City of Light (The Traveler's Gate Trilogy) Read online

  Contents

  Damascan Map

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Copyright

  The Damascan Standard Calendar

  Chapter One: Gathering Weapons

  Chapter Two: Arrivals and Departures

  Chapter Three: Gates in the Snow

  Chapter Four: A Dead Man in the Graveyard

  Chapter Five: Disturbing Explanations

  Chapter Six: A Test and a Ghost

  Chapter Seven: Elysian Rule

  Chapter Eight: The Gallery

  Chapter Nine: Inside Enosh

  Chapter Ten: Stories in the City

  Chapter Eleven: Elysia vs. Valinhall

  Chapter Twelve: Fighting in the Streets

  Chapter Thirteen: Invasion

  Chapter Fourteen: Battle in the House of Blades

  Chapter Fifteen: Prices Paid

  Chapter Sixteen: The Founder's Heir

  Chapter Seventeen: Capture

  Chapter Eighteen: A Conversation in Avernus

  Chapter Nineteen: Creating Incarnations

  Chapter Twenty: Old Friends and New Enemies

  Chapter Twenty-One: Daughter of Wind

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Grief

  Chapter Twenty-Three: A Pair of Masks

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The End of a Traveler

  Chapter Twenty-Five: Newfound Powers

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Strategic Planning

  Chapter Twenty-Seven: War in the City of Light

  Chapter Twenty-Eight: Rewards

  *Sequel Page*

  *The Future*

  City of Light

  The Traveler’s Gate Trilogy - Book 3

  Will Wight

  www.WillWight.com

  To Dad, who doesn’t read fantasy novels…but who read these.

  Copyright © 2014 Hidden Gnome Publishing

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Chelsey and Caitlin Bateson

  The Damascan Standard Calendar

  (Also called the Cynaran Calendar, established during the reign of Queen Cynara II)

  Spring

  Day 1: Spring’s Birth

  Day 45: Sower’s Day

  Day 90: Spring’s End

  Summer

  Day 1: Summer’s Dawn

  Day 45: Midsummer

  Day 90: Summer’s End

  Autumn

  Day 1: Harvest Day

  Day 45: Reaping

  Day 90: Autumn’s End

  Winter

  Day 1: Winter’s Day

  Day 45: Midwinter

  Day 90: Winter’s End

  This was a simplified system intended to unify the various seasonal and lunar calendars that competed prior to Damasca’s conquest of the continent. To mark the date, you count the number of days between you and the nearest holiday. The 81st day of Spring, for instance, would be “9 Days Till Spring’s End.” The 46th day of Spring is “1 Day Since Sower’s Day.”

  CHAPTER ONE:

  GATHERING WEAPONS

  358th Year of the Damascan Calendar

  24th Year in the Reign of King Zakareth VI

  3 Days Until Summer's End

  As the sun sank below the horizon, the Eldest Nye moved from shadow to shadow across the battlefield.

  He felt weak, here in the outside world, and he would feel weaker the longer he stayed exposed. Sheltering in the shadows made him feel a little better, a little stronger, a little closer to his powers in the House. He still moved with the stealth and grace that were his birthright—none of the soldiers in red-and-gold caught so much as a glimpse of him as he glided in and around their camp. Or what was left of it. The field had once been an orderly tribute to Damascan military discipline: row upon row of white tents arranged according to some plan that the humans had no doubt thought wise at the time.

  The order was broken now. The grass was slick with blood and littered with bodies. The tents lay in ruins, shattered and broken. Some of the camp had shifted, transformed and rearranged by the Valinhall Incarnation’s presence: here a barrel whose warped planks had turned into an armchair, there a patch of grass curled into a thin layer of green carpet, over there a pile of firewood grown into a rough-carved table. In the presence of his master, this world strove to imitate Valinhall.

  In the Eldest’s opinion, it was a huge improvement. Valin should have spent more time here.

  The survivors hobbled around, using sheathed swords and broken spears as makeshift crutches, hauling corpses from one place to another. They made a mockery of propriety, and the Eldest couldn't see why they bothered. There were far too many dead to deal with each of them appropriately, so the survivors simply threw them in pits and covered them with dirt.

  He approved of their attempts to clean up the mess, but why bury the bodies at all? Why mark the grave? In only a century or two, no one would remember anyone who died here today. A rock with a dead man’s name on it would not change that.

  There was such a room in Valinhall, meant for honoring the memory of those who had died. His master had placed it there. Even the Wanderer was human, and the Eldest honored his human frailties, even when he didn't understand them.

  The Eldest corrected himself: the Wanderer had once been human. Then he had become something more.

  And now he was something less.

  The Nye slid around a patched-up tent, inside of which a young man was grieving over a discarded helmet. His back was to the tent entrance, and the Eldest's hands itched to pull out his chain. This boy had left himself completely defenseless, which was a bad habit that would someday get him killed. Bad habits should be corrected.

  But he restrained himself and kept moving, passing through the part of the camp where Travelers had come to blows. Here the devastation was more exotic, but no less total. Human corpses mingled with the inhuman: three-tailed orange lizards with smoke still drifting from their bodies, tall white-furred beast-men lying in inch-deep puddles of chill water, a flock of sparrows lying on top of one another in a bloody pile.

  He didn’t spare a thought for the violence. He had seen far worse. He had caused worse.

  The Eldest scanned the carnage, looking for one specific corpse among all the others. After only a few minutes of searching, he found it.

  Something that looked like a man lay on a patch of bare grass, naked from the waist up. His skin was almost totally covered in tattoos like black chains. His head was bare, the chains covering him in place of hair.

  His blank, staring eyes were black, with circles of silver in their center. Other humans had different colors there, and for some reason found the metallic gleam of these eyes especially disturbing. The Eldest wasn't quite sure why. To him, the eyes were the color of steel and shadows. Beautiful.

  Even though this body had taken many wounds when it was alive, only one showed now: a single ragged hole through the left side of the chest. Veins of red spidered out from the stab wound itself, worming their way through the corpse's skin.

  The poison of Ragnarus leaves its mark, the Eldest thought. He tried to summon up the old resentment toward Ragnarus, but he felt nothing. It had been a long time since his last encounter with the Crimson Vault, and most of his hatred he had acquired secondhand from Valin.

  He had settled his own debts with Ragnarus long ago.

  The anger didn't come. Instead, he felt a sort of eagerness for the weapon that had struck this blow. A hunger for something that could make his Territory that much stronger.

  The sword lay nearby, unsheathed, its blade blood red and gleaming. No one had looted it, despite its obvious value. Perhaps even humans could sense something of the nature of this body and this weapon,
and they wanted nothing to do with it.

  No, it was probably something else. In the Eldest's experience, humans were rarely that wise.

  The Eldest scooped up the sword, tucking it away inside his robe. Perhaps the humans Caius Agnos and Olissa Agnos could make something useful out of it. If not, well, he could surely find another use for an unbound Ragnarus weapon.

  When the blade was secure, the Eldest stood looking down upon his master's body.

  “You made promises to me,” the Eldest said, in his raspy voice. Here he was, speaking to a corpse, just like an emotional human. But the dead body wasn't his only audience. “You did not keep them. You have given me much, my friend, but in the end, you too failed to uphold our bargain.”

  He leaned down, letting a bit of his essence flow out like a shaft of light from this world’s moon. The shadows grew soft, a rent in the world, and Valin sank down deep, running along his connection to Valinhall like a cart in a rut.

  He would arrive soon, and the other Nye would take care of him as he deserved. He had insisted on adding a graveyard to the House of Blades, and now the room would be his new home.

  The Eldest straightened, and the only remnant of the Wanderer's presence was a patch of slightly bloody grass.

  Simon, son of Kalman, had promised to bring the Ragnarus blade to Valinhall, and technically he had not done so. But he had created the circumstances that allowed the Eldest to retrieve it, so the Nye decided to give the boy some credit. He had great hopes for Simon.

  “Do not worry, my old friend. We have another to fulfill our purposes now, and he will not slip away so easily.”

  The Eldest Nye turned his hood to the second sword lying on the grass: an unusually long weapon, six feet from end to end, its blade slightly curved and sharp along only one edge. A long, smooth line of gold ran up the middle of the blade, beginning at the hilt and ending at its tip.

  “Isn't that right, Mithra?”

  The Wanderer's blade glimmered in answer.

  CHAPTER TWO:

  ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES

  358th Year of the Damascan Calendar

  24th Year in the Reign of King Zakareth VI

  Summer’s End

  Zakareth left the Crimson Vault to find his palace in ruins. The dungeon beneath the Blue Room, where the Ragnarus Incarnation was once sealed, had been broken from within. He stood on the chips of shattered floor tiles, looking down a ragged hole torn into the earth that had once been a carefully sculpted tunnel. The bottom was covered in a layer of ash and brown, dead branches: the only remnants of Cana's Hanging Tree.

  His son Talos lay nearby, face blue and bulging. A bruise wrapped around his throat, as though he had been strangled.

  Good. Talos was one of the loose threads that Zakareth had planned to snip. Someone else had done him the favor of removing his son, which meant he could proceed that much faster.

  The Ragnarus Gate hung open behind him. He had never intended to close it, but it used to take him a significant effort of will and energy to hold the portal. Now, he sustained it with a thought.

  Already, he could see the benefits of Incarnation.

  Queen Cynara the First, the original Queen of Damasca, stayed in the Vault, lounging on a black wooden chair she had summoned from somewhere. “This city has grown since my time. There are a lot of raw materials here, if you put them to the right use.”

  Zakareth glanced at her. Her skin was made of gleaming red steel, her eyes crimson flame, her dress a waterfall of scarlet light. The original Ragnarus Incarnation. “I'm surprised at you, Queen Cynara. Was it not you who said, 'Never ask another to pay a price if you can pay it yourself?'“

  Cynara's smile was shining white. “My stay underground has changed my mind on many things. But not my dedication to this country. Your first step will be to secure the city, so that you may have a throne from which to rule.”

  “If I sit here until Cana is restored, I will rule but one city amid a smoking wasteland.” Zakareth met Cynara's burning eyes with his own new set. His glowing red stone, once set into the socket of his left eye, had been replaced by a rolling crimson flame. The vision wasn't at all the same—he couldn't see the connections between Territories, the influence of each Territory imprinted on this world—but in some ways it was better. He could see rivers of crimson flowing in the objects around him, pooling in some things, trickling straight through others.

  Without asking, he knew what it was. Power. Potential power, energy, and ability that Ragnarus could harvest and use to fuel its armory of thirsty weapons.

  Cynara, lounging on her chair with her legs crossed, kicked one bare foot. “The Incarnations will not destroy everything. Not unless encouraged to do so. When unbound, the Incarnations will act according to their nature. Naraka will judge and punish, Endross will fight, Asphodel will spread and grow and seek the wild energy of emotion. Some of this will result in destruction, but Ornheim, for instance, should simply find the mountains and wait. Lirial will likely find a library and start reading. You see? It's not all wanton death.”

  Zakareth doubted that his dying citizens would appreciate the distinction. “Many of them will kill, though. You know that better even than I. The death toll will be unspeakable.”

  “Indeed. Imagine the kind of power that will follow when you pay such a high price.”

  Zakareth saw nothing wrong with her logic. The higher the price you were willing to pay, the more power you could call. That was how Ragnarus worked.

  “Be that as it may,” he went on, “you said a first step. What is your plan?”

  “What is yours, King of Damasca?”

  His plan was simple enough, as these things went. He had no reason to complicate matters. “I had intended to reveal myself and take back the throne, then turn my intentions to crushing Enosh.”

  Cynara nodded along as he spoke. “And how do you think your Overlords will react to an Incarnation on the throne?”

  “They will react as I order them to,” King Zakareth said. “Or they will be replaced.” He spoke with simple honesty. Their job was to govern in his name, not to question his motives.

  “What about this new Territory? Valinhall, is it called?”

  Zakareth considered that. He wanted Indirial on his side, but if the Overlord of Cana decided that he needed to oppose the Incarnations at all cost...well, Zakareth had little doubt that a team of Valinhall Travelers would be able to bring down an Incarnation. Even the Incarnation of Ragnarus.

  “How do you know of Valinhall?” Zakareth asked, struck by a sudden thought. “You were imprisoned during its creation.”

  Queen Cynara examined her appearance in a mirror she must have called from deeper in the Vault. Reflected red light shone from its surface. “In a prison of my own creation,” she reminded him. “The other Incarnations should have experienced something like a restless, painful sleep. Not me. I was awake, I was aware, and I was connected. I can assure you, it is not an experience you wish for yourself.”

  He believed her.

  “Very well,” he said. “I will secure the city for now, and then I will rebuild my country.”

  Cynara laughed, and the Vault rang like a bell along with her. “Do not let the loss of one eye limit your vision. I told you what the Incarnations would do of their own volition.

  “Now, imagine what they could do if they were directed.”

  Zakareth imagined Lirial crystals hanging in the air above every city, giving him access to an unparalleled network of instant information. An army made up of burning Naraka creatures and ferocious flying wyrms from Endross, blasting apart any force in their way. A host of golems tearing down the walls of Enosh.

  “I admit, the idea appeals to me,” he said. “Enosh would not oppose me long.”

  Cynara laughed again, more cruelly. “Enosh? Enosh is nothing. You could wipe it from the memory of mortal man with only the power you now possess. Let us focus our attentions on the real threat.”

  Zakareth stroked his s
hort beard, thinking back on the only Travelers who could match him in combat. “Valinhall,” he said.

  Queen Cynara waved one red hand airily. “Valinhall is a resource. You can bend it to your own purposes. There is only one opponent that can stand against us now.” Her face crumpled like foil into a look of loathing. “Elysia.”

  The King thought back to his lone encounter with the one remaining Elysian Traveler. The boy did not seem like much of a threat. He would stack Indirial against four of Alin, son of Torin.

  Then he remembered what he had done, back in his previous life. The weapon he had given to Alin.

  The Seed of the Hanging Tree.

  How could I be so foolish? he thought, but he knew the answer. His thoughts had been clouded, uncertain, back when he was no more than a man. Now, for the first time, they were clear.

  “Yes,” Zakareth said slowly. “We should begin with Elysia.”

  Cynara rose from her seat, and the black wooden chair vanished into the shadows at the corner of the Vault. “If there is any justice in the universe, let me be there when we tear down the walls of the City of Light.”

  Intense personal hatred for Elysia, Zakareth noted. He understood her feelings, given Cynara’s history—she had lived during a time when the whole continent had almost been destroyed by the last of the Elysian Travelers, and according to legend had given her life fighting an Elysian Incarnation—but he filed the fact away. If the Queen was going to act irrationally based on personal bias, he would have to carefully filter her plans.

  Once Alin was dead and the Seed was destroyed, all of Ragnarus’ power would be back under his control. He would have no need to destroy the City of Light then. He knew of no other Elysian Travelers, and if it took three hundred years for the next one to show up, so much the better.