wounded boy?”
“The father told me he was injured by something that came through the Tear. He’ll lose the arm.” Draden peered into the chasm, but the light gave way after a few yards of jagged stone, and nothing more could be seen beyond the blackness slicing the earth. “The wound is too deep. Already rotting.”
Sarien whispered a curse. “No other encounters?”
“Some of the villagers carry rumors of sightings in the forest. Dark figures among the trees.” With a rasp of steel, Draden eased his sword a few inches from the sheath, and frowned, forcing his hand to still on the hilt. A nervous habit.
“I didn’t credit it, at first. There are always rumors of things in the woods…” But then the father, a farmer from the hills near Tuem, had carried his son, half-cloaked in blood, to Anselm’s gate. Draden had glanced at the boy, turned his back without a word, and returned from the castle minutes later with sword and shield to set out for the Tear. By a stroke of luck, Sarien had been riding in from a hunt with the pelt of a black fox tied to her saddle, only to find Draden hurtling down the hill, breaking into a gallop when he reached the road; she’d fallen in with him at once.
A scar on the back of Sarien’s hand rippled white against her dark brown skin as she stroked the fox’s fur. “There’s a path to the bottom?”
Draden nodded, and heeled Gallant Lad eastward along the cracked lip of the chasm. The embers of the sun rose in a blazing constellation from the furnace of the western hills.
A small tower of piled rocks marked the beginning of the path that slanted down into the ravine. As they drew near, a clamor of voices – twisted by the wind – rushed up from the darkness. Gallant Lad tossed his head, giving a nervous whicker.
Draden cursed, tugging back the reins. “What is that shaming noise?”
A grin lilted across Sarien’s lips. “That is your Tear, Lord of Lucia.” She hopped from the gelding’s back.
Draden dismounted and joined her at the edge of the ravine. “We need a light.”
“Not my specialty, but you can do the honors.”
Draden stilled himself, and summoned the Shadow. Flames licked his veins, stitching him into the lacework of the world with black threads, visible only when he held the Shadow. His stomach clenched with the energy, the giddy darkness, that reminded him, always, of the air gathering itself before a storm.
“If we find the creature,” Sarien asked, “what are you going to do with it?”
Wind murmured in the chasm, whispered in the trees. “Blood for blood is still the law of the land.”
Sarien nodded, a frown knitting her brow.
Threads of Shadow unfurled, the air trembling with its dark gravity. Draden wove the threads into a knot above his outstretched hand, and fire blossomed from the twisting symbols. He hurled the flame into the ravine, shattering the darkness like a shooting star. A ring of light illuminated the stone, tracing the progress of the flame.
A scream sounded from below, in the chasm. Rushed footsteps, distorted. A great weight struck the rocks and slithered through the dust, all hidden in the darkness until the flame streaked to the base of the ravine. Sarien gasped. A tendril of darkly iridescent flesh snaked through the shades, like the soft, gelatinous limb of some subaquatic colossus that haunted the cracks at the bottom of the sea. The tendril thrust from a silvery seam in the air, reaching for a slim figure – a young man – sprinting from the Tear. The flame flashed and died. Darkness flooded the chasm. Pounding footsteps rose in echoes.
Sarien nocked an arrow, took aim as the bow creaked.
Draden summoned a second blossom of flame and strung it in the black threads that laced the world, so that it would hover in the air beside him like a firefly. He swung into Gallant Lad’s saddle and heeled him forward. Another hoarse scream struck him as Draden plummeted headlong down the path. The twang of the bowstring sounded, and a skirling cry rippled across the Veil.
Draden hit the base of the ravine as a second arrow buried itself in the flesh of the tendril. Beads of pearlescent fluid leaked from the puncture. The tendril coiled and whipped back across the Veil.
Draden bit back another curse.
A chaos of limbs churned within the silvery border of the Tear, then swiveled from view, revealing a glimpse of the world on the far side: a tower on a hilltop bent beneath raging flames as armored figures scoured the wreckage at its base. Embers rode the air, joining the smoke to smudge Draden’s view of a city in the far distance. Clouds stretched across the sky, the suggestion of walls and turrets riding amid the white 
and gold-shot billows. Bushes, dotted by dusky blue and violet berries, wreathed the Tear on the other side, as if it hovered close to the edge of a wooded area.
No one glanced towards the Tear, but then, the people of that world certainly seemed to have enough to preoccupy them. The tower collapsed, sending smoldering beams dancing down the slope. The force spit embers into the grass. Glass shattered and shards popped across the hilltop, catching amber gleams. A crowd murmured at the base of the hill, watching as dark figures tore into the wreckage, heedless of the flames. Angry voices shouted back and forth in the wind as, out of view, something massive smashed through the woods: splintering branches, crushing underbrush, the noise of its retreat growing distant.
Draden turned at the sound of a soft moan. A figure lay sprawled at the base of the cliff-face.
Draden advanced a step, and stopped. Flecks of blood spattered the rocks. Up close, the stranger looked young – seventeen, perhaps eighteen years old. Gangly beneath a dark blue tunic embroidered with laurel leaves, and brown trousers. His skin was light brown, his hair a chestnut tangle. Dark crescents tucked themselves beneath hazel-green eyes that hung half-lidded, giving him the look of someone pushed to utter exhaustion.
“What happened over there, boy?” Draden murmured. He gathered the limp body in his arms and found a mauve stain spreading across the shoulder of the stranger’s coarse tunic. Draden glanced again at the Tear. That strange colossus had vanished from his narrow window of vision, but dread coiled in Draden’s core. “Whatever it is, we can’t leave you here, can we?”
He hefted the boy onto his horse, and swung into the saddle behind him. But as Draden began to make his way along the bottom of the ravine, pale blue petals, scattered in the dust, caught his attention. Draden frowned, and glanced 
about him. Wind howled through the chasm, tossing the petals into leaps and whirls, but where had they come from? Draden shook his head, and pressed Gallant Lad to a canter up the path, joining Sarien at the edge of the ravine.
“Shadow Incarnate…” she breathed at the sight of the stranger. “What did you see beyond the Tear?”
He reined Lad back toward the woods. “Later. He’s wounded. We need to get him to the castle.”
Lad broke into a gallop as soon as they reached the path, Sarien’s mount keeping pace.
Evergreens whipped past in a blur of shadows, boughs of pine needles scraping at them.
A soft groan. The boy’s eyelids flickered, the stain at his shoulder spreading.
The trees twisted back and the Ashen swept into a valley flush with asphodel. The northern sliver of Lucia spread before them: a village of thatch-roofed houses slept beneath the woods while to the east, the river Anlue twined down in a long curve, shivering with reflections of the scarlet sky. A dirt path wound up from the west, pierced the village, and cat-like, curved its back into a bridge over the river. Across the distance, a castle stood tall on the hilltop, overlooking the forest Anbor, sharp towers piercing the sky with grim dignity. Fading before the dawn, a silvery moon hung at the apex of the sky while its copper twin skirted the eastern horizon.
The Ashen slowed their horses to a trot to navigate a stone-strewn slope, descending into the valley of asphodel.
“Have you sensed it these past few nights?” Sarien asked. “The conditions are almost right.”
A nod. “The moons have nearly reached the perfect angle. Soon, the alignment–”
A sigh rattled from the stranger’s throat, his chest fluttering in shallow gasps. Draden ripped down the shoulder of the tunic to find the skin scalded red around a deep puncture that wept iridescent ooze. Sarien caught his eye, frowning, but said nothing.
“Quickly,” Draden said. “Adalyn may be able to help him.” The boy groaned, his head rolling on Draden’s
shoulder. They spurred the horses to a gallop at the base of the slope, plunging into the whispering asphodel.
When they reached Anhilt, villagers startled from their path, gaping as the lord of the land thundered past.
“Sarien of Discord!”
Excited whispers trailed them as the villagers glimpsed Sarien, her metal bow glinting beneath the embers of the sun. But the image of the wounded boy tangled their voices into a frantic hush.
Draden pulled up Gallant Lad. Sarien glanced back, and reined in her mount. “Go on ahead.” Draden pushed the wounded boy into Sarien’s waiting arms. She nodded, and heeled her gelding into a canter along the path that led to the castle. Draden turned back to the village.
“Anhilt!” Quiet spread through the crowd. Draden’s gaze flickered from one face to another. He could have named them all at a glance, but in that moment, they were a monolith of tension and need, staring back at him. “There is a Tear to the south–” a rush of murmurs “–and beings on the other side–” gabbled fury and fear. “Blood has been spilled.” He found the father of the wounded child in the crowd, and met his gaze. The man glared back, eyes rimmed red, and Draden knew his son had died. He swallowed, forced himself to speak. “And there may yet be more spilled. The Tear is still open – for now,” he added, and cursed himself at the panic that fluttered from face to face. “Fortify the town as best you can. Those of you who can fight, arm yourselves, but don’t be alarmed. Caution will serve us better than panic.”
He watched as they moved to obey, then turned toward the castle.
When Draden reached the gates of Anselm, he found they’d been opened for Sarien and galloped into the courtyard beyond, Gallant Lad’s hooves clattering on the stone.
The stranger lay supine in the foyer, blood seeping into the ornate finials of the dusty rug. Sarien stood to one side, flicking her compass open and shut, open and shut, with a soft, nervous click. Adalyn knelt beside him. She tucked a length of pale gold hair behind her ear and probed gently at 
the puncture.
The Shadow limned her, black threads dripping from her fingertips, carding through the wound. The boy gave a violent shudder. Adalyn pressed down, a frown furling her brow. Fluid oozed from the wound, carrying dark fragments.
“What is that?” Draden muttered.
Adalyn’s gaze flashed up at him, and back down. “It looks like…” Delicately, she extracted a dark fragment between fingernails painted the color of blood. “Plant matter.”
Draden lifted an eyebrow.
“There’s something in there.”
Threads of Shadow raked the wound and the flesh twitched, oozing. The boy twisted – then screamed. Draden rushed forward to press his shoulders down. Sarien crowded in beside him, holding the stranger’s thrashing arms.
Adalyn’s threads snapped free and fresh blood streamed from the puncture. She thumbed at a dark clot in the flesh. The stranger groaned, eyes rolling in his head, teeth grinding. Adalyn pressed. With a strangled scream, a hard sphere appeared in the puncture, like a dark eye opening. Adalyn grasped it, and pulled. Long, thin skeins unspooled from the wound. So long that nausea swiveled in Draden’s stomach. How could there be that much of it, beneath the skin-
Adalyn threw the sphere away from her. The skeins twisted after it, trailing blood across the stones.
“I’ve never seen such a thing.” Adalyn stood, swiping her hands across the skirts of her dress. Scarlet staining white.
She swept to the foreign object, and tapped it with the bottom of her slippered foot. “Like roots spreading from a broken seed.” Adalyn’s gaze flicked to the boy’s face. Sweat slicked his brow, but the trickle of blood had stilled, and his breathing evened out. Almost in a whisper, she said, “I could have sworn I felt the presence of the Light.”
Trembling fingers carded through pale blonde hair as Adalyn glanced at Draden. “Who is he?”
Draden eased his grip from the stranger’s thin shoulders. “He tumbled out of a Tear in the chasm.”
Adalyn’s eyes widened. “And of all the realms to tumble into.”
“I’ll get him upstairs.” Draden heaved the boy up with him when he stood. “And when the poor fool wakes, we’ll get the whole story.”
~
Draden strode through the deathwood with the scent of acid rain still sizzling on a humid breeze. The stranger had slept through the drizzle as apple-green coils of steam drifted past his window, missing what was likely the season’s final rainshower as summer leaned into autumn, and the season of acid rolled off with a rumble of thunder. The needles on the yews still dripped, stippled with dots of moisture, though the drizzle had lifted to send ruby-shaded light shivering across the long grass, shiny and waxy with the natural sheen that protected the viridian blades.
Above, the boughs of red cedars shook with crows, their hoarse caws following Draden deeper into shiver and shade. At his feet, shields tucked themselves like the shells of metal turtles beneath the leaning tree trunks and swords lay snarled in looping roots, gleaming throughout the grove north of the castle.
An old tradition, abandoned by most territories in the region. But Lucia still buried the fallen at the roots of trees and planted saplings in the soft soil of the grave mounds, so that the roots would tangle with the bones of the dead.
He remembered the swish of cream capes, silken through the scratch of leaves, as the Chalicerisen, wielders of Reification magic, wove wards of Shadow on the possessions of the dead, sealing them at the basin of the trees so that would-be graverobbers could not steal these relics before the cedars or the yews had time to grasp hold of them. Draden had watched from the top of the slope at the northern end of Anselm as the Chalicerisen strode through the gloom, leaving blossoms of black threads on the grave-goods, their lips moving in silent incantations for the bodies below. And the villagers, gathered between the castle and the forest, watched the woods rise to swallow their brothers and sisters, their sons 
and daughters, their friends and family. Fed to Draden’s wars.
The trees had been smaller then.
Draden stopped before a massive, hunched red cedar, two curling limbs bending out to either side like the horns of a ram. One, heavy with needles, pricked the surface of the dark pond that folded back behind the cedar, silent and still.
Draden laid a hand to the gnarled bark. There was nothing special about the trunk’s knotted hunch, its soldier’s sword, standard-issue, wrapped in roots at Draden’s feet; the iron obscured beneath the mass of tangled, brown fingers. But he remembered the face. Of all he had forgotten from that time, that was one of only a handful of details he carried with him. An anonymous soldier’s face. Not the name, no, but an image - distilled in his memory of that time like a statue in a city courtyard lifting its head above streets abandoned to the fog, as if it were the last solid thing on earth, the marble glowing white against endless gradations of shifting mist.
Foolish, to have consecrated the deathwood in view of Anselm. A constant reminder.
But perhaps he deserved that.
Perhaps he’d even done it for that reason.
There were, after all, other woods in Lucia.
The cedars creaked overhead, whispering into the gloom.
Draden’s palm scraped down the trunk, fell away.
Shudder, in the pond. Draden glanced down at the water, the dark mirror throwing his own reflection back at him: fair-skinned, looming, with black hair, high cheekbones, and pale blue eyes.
Draden stepped to the edge of the pond, and withdrew a coin from his pocket, the foreign image of a dead kingdom’s queen embossed on the gold surface - a kingdom pillaged, left in ash. All that plundered wealth. The knowledge of it, the presence, moldering in his castle. Like a cavity in a tooth, aching at the back of his mouth. He flicked the stolen coin, so that it spun through arrows of faint light, and plopped into the water. Let Lucia drink up the spoils of her wars.
The ripples stirred a creature, a viperalisk, in the
shallows. A chubby, piscine bauble, it shimmered in quick turns, capes of iridescent flesh peeling free with every sudden movement. Wisps of shed skin drifted behind it, leaving a serpentine form to weave in the water, slimmer and darker than the form its species took when they first hatched at the bottom of the pond. It must have been the final acid rain of the season that triggered its molting, as the viperalisk awakened new fins with a violent twitch.
“Any later and you would have missed it,” Draden murmured. The viperalisk floated near the surface, sleek sails of translucent fins fanning out and in, in and out, with a drowsy flicker. Draden watched its streamlined form snake into deeper water. The following weeks would be spent callusing itself for the harsh elements above, as if the burn of the acid rain warned the infant viperalisk: Azadia will not be gentle with you. And so it adapted. Lifting the lids on another set of eyes so that one was always open. Hardening into scales of marbled viridian and jet. Growing teeth.
Draden turned back toward home, leaving the pond behind. Beneath the water, the sleek form of the molted viperalisk flashed over the bottom of a pond stippled with a few dots of dark soil, the rest blanketed with golden coins.
Anselm emerged from the limbs of the deathwood, pressing black through the branches until it reared above him at the top of the slope, the turrets soaring into a scarlet sky where the remnants of the storm still huddled off west, gathered up by the wind and thrown into the mountains. But it was Adalyn, fair hair rushing out behind her, that caught Draden’s eye as she hurried down the slope, a letter grasped in one hand.
He glanced to the top of the hill behind her, where the garden wall scuffed the green apples in the boughs of a tree. A messenger snake with azure scales lay looped around a branch, beating iridescent wings as it shuffled its length and slunk into the air, spiraling into the sky on a flurry of rainbow feathers.
“This arrived, just a bit ago.” Adalyn pressed the folded page into his hand.
Draden flicked it open, and scanned the letter. 
“Berith, the Duke of Gautica, invites the lords and ladies of Azadia to gather as his guests for a summit in Gautica, that we may speak of the force that threatens us all…” Draden read aloud, glancing up to meet Adalyn’s gaze.
“It’s not just Lucia,” she said. “Tears have opened all over Azadia.”
He nodded, and kept reading. In flowing script, the Duke wrote of the Tears across Azadia brimming with activity and bloodshed on their side of the Veil.
“Alrya,” Draden murmured. “Only the Alryan Empire has that breadth of might. And the motivation.”
“Their colonies, their kingdoms, entire worlds. Claimed in the name of the Throne.” Adalyn’s voice trailed off.
He finished the letter and let it hang at his side. “A summit.”
At least Berith was doing something. Organizing. Preparing.
But for what, exactly?
“Will you go?”
Draden shook his head, as if waking himself. What had he been imagining, just then? Armies of Azadia, knit together at the summit, marching to war... You’d be destroyed in such a war, Draden told himself bitterly. Besides. Those days were behind him.
“I don’t know,” Draden said. “The Tear-”
“I know, I don’t like the idea of leaving it open. With the power of the Beam, though, I may attempt to seal it.”
“So it will align, then?”
Adalyn tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “Sarien’s been down to the Chamber of the Beam. She told me it’s blazing more brightly than it has in years.” A smile like weak sunlight. “The wounds of the Ashen God, bleeding open.”
Draden gave a distracted nod. Sarien believed in the old tale that said the Beams of Gloriend bled from ethereal wounds torn in the god’s realm after the Ashen God was attacked by unknown forces in a cosmic war, millennia ago. 
But Sarien was full of old tales.
“Father!” Draden turned at the sound of his son’s voice. Dantel stood beside his sister within the rounded door of the garden wall.
Ikasia gazed down at them, her eyes the same startling, pale blue as Draden’s. “The man you brought here is awake. He’s asking for you.”
He met Adalyn’s gaze, and by silent consent, they turned toward Anselm.
But as Draden strode up the slope, dark wings, long-folded, stretched in the core of him, and gave a feeble, anticipating beat. The letter crumpled in his fist.
It took him a moment to place the feeling. He should be afraid, or anxious. Angry, even, at this sudden rupture in what had been, for so many years, a snug and dreamy contentment. Scarcely even stained.
But as Draden started up the hill, it was not fear, or anxiety, or even anger that limned his thoughts with lightning.
It was excitement.
Draden took the slope in long strides, leaving the graves of the fallen in his shadow.