Traces of a Tempest in Tond

 My collection of short fiction called "Fronds" contains four stories that are set in Tond, the world of my fantasy novel series. In this one, there are three men on an island. None of them is entirely a "good guy". Careful reading will reveal the reason their names may sound slightly familiar but in Fyorian guise (without "B", "P", or "X").

The Fourth Source

1

Ras-Sero repeated the words to himself again, as if they were one of the lorematers’ litanies against fear and hardship, “The quest is noble. The goal is virtuous. I set my heart upon the duty. It is of no consequence that some get hurt along the way. The quest is noble. The goal is virtuous…”

The sky was gray and the air was hot and moist. Ras-Sero’s footfalls and the clack of his walking staff clattered against the gray shale shards strewn along the high path. His backpack bounced on his shoulders. On either side of him, the rocky ground sloped away, down into patchy green forests and meadows, and farther on, the sea. Even from this high vantage, the roar of the waves reached his ears, though diminished to a whispered rumble. His nose could still sense the salt smell. The sea was all around, after all; this island was not large enough to hold areas hidden from the ocean.

“The quest is noble. The goal is virtuous. I set my heart upon the duty…”

It was obvious that Skorak knew he was approaching. The island knew no hiding places just as it knew no respite from the sea. Even if Skorak hadn’t been able to use the Fiery Eye, he would have been watching Ras-Sero. He would have also seen Ras-Sero speak with the Prisoner, though Skorak’s Keep and the Prison of Trees were on opposite sides of the island. Not the way Ras-Sero would have designed it. But, he reminded himself, he was there to remove Skorak; it did not matter how Skorak planned the layout of his small realm.

“I set my heart upon the duty. It is of no consequence that some get hurt…”

Ras-Sero turned his eyes to his destination. The Keep rose out of the rocks like a lava plug thrust from the earth itself. Most of it was rough-hewn and slate-gray, though here and there were sparkles of brighter crimson and green and yellow — shards of color that indicated what would be seen from the inside as stained glass.

Ras-Sero trudged forward to the wooden door. The customary door-gong hung beside it, a shiny bronze disc as round as Ras-Sero was tall; but there was no reason to strike it. The door had been slid to the side and the way within lay open. There was no sign of any guards. Ras-Sero proceeded in. He would defeat Skorak without much of a fuss.

“Welcome to the Keep, Wanderer.” The commanding voice surprised Ras-Sero, though he could not say later what was so surprising about it. He stood still and observed his surroundings.

Skorak himself was seated on a metal throne against the far wall. He wore a formal robe, though bedecked with brown and blonde fur and colored gems. His face was squarish, ruggedly handsome and far younger than Ras-Sero had expected for an elder loremaster; his tan skin, blonde-brown hair and scruffy beard was of the same folk as Ras-Sero himself — not a Southlander like his name would have indicated. Behind him stood, rising to thirty feet or more, a riot of color and light: a stained-glass wall arranged in three arched tableaux separated by thin traceries of white stone. The central held, against a blue field, an irregular patch of brown and green that was probably supposed to be the shape of the island seen from the air. The four-pointed star of the loremasters hovered in its own space above it. The four colors shown out: topmost, fiery orange-red; then light blue and aqua-green for the central spikes, and earthy gray-brown for the lower: the colors of the elements, with earth as the foundation and fire seeking upwards. The left glass panel held images of grand towers of the Imperium with the outstretched wings of its eagle above; in front of this scene was the tiger of the Southlanders, facing inward and kneeling as if in submission to Skorak’s throne. The right tableau held similar symbols of the East and Northlanders, all facing the throne and in an attitude of deference.

“You seek unity of the peoples of Tond within this grand edifice,” Ras-Sero observed. He did not mention that the four-pointed star, that of his own people, was clearly at the top.

There came a snorting laugh from Skorak’s throat. “Indeed,” was the reply, “On this island I can dream anything. The Keep itself was an easy construction; I merely transmuted a scaffold of lornáalis and gave it constructional aspects, then affected a translucent state to let kullándu image the scenes.”

“Skip the false modesty and the fancy loremaster language.” Ras-Sero’s voice assumed the harsh intonation he had planned. He spat without regard for the other, “You have a mechana that solidified some of the air to appear as stone, and another that casts illusions to give the impression of stained glass. This will all crumble the second you leave. I seek something more permanent upon this island.”

Skorak scratched at his beard stubble. “You want to forge your own mechana, so you seek the Fourth Source because you cannot use the others.” He paused, then, “What makes you sure that it is on this island? And I’m assuming that you are aware of what happened the last time someone tried to make a mechana?”

“To answer your first question, I have seen it in the Fiery Eye, and I spoke with the Prisoner.” Ras-Sero did not need to answer the second question. The statistics ran through his mind: thousands dead in the initial blast, possibly millions in the ensuing years of horror. The mechanas — seemingly “magic” items of the Ancients — were a well-guarded secret, as they should be; and any attempt to produce a “new” one could result in untold disaster. But, he affirmed to himself, the quest is noble. It is of no consequence if some are hurt along the way.

“You quote Ras-Tannino well,” Skorak chided, “Do you really know what your ‘noble’ quest is, exactly?”

Ras-Sero’s eyebrows furrowed; he was not aware that he had spoken the lines aloud. He answered, “My quest is freedom. I will release everyone from their prison.”

Skorak sat back on his gleaming seat. “You would release my prisoner, then?”

“Him, and you. From the prison of your own self. To quote Ras-Tannino again: there need be no prisons when all is perfected.”

There was a moment of silence. Ras-Sero frowned; perhaps he had disclosed too much. But Skorak merely leaned forward again and smiled (was there a hint of malice in that expression?) and changed the subject. “You say you have spoken to my prisoner. You may speak with him more, but you may find it hard to release him. It was easy to trap him, of course; I merely altered the living aspects of tandáalis and surrounded him with a growing wall of timber. It may be more difficult for you to reverse the causation.” Skorak sat back on his throne, then added, “He is of the Merfolk, not so?”

Ras-Sero spat his words again, “Enough of the fancy loremasters’ language and the false ignorance. He is not of the Merfolk.” (He knew that the Shindo-Layon, the People of the Moon, are fishlike when they are young, before their feathers grow and they take on the appearance of swans.) “As for how you trapped him: you have a mechana that draws wood from the earth and you ensnared him in an unnatural tree. May I ask, though, why you imprisoned him?”

“Now I must ask you to stop the false ignorance. He is imprisoned because he knows the whereabouts of the Fourth Source. He must never use it.” (This confirmed what Ras-Sero had learned earlier.) Skorak pointed his finger at Ras-Sero, “You also must never use the Fourth Source, now that you have spoken your purpose.”

“I seek merely the perfection of life.”

But the man on the throne mumbled a cluster of nonsense syllables — one of the Ancients’ formulas — and jumped from his seat. He lunged at Ras-Sero brandishing a shiny sword that he had pulled from the air itself. Ras-Sero dodged, knocking his walking-staff on the floor so the wooden casing fell off and exposed the hidden blade. Now it was a pike. Ras-Sero grabbed it with both hands and held it up to deflect Skorak’s blade. Metal bashed onto strong wood with a sharp crack. Both men spun around at the impact, and assumed the guarded stance from the warfare of their people. Skorak lunged again, flailing the sword. Ras-Sero met it with his own blade, drew it aside. Ras-Sero swung his weapon, Skorak dodged and thrust his blade again. Ras-Sero stepped to the side and resumed the guarded stance.

Ras-Sero’s mind continued to work. Obviously Skorak had the mechana with him, the one which had built this throne room. He had used it to make his sword. He might be able to materialize something even more deadly if given a chance. But Ras-Sero also had a mechana in his pocket, the one that had brought him to this island in the first place. Skorak would be removed.

As Skorak charged again, Ras-Sero spoke his own formula and stepped aside. A bluish glimmer of light appeared in the room, behind Skorak: a flame with azure tongues. In a second it had assumed a regular, quadrangular form, somewhat translucent, as tall as a man. Its near and far ends exchanged places and it opened as a door into a dark blue void.

“So, you plan to escape and not use the Fourth Source?” Skorak mocked. His back was to the blue Passage, but obviously he could sense its presence.

“I have no plan to escape.” Ras-Sero lunged, twirling his weapon. Skorak’s sword met the wood with another crack. Ras-Sero dodged aside and grabbed onto Skorak’s left arm. Skorak brought his sword around from the other direction, but Ras-Sero’s own blade knocked it aside. Ras-Sero pulled. Both stepped into the blue hole. Skorak thrust his sword again. Ras-Sero stepped to his right, near to the gleaming walls of the void, and pulled Skorak farther in. Skorak swung the weapon one last time. Ras-Sero ducked and dived out of the open door, muttering another formula as he impacted upon the floor of the Keep. A snapping, ripping noise, a scream from Skorak, and the opening folded in upon itself and was gone.

Ras-Sero chuckled. The dark blue void — the Passage, as it was called — had brought him to this island when it was open at both ends. But this time he had not specified the locations of the ends, and a Passage with no ends was nowhere. Skorak did not have a mechana to re-open it from the inside. He would be sealed in until Ras-Sero decided to release him.

…It is of no consequence that some are hurt along the way…

Ras-Sero replaced the wooden tip of the walking staff, covering the blade. He exited the Keep, trudging back along the high path. He was going to speak with the Prisoner at the other end of the island, and the Prisoner would rejoice that his captor was gone. Ras-Sero did not watch as, behind him, the Keep withered into a thin and insubstantial mist, and ebbed into the hot afternoon light.

 

2

Either the evening was far cooler than Ras-Sero expected, or this part of the island was sheltered from the midday sun. Ras-Sero shivered as he entered the grove of trees. The air was still and moist, and not even the aspen leaves quivered. Ras-Sero passed a cluster of rough-barked fir trees and a towering maple (all trees which should have been in more temperate climes, confirming that this part of the island was indeed cooler than the exposed high path). He strode up to that strange tree that had first caught his attention, seen in the Fiery Eye.

The trunk was cylindrical but vaguely bulged halfway between the soil and where the first boughs protruded. The branches, likewise, swelled ever so slightly between where they attached to the trunk and the sprouting of leaves. The leaves were round and flat, coin shaped, and about the size of Ras-Sero’s palm. The bark, most obviously on the trunk, sported an array of fish-like scales, arranged in an overlapping grid. Clusters of grapelike fruit sprouted from all over the tree, from the trunk as well as the branches — but the fruit was not edible. It was whitish, stony gray, the only color difference on the entire tree; the rest of it, bark as well as leaves, was a darker gray that was almost imperceptibly greenish as if moss had grown on it and then flaked off. The whole impression was not of a living tree, but of a detailed sculpture, a statue of a tree: this was in fact the tree that Skorak had brought out of the stone in the ground.

But one part of it was clearly alive. Ras-Sero’s eyes scanned it up and down until he recognized it: about the level of Ras-Sero’s head, a corrugation in the scales of the bark had assembled themselves into a rough approximation of a human face. Its eyes were closed.

Ras-Sero tapped on the truck with his staff, and the eyes opened. The fading light caught their gray-green sparkle. The mouth, a lump of smaller scales, spoke. “You have returned. What is the fate of Skorak?” The voice was whispery, whooshing, like wind in branches.

“Skorak is no more. I have kept my part of the promise,” Ras-Sero replied. “Now you must keep yours. I will attempt to set you free, though Skorak did not believe I can do so. But then you must show me to the Fourth Source.”

“It shall be so,” affirmed the man in the tree.

Ras-Sero stood for a moment, pondering if there might be any alternative to his plan. He had not managed to take anything from Skorak before sealing him away, and the mechana he had with him would be of no use to free the Prisoner from his stone tree. It could open a portal to another part of the world of Tond, but it could not smash stonewood. Very well then, his original plan would have to work. It chanced harming the Prisoner. But, he told himself, in that case there would merely be another casualty, and it is of no consequence that some get hurt along the way. He might even be able to find the Fourth Source by himself.

He took his staff and knocked off the end again. This time he grabbed the detached end in his hand, and began to beat a rhythm with it, hitting the tree again and again, in one place just above the face of the captive. The tree began to vibrate. If Ras-Sero was correct, the stonewood was weaker than natural stone; though strong enough to hold and immobilize a captive, it should shatter when the vibrations reinforced each other and grew strong enough. He sped up and slowed down, listening for maximum resonance. There it was. The tree rang out with a clang like a gong.

The sounds grew louder, clink clink. Almost musical. A grape-sized shard cracked off, but he did not alter his rhythm. Another piece, smaller than the first, flew off and landed next to his foot. Clink clink clink. A shallow hairline crack appeared and spread up the trunk. He continued to hammer. A larger stone, perhaps the size of an apple, thudded down from the branches above. He dodged aside, causing a pause in his tempo. The tree stopped ringing; his next blow was a dull thud. He swore to himself, and began his incessant pounding again. The tree sounded its gong reverberation again. Then, clink clink clink clink. Pain of fatigue shot through his arm. Ras-Sero clenched his teeth and continued to bang. As a plum-sized irregular chunk dislodged from the other side of the trunk and thudded to the ground, a wave of agony spread from his hand through his arm. Perhaps he should change hands? But that might interrupt the rhythm and he’d have to start again. Clink clink clink. Globules of sweat began to form on his forehead; he could feel them (despite the air which was still growing cooler) and then one ran into his eye and blurred his vision. He wiped it with his other hand and continued to hammer. A final piece the size of a ripe orange fractured near the impact site, and then:

“Jump aside!” Ras-Sero yelled as the entire tree cracked and splintered, tumbling onto the ground in a loose pile of sharp-edged stones. Dust billowed up. The Prisoner, suddenly appearing manlike, yelped and leapt to the side and fell upon the ground. A chuck of rock impacted the dirt near his right leg as he dodged the bulk of the collapse. The rock rolled a few feet toward a nearby maple tree.

The dust began to settle to the ground. The Prisoner rolled onto his back and sat up, staring at Ras-Sero, then screeched and flopped back onto the ground. “Move slowly,” Ras-Sero stated, “You haven’t been able to budge since you were trapped, so it’ll be difficult at first.”

 

3

The former prisoner’s name was Kalavan. It was an odd name for someone in the world of Tond, he admitted, though it was common among the People of the Moon. He was similar to a human, but he was not a human. He had a head and a torso and two arms and two legs like a man, but there was something fishlike about him. His shape was wrong; bulging at the middle with no discernable waist, though not soft and fat. His head seemed somewhat too large, and it was joined directly onto his body as if he had no neck. His skin was a network of fine overlapping scales. He was wearing a woven shirt and trousers, torn and puckered up and caked with dirt; all difficult to distinguish from his skin because it too was mottled and patched with encrustations of soil. These were the result of his long imprisonment (he needed a bath and a thorough scrubbing) but something else lingered from the confinement itself: if part fish, he was also part tree. Small branches sprouted from his shoulders, bedraggled with those gray-green coin-shaped leaves; and his legs did not end in well-formed feet but in unkempt tangles of roots.

He remained there lying on that patch of grass and soil in the grove of trees for five days while Ras-Sero tended him. He did not need to eat or drink, taking nourishment and water directly from the soil by digging with the roots that were his feet. On the fourth day, he spoke with Ras-Sero. “I was an orphan. There are often storms on this island; I was marooned here. Yes, my parents are People of the Moon; we came here on a sky-ship, but it was destroyed by a storm. But this island is full of voices, seen and unseen; in an hour or two Skorak had heard I was here and he rescued me. After several years here, he called me his son, since he had none of his own. But then I found the Fourth Source, and Skorak imprisoned me lest I ever use it. He called me his son, but he became my enemy.”

Then he asked Ras-Sero, “What of you? I know you came here to find the Fourth Source. How did you learn of it?”

Ras-Sero stared at the fish-man for a moment, decided to tell everything. The latter was not a loremaster, and would not be likely to understand all of Ras-Sero’s words. And, if the fish-man knew too much, he could be removed later, in the same way as Skorak. So Ras-Sero chuckled. “Ras-Tannino was a pirate.”

“What?”

“Ras-Raydo, Ras-Tumilo, Ras-Tannino. They were three brigands who haunted the seas two hundred years ago. Ras-Tannino wanted to plunder the Island of Silver and Gold. He never found it; I believe it does not exist. But he wrote his famous lines between two of his voyages: ‘The quest is noble. The goal is virtuous. I set my heart upon the duty. It is of no consequence that some get hurt along the way.’ Those words have always inspired me. But he also said, ‘there need be no prisons when all is perfected.’ I did not understand those words until after I saw a mordth.”

“A mordth? There are none here. Did you see it on the mainland?”

“Yes, near the Blue River. Loremasters like myself wander, and I was living with the Southlanders at the time.” He paused and slapped at a mosquito alighting on his arm. He continued, “Ras-Tannino was speaking of riches, I think; he assumed that if he had enough wealth he would buy his freedom from anyone who caught him. He thought that the ability to escape meant he was perfect. He was probably wrong. But his words had deeper meaning.” He faced the fish-man, staring as if to bore a hole with his eyes. “Have you ever seen one, a mordth, I mean?”

“I have not. I know only that they appeared when someone tried to make a mechana. They wished to conquer the mainland. There was a war.”

Ras-Sero’s eyes grew moist. “It was on the banks of the river. The war was raging elsewhere on the mainland, but there in the Southlands it was peaceful, for the moment. I saw something gliding toward me, not really on the river, but above it, as if it was floating down a second river that was invisible and above the first. The sunlight reflected off of it; shards of silver light filled the air. As it drew nearer, I recognized it from what others had said: serpentine form, but with many jointed legs, and tentacles on its head like an octopus. When I describe it, it does not sound like a beautiful sight; but that is to ignore what it is. Mordths are artificial. They were made in that shape to be able to go anywhere, to slither into small spaces, to swim in water and in the upper air. Their shape and their form are perfect for their function. They are living mechanas, and they are perfect. They can only be killed by another mechana, or by a spear down their throat. I will make one of my own, when you take me to the Fourth Source.”

Kalavan’s eyes grew fierce. “They may be perfect, according to you, but they wished to destroy everything on the mainland!”

“Yes, destroy and start again. Remake everything in a better way.”

The fish-man said nothing for a moment, gazing at the trees around him. At last he spoke, “I promised that I would lead you to the Fourth Source. I will not break a promise, but now that I know your purpose, I think I should not do it. Why can you not use one of the other Sources?”

“They are on the mainland. One is in the Tower of Kings; the mordths ruined it during the war. It is buried under a mile of stone. One is in the Halls of the Grimborn. It was blasted by fire and can no longer be used. The third is in Borrogg; it was crushed by a glacier soon after the war. None can be worked.” He slapped another mosquito, then turned to the fish-man again. “Those are three of the elements: buried under stone; burned by fire; crushed by frozen water. So, I reasoned, there must be a Fourth Source, that no one had heard of. That is not common knowledge among the loremasters; I only deduced it from what I had learned about the others. I had the mechana to make the Fiery Eye, and I used it to search all the mainland, and then the islands in the sea. I finally found that it must be on this island.” He chuckled, “One would think, if it’s on an island, it would be a source of the power of water, but apparently it is of the air.”

“…And you could not see it with the Fiery Eye?”

“All of the Sources are shielded from sight, at least from sight by means of a mechana. I only thought it must be here because this island is a blank space that the Eye cannot penetrate. So I came here, and found you; and you confirmed that it is here.”

Kalavan nodded. Whether or not he had originally intended to tell this to Ras-Sero, the secret was out. He sighed. “Tomorrow I will keep my promise. I will show you to it.”

The two of them slept in the open in the grove of trees, as they had done the previous nights. Once during the night Ras-Sero awakened and thought that the did not sense the other’s presence nearby; but he said to himself that the fish-man had merely gone elsewhere to urinate. He rolled over on the soft moss and went back to sleep. A mild rumble, like distant thunder, insinuated itself into his dreams later, but upon awakening again, he did not remember it.

 

4

The morning dawned with the chirping and chattering of birds. The sky was cloudy and threatened rain, but for now the air was hot and sticky again. Kalavan stood and stretched. “I am well enough. We may go now.”

Ras-Sero ate a pear from one of the neighboring trees along with dried meat and oily cheese from the dwindling supplies in his backpack. Then he clutched his walking staff, shouldered his backpack, and signaled for Kalavan to begin the journey. A gentle rain had begun; Ras-Sero let it comfort him as it washed his gluey hair.

The path forked, one way leading to the high path and the vanished Keep; the other into the woods. Kalavan led along the second way. Fir and maple trees arched overhead, joined now by the occasional palm, and the ground beside the path was covered with ferns. The sound of the sea, never absent on the island, seemed louder, echoing among the tree trunks. Kalavan stopped after about twenty minutes and motioned for Ras-Sero to look around him. Ras-Sero could see nothing different; the dirt trail continued straight ahead into a denser and darker cluster of trees. On the left were four maple trees; on the right was the base of the rock cliff which, if climbed, would lead to the high path. Kalavan pointed to the stone. There seemed to be nothing unusual about it; gray slate and orangish sandstone, with a smooth but irregular surface. A patchwork of lichen clung to it here and there.

“Here I will wait,” said Kalavan.

Ras-Sero stared at him. Surely this was a mistake? But then, as his eyes passed over the stone again, he noticed an indefinable darkness across a section, a slight diminution of its color. It seemed that something the size and shape of a doorway was casting a faint shadow on it. Ras-Sero glanced skyward. The clouds hung low, visible between the arching branches, but there was nothing there to cast such a shadow. Ras-Sero turned back to the stone wall, and chuckled to himself. Yes, now he understood. He had heard of such permanent illusions, made by alterations in the properties of the air. There would have been no way to detect it without the proper mechana, which he did not have. Kalavan must be able to see it because the eyes of the People of the Moon see different light than those of humans. Ras-Sero reached out to touch the obscure patch, and his hand went through. It was an invisible doorway. He put one foot in, testing if the ground was solid, and then stepped in.

He had entered a tunnel hewn from the rock. The walls and ceiling were of the same smooth gray and brownish orange as the outside; the floor was a continuation of the dirt path. There was perhaps enough space for two men to walk abreast. The passage was illuminated by yellow-white light that seemed to come from all directions. Ras-Sero smiled. He had not seen one of the Ancients’ Sources, but from what he had gathered, this is exactly how one should appear. He walked forward.

He came to a second illusory wall: a rock slab that looked, if his memory was correct, an exact copy of the one outside. He reached out and put his hand through it. He tested the inside with his foot again, and then proceeded in.

He had entered the Innermost Secret Place, and its strangeness, now that he could begin to recognize it, forced him to his knees in awe. The far walls were perhaps a hundred feet away; not a huge cavern, but they were covered with power.

Lights. Strange lights that had been flashing and glittering for hundreds of years.

Metal. Flat surfaces wrought of unknown and unknowable metal, mined from the depths of the earth, and even stranger snaky shapes of metal and something black, curled or stretched across the floor and across the walls and hanging from the ceiling.

A pool of water, perhaps ten feet across, sapphire blue, glowing with a light from within. The walls that contained it were marble and carved in an octagonal shape; and it sat against the wall to his left.

The power-floor. An empty square, colored or painted in a pattern of bright hazy blue and white, beside the marble and sapphire pool. Above the empty square was another empty square on the ceiling, painted in the same pattern, and there was an energy pulsing between them: not visible, not a light, but something Ras-Sero could feel touching the edge of vision. He closed his eyes but still could feel its location. He opened them, and realized that, if he stared long enough, he could make out dim blue flashes arcing within that field of energy.

The four glass pillars. Standing against the wall on either side of the cavern were columns of glass that reached from the floor to the ceiling. They were several feet wide, and more of the invisible/visible energy pulsed between and through them.

The table of mechanas. Jutting towards the far wall from the center of the room, the table sat at an angle facing the pool and the pillars. Wrought of dark wood, its surface was covered with orderly rows of crystals, protruding knife-handles, and lights: square and rectangular lights, moving lights, lights that made patterns of lines and curves.

The power-swords; several strapped to the table with leathery ropes, and dangling towards the floor on the side closest to the pool.

The stone pillars, grey and white marble, eight of them; four on either side, arranged in rows angling in the opposite direction from the glass poles; they were twice as wide as a man and they reached from floor to ceiling as if to hold the massiveness of the earth overhead.

Ras-Sero went out onto the floor to the Innermost Secret Place, and came before the Table of Mechanas. He gazed across the surface of the table and found a hollow in the shape of a person’s right hand. That was where to begin. He placed his palm in the indentation.

The Noise surprised him. A boom, echoing in the unknowable depths, and a quiet roar, the sound of the wind, but infinitely remote. It began low, increased in volume and pitch, and settled as a quiet, continuous rushing. The power had been reawakened from its hundred-year slumber.

A voice spoke: female, emotionless and without intonation. The words seemed to come from all directions. “Welcome to the Island of Storms. You stand before the power of Lornáalis. You are a stranger here. State your name and your purpose.”

Ras-Sero smiled. This is exactly what he expected. “Grendul Ras-Sero, Loremaster from Eyuhand in Central Mainland Tond. I seek to create a mordth, in order to perfect life in Tond.”

There was a sputtering noise, again from an uncertain direction. The voice said, “I do not understand. You stand before the power of Lornáalis. You are a stranger here. State your name and your purpose.”

Ras-Sero stared at the table and into the space before him. He squinted for a second, then allowed himself another slight smile. Yes, of course; this was the power of the Ancients. The voice had been modified to speak the present language, but in order to use the power, one had to speak the Old Tongue. Only the loremasters still knew it. He spoke the words with the same meaning as his previous statement: “An Gréndul Ras-Séro, an ahíinor Miaswa Tánd ni Eyuhand karáa. An mórdh teilándan-zúnggas, Tánd ni léyu ráisang.”

Another sputtering sound, then the voice: “You may proceed.”

“Thank you,” Ras-Sero acknowledged, though unaware whether the voice could actually hear him now or not. He gazed at the surface of the Table and looked for the arrangement of the crystals... Yes, there. Four thumbnail-sized gems sat in a diamond shape: orange-red, light blue, gray-brown, deep aqua. He tapped the light blue one with his finger because this Source was associated with Lornáalis, the element Air.

The glass pillars lit up bright blue with white streaks through them, as if containing the sky far above the island. Lights in the room flashed blue and white.

“Wow,” Ras-Sero mouthed the word to himself, then quoted from the Song of Origins, the very “fancy loremasters’ language” he had chided Skorak for using:

 

Lornáalis is air and sky, wind and breath;

Now the gentle cool scent of the breath of evening,

Now the roar of storm winds untamed,

Now the swirling current under the feathered wings of birds.

But Lornáalis cannot fly by itself, for Teilyándal’ is the Wind.

 

But to create a mordth, Ras-Sero would need more than the power of Air. He reached for the brown crystal.

Darkness fell. Only the crystal itself remained glowing a somber green and brown.

“Well, what did I expect?” he muttered. "Of course Earth and Stone have little in the way of lights.” From the Song of Origins again:

 

Tandáalis is earth and mountain and stone;

Now the lichen-covered rocks of the sky-touching mountains,

Now the delicate sands of the desert,

Now the fixture of the earth, firm, monolithic, immovable.

But Tandáalis cannot stand by itself, for Teilyándal’ is the Foundation.

 

“This should be more impressive,” he muttered, and took ahold of the red crystal.

The glass pillars flickered and roared into life again. Brilliant, almost ghastly light shown out from them, and they reverberated with continuous thunder. Ras-Sero laughed aloud.

 

Kullándu is fire and energy, power and change;

Now a soft flicker of heat in the chill air,

Now the roar of crimson destruction,

Now the burning passion to father anew and forge beauty.

But Kullándu cannot make or unmake by itself, for Teilyándal’ is the Maker.

 

Yes, the power of Fire. Only one more to see; Ras-Sero tapped on the deep blue-green crystal. The pillars of light responded; now they were water, a glowing aquamarine blue, a flowing of hues and reflections. The octagonal pool of water began to splash and gurgle.

 

Kewándii is rain and river and sea;

Now the life-giving diamond-drops on the sand,

Now the current of river water and all that flows,

Now the thunder of life and might at the edge of the sea.

But Kewándii cannot live by itself, for Teilyándal’ is the life-giver.

 

Ras-Sero let out a chuckle. Yes, those were the powers of the Four. The Elements. He would need all four: air, for the creature’s spirit; stone, for its metal skin; fire, for the spark to bring it to life, and water, for its lifeblood. He ran the Ancients’ formulae through his mind one last time, and then stood still. Now he would take the part of Teilyándal’ in the Song of Origins. He would be the Wind, the Foundation, the Maker, and the Life-Giver. He would make a mordth. “The quest is noble. The goal is virtuous. I set my heart upon the duty. It is of no consequence that some get hurt along the way.” He grabbed the red crystal again. Thunder and power roared back into the room; he left the table for a moment and came before the pillars, almost to the edge of the Power Floor, which was glowing and shaking also. There was a rhythm and a flow to that cataclysm of noise; there was a throb to it, and for a moment he danced to its sound.

He wiped sweat from his eyes, went back to the lore-tables. Now his hands flicked across them, pulling knife-handles and grabbing crystals; no longer was he really aware of it all. He shouted the ancient formulae. The powers flashed and throbbed around him, growing more intense, thundering, spiraling, burning. This was his moment; all of his loremasters’ training had gone into this. He pulled one of the flashing metal swords from its cord; it would be the raw metal from which his mordth would be forged. He walked out to the center again, and came before the Power Floor. He lay the sword down in front of it; the sword flashed and the Floor lit up with pulsations of power.

He went back to the Table. Touching crystals, pulling handles, and reciting formulae, he began to knead the power before him; all the flashing, burning power. First it became like a pillar itself, a glowing column of light; then he fashioned it into a smaller shape. The sword on the Floor began to sputter and crackle; it burst into flame and joined into the column of energy. He formed the column into a yet smaller shape, and its light grew in intensity. He elongated it, stretched it into a centipede shape, curled it up into itself. Suspended there between the floor and the ceiling, he formed it, a torus of pure light.

His fingers closed around the red crystal again. More power rushed into the room; he could feel his hair crackling and sparking. He fused that power into the torus, and its light increased; now it gave off the radiance of the sun.

A third time he took hold of the red crystal. The pillars themselves began to tremble. Now the power was even stronger. It tugged against him, trying to force his hands into different positions across the table; he wrestled with it and fought against it; in the end, it fused into the torus and the light increased yet again. Now it seared the air with a palpable fire.

He smiled to himself. This mordth was to be a living fyer-yam mechana. The fourth level of power, forged here in the Fourth Source. Did he dare? But he knew that he must. He reached out, hesitated, then grabbed hold of the red crystal one last time.

Fire and light and terror roared into the room from everywhere and nowhere. It caught him and he felt himself burning; it roared around him and thundered through him. He hands danced across the table, and he fought and wrestled again; he felt the world collapse into a burning cinder of pure light; he could not see, but he continued to feel and hold the crystals on the table. He wrestled and fought; the power hovered there in the center of the cavern, a gleaming sun but perhaps even brighter; he dared for a moment to look at his hands; he could see the bones through his flesh. He cried out and molded and shaped the power one last time, dancing and flashing his burning fingers across the table; then, with a deafening crack and boom, the power was confined in the shape of the suspended torus.

He watched it uncurl. For a second it remained there, a serpentine sun in the cavern; then it leapt into the octagonal pool and the water exploded into steam. All of the lights extinguished themselves, though Ras-Sero’s eyes were still showing bright lights that were no longer there. He could see nothing of what he had made.

The roar had ceased as well. Ras-Sero stood still for a moment, dazzled, his hands and face still feeling heat and burning. Gradually his eyes readjusted. The pool came into his sight. The mordth was crawling from it; at first merely a twisting shape of dark metal. More details emerged; the octopus tentacles at its front end, feeling for its surroundings; the many-jointed body, the fifty legs for creeping across any surface. Ras-Sero’s eyes could now see its color, and he rejoiced in its beauty: a gleaming, metallic, eight-foot-long, opalescent, crystal dragon. The creature pulled its last legs out from the marble octagon (there was no water there now), and it ambled across the floor and sat there facing Ras-Sero. He smiled.

The voice of the cavern spoke again, “Grendul Ras-Sero, you have completed your mechana. You have successfully made a mordth.” Its next words came as a surprise: one of the Ancients’ formulae.

Ras-Sero gasped and shielded himself with his hands. In that second, he knew that the fish-man could use the loremasters’ power, and had betrayed him by coming here in the night and telling the Voice to command the mordth.

The glistening centipede hurdled at Ras-Sero, its tentacles flexing and curling. It was going to kill him. He fell under its impact, rolled on the floor and grabbed for his walking staff and knocked it on the floor of the cavern. He stabbed its exposed blade at the mordth, shoving it down the creature’s open gullet, and he rolled aside. He said the formula to open the Passage, specifying both ends so that he would not meet the imprisoned Skorak, and slipped into its dark blueness.

The fish-man Kalavan entered the Innermost Secret Place and watched as the mordth writhed on the ground, its new life ebbing away. Far above his head and above the rocks, a heavy storm rain was pelting the island.

 

And so, Ras-Sero escaped from the betrayal, minus his creation, and slipped away in his portal back to the Tondish mainland. There, he plotted his return to the island, and his future capture of the Fourth Source.

Another tale is told about Ras-Sero on the island; a tale where he has a different name that means “One Who Prospers”. In that story, he lives in an uneasy peace with Kalavan and he torments a shipwrecked crew in revenge for a wrong committed against him some years earlier. That is indeed a later chapter of this same tale; but it is also a different tale from a different age and told by a different people. Stories from the Tondish Mainland and the surrounding islands leak into better-known (and lesser-known) tales of other worlds. Loremasters, mordths, and the People of the Moon may appear elsewhere, and readers of all worlds are left wondering at the brave new world that has such people (and creatures) in it.

To read the rest of the stories in this book of "Fronds": Amazon.com: Fronds: Stories and Flash Fiction: 9798394939907: Scribner, Steven Eric: Books