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  Triad

  By Guy Estes

  Text copyright © 2013 Guy Estes

  All Rights Reserved

  PROLOGUE

  “The Chosen are coming,” Madigan told Rita. He was a sorcerer and priest of Tamura the All-Father and Crewahk the Huntsman while she was the headmistress of the local academy and priestess of Donya the All-Mother and Nevawn the Death Breeder. Rita was no sorceress, though. She was incapable of seeing the things Madigan could.

  “You are certain?”

  “I’ve seen it in several visions. They are coming.” He was taller than average and wore somber vestments that were old but well cared for. What hair remained on his head was grey, but his eyebrows were still black and his goatee was streaked with silver and darkness. His old face bore few wrinkles. His brown eyes, usually twinkling and merry, were now darker than usual as he related his findings to Rita.

  “They?”

  “I’ve seen three, one boy and two girls.”

  Rita looked at him silently, her dark eyes focused on his. She was an older woman of normal height and build, but her long hair, pulled back into a single braid, was still black. She finally responded.

  “Three Chosen living at once? Unless senility has finally claimed my memory, that has never happened.”

  “It hasn’t. The Chosen are rare as it is, but more than one living at once? No,” Madigan said as he shook his head. “That is unprecedented, yet that is what I saw.”

  Rita digested this for a while.

  “What, exactly, did you see?”

  “I saw two girls, a blonde and a brunette, and a blond boy. They would grow up to possess the extraordinary beauty and talent that could only belong to the Chosen. Two would be warriors and one a sorcerer. One would be taken. One would be exiled. One would be driven mad. I could see no more than that.”

  “Madigan,” Rita said, feigning shock, “do you mean to tell me you have limits?”

  “Sadly, yes,” he replied with a wan smile.

  “Do you know where these Chosen will be born?”

  “No. But Ilian and Ivarr Kurrin are due to have their daughter in six months. The timing of these visions and that birth is more of a coincidence than I’m prepared to accept.”

  Rita nodded.

  “Well,” she finally said with a sigh, “it’s not as if we can do anything about it. The Chosen will come. Perhaps one will be born of the Kurrins and perhaps not. All we can do is wait and see.”

  PART I

  FORGING

  “We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”

  – May Sarton

  “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”

  ― Aristotle

  “A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.”

  ― Mahatma Gandhi

  CHAPTER 1

  Six months after his vision, Madigan watched twin fronts in the skies to the east and the west of Sharleah, a prosperous town of about eight thousand in the province of Kerdonia. The sky directly overhead was clear, but in the east and west two sullen storms brewed. No one had ever before seen two separate storms occupying the same sky at the same time, but they had an idea of what it meant.

  Legend had it that any children born when two storms like these met will be Chosen, people who were born with a major gift, talent in a field that bordered in superhuman, and a minor gift, strong aptitude in a second field unrelated to the first. In addition to talent, they were blessed with uncommon beauty and eternal youth. Everyone realized that Ilian Kurrin was due. It would be fitting, their friends agreed, if the Kurrins did indeed have one of the Chosen as their child. If anyone deserved it, it was they, for their first two attempts at parenthood had resulted in the babes perishing before Ilian had even begun to show. In both cases, according to the midwives, the deceased had been girls. So, they said, was the one Ilian was carrying now. None but the midwives knew how they could determine the sex of a child before it was born to the light of day, but such was the nature of things in that age. Midwifery was second only to sorcery in terms of mystique.

  Ilian and her husband, Ivarr, were well aware of the potential blessings of their child. The closer the time of delivery crept, the more apprehensive they became. Their first two children had died, so why should this one be any different? They tried to be hopeful, though, and squash their gloomy ruminations. The prospect of producing one of the Chosen could be suitable recompense, for they graced the world but seldom.

  Soon after lunch, two midwives were dispatched to the Kurrin home, which lay about half a mile north of Sharleah, away from the picturesque collection of stone and timber buildings, some of them whitewashed, none of them more than four floors high. Madigan was also there, for his services may be required should one of the Chosen emerge from Ilian’s womb. The two storms had been progressing towards each other throughout the morning. The closer they got to each other the more agitated they became, with blue flashes strobing from within their cobalt depths and thunder rolling across the countryside. Their presence all but assured Madigan the child would be one of the Chosen he’d foreseen. He’d said nothing of his divinations – one would go mad, one would be taken, one would be exiled – to the Kurrins. He did not want to cast a pall over things. Let them enjoy their child.

  Contrary to standard custom, Ivarr was present for his child’s birthing. As a general rule, men did not attend these events, out of sheer terror rather than taboo. But Ivarr wouldn’t have missed it for anything, except perhaps his wife’s refusal. They both thought it proper for a father to greet his child, and Ilian wanted her husband’s large, solid presence as an anchor for what was sure to be a baneful experience. Ivarr stood six feet, two inches high, with skin of bronze and hair of iron. He sported a neat beard and moustache on his round, sometimes clown-like face. He was deep of voice and broad of form, for he was a blacksmith whose name meant “Gifted of the Dwarves.” He was well named, for he had spent much of his youth as the only non-dwarf apprenticed by the dwarvish smiths. As a result of his apprentiship, Ivarr was Sharleah’s top blacksmith and a member of the blacksmith’s guild in high standing. Years of toiling with hammer and fire had left him as strong as an oak and as solid as his anvil.

  Ivarr had experienced some unexpected feelings throughout his wife’s pregnancy. He had been greatly worried at the start, having heard all the horror stories of pregnant women having their figures forever obliterated and their moods changing like the weather, to say nothing of the anxiety spawned from the couple’s previous attempts at parenthood. But such had not been the case. Ilian had maintained a reasonable spirit throughout her term and, against all his expectations, Ivarr had actually found his wife’s growing belly quite fascinating. There were little things Ilian did that Ivarr found particularly feminine; the way she held herself when she brushed her hair, the way she sometimes stood with arms crossed and hip cocked, the way she laughed. Creating life eclipsed all of them. It was the penultimate act of femininity.

  Ilian. The name meant “Beautiful to Behold,” and Ivarr had that meaning driven into his heart once more as he and Madigan entered the guestroom. Ilian elected to have their baby there rather than in their room so as not to soil their bed. Ilian Kurrin was about a foot shorter than her husband, with rich brown hair falling in a silky curtain down her back. She had sparkling hazel eyes and a light dusting of tan freckles on her nose and cheeks, and a dimple graced her left cheek. She was propped up on pillows and smiled at Ivarr and Madigan when they entered. It was a radiant smile, one to set worlds in motion. Like Ivarr, she was an expert craftsperson, being the leading wea
ver in Sharleah. If it could be fashioned from fabric, then from Ilian’s loom it would come as a masterpiece in form as well as in function. She, too, was a member of high standing in her respective craft guild.

  “How do you fair?” Ivarr inquired.

  “I am well. For the time being,” she said with another smile. The labor had only just started. She would soon discover why labor was so named.

  The two midwives were making preparations for the birth, arranging all the tools of their trade for easy access, and offering prayers to Donya the All-Mother. A breeze blew through the house, facilitated by doors on either side of the house left open. The doors and windows on all sides of the house were arranged in a particular manner for that very purpose. Ivarr saw lightening flash in Ilian’s eyes and turned to join Madigan by the open window.

  The two storms were much closer to each other, both of them like cauldrons of angry boiling lead. The elemental spectacle intensified and the wind picked up. With the next flare of lightening Ilian cried out.

  As the afternoon progressed, so did Ilian’s suffering increase with the storms’ proximity. The sun’s power was dimmed as they crossed jagged swords of lightening, the thunder reverberated like the stampeding of the gods’ horses, and the wind wailed a preternatural battle cry. They lit several light stones, enchanted gems that lit up when rubbed and went out when rubbed again. They were more expensive than lamps and candles, but also safer; light stones couldn’t set anything on fire. Ivarr knew nothing of magic, but it took no great sorcerer to see that with each blast of the elements Ilian’s agony was magnified. And the storms grew worse as they grew closer to each other.

  “Remember what we’ll be blessed with,” Ivarr said as he took his wife’s hand in an attempt to comfort her. “One of the Chosen.” Madigan had said that by now that was a virtual certainty.

  “I remember,” Ilian puffed. “I’ll not lose this one.”

  She managed a weak smile in her anguish. Ivarr and Madigan continued to monitor the storms. Flickering lightening animated the whooshing trees into jerking marionettes. The storms darkened and closed, darkened and closed…

  Ilian screamed.

  “Breathe, dearie, breathe,” one of the midwives coached. Ivarr shifted his stance, quick and fidgety in his helplessness. He could do nothing to alleviate Ilian’s torment. He could only stand idly by and trust in the midwives, a feeling he hated. He should be the one to relieve his wife. Such a duty should not fall to someone else.

  “It won’t be long now,” Madigan informed him.

  “I should hope not,” Ivarr replied.

  The storms were nearly touching, their furor matched only by Ilian’s suffering. The house, solidly built by Ivarr’s hands, groaned its objection at the abuse it was receiving from the storms.

  Please, Ivarr silently prayed, not another dead one.

  Not long after night fell the two storms finally met, and the tempests that had plagued Sharleah all afternoon were revealed to be a mere rehearsal for what they would spawn. The moment the two tremendous forced collided they unleashed such cataclysmic fury that Ivarr was certain Crewahk the Huntsman was harvesting souls upon his very roof. The apocalypse drowned out all else save Ilian’s tortured shrieks. She writhed and clutched the sheets, feeling as if some monstrous taloned hand had reached inside her and was now yanking her vitals out. Her chilling cries even exceeded the banshee-like scream of the gale. Her hair, dark with sweat, was matted and tangled and plastered to her head. She was waxy and pallid, as though her body was disappearing to reveal the spirit underneath.

  “I cannot,” she gasped. “Huntsman take me, I cannot!”

  “You must,” a midwife urged. “‘Tis nearly done.”

  “No! It never ends! Tamura help me I canno-“ Her sentence mutated into another scream.

  “Ivarr,” a midwife snapped, “go to the foot of the bed, where she can see you. Your presence will give her hope.”

  Ivarr obeyed, feeling like a little boy trying to help his mother and only getting underfoot. He did not see how this would help matters any but, he supposed, that was probably why they were in charge of the birthing and he was not. He saw Madigan standing by the window, his face as calm as if he were merely watching the sun set, though the wind toyed with his hair and clothes. Ivarr discovered that by crouching down he could view the storms through the window, for even though they had met, they did not join into a single storm. They boiled and seethed, two inky adversaries doggedly trying to overcome one another. Lightening pealed and wind flew like furies about the house. It was as though the world had been split apart.

  “Ivarr!”

  The midwife’s bark snapped him to his feet, almost standing at attention. He saw his tortured wife in the flickering lamplight, her skirts pushed up around her.

  Forget the world! It looks like my wife has been split apart!

  Which, to a certain degree, she had. The whole scene was one of queer surrealism to Ivarr. While it was obviously necessary, it just did not seem right for a lady to be lying helpless and exposed before a room full of people, and while he’d seen people injured before, this was his wife! And there was something about being torn apart from within that seemed far more horrendous that being torn apart by earthly implements. Ivarr could plainly see where all the blood and juices were coming from. That, too, seemed more diabolical than other wounds. Through it all Ivarr stood there, feeling huge and clumsy and useless, a buffalo amongst gazelles.

  “I should not be here,” he muttered while backing away. “I cannot be here!”

  One of the midwives grabbed his shoulders. Her hands were dwarfed by their mass but, strangely, they were not overwhelmed by it.

  “She needs you, Ivarr.”

  “I cannot be here!”

  “You were all too willing to be there at the beginning,” she scolded while trying – and failing – to shake him, “and, by Donya, you’ll be there at the end!”

  Ivarr allowed her to lead him back to the foot of the bed, and from there he could now see the baby’s head. His mortified expression was replaced by a foolish grin, to which he was oblivious, as the arrival of his child into the world held him in rapt attention. The clashing storms finally gave up their battle for dominance and blended into a single entity. With this merging their violence subsided but little. Lightening continued to flash and thunder continued to rumble.

  A bolt shot through the open window, spearing Ilian and her escaping child, yet all could see this wasn’t a simple lightning bolt. It was purple rather than blue. It seemed to freeze once it hit Ilian, and time seemed to stop. There was no loud crash or boom. Rather, there was a deep thrumming sound, felt more than heard. Pressure seemed to build, like the building pressure of deepening water. Mother and child were completely bathed in an aura of pure amethyst. The pressure and thrumming built until Ivarr felt like his eardrums would rupture and his bowels release.

  Then, like a popping balloon, the frozen bolt of power winked out of existence, and the pressure and thrumming went with it. Ivarr stood frozen and looked at Madigan, who gave him a nod. Only then did the newest mortal come into the world, announcing its arrival with the ear piercing shriek of one who has been submerged for the better part of a year.

  “’Tis a girl,” a midwife exultantly confirmed, like the announcer at a race, gratified that their prediction had been accurate.

  The midwives cut and tied the cord, then cleaned and wrapped the babe, bringing her to her father. Ivarr went to the head of Ilian’s bed to introduce mother to daughter.

  “She’s so beautiful,” Ilian cooed as she tried to catch her breath and held her daughter in her arms for the first time. Her pains had receded significantly. The child had all ten fingers and ten toes and a healthy set of lungs.

  “That she is,” Ivarr said. “And because she is so beautiful, and Chosen, her name shall be Aleena, the Beautiful Light Bringer!”

  CHAPTER 2

  “Your broom has lost its
straw,” the begrimed ogre jeered. He stood before his great stronghold. Aleena stood before him, her only weapon a staff. She held it with the loose ease of one who knows what she is doing. It was light and fast, worn smooth from regular practice. The ogre was similarly armed, though his staff was coarse, thick, and heavy. He loomed over her, stained teeth grinning and piggish eyes glittering.

  “Let me pass,” she commanded.

  “Why?” he demanded. The very sight of her honey blonde hair and storm cloud eyes filled him with contempt. “What business do you have in the school?”

  School. With the mention of that word Aleena snapped back to reality. Her six-year-old imagination had once again slipped its leash, and it had instantly commenced painting an ordinary scene with somewhat more spirited colors. ‘Twas no ogre she was facing but a bleating little piglet named Dirke Aman. He was standing before the entrance of Sharleah’s only school, a large academy whose products often went on to become ambassadors and governors, poets and artists, engineers and builders, and scholars of highest caliber, as befitted an academy in the Artisan League, a confederation of provinces united by economic interests and of which Kerdonia was a member.

  Dirke was refusing Aleena entrance. It was the first moments of her first day of school and already she had collected an enemy, something she would prove to have quite a talent for. His unprovoked malice had instantly enveloped Aleena’s spirit with flaming rage. Her consciousness was like a piece of driftwood riding a tidal wave, a tiny bit of awareness helplessly swept away by the titanic force of nature that was her gift and her temper. This was her first true taste of both of them.

  “Go,” he ordered. “Get some straw for your broom. Then you may sweep my schoolyard!”

  Having given his decree, Dirke hefted his staff and wound up for a mighty blow that would leave his enemy splattered about the schoolyard like his mother’s fruit preserves. This gave Aleena more than adequate warning, and she responded by shooting the end of her staff into his belly. He doubled over with an explosive “oof” and each end of her staff struck each side of his head with two satisfying cracks. Dirke was laid out in the dust, both arms wrapped around his head and legs drawn up, wailing. He did not even notice Aleena’s final act. After putting her enemy down, Aleena’s instincts and rage told her to slay her enemy. The end of her staff was shooting down to smash Dirke’s skull when Aleena got enough control over her gift to divert the staff’s path. Its end thudded into the ground a hair’s breadth from Dirke’s skull.