Chapter 1: Keridven CHAPTER 1 KERIDVEN The woman who called herself Keridven stared at the Xoconai man for a long while, trying to find her breath. From afar, to one who was not Xoconai, he looked much like the others, with his distinct facial markings, but up close, the subtleties of this one's markings looked more like a sunset, or more particularly, like an artist's rendition of one. His nose was the brightest of reds, glowing with vitality, but the transition to the blue skin at the base of his nose was less distinct, a fading glow of soft pink, even a blend thereafter, just a thin line, that hinted of yellow or green depending on the ambient light. His rich brown hair was longer than she remembered, wavy and thick, gathering regally about his shoulders like the furred collar of an Usgar leader or the mane of a grassland lion. Most of all, though, Keri saw the sadness in his bright eyes, eyes so light an amber that they sometimes appeared almost colorless, and other times picked up the bright colors of his Xoconai facial markings to appear rich and deep and soulful. Sadness was not an expression this one often showed, and now it came as a confirmation of the news he had just delivered: Tuolonatl, the most revered warrior among the Xoconai people, had been recalled to the west, never to return to these lands of Honce on the eastern third of the continent. Keri had heard the whispers that trouble had come to that region along the Masur Delaval and that their dear friend Tuolonatl was no longer serving as city sovereign of Palmaris, but she had assumed that the woman, so revered among the Xoconai military and civilians, had left by choice. But no, Tuolonatl had been deposed from her seat and recalled to the west. And there, so said the rumors, the great warrior, still only middle-aged, had retired. It was surprising news, but really, when Keri thought about it, her shock disappeared. Tuolonatl had been taken away because it was all unraveling. All their work, all their battles, all their compromises and diplomacy. All of it, unraveling. "Why?" she asked, though of course she knew the answer. The man, Ataquixt, shrugged. "We had a deal," she pressed. "A treaty." " You made a deal," he reminded. "With Tuolonatl. And the deal was to try. You both knew, as did all who witnessed the covenant that day after the fall of the god Scathmizzane, that your treaty was more aspirational than predictive." "Tuolonatl wouldn't abide by the commands of the augurs," Keri said. "Yes, and the augurs here speak directly to Scathmizzane's greatest priests in the west." "Who forced her recall back to the west to prevent her from interfering in their plans for these eastern lands." Ataquixt nodded. "So it would seem. Great Tuolonatl stood on principle, but the Xoconai leaders in the west are more interested in profit and power. They see a chance for conquest over the agreed-upon compromises and they take it. They know they will win." "Because they used the good faith, even the undeserved generosity, of the people here to assemble their armies for their treachery." "Does it matter?" Ataquixt asked. "Augur Necanhu is now the city sovereign of Palmaris." "Augur?" she replied, rubbing her face. She didn't know the man, but she felt as if she didn't have to, considering his title. In Xoconai society, the augurs served as the religious leaders, while the position of city sovereign was traditionally elected, and almost always secular. In her limited experience with these fierce but physically beautiful people, that separation had proven all-important, particularly for those non-Xoconai humans who now had to share their land with the mighty people from the west. In Keri's experience, augurs were to be feared, and not to be trusted, without exception. They were zealots, and their god, Scathmizzane, taught that they, the Xoconai alone, were true humans, with all the other peoples no more than the goblinkin, the sidhe. "Aoleyn," he began. "Don't call me that." "No one can hear us," Ataquixt assured her. "It does not matter. That is a name I must forget, a name that when uttered near me must not bring from me a reaction." The Xoconai nodded. "Then... Kerid... Keridven?" "Keri," she replied. "My friends of the villages call me Keri." The Xoconai nodded. "Augurs serving as city sovereigns are becoming common in the eastern towns and cities," he lamented. "Alas for Honce," Keri said. "Honce? The Xoconai augurs are already whispering the name 'Quixi Tonoloya' in their private gatherings." "Quixi," Keri breathed. The Xoconai word for "eastern." "The line between faith and governance has blurred," Ataquixt continued. "The augurs have resumed the magic of the golden mirrors on the pyramids, where the armies and the goods can be quickly transported across thousands of miles, to the great gratitude of the leaders in the west. The military advantage of moving the macana and mundunugu warriors is overwhelming, and so the leaders of Mayorqua Tonoloya have given the augurs much more latitude and control here in the east than they had ever known back home." "Mayorqua Tonoloya," she muttered, not as a question, certainly, for she understood the Xoconai language well, and knew "Mayorqua" as their word for empire , their golden empire from sea to sea. "And because to have elected leaders here would mean that we, who are considered lesser humans, would vote," Keri remarked sourly, then added even more nastily, "We are not even human to the Xoconai." "I do not think of you and your people in that way," Ataquixt replied, and he seemed sincerely wounded--of course he was, particularly with the painful truth coming from her! She nodded and softened her expression, and reminded herself that not all the Xoconai agreed with these prejudices. Certainly not Ataquixt, who was far more worldly than almost any man she had ever met--one reason she had been so attracted to him in the first place. Still, as Ataquixt had spoken of the logistics, she couldn't help but wince. She understood well the powers of those golden mirrors the Xoconai had planted strategically across the eastern half of the continent. They were teleportation devices, magical transports through which the Xoconai could move armies hundreds of miles in a matter of an hour. The powers of the devices had been greatly diminished in a mighty battle halfway across the continent, and she had thought that a good thing--indeed, the only real hope she had entertained that the agreement, a sharing of the land between the Bearmen of Honce and the Xoconai peoples, might hold. For without their magic to maneuver the macana foot soldiers and the mundunugu cavalry, the Xoconai could never really secure these populated lands known as the kingdom of Honce-the-Bear, home to a proud people not without well-trained foot soldiers and heroes and magic-wielding monks. "In the eyes of the leaders of the Xoconai," Ataquixt explained, "the augurs will soon tame Quixi Tonoloya." "Tame? You mean conquer and enslave." Ataquixt didn't answer other than to sigh, once again reminding her that he was not her enemy here. Far from it. He was Ataquixt, a ranger trained by the Touel'alfar. Ataquixt, who had betrayed that demon named Scathmizzane by throwing the spear that had finished off Scathmizzane's dragon mount. Ataquixt was no friend to the augurs, certainly, and he had been a true friend to Tuolonatl, the great general, the great warrior, whom Keri knew to be decent and honest and trustworthy. She studied the man then, seeking silent hints. He was thin, but no one would ever think him weak, for his golden-skinned arms were tight with muscles, and the fluidity of his movements showed years of training in the fighting arts. He was unquestionably handsome, beautiful even, with expressive eyes that could chill an enemy or warm a friend. His distinctive Xoconai markings shone with life energy, from his wide nose, which shone the color of fresh blood in the sunlight, to the wings of bright blue and shining white flowing from the base of that red nose to the top-center of his cheeks. Handsome, even pretty, but Keri reminded herself that it was all superficial, all just skin color. It occurred to her then, and certainly not for the first time, that the distinction in the naming conventions of the two peoples, Bearmen and Xoconai, was a silly thing. These were different cultures, not different beings, save the coloring of the Xoconai face, and the slightly different skin tones--differences that were not more pronounced than those of the typically pale-skinned people of northern Alpinador and the darker-skinned folk of Behren and To-gai to the south. They were all humans, just humans, sharing hopes and dreams, joys and tragedies. Now, particularly, the woman knew that without doubt. They were all just human, and like the people of Honce-the-Bear or of Behren or Alpinador or To-gai... like the people of the tribes around the Ayamharas Plateau or even of her own Usgar tribe, the Xoconai of the west were not monolithic of thought and morality. This one, Ataquixt, she reminded herself, was a friend, truly, and more than a friend, who had proven himself more than once. "I know you don't want that," she told him earnestly. "I want what we thought could be, not what it has become." "And what has it become?" "Quixi Tonoloya in the dreams of the augurs," he answered without hesitation. "This land, your land, is to be conquered and occupied." "I was not of this land until very recently," Keri reminded him. "And your homeland is now Tahko Tonoloya, the Centerlands, and as you witnessed, the lake you once viewed from your mountain home is now drained to a wider lake below the plateau, and the ancient and shining city of Otontotomi, golden and glorious, is revealed and restored once more. That which was in the Centerlands and here in Honce hardly resembles the home you once knew." "You underestimate--" Ataquixt interrupted with a solemn shake of his head. "Palmaris, one of the three greatest cities of Honce-the-Bear, is now ruled by an augur, as are many lesser cities and villages. This is a harbinger, no doubt. Xoconai armies gather in moments at any place they choose, and sweep through any lesser town that refuses to submit to the will of Scathmizzane." "The monasteries," she said. "The Abellican monks are powerful." "They are indeed," Ataquixt replied. "And many have betrayed their own people and come over to join with the augurs." She tried to suppress her shock but was sure that it was clear upon her face. Her hand went to her abdomen, where new life was stirring. Ataquixt didn't miss that movement, she realized only after she even recognized that she had made the reflexive shift, and those bright eyes of her lover told her that he understood more than he should. "The great monastery of St.-Mere-Abelle has held strong," he told her. "The Xoconai will not attempt another attack on that greatest of human fortresses, likely ever. They will simply keep it isolated and irrelevant unless and until the monks become too troublesome. Perhaps you should go there." Keri considered the advice in the good faith in which she knew it had been given. Yes, she would be safe--as safe as was possible for her in this time--at St.-Mere-Abelle behind those towering walls, within those great halls and catacombs and dark meditation chambers, surrounded by monks skilled in combat and expert in the gemstone magic that could lay low an attacking army in short order. She would be safe there, but she would be miserable there. And the monks, though they might accept her, surely didn't want her. Some of the highest members of their order blamed her, and not without reason, for all the tragedy that had befallen their once prosperous and peaceful kingdom of Honce-the-Bear. And there remained another consideration: in St.-Mere-Abelle, she would be known as Aoleyn. There, she could not escape her past, and if word ever leaked out to be whispered in the ears of the ruling Xoconai augurs, if they ever discovered that Aoleyn was still alive and in this conquered land... "What of Entel?" she asked. The coastal city of Entel in southeastern Honce, nestled at the base of the Belt-and-Buckle Mountains and against the dark waters of the great Mirianic, had been an enigma to anyone and everyone who had ever ruled these lands. It contained two monasteries of Abellican monks, though the two were more rivals than allies, and the city boasted, as well, of two distinct cultures: that of Honce-the-Bear and that of Behren, the desert kingdom just around the mountains' edge. By all accounts, Entel had the flavor of Palmaris and Ursal, but even more, the flavor of Jacintha, the great Behrenese city a mere fifty miles to its south. Ataquixt shrugged. "There has been no fight there of any real consequence, to my knowledge, but I do not know. The city has ever been divided, and sits now in turmoil, sharing three identities. I do not think the Xoconai will press forcefully there, to be honest, because I do not believe they will need to do so in order to get everything they want from the port city. There seems to be a growing respect among the leaders of my people for the powers looming just south around the mountains, which have an enormous trade and cultural sharing with Entel." "Why would your people do this?" Keri asked. "We who won on the mountain those three years past could have destroyed so much. With the power of the god-crystal in our hands, we could have laid low the golden city of Otontotomi in a matter of a day, and yet we surrendered that advantage so that the land could know peace and new understanding. Cooperation between our peoples." "For all our worthy intentions, the land has remained at war since that agreement of hope," he told her. "You know this." "But the battles were quieting! The absence of power was being filled town to town, most often by the will of the people of the towns!" "And often disastrously. This, too, you know. There were towns where Xoconai would be killed on sight. There were towns where sidhe were..." "Sidhe?" Ataquixt sucked in his breath, as if trying to bite back the word. "We are all humans," Keri said. "Haven't you figured that out yet?" Ataquixt held up his deceptively delicate hands and bowed gracefully in a seemingly sincere apology. "You use the goblin pejorative," she answered. "As many of the people who look like me call your people the sidhe, a name both of our peoples gave to the ferocious demonic goblins who roam the great mountains that separate east from west." "It would seem that both groups think the other less than human, and ugly," he said. I hardly think your people ugly, she thought, but didn't say aloud. At least, not physically. She couldn't deny it if she wanted to, particularly not to this man. These strange people who had swept in from the west, over the mountains and all the way through the Wilderlands and through Honce-the-Bear, all the way to the sea, were meticulously groomed and stood straight-backed and vibrant, strong and exuding health, shining within. And particularly as she had grown accustomed to those distinctive facial colorings, she could not begin to understand how anyone could think the Xoconai ugly. And Keri knew, quite intimately, that Ataquixt did not think her ugly, though she understood that his claims of opposing prejudice were certainly true. "There remain places of solid resistance, but they will not last for long, or even if they do, they will become more an annoyance than a true rebellion once the augurs have set their flags," he said quietly and evenly. "Your land will be conquered." "This is not my land," she reminded him again, simply because she was stubborn and proud of that trait, and he nodded and bowed slightly once more, but his expression remained grim. "What news of my land?" she demanded. "Tell me of the plateau." "Otontotomi thrives as the greatest city of all east of the Teotl Tenamitl range. Three hundred thousand people live on and about the plateau you once knew as home." "People? Xoconai?" "Xoconai and those of the tribes who once lived there. People." "Not sidhe." "Not sidhe," Ataquixt agreed with a smile. "Certainly not sidhe." "God's Parapet," the woman translated under her breath, for Teotl Tenamitl was what the Xoconai people called the mountains dividing the west from the wild center and the populated east of this vast continent--the mountain range they had crossed when she had destroyed the demon Fossa. For to the Xoconai, the fall of that demonic beast was the signal for the rise of Scathmizzane, their own demon god. Not the towering mountains but the Fossa had been the one true barrier that had kept them in the far west. She pictured Otontotomi, and remembered the region before it had been uncovered, when the city was hidden beneath the deep waters of the mountain lake that shone beyond the shadow of Fireach Speuer, the mountain she had known as her home for all but the last three years of her young life. "And..." she prompted. "Who can know? There is peace there for now. The remnants of your tribe and many from the lake tribes hold a superior position high on the mountain, a place filled with powerful magic. The cost of attacking them would be high, so very high, if it could even be successful." "As with St.-Mere-Abelle." "Very much," Ataquixt said with a nod. "Perhaps you could--" "No," she said definitively. "I'll not ever return to Fireach Speuer." Keri was surely comfortable with her response. That land was her past, Aoleyn's past, and not, and never, her future. Still, she desperately wanted her homeland to remain peaceful and stable. A small victory, at least. "If not there, then you should go to St.-Mere-Abelle," Ataquixt told her. "You will be safe there." "There is more to life than safety." Keri didn't look at him as she spoke. She couldn't. She did briefly lift her gaze enough to see him bow again. "I hope you remain well, my friend," he said. "And you are my friend. That will not change. You have earned my respect many times over, and both Tuolonatl and I know your heart and love you for it. You are the light, but darkness has come. You might punch little holes in that cloud with your formidable powers, but you'll not lift the veil. I tell you this because you are my friend. "Look closer to your hearth and home, great warrior, great witch," he went on, and she didn't have to look up to know that Ataquixt was regarding her belly then, and the life it contained. "It is a wide world, after all, and the tide will flood and it will ebb beyond the demands of any one person. You will find happiness here in this quiet and unremarkable place, I believe, but it will not be as you and Tuolonatl and I had hoped. Not on the level of the nation, at least, but make of your home a happy place." Keri nodded but didn't look up. Her home. Keridven's home. That place wouldn't be St.-Mere-Abelle, she knew. She hadn't been treated well there and found the ancient monastery dusty and steeped with the ghosts of ages past, the superstitions and legends beyond reality of men--almost always men, to the near exclusion of women--who had died long ago. Realizing that Ataquixt had walked away, she glanced up. He was on the other side of the small field already, in the shadows of the tree line of a thick forest nestled against the mountains of south-central Honce. She watched this fierce mundunugu warrior climb atop his mount, but it wasn't a cuetzpali lizard, as was typical. No, it was a horse, a blue-eyed pinto. "Pocheoya," the woman mumbled, and she knew in that moment beyond all doubt that Ataquixt wasn't misinformed or lying to her, and that their common friend and the only champion who might reverse these terrible events would not return. For he rode Pocheoya, the beloved horse of Tuolonatl. Keridven watched the sunset on a low hillock, looking across the wide fields of southern Honce to the brilliant lines of orange and red splayed across the western horizon. Turning left a bit, she could see the reflections lighting fires on the snow-capped mountains. It was the last day of Toumanay, the fourth month in the calendar of Honce-the-Bear, and spring had come early after a mild winter, with the leaves already in full bud. She replayed her unexpected meeting from earlier. She wasn't surprised that Ataquixt had been able to find her--that one seemed to know a lot about everything--but she was stunned that he had bothered. They had parted ways in Ursal three months earlier, had said goodbyes that had seemed lasting in that moment. She looked back the other way, just east of her position, to the houses of Whispervale, her new home, the small community nestled between two spurs stretching north into Honce from the Belt-and-Buckle. No one had known that she was coming here--even she hadn't known it!--when she had left St.-Mere-Abelle more than a year before, chased out by the ghosts of her past and the accusations of Abellican scholars. She had gone from the great monastery west, to the city of Amvoy, intending to continue on across the river to Palmaris, to check in on an old and dear friend of hers. But her friend was long missing, she had been told by a trusted source, and almost certainly dead and buried in an unmarked grave like so many others who had resisted the changes in that city, charged with high crimes by the augurs of Palmaris. She shuddered as she thought of Xoconai execution, where the convicted were put in a box of four gold mirrors, which would then emit heat into the middle to curl the skin of their victims. That would have been her fate in Palmaris, she knew with certainty, if her true identity had been discovered by the augurs. Whatever crime anyone else might commit, the witch Aoleyn of the Usgar would ever be the most hunted of all by the augurs. She had slain their precious Scathmizzane and had interrupted their plans for a swift conquest of the east. With nowhere else to go, Aoleyn had turned south and fled the region. She didn't know why, but south had seemed as good a direction as any at that desperate moment. She didn't really fear the Xoconai, even the augurs, outside of Palmaris, not then as she did now, but to linger in the area... perhaps she had been afraid of what she would find out about her dear old friend's absence. Finding that man, her lifelong friend, her first lover, in a grave would be too much for her. She had gone on to Ursal, taking her time, learning the countryside, or the riverside, at least, as she made her way from town to town along the wide and meandering Masur Delaval. At the end lay the greatest city of Honce, high and walled. She had been through there during the conflict and knew the people to be strong and stubborn. But Ursal had disappointed her and had frightened her, for deep inside, she had known even then that her dream of peace might not hold. She had met up with Ataquixt quite by accident, and the two had shared their troubled thoughts and much, much more. But events in Ursal had become dangerous for her and the whispers of her true identity had been overheard, and so she had once more departed, without real direction. Entel, perhaps, she had thought even then, and so she had meandered south to the mountains, then turned east. With a hundred miles behind her and a hundred more to go, if the maps were to be believed, she had come upon this place, Whispervale, and here had found true respite, and blissful anonymity. None here even seemed to know much, nor care much, of the Xoconai invasion. Whispervale sometimes saluted whatever king was in place in Honce, but the toasts were more an excuse to drink than any real passion for whomever it might be (with one notable exception, a previous queen and not a king). For these farmers and foragers and hunters and fisherfolk were independent of the lords and kings and landowners who had proven such a plague throughout these lands for centuries untold. The people here were fully self-sufficient. They lived far from the main roads and far from the intrigue of the games of the powerful, and they wanted to keep it that way. The folk of Whispervale and the five surrounding villages had all that they needed, with fertile gardens, mountain streams teeming with huge trout, and game and wild berries aplenty. Sitting on that hillock this night, looking back at the sleepy town that had so welcomed her, and had even helped her build a cabin of her own, Keri was struck by how similar this seemed to the life she had known before she had learned the truth of her tribe on the mountain, before she had battled the demon Fossa, before the Xoconai had come and the world had widened terrifyingly. How ironic that she had always dreamed of what lay beyond the Ayamharas Plateau, and now that she had found out, she wanted nothing more than to be back there and back to that simpler time. Here, she had become Keridven. Still, despite the warm feelings of this community, she had never meant to stay in Whispervale. Now, though, with a child growing in her womb, she thought that she might never leave. That wouldn't be a bad thing. She blew a deep sigh and considered the news from Ataquixt, the dire implications all too clear. Tuolonatl hadn't simply been recalled to the west. She had been hustled there, else she would not have left her beloved Pocheoya behind, even with someone as trusted by her as Ataquixt. That portended a grave turn for the region, Keri feared, and she hoped that she was wrong, and hoped that, if not, places like Whispervale would not be found out. The people here were no threat to the Xoconai, nor did they have any wealth the Xoconai could covet. Perhaps the conquerors wouldn't look this way. She tried to tell herself that, but... She knew better. She was the center of the darkness that had come to the land, and that darkness would find her, certainly. She had destroyed the demon Fossa that roamed the great mountainous divide for centuries untold. Her intentions had been good, but the act had precipitated the eastward charge of the Xoconai. If she hadn't killed the Fossa... If she hadn't been little more than a child, meddling in affairs beyond her understanding, and with magical powers too great for one so inexperienced... She hadn't known the consequences, but did it matter? For now, tens of thousands were dead, hundreds of thousands teetering on the edge of subjugation, and the world for all who were not Xoconai was hurtling toward the sunset precitpitating a long night. The sky was lit by a half-moon and a million stars by the time she wandered back onto the main street of little Whispervale, crestfallen and chased by demons of guilt. "Been dancin', Keridven?" asked old Biddlebrew, who ran the goods exchange, and who made the finest mead for the common room at the Mountain Shadow tavern. "But ye went without Jilly, did ye? Or th' other Jilly, who's been asking to join ye?" "Not dancing," she answered with an amused giggle. Biddlebrew could have named a third Jilly and even a fourth, in this town of only a few hundred residents, although that fourth one was a young man, and for him it was Gilly, not Jilly. Yes, that was a common name in these parts, in all the lands, so it seemed, for people, mostly women, near her own age in their twenties. She smiled at the thought. She had never met this Queen Jilly, or, more accurately, Queen Jilseponie, but she had met Jilseponie's son, had battled beside him, had been with him when he had died in the mouth of a great dragon, the mount of the Xoconai god. Her smile became the blow of a sigh. They had all fought so well, so brilliantly, and more than that, they had done the right thing. So they had thought. Keri let the ever-present darkness go. She had only been here in Whispervale for a couple of months, having arrived in the middle of the second month, Progos, but the warmth the townsfolk now showed her made her feel as if she had lived here all her life. She had made many friends, particularly the Jillys, and had introduced a small group of women to the dancing tradition of the Coven of the Usgar. Thus she had created the witches of the Coven of Whispervale. Not with the magical elements she had known among the Usgar, though. Not yet and perhaps never. She had to be careful with that, and she feared it profoundly, given the disasters she had wrought wielding that godly power. The dance itself was magical and spiritual, after all, and quite satisfying--and growing more so as the handful of participants had found a proper setting, a proper grove for it, and had begun perfecting the experience bit by bit, with lanterns and ghostly flowing clothing. Even more than that, the dancers were losing their inhibitions more with each dance, no longer looking around to see if another had noticed a misstep, and instead realizing that there were no missteps, and that the place to look in each witch's dance was into one's own heart and soul. Excerpted from The Witch of Whispervale by R. A. Salvatore All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
