Tenebroum

Chapter 130: The End of Winter

Last winter, all that Jordan had worried about was that he and his slowly increasing band of refugees might run out of food. That was a horror that had never quite come to pass, though it had been a near thing in those first few days of spring. This winter, the ghost of famine no longer haunted them. In fact, though not pleasant, he might have been tempted to call this one cozy.

Against the odds, they’d had a prosperous year, which had started when Markez left. He’d done them the accidental favor of taking many of the malcontents with him. Though word of what had become of them never made it as far back as Sedgim Manor, he was sure that strong men like that had landed on their feet. With any luck, they’d sailed so far to the north that they would never need to fear the dark or the cold again.

Their departure had been only the first in a year of minor miracles. Neither the bandits nor the goblins returned in any great numbers, and despite their lack of grown farm hands, the children had done a better job than expected, and grain flourished while weeds shriveled.

He could only hope that the same would be true in the wake of Brother Faerbar’s departure. Oh, the Templar hasn’t left yet, he thought to himself as he watched him out sparring with the other young men on the frozen grass of the practice yard. He soon would, though. He’d already said as much to his little disciples.

That he hadn’t bothered to tell Jordan as much, rankled him only slightly. Despite the fact that he was the lawful heir of these lands and a mage, he’d never made to establish any sort of dominance over the holy warrior. He knew better.

Even if he had, though, that would have stopped once the children’s eyes started glowing. Siddrim might be dead, but the light was not, and if anything, his little followers were more devout than Brother Faearbar was.

If Besmr or one of his other friends had sat down across from him at the Dragon’s Flagon and asked him, “When do you reckon that us and the Siddrimites will sit down together and share a pint,” Jordan would have answered, “When the sun and the moon finally meet in the sky, and only for as long as that moment lasts.”

They all would have laughed at that, as eclipses were not unheard of, though they were extremely fleeting. The end of the world would have only been his second choice. Here they were, though, living under the same roof and occasionally working together for the common good.

They just didn’t do it with much in common. Just like now, Brother Faerbar stuck to the martial end of things, leaving Jordan to handle everything else. That was fine, of course. It just would have been better if he’d been the second or the first son and raised for such activities rather than pawned off on mage school so he could learn to brew tinctures and the occasional spell.

It wasn’t for another week until the Templar told him directly that he was leaving. Jordan was hard at work trying to make heads or tails of his account books when the glowing man sat down across from him.

“I’m needed elsewhere,” Brother Faerbar said simply, leaving Jordan at a loss for words.

“For what, exactly,” he asked finally, not sure what else to say.

“The war against the dark never truly ended, you know that almost as well as I do,” he started, “But until I’d made peace with all that I’d lost… for as long as I had that darkness in my heart, I couldn’t fight that fight, so I stayed.”

“Thank the Gods you did,” Jordan agreed. “Honestly, I know you, and I don’t really see eye to eye on these things, but you’re welcome to stay here for as long as you—”

“I’d been hoping that the snows would melt and give us an early spring, but that seems not to be the case,” the older man sighed, ruffling his hair with one hand and looking at the ceiling before once again fixing Jordan with the unnerving glow of his gaze. “In a week, I’ll be gone. No longer than that. I’d like to take certain supplies with me, but if you think things are too tight, then I can—”

“No, please,” Jordan insisted. “Help yourself. I would never try to stop you, Brother; I just want to understand the urgency so I can help how I can. If you and the children are going north—”

“Not the children. They aren’t in the dreams,” the Templar corrected him. “Just me. They will stay here with you where it’s safe. Even though you are a mage, I can trust you to do that much, at least, can’t I?”

“You can,” Jordan agreed, not pressing the point further. Instead, he pulled out a bottle of brandy he’d found last month while he was going through his father’s effects and poured them each a generous jot in two mismatched crystal glasses.

They sat there for a while in that comfortable silence, drinking before Brother Faerbar finally said, “I can feel the darkness growing. It's hard to explain, but I feel like every day it’s getting closer and closer while it waits for its chance to gobble everyone and everything up.”

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“Well, that is what it does, doesn’t it?” Jordan asked. “It devours all our misery and uses it to raise the corpses of the dead to kill any who oppose it, creating yet more misery.”

“That’s the way it should work,” Brother Faerbar agreed. “That’s the way all the small gods and the demons that have walked the mortal realms worked in the past, but there's a hunger to that. There's a certain straightforwardness that is both strength and weakness. Whatever we fight now is different. It’s always mutating and changing. It’s not natural.”

“It’s not,” Jordan agreed. “I’ve tried to contact the collegium. I’ve sent several ravens, but none of them ever returned an answer, so either I don’t merit a response, or they’ve long since fallen.”

“I cannot say,” Brother Faerbar answered with his hands spread wide. “Your kind are just a different sort of darkness, and black against black is invisible to my gaze. All I can say is that there are small sparks of life somewhere to the west, in Siddrimar or past it, but many more to the north, and that is where I will go to kindle the next great bonfire that will push the darkness back for at least another age.”

“Do you think that will be enough to unbreak the sun?” Jordan asked hopefully. Though he’d grown used to the strange way that the lights wandered across the sky, leaving their ugly multicolored shadows, he still did not care for it and would welcome a proper daylight once more.

“That is beyond the power of any mortal. I could no sooner ride one of those horses than I could bring them together again, even with what little light I have to give,” the Templar laughed as he finished his drink. “Erresten, Klydonium, Balzaar, and Pheadron are headstrong beasts. It is up to the gods to corral and yoke them once more. All I can do is try to keep hope alive.”

Their conversation ended a few minutes later, and the two of them didn’t speak again before the Templar’s departure, at least not beyond the occasional pleasantry. The warm weather the man had hoped for never appeared, and with a heavy heart, Jordan watched the man leave with a heavy heart through the deepening snow.

Winter would end, but much like their larger predicament, it would not really change anything. He hoped that the Templar would be able to manage some real change because otherwise, the darkness would overwhelm them all one day.

Less than a week later, the darkness found them, though not in any form he’d expected. For a long time, Jordan had worried that random goblin raids on their flocks might turn into something more cohesive or that the living dead might one day be spotted by the watch they kept on the forest and the main road one night.

Instead, it came in the form of a blind woman wearing the tattered robes of Siddrimar. Reben, who was on watch that day, didn’t believe that she was more than a crazed beggar from the way she mumbled to herself, but when he caught a glimpse of the strange book she was carrying, he invited her to one of the small outbuildings to the north of the manor and saw her fed while Jordan was summoned.

“She said she’s here about the falling star and the—” Reben whispered to him as Jordan entered, but the woman piped up immediately.

“I’m blind, not deaf, son, and I’ll happily tell your Lord my business my own self if you don’t mind,” she said cheerily between bites.

“Quite,” Jordan agreed. “What can I do for you, miss…”

“Annise,” she answered as he sat down across from her. “Sister Annise. Though the Lord of Light has fallen, and his order has buried beside him in his grave, a few of us yet live on in service to the light in other ways, as we are able.”

“You’ll forgive me if I say that you don’t look like any Siddrimite I’ve ever seen,” Jordan said, trying to be polite. In truth, she looked crazed. Her hair was a mess, and her outfit was torn and dirty. Even without the book, he would have been tempted to turn her away as a witch or worse, but the dark leather of the tome she carried with her had a malevolent aura about it. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he should read it before disposing of it or if he would just burn it outright if given a chance.

“These are hard times for us all. Harder still if you lack the eyes to see, but I manage, somehow. I have to the world depends on me,” she said, finishing half of her loaf before she pocketed the other half. Then she turned to regard Jordan with her milky, sightless eyes. “Tell me, are you ready to play your part in history?”

“I don’t think history will be kind to the minor players in the current story,” Jordan shrugged, “But it will be even crueler to the heroes. I think I will stay here and mind the people and the land under my stewardship. You’re welcome to stay for the night, of course, but beyond that—”

“You are already destined to be a hero, according to the book,” she assured him as she reached for the book, opened it, and began flipping through the pages. “The fallen star has left the cradle to light the bonfire, and now the shepherd must grasp the lightning!”

“I’m not sure who the falling star is, but I can assure you that lightning isn’t a problem. Be that as it may, I…” Jordan’s words trailed off as she stopped on a page and pushed it in front of him.

The drawing in the book was crude and uneven. Part of the edging was illuminated and gilded in iconography that was unmistakably Siddrim’s, and the figure it depicted, talentless though it was, was definitely Brother Faerbar standing at the top of a ruined wall with eyes full of light. He had no idea what it meant, though.

“Is this supposed to be the Templar?” he asked finally. “You’re out of luck, I’m afraid. He’s already left to—”

“To light the bonfire,” she agreed. “All is according to plan. There is no doubt that the falling star will do his part. The only question is, will you do so as well?”

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