It shouldn’t have been a surprise that the cliffside held something more than just solid rock, but Mareth’s eyes stood wide again – a common occurrence in his wanderings with the two brothers. The cavern that rested beneath the manor behind the cliff’s wall was immaculately carved and fabulously adorned. The entrance seemed small, but inside were rows and rows of well-preserved ancient treasures, artworks that could not have been from such a young world as the one they inhabited.

There was a magical clockwork sphere which pulsed with rainbow lights and hovered in the air. Statues of creatures Mareth had never comprehended in alabaster and jade and some oddly glowing blue marble substance stood as sentries throughout the room. Gold, silver, and precious gems, on their own and in ornate settings, were ordered in neat cases. The value of the treasure in this cave was beyond imagining.

Siegyrd and Aerendir were also stunned, but their reaction was somewhat more reserved, almost guarded. There did not seem to be anyone present in the giant chamber that Mathin moved through quickly as if it were the most mundane thing in the world.

“It’s magnificent,” Mareth breathed, trailing behind the rest.

“Yes yes, very nice.” Mathin’s voice was anything but impressed.

Siegyrd whispered to Aerendir, “Second stage? Or earlier?”

Aerendir said nothing, admiring the works around him while he kept step with the shorter, but fast moving Mathin. At the other end of the large room was a giant curtain, thick, made of dark velvet. It was at least the height of four or five buildings, but a small gap was opened in it, wide enough for a man, for Mathin to squeeze through and into the semi-darkness beyond.

Siegyrd called back to Mareth, “There will be time to marvel later. Come.”

Mareth paused in front of a statue that appeared to be made from flowing ice that glowed almost black, yet was solid. Even standing back from it some distance he could feel heat emanating off of it unnaturally. The form was simple, a humanoid shape, androgynous, with a faceless head. There was something at once devilish and divine about it. At the base there was a golden tablet with words written in that similar script he had seen in the letters. What Siegyrd had called the “Ancient Tongue.”

“Mareth! Come.” Aerendir’s voice had the hint of command, but it was the urgency that drew Mareth away from the faceless form. He rushed to the gap in the curtain and heard a roar unlike anything he had heard in his life. The sound made the whole room quake violently. He fell to the ground, and hid his head beneath his hands. His heart was pumping raw liquid fear through his veins and only the sound of the roar and the thump thump thump of his presto pacing heart.

The quaking stopped, and he gathered his courage as best he coud, drawing himself up. His whole body shook, the pump pump pump pump of his heart rattling his bones. The ground was steady, but his legs were not, as he began a song of warding around himself and stumbled toward the opening.

The woman’s roar was an immense incredible thing, but not outside of what Siegyrd and Aerendir had expected. She was clothed in a white samite shrift, her skin the color of dark ebon, eyes golden as the dawn. Her black silk hair rippled in wondrous waves down her shoulders. Even with her muscles strained, her mouth wide in roar, all her strength showing in her graceful form she was elegant and beautiful beyond compare. She stood atop a hill of gold and gems and silver coins. A four postern bed made of solid ivory was at the base draped with elegant silks and padded with cushions embroidered.

Mathin’s voice was pleading, “Darling, darling please.”

Her roar ceased and the rage and madness drained out of her like a pitcher slowly being poured out. She seemed to shrink, and before Mathin could reach her, she began to fall. She fell forward into the coins and jewels and slid forward. He rushed to the base and caught her partway down, scrambling against the mound.

“Oh Zaralai, Zara, Zara.” He held her to his chest, “My life my love, Zara.”

She was still when Mareth breached into the space, staff raised high, quivering like a schoolboy in front of a bear. He was wreathed in a silvery gold magic from head to toe.

Aerendir spoke calmly, “A prudent measure, wizard. How long?”

Mareth shook his head, “Not long, few minutes, a quarter hour at most. Where is the beast?”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“No beast, Mareth. We may be in time.” Siegyrd said.

Aerendir spoke, “Hold it as long as you can wizard. This feels like the eye.”

Siegyrd nodded and Mareth did as well.

The three approached Mathin cautiously. He held the woman in his arms, and she appeared to be sleeping peacefully. He was muttering to himself, “If only we had it. If only we could find it. We could save her. I could hear it again. I could have it again.”

The woman’s eyes opened in a stark flash of gold and she began to sing, a soft, sad song without words, just the airy notes of a remembered melody.

Mathin stiffened, then closed his eyes and calmed. “Oh Zara” he breathed.

The two embraced as she sang, and the three visitors got the distinct sense that they were intruding upon a sacred moment, a profoundly personal moment. With a wave, Siegyrd, Aerendir, and Mareth left the room and stepped back out into the gallery.

“What in all the voidstars was that?” Mareth asked.

“A reunion of sorts. Though she is very ill.” Siegyrd mused.

Aerendir did not speak, instead walking toward that same faceless statue Mareth had been eyeing before. He read the inscription and committed it to memory.

“Not that. The roar. What kind of creature made it? Or was it magically produced?” Mareth questioned.

Siegyrd spoke, “It was her.”

“Preposterous. No human could make such a sound, not without magic.”

Aerendir walked away from the faceless statue and joined Siegyrd and Mareth, “No human, correct.”

“Also correct on the magic.” Siegyrd said.

“What are you two talking about?”

Aerendir replied, “I expect it will only be a few minutes until you see for yourself. Explaining would be a waste. Now’s the time to enjoy the gallery.”

Mareth was torn between two curiosities, on the one hand to explore the magnificent collection and on the other to know what the two brothers were keeping from him. He huffed and walked away toward the collection.

Siegyrd spoke quietly but there was fear in his tone, “She’s on the very edge it seems. We know no cause, no cure. If she turns, are we strong enough?”

Aerendir took two deep breaths before he replied, closing his eyes as he exhaled and spoke, “I don’t know.” He drew the greatsword from his back, it’s bone white blade almost glowing in the low light. He knelt and laid the blade on the stone floor and placed both his hands on top of it.

Siegyrd understood, and knelt to place his hands on it as well. “Are you sure? We’ll be useless for weeks, maybe more.”

“Only if we have to invoke it, and if we do,” he paused and looked up toward the gap in the curtain, “she deserves the cleanest we can give.” Then Aerendir did something Siegyrd had not known him to do in many centuries, he prayed. “Apeiron grant it not be so, that this life may in beauty grow. Please.”

Then Aerendir nodded and the two brothers began their song. It was a low melodic hum with an eerie harmonic resonance at the top end. The blade itself seemed to fill the middle with a quavering wavering series of notes as arcane sigils in ghosted blue-black wove their way into the blade in a stunning pattern throughout.

Aerendir paused toward the end of the song and locked eyes with Siegyrd who understood and pulled away his hands from the blade and withdrew his voice from the song. The final note was a low bass which buried itself deep into the surrounding stone and the incantation was complete.

#

“You bring the song of Aeternum Rasa into our midst?” The woman’s voice was melodious beyond measure and filled with a polite playfulness. Zaralai sat on the edge of the bed at the base of the piles of treasures.

Aerendir and Siegyrd nodded, somewhat apologetic, but spoke nothing.

Mathin and Mareth looked confused, but the woman kept her smile, her dazzling radiant smile.

“A worthy precaution. I do not begrudge it.” Her tone became wistfulness mixed with worry, “In fact it is a kindness.” She turned her golden gaze on Mathin and smiled again as she rubbed his worn face. He reached up and gripped her hand and then kissed the palm and held it again to his cheek.

Aerendir and Siegyrd approached and both knelt, “M’Lady Zaralai vox Nike. I am Aerendir first son of Osian and his beloved Angharad.”

Siegyrd spoke, in time right after, “I am Siegyrd second son of Osian and his beloved Angharad.”

Together they said, “It is our honor.”

Zaralai’s eyes spread fractionally, and she smiled again, “Osian and Angharad are names I have not heard in half an age. What a tale of sorrows theirs. Sons… I think I knew them.” A quizzical look crossed the woman’s face, as if a veil was lowered over her eyes.

“Darling, can you hear us?” Mathin’s voice was strained.

The woman blinked and her eyes were clear again, and she responded, “Sorry, I drift from time to time. We were speaking of. Ah, I see you bring a song of Aeternum Rasa, friends. A kindness, I am sure.”

Aerendir and Siegyrd locked eyes from their kneeling position both nodded and stood.

“Lady Zara, please tell us of your letters. Of the flute.”

A flash of something near to anger rippled across her face, and then was gone as soon as it had come, replaced with a deepening sorrow as she spoke, “The loveliest song in all the world. It was as if before it I had never even heard a song, though I’ve been musical all my years. Imagine.”

Mathin took up her refrain, “A pure, invulnerable delight it was to hear played from your lips, my darling.”

“And from yours, Mathin my love. What sweet symphony we made with but a simple flute of crystal craft.” Zara’s voice was wistful.

Siegyrd spoke, “Lovely songs are a dear friend. How came you by this flute?”

Mathin and Zara turned in subtle suspicion at Siegyrd, “What do you know of our flute, our lovely songmaker? Have you found it again?” Zara’s voice held a twinge of hope in a sea of despair. “You seem a skald, or so Mathin has told me. Would you gather it for us?”

Aerendir spoke, “You have lost it then? This instrument?”

“Taken, stolen from us. Some time ago now. We had hardly had it at all. Hardly the chance even to learn to love those lilting notes.” Zara was still speaking to Siegyrd as if transfixed, “I swear to you, skald, that even your oldest, loveliest song would seem like a new and more beautiful friend if played upon this flute. The maker’s magic I sensed in it, an Aspect of Apeiron I would wager.”

“An aspect is world bending magic. A fragment of creation.” Mareth spoke.

Zara’s eyes grew brighter, “Not just a fragment, maybe even a source. My whole collection in the gallery you have seen would I trade for a single note further from that flute.”

Aerendir’s eyes narrowed, “The whole collection, M’Lady?”

“The whole,” she said with a sweeping gesture. “There is no joy in any of it, no pulse of possibility, no flavor of forever left to me without it. Please, find it for me, good brothers of a dear friend – what was his name again?”

“Osian,” Siegyrd said sadly.

Zara tasted the name on her tongue as she said it and a fog fell across her gaze, “Osian, yes. How is dear Osian?”

Siegyrd could not speak.

Aerendir could, “He is dead.”

Zara continued, eyes fixed on some distant place, insensate “Oh that is lovely to hear. Dear Osian, and his wife Angharad was frightfully dear to me. One day, I’m sure, they will have children.”

Mathin’s jaw dropped, and he spoke softly, “She loses much time. I am…” He choked back his own tears as he saw Siegyrd clenching his teeth, “I am terribly sorry. I will walk you out.”