Exeres stepped away from the tangle of manacles at his feet and approached Mage. “Why do you want me to let them go? Why capture them if you only want me to release them? Is it another trick?”
A wizened smile lit the old man’s face. “It’s all part of the game we play, Exeres. When the moment is right, Tsyrke and I will leave Landmoor. We will let Ballinaire take it back. Miestri will be forced to come with him. Then you will release the Shae lad so that he might claim the prize he seeks. Ballinaire will fall and Miestri with him.”
“Leaving you to rule the valley? With Tsyrke as your hoppit doll?”
Had he gone too far with the old man? The green eyes revealed nothing—not mirth or amusement or even anger. Expressionless.
“Tsyrke is no more my hoppit doll than you are. Do you feel any strings choking you, boy? Up on the table then. Dance! No?” He smiled, neither warmly nor coldly. “I have been at this game a long, long while. I have played it for centuries…for millennia. The last time I chose to rest, after Sol-don-Orai, I shared my secret. Which is what I am doing with you right now.”
Exeres took a step backwards.
“I’ll not make you drink from a cup,” Mage said, his voice straining. “Only words. Only memories.” He set the sphere back down on the pedestal and went over to the wicker chair and sat down on the cushions, easing his bones into wide-berth of it.
It is tiring holding up the warding, Exeres realized. He’s fatigued.
Mage rubbed his cheekbones, the chair creaking as he slowly rocked.
“Before the fall of Sol-don-Orai, I chose a shipbuilder. The wars had raged for years and nearly everyone in the empire was dragged into the morass. Hateful times. I chose this fellow because he was bright, young, and full of ambition. I warned him that he must go, to take as many family and friends as he could convince and leave Sol-don-Orai. Not by sea, for I had cursed the shores to prevent the devastation from leaving. I explained to him who I was, what I was. I told him to tell only his children my secret. To guard it as he would his greatest treasure. His name was Kibram Phollen.”
Exeres stared at him. “You’ve been with that family for…for that many years?”
Mage shook his head. “No, but the secret has. The secret is this, Exeres. I grow weary of these games. I have built up kingdoms and empires, and I have toppled them like sticks. How many rounds of Bones must one play before you’ve seen all the hands? Matched all the pairs?”
The groan of the chair swinging went down Exeres’ spine. “So you decide when a kingdom falls? What of ours? What of this kingdom?”
“It stays. Dos-Aralon stays the way it was. Boring. Ineffectual. Complacent. It remains insignificant. Tsyrke no longer desires to be its king.”
“Have you failed then, Mage?”
A tired smile played across the old man’s mouth. “Some might call it that. Miestri would, but she has been skulking in the shadows too long to understand the true depths of that word. No, boy. Not in the way you are thinking. The Shae have failed. That I exist is a testament of their failure. And I know that the end will mirror the beginning, for I was there at the beginning. I was here when the Shae came to this world.”
The silence in the room thundered in Exeres’ chest. “But the Shae did not come to this world. They have always been a part of this world…a different part but…”
“Please don’t quote me any of that pathetic Druid doctrine, those inane verses Achrolese droned about. I could barely suffer the man when he was alive and still his words yammer across the ages.” He shook his head and grunted, his expression lost in the swim of memories. “It is the Shae’s fault that we exist. They taught us too much. Now they have lost their own magic, and we are left to rule in their place. So sad, boy. How so very wrong they were about us.” His next words were a mumble. “That we were worth saving.”
His gaze focused and he looked up at Exeres sharply. “Your friends are coming sooner than I expected. Good for them.” The creaking of the chair stopped as Mage came to his feet, the sphere on the pedestal lifting up and landing in his outstretched hand.
“Remember, boy. I give you the key to open the locks. But not until it is time. Until then, you will stay here.” He motioned to the chair. “It really is quite comfortable, despite its looks. Be ready, Zerite. Remember to tell your children about me. Some day I will come to one of them and I expect they will remember me.”
“I will be sure to tell them about you,” Exeres said.
And how I destroyed all of your kind.
*