CHAPTER 1
Phelan stood near the wooden bow of the Swiftwave’s Call looking out over the sea taking in the visage of the decaying city of Kaer as they approached its harbor. The city stood desolate and tired, the burned-out dome of her once great library and the dirty and worn facades of the once rich merchant quarter dominating the skyline since the Freehold Baronies fell. The once prosperous city now held merely half of the population it once had before the conquest; its importance and economy gutted due to the centuries of off and on conflict with, and finally defeat by, the powerful empire from the west of the continent known as the Pact Empyrean. Not the first of the Freehold Baronies, a group of allied feudal states, to fall, nor the last, Kaer still served as the western gateway to what was now simply called the Province of Freeholds, the name a mocking reminder of their former independence as all were now ruled by a Viceroy appointed by the distant Emperor of the Pact Empyrean.
The docks of Kaer jutted out into the wide mouth of the Alluidin River filled with mostly small fishing boats with single masts and sail and a handful of larger multi-masted merchant and passenger vessels loading and unloading. A thin layer of dark dust, blown in from the Blacksand Desert to the west, coated the unused paths, walkways, and rooftops of city, creating a dirty, tired atmosphere of neglect and decay.
Phelan turned to gather his things as the Swiftwave’s Call began its final approach. His looks, including light skin and eyes, and dark, nearly black, hair matched many of those on the docks tossing lines to guide the ship in, all natives of the Freeholds. His flowing, loose robes of cool tightly woven fabrics in red and black were in the style of the Irtelthel Islands off the coast of the far eastern side of the Pact Empyrean, far from this westernmost province. The combination had drawn many stares once he had left the Islands, but he had refused to answer questions as to who he was or why such an obvious Freeholder dressed in such an unusual style.
The ship bumped into the dock, sailors and dockworkers quickly tying down the ship and setting boarding ramps. The sun was setting over the city, deep red light glinting off the remains of the dome of the Great Library like a bloody wound in the skyline. Phelan’s eyes looked down to the nearby docks district with its few homes, being mostly made up of empty and abandoned warehouses with a few taverns and inns that catered to the sailors who came and went from the docks. Farther east, divided from the docks by a small wall but with its old rotting wooden gate wide open, was the central district of the city, full of buildings of every type, from domiciles to merchants, thrown together haphazardly in the free form style that the Freeholds used to embrace. In the core of the city on a slightly raised region visible from most everywhere and around the burned out remains of the library, was the much more recently constructed governing quarter within a tight well maintained square wall that set it apart from the rest of the city. Inside the roads and building were laid out in the precise pattern outlined by the laws of the Pact Empyrean, with the central barracks and administrative buildings clearly visible from almost all corners of the city, and the red sunburst over a white field with a black border standard of the Pact Empyrean hanging from the topmost points.
Phelan stepped onto the dock and was immediately met by a small bespectacled man in the gray robes of a Empyreal bureaucrat holding a ledger and pencil that seemed almost too large for him; his fine features, dusky skin, and light hair marked him as someone from the core territories of the Empyrean back west. Behind him stood two bored looking guards in Empyreal livery, their black and red tunics marking them as impressed soldiers.
“Name,” the bureaucrat demanded his voice tired and faintly wheezing as he looked Phelan up and down with a glare that obvious disapproved of the combination of looks and clothes.
“I am Phelan Almaran,” Phelan answered quietly his voice not carrying beyond the bureaucrat, “from the Almaran estates on Irtelthel.”
The bureaucrat did not react to the name, merely scribbling in his ledger.
“Travel permit?” he demanded, looking up from the ledger his eyes narrowed and suspicious.
Phelan reached into a pocket sewn into the billowing sleeves of his clothes and withdrew a metal plate with his name and sealed with the stamp of the Queen of Irtelthel, a subject monarch to the Emperor, and handed it to the man. He took it, looked it over pursing his lips in surprise for a moment, made a notation in the ledger, and then returned the permit to Phelan with a suspicious glare. Phelan offered a friendly smile, replaced the permit in its place and took out a few silver coins and placed them on the ledger for the man in the traditional tip plus some. The bureaucrat took the coin and nodded, his hostility fading away before the coin, and motioned Phelan onwards off the docks. As Phelan stepped past something more flitted through the bureaucrat’s eyes and he turned to Phelan.
“I do not know what brings you to these lands, but I would suggest keeping family name quiet…” he said, a mix of contempt and concern in his voice, “it will not be appreciated by these barbarians.”
He turned away as quickly and suddenly as he had spoken and moved up to the next person disembarking from the ship. Phelan frowned softly. He knew his family’s history in the Freeholds but did not think that fifty years later people would still care. That said, he had never intended to use his family’s name to begin with. The purpose of this journey, the reason he had set out, was to make a name for himself, to learn and grow without the protection of his family, and to perhaps help the people of his ancestral homeland.
Despite the initial appearances, the city of Kaer was still somewhat busy, with people moving about the streets on their business. Most dressed in close fit linen and wool outfits, with subdued earth colorings that caused Phelan to stand out sharply in his more brightly colored garb. Many stared at him due to the clothes, hostility apparent in their eyes. He responded with a warm smile, which usually just caused people to look away and mutter, though a few men held his gaze until he passed by. New clothes would be essential, he had not expected such hostility over the combination of dress and looks, like he was a traitor to the people here. After turning down a random alley to get away from the crowds and the constant glares, he stopped to get his bearings.
“It would be worse if they knew who my grandfather was,” Phelan murmured to himself while leaning on a wall to rest, “if they are so hostile over clothes…”
He pushed off the wall after a few moments and turned to head back into the street when one of the men who had held his gaze blocked off his path.
* * *
Cassiel watched as the newcomer turned down the alley and shook his head. The stranger was maybe a year or two younger than Cassiel, but clearly did not know anything about the Freeholds, otherwise he would never had disembarked from a ship dressed in those obviously foreign and fine clothes. Cassiel began to turn away as Jacin, a local smith, turned down the alley behind the newcomer. Cassiel sighed and followed, hoping that Jacin was not drunk like he often was at this time of day.
“What are you doing in those clothes, kid,” Jacin demanded, stepping towards the surprised newcomer, “dressing like an ill-kempt Emp. You sold out?”
The newcomer paused, looking the man up and down. Jacin was heavily built, bulky, and wore his leather smith’s apron. Cassiel could not see the smith’s face, but the hostility in his voice was apparent.
“Good master,” the newcomer spoke calmly, “I have just arrived in the city today. My family are fro—“
Cassiel winced as Jacin growled and took a step forward. A child, perhaps grandchild, of those who had left after the conquest now returned to the Freeholds, never a good thing to be, those who left avoided many of the problems and the persecutions that followed the Empyrean’s conquest and so were seen as outside the shared suffering of their land. Further, those that could afford clothes like that had typically been… not as loyal to the Freeholds.
“You mean they’re deserters!”
The newcomer took a step back, his eyes looking about for a way around, clearly confused as to why this was happening.
“What my grandparents decided to do is not something I can comment on,” he finally retorted, “It was not my choice, I was merely born to my parents where they were.”
“Sons of deserters and traitors are still deserters and traitors,” Jacin took another step forward, his fist clenched a slight slur to his words, “look at you in your fancy silk clothes, your face and hands never seen an honest day’s work I bet.”
Cassiel turned to let the newcomer to his own devices, a good yelling at by Jacin might teach him some obviously needed humility. He understood Jacin’s anger, this kid, dressed in his fine clothes and obviously lacking nothing had paraded about the city showing off. He had not dealt with the years of persecution, the constant pressure from the Empyrean’s laws and priests. However, Jacin did not just keep yelling, instead he reached to grab the newcomer’s right hand, but the young man jerked it back, holding up his left palm towards the man. Cassiel sighed and turned back to stop this from becoming a brawl, the newcomer was ignorant, sure, but he had not really done anything to deserve a beating. Yelling at, sure, venting was harmless, but Jacin was brutally strong and would likely end up in jail for weeks if not months if he beat this newcomer, and the good smith had a family to support.
As Cassiel stepped forward to intervene, glowing tendrils of energy sprang out of the young man’s hand, forming a hemisphere of energy between him and Jacin. Jacin’s hand, halfway through its swing, slammed into the barrier, a sharp flash of ethereal light sparking from the impact point with a faint crack of released energy. Jacin’s hand recoiled from the barrier and the blacksmith stepped back, shaking his hand and cursing. Cassiel hissed, the stranger had not chanted any of mystic phrases of the Enchanters or uttered an invocation in the name of the gods, which meant the newcomer was one of the rarer Channelers who could innately harness and focus magic power.
“Master,” the young Channeler said, his voice still calm as he closed his hand and the shield winked out, “please, I do not wish to fight, it is not worth it for either of us.”
Jacin snorted and muttered a curse under his breath while still shaking his hand, hard knuckles clearly bruised from the impact with the barrier, but turning from the alley, his light brown eyes suddenly noticing Cassiel and meeting them in a hard gaze.
“Next time I won’t let you go so easily,” he said over his shoulder, anger still in his voice, “stupid abandoneer.”
* * *
Phelan breathed a sigh of relief as the smith turned and walked out of the alley. The last thing he had wanted was for the man to try and push for a fight. He did not want to have to explain to the city watch why an independent Channeler had laid out a local. Channelers normally had to be a part of one of the Empyrean military or a member of the Order, neither of which Phelan belonged to for complicated familial reasons. Taking a final breath to calm himself and let the rush of the moment cool, Phelan began moving out of the alley only to stop short as another man blocked his path.
The man was a head and a half taller than Phelan and wore what looked like a leather jerkin over plain homespun tunic and trousers. He was not much older than Phelan, but his blue eyes seemed more worn. He wore his long blond hair back in a ponytail, an unusual color for a Freeholder, likely a result of some Altebeth plainsmen blood. None of that caused Phelan any concern, but on his back the man wore a large sword, maybe five feet long, and his hands, which were fortunately not near the sword, bore the calices of one who was practiced with a blade. Phelan knew such calices well, as his own hands bore similar, if slightly different, from his family’s own training.
“You handled that well,” the man said coolly, “I thought when I came back here I would end up pulling Jacin off you.”
“Jacin?” Phelan carefully kept out of arm’s reach of the new stranger and kept the Way open between himself and the Power just in case he needed it again.
“The blacksmith who stopped you,” the stranger said jerking his head towards the entrance of the alley and then taking a half step forward and offering a hand in greeting, “I’m Cassiel, sorry about the less than warm welcome.”
Phelan looked the man over, there was nothing about Cassiel that indicated duplicity, in fact, everything about him seemed honest and somewhat noble. Though there was a hardness to the man, the hardness of hardship, Phelan thought.
“I am Phelan,” he took the man’s offered hand carefully, “just arrived in Kaer.”
“Well Phelan,” Cassiel shook hands firmly, “welcome to Kaer, perhaps you’ll let me help you get settled?”
Phelan stood near the wooden bow of the Swiftwave’s Call looking out over the sea taking in the visage of the decaying city of Kaer as they approached its harbor. The city stood desolate and tired, the burned-out dome of her once great library and the dirty and worn facades of the once rich merchant quarter dominating the skyline since the Freehold Baronies fell. The once prosperous city now held merely half of the population it once had before the conquest; its importance and economy gutted due to the centuries of off and on conflict with, and finally defeat by, the powerful empire from the west of the continent known as the Pact Empyrean. Not the first of the Freehold Baronies, a group of allied feudal states, to fall, nor the last, Kaer still served as the western gateway to what was now simply called the Province of Freeholds, the name a mocking reminder of their former independence as all were now ruled by a Viceroy appointed by the distant Emperor of the Pact Empyrean.
The docks of Kaer jutted out into the wide mouth of the Alluidin River filled with mostly small fishing boats with single masts and sail and a handful of larger multi-masted merchant and passenger vessels loading and unloading. A thin layer of dark dust, blown in from the Blacksand Desert to the west, coated the unused paths, walkways, and rooftops of city, creating a dirty, tired atmosphere of neglect and decay.
Phelan turned to gather his things as the Swiftwave’s Call began its final approach. His looks, including light skin and eyes, and dark, nearly black, hair matched many of those on the docks tossing lines to guide the ship in, all natives of the Freeholds. His flowing, loose robes of cool tightly woven fabrics in red and black were in the style of the Irtelthel Islands off the coast of the far eastern side of the Pact Empyrean, far from this westernmost province. The combination had drawn many stares once he had left the Islands, but he had refused to answer questions as to who he was or why such an obvious Freeholder dressed in such an unusual style.
The ship bumped into the dock, sailors and dockworkers quickly tying down the ship and setting boarding ramps. The sun was setting over the city, deep red light glinting off the remains of the dome of the Great Library like a bloody wound in the skyline. Phelan’s eyes looked down to the nearby docks district with its few homes, being mostly made up of empty and abandoned warehouses with a few taverns and inns that catered to the sailors who came and went from the docks. Farther east, divided from the docks by a small wall but with its old rotting wooden gate wide open, was the central district of the city, full of buildings of every type, from domiciles to merchants, thrown together haphazardly in the free form style that the Freeholds used to embrace. In the core of the city on a slightly raised region visible from most everywhere and around the burned out remains of the library, was the much more recently constructed governing quarter within a tight well maintained square wall that set it apart from the rest of the city. Inside the roads and building were laid out in the precise pattern outlined by the laws of the Pact Empyrean, with the central barracks and administrative buildings clearly visible from almost all corners of the city, and the red sunburst over a white field with a black border standard of the Pact Empyrean hanging from the topmost points.
Phelan stepped onto the dock and was immediately met by a small bespectacled man in the gray robes of a Empyreal bureaucrat holding a ledger and pencil that seemed almost too large for him; his fine features, dusky skin, and light hair marked him as someone from the core territories of the Empyrean back west. Behind him stood two bored looking guards in Empyreal livery, their black and red tunics marking them as impressed soldiers.
“Name,” the bureaucrat demanded his voice tired and faintly wheezing as he looked Phelan up and down with a glare that obvious disapproved of the combination of looks and clothes.
“I am Phelan Almaran,” Phelan answered quietly his voice not carrying beyond the bureaucrat, “from the Almaran estates on Irtelthel.”
The bureaucrat did not react to the name, merely scribbling in his ledger.
“Travel permit?” he demanded, looking up from the ledger his eyes narrowed and suspicious.
Phelan reached into a pocket sewn into the billowing sleeves of his clothes and withdrew a metal plate with his name and sealed with the stamp of the Queen of Irtelthel, a subject monarch to the Emperor, and handed it to the man. He took it, looked it over pursing his lips in surprise for a moment, made a notation in the ledger, and then returned the permit to Phelan with a suspicious glare. Phelan offered a friendly smile, replaced the permit in its place and took out a few silver coins and placed them on the ledger for the man in the traditional tip plus some. The bureaucrat took the coin and nodded, his hostility fading away before the coin, and motioned Phelan onwards off the docks. As Phelan stepped past something more flitted through the bureaucrat’s eyes and he turned to Phelan.
“I do not know what brings you to these lands, but I would suggest keeping family name quiet…” he said, a mix of contempt and concern in his voice, “it will not be appreciated by these barbarians.”
He turned away as quickly and suddenly as he had spoken and moved up to the next person disembarking from the ship. Phelan frowned softly. He knew his family’s history in the Freeholds but did not think that fifty years later people would still care. That said, he had never intended to use his family’s name to begin with. The purpose of this journey, the reason he had set out, was to make a name for himself, to learn and grow without the protection of his family, and to perhaps help the people of his ancestral homeland.
Despite the initial appearances, the city of Kaer was still somewhat busy, with people moving about the streets on their business. Most dressed in close fit linen and wool outfits, with subdued earth colorings that caused Phelan to stand out sharply in his more brightly colored garb. Many stared at him due to the clothes, hostility apparent in their eyes. He responded with a warm smile, which usually just caused people to look away and mutter, though a few men held his gaze until he passed by. New clothes would be essential, he had not expected such hostility over the combination of dress and looks, like he was a traitor to the people here. After turning down a random alley to get away from the crowds and the constant glares, he stopped to get his bearings.
“It would be worse if they knew who my grandfather was,” Phelan murmured to himself while leaning on a wall to rest, “if they are so hostile over clothes…”
He pushed off the wall after a few moments and turned to head back into the street when one of the men who had held his gaze blocked off his path.
* * *
Cassiel watched as the newcomer turned down the alley and shook his head. The stranger was maybe a year or two younger than Cassiel, but clearly did not know anything about the Freeholds, otherwise he would never had disembarked from a ship dressed in those obviously foreign and fine clothes. Cassiel began to turn away as Jacin, a local smith, turned down the alley behind the newcomer. Cassiel sighed and followed, hoping that Jacin was not drunk like he often was at this time of day.
“What are you doing in those clothes, kid,” Jacin demanded, stepping towards the surprised newcomer, “dressing like an ill-kempt Emp. You sold out?”
The newcomer paused, looking the man up and down. Jacin was heavily built, bulky, and wore his leather smith’s apron. Cassiel could not see the smith’s face, but the hostility in his voice was apparent.
“Good master,” the newcomer spoke calmly, “I have just arrived in the city today. My family are fro—“
Cassiel winced as Jacin growled and took a step forward. A child, perhaps grandchild, of those who had left after the conquest now returned to the Freeholds, never a good thing to be, those who left avoided many of the problems and the persecutions that followed the Empyrean’s conquest and so were seen as outside the shared suffering of their land. Further, those that could afford clothes like that had typically been… not as loyal to the Freeholds.
“You mean they’re deserters!”
The newcomer took a step back, his eyes looking about for a way around, clearly confused as to why this was happening.
“What my grandparents decided to do is not something I can comment on,” he finally retorted, “It was not my choice, I was merely born to my parents where they were.”
“Sons of deserters and traitors are still deserters and traitors,” Jacin took another step forward, his fist clenched a slight slur to his words, “look at you in your fancy silk clothes, your face and hands never seen an honest day’s work I bet.”
Cassiel turned to let the newcomer to his own devices, a good yelling at by Jacin might teach him some obviously needed humility. He understood Jacin’s anger, this kid, dressed in his fine clothes and obviously lacking nothing had paraded about the city showing off. He had not dealt with the years of persecution, the constant pressure from the Empyrean’s laws and priests. However, Jacin did not just keep yelling, instead he reached to grab the newcomer’s right hand, but the young man jerked it back, holding up his left palm towards the man. Cassiel sighed and turned back to stop this from becoming a brawl, the newcomer was ignorant, sure, but he had not really done anything to deserve a beating. Yelling at, sure, venting was harmless, but Jacin was brutally strong and would likely end up in jail for weeks if not months if he beat this newcomer, and the good smith had a family to support.
As Cassiel stepped forward to intervene, glowing tendrils of energy sprang out of the young man’s hand, forming a hemisphere of energy between him and Jacin. Jacin’s hand, halfway through its swing, slammed into the barrier, a sharp flash of ethereal light sparking from the impact point with a faint crack of released energy. Jacin’s hand recoiled from the barrier and the blacksmith stepped back, shaking his hand and cursing. Cassiel hissed, the stranger had not chanted any of mystic phrases of the Enchanters or uttered an invocation in the name of the gods, which meant the newcomer was one of the rarer Channelers who could innately harness and focus magic power.
“Master,” the young Channeler said, his voice still calm as he closed his hand and the shield winked out, “please, I do not wish to fight, it is not worth it for either of us.”
Jacin snorted and muttered a curse under his breath while still shaking his hand, hard knuckles clearly bruised from the impact with the barrier, but turning from the alley, his light brown eyes suddenly noticing Cassiel and meeting them in a hard gaze.
“Next time I won’t let you go so easily,” he said over his shoulder, anger still in his voice, “stupid abandoneer.”
* * *
Phelan breathed a sigh of relief as the smith turned and walked out of the alley. The last thing he had wanted was for the man to try and push for a fight. He did not want to have to explain to the city watch why an independent Channeler had laid out a local. Channelers normally had to be a part of one of the Empyrean military or a member of the Order, neither of which Phelan belonged to for complicated familial reasons. Taking a final breath to calm himself and let the rush of the moment cool, Phelan began moving out of the alley only to stop short as another man blocked his path.
The man was a head and a half taller than Phelan and wore what looked like a leather jerkin over plain homespun tunic and trousers. He was not much older than Phelan, but his blue eyes seemed more worn. He wore his long blond hair back in a ponytail, an unusual color for a Freeholder, likely a result of some Altebeth plainsmen blood. None of that caused Phelan any concern, but on his back the man wore a large sword, maybe five feet long, and his hands, which were fortunately not near the sword, bore the calices of one who was practiced with a blade. Phelan knew such calices well, as his own hands bore similar, if slightly different, from his family’s own training.
“You handled that well,” the man said coolly, “I thought when I came back here I would end up pulling Jacin off you.”
“Jacin?” Phelan carefully kept out of arm’s reach of the new stranger and kept the Way open between himself and the Power just in case he needed it again.
“The blacksmith who stopped you,” the stranger said jerking his head towards the entrance of the alley and then taking a half step forward and offering a hand in greeting, “I’m Cassiel, sorry about the less than warm welcome.”
Phelan looked the man over, there was nothing about Cassiel that indicated duplicity, in fact, everything about him seemed honest and somewhat noble. Though there was a hardness to the man, the hardness of hardship, Phelan thought.
“I am Phelan,” he took the man’s offered hand carefully, “just arrived in Kaer.”
“Well Phelan,” Cassiel shook hands firmly, “welcome to Kaer, perhaps you’ll let me help you get settled?”