The Four Forges Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Part I

  Chapter One - 703 After Empire, Stocking Month by Dweller Calendar

  Chapter Two - Earlier That Day

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five - 721-723 AE

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven - 723 AE, Yellow Moon Month

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten - 723 AE, Harvest Month

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen - 733 AE, Planting Month

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Part II

  Chapter Eighteen - 737 AE

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter - Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three - Dry Month—Summer’s End

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Kerith Timeline

  Glossary

  Personae

  Raves for The Four Forges

  “Sevryn Dardanon is not your typical elf. In fact, the world of Kerith is not your typical elf world. In this spectacular series debut, the pseudonymous Rhodes (a prolific YA author) plays fresh variations on the standard epic fantasy tropes. Her elves, the Vaelinars, are outsiders, propelled by a magical cataclysm into an unfamiliar and somewhat hostile new environment. For Sevryn, a half-breed Vaelinar, life is especially difficult as he’s neither of one world or the other. Meanwhile, human Dwellers take in the orphaned Rivergrace, an escaped slave of Vaelinar heritage, and raise her as their adopted daughter. Both Rivergrace and Sevryn struggle to survive as quietly as possible, until, by chance, their paths cross and they must help each other battle an unknown evil that’s infecting Kerith. Sevryn and Rivergrace possess not only undeveloped magical powers but mysteries in their respective pasts that promise to keep the excitement level high in the next installment.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “The first book of the Elven Ways series introduces the very detailed and well-drawn world of Kerith, in which four different peoples coexisted since the end of a devastating war, until a magestorm from another world brought a fifth people, the Vaelinars. Rhodes’ use of detail will please those who like richly drawn settings and intricate plots.”—Booklist

  “Rhodes evokes an atmosphere of urgency in her series opener, set in a world of ever-shifting alliances and unforeseen dangers. Strong characters and a compelling story make this a good choice for most fantasy collections.”—Library Journal

  “. . . a fantastic epic fantasy in what looks like it will be a special series similar to the works of Tad Williams and other great epic fantasists. The key cast members are believable individuals with distinct personalities. Jenna Rhodes leaves enough threads for readers to look forward to the next tale, but in a paradox The Four Forges feels complete.”—The Book Review Forum

  “Rhodes has built a fully realized world with engaging characters with a dangerous manifest destiny. The characters are complex and real in perilous times and leave you waiting anxiously to see what is resolved. A bright beginning for a new light on the fantasy horizon.”—ConNotations

  Copyright © 2006 by Rhondi Vilott Salsitz.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First Paperback Printing, July 2007

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. OFF AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  eISBN : 978-1-436-24605-7

  .S.A.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Dedicated to:

  My friends and family, and especially to my encouraging family of Sheila and Betsy, Debra, Peter, Marsha, and Anne at DAW Books, and Paula, too!

  Also to Michael and Lori, my very first audience.

  Foreword One: On Histories

  Under the Eyes of the Seven Gods and By the hand of Carandol, of House Caranth, Holder of Ferstanthe, Archivist

  HISTORY CHANGES AS eyes age and souls pass. This is irrefutable. Histories can be struck to paper by hands that inscribe bigotry with every writing stroke and, if written honestly, can be burned to ashes later, so it is with some hesitation that I even attempt this. And who would read it? Should I tell all that we Vaelinars know as we know our own skin? Does a history then become a weapon in another’s hand, to strike like the most potent of venoms? Yet, although we are still first and second generation, the third generation to come will be privy to most of us, as we are an exceedingly long-lived race. Even the Gods here bow before us, and there is none who can hold us accountable except ourselves, and that alone bodes ill. It is a universe out of balance, and the Gods will not long allow that. Kerith is theirs, not ours, although we have claimed it.

  We were born on the whirlwind, brought in with the storm. Those on Kerith before us say that we came with the Hammer of War. Three blows did it strike their earth and when the lightning and rain and clouds of ash cleared, the Vaelinars stepped forth from the destruction. I do not know if any of the eyes of Kerith saw it to record the event. I was there. Even I cannot say exactly what happened.

  Let me state at the first setting of ink to paper here that over the years I will add to our history, but I will not rewrite what I have written. There will be no revising. Correcting, perhaps, but my original words will stay as set even as wrong or disillusioned as they might have been, as seen in later years. It is the only way our life can be assessed.

  We stepped out of storm and devastation, and with that singular catastrophe we lost our former lives, our memories, our heritage, our Gods, our entire world. We knew only the momen
t, remembered only that last, second blow that obliterated our past. Stunned and thrown into confusion, our people and animals wheeled and screamed and desperately sought an anchor in the chaos, the ground blackened under us, timber thrown for leagues about us, plucked out of the earth and shorn and charred and dropped down in piles. The mud steamed. When we reached for help, it was to those around us whose faces we knew no more than we knew our own names. We had been rent asunder. Horses lay in harness, torn in two, their shaking hulks lost to an awful death. I saw a beast or two which had been turned inside out before falling to the ground with a keening squeal of passing. Most of us were fortunate to have come through whole of limb, if not mind. The dogs howled mournfully voicing the despair and fear that overwhelmed all of us.

  Those reading this who may not be Vaelinar might ask how we knew we were Lost. We knew almost instantly because when we reached for the Gods and the elements by which we rule our lives and powers, They were gone. We have seven Gods, the Three Great, and the Four of Elements . . . Vae, Goddess of Light; Nar, God of War; and Daran, God of Dark. Fair Lina who rules Water, Aymar of Wind and Air, Dhuriel of Fire, and Banh of Earth in their aspects of male and female, dark and light, had intertwined with every Vaelinar soul, and could be reached no longer. We touched other Gods, other elementals, other Demons. They quailed or bridled at our touch, they as foreign to us as we to them. Searching for our Gods, we then knew that we had been blasted from our earth to another, and thus did a number of us grow mad and die of the desperation of being Godless. Even Their names would have been taken from us, but for the pamphlet of a novice priest who came with us, and whose shaking fingers opened brittle pages to find names for the aching emptiness welling inside us.

  We were a war troop. That much was obvious to any who looked on us. We gathered our survivors and made camp. After burials, those alive read our shields and armor and weapons, even the riggings on our horses, gleaning our names and House lineage from whatever we could. To this day, I have no doubt that some of our names taken then might actually have been the name of a much beloved and depended-upon war steed, engraved upon his halter strap, but then—who among us cannot say that some of us deserve to be named after a horse’s ass?

  Many of us had brought our younger siblings or older children with us, to assist and squire as they might, or to carry messages. We brought horses and our hunting dogs and falcons. Others fought side by side with their loved ones because our race has both male and female warriors, and still others had cooks and farriers and camp followers in wagons close behind. Not one of us knew for sure what had happened save that, according to a sparsely worded soldier’s journal, we had been riding hard to a great and final meet in the war between our queen and the despot called Pyradeen. The Hammer of War which struck us, and the storm which issued forth, caught up soldiers from both sides in its fury. That, too, became clear over days as natural animosities seemed to spring forth anew despite the fact that our queen and the lands for which we had fought no longer existed for us, nor did the tyranny of Pyradeen.

  Knowing only that a massive weapon or magic was to have been called to use to end a centuries’ old struggle, we had ridden hard to this final meeting. Then we had been struck. Ridden too late, caught in its backlash? Ambushed by other magics to prevent our arrival? No one can say. This and no more we pieced together from the old soldier’s journal of few words and fewer emotions. Most of what we gleaned came from between the lines he wrote. Some went mad and killed themselves, others threw themselves upon those wearing the uniform of the enemy and died in battle.

  Others grew determined to live so that we might make our way back, fulfilling our oath to country and queen, and return to family not remembered, yet their loss mourned. We have found other thinking beings on this vastness known as Kerith and have apprenticed many of them to our service. We will lift them, willing or no, by their bootstraps and collars, into an Age they can barely imagine. We will establish our abilities in this new place, exert our control over the elements once again, anchoring our Houses and Strongholds in foreign soil, planting our superiority as deep as any root into this ground. These new Gods can hear us, and we will bend them as we never bent our old Gods, for they are inferior and malleable to us. Through them, we will reach what is rightfully ours again. They fear us, as indeed they should. Some of us will cajole them. Others will hunt them down till they have what they wish.

  So begins the forging of our Elven Ways. We will master this earth as we had our old one, searching for the path back.

  Foreword Two: A Smoking Tale

  THERE ARE MANY TALES TOLD in the smoking dens of the Dwellers and other fair folk of Kerith, passed through the years by retelling and embellishing. This is one such tale, and ought to be heeded, for it is a mainstay of a teller’s pack of stories.

  From a haze of herb-scented blue smoke will come the speaker’s voice, in the tradition of toback shop-told stories, interrupted only by the occasional deep draft upon a pipe or the tamping and relighting of its bowl.

  “In the beginning came the Dwellers.”

  This should not surprise the listener, as the storyteller is generally a Dweller, sturdy if shorter than many of the world’s other races, with a thick shock of hair, weather-marked eyes, and calloused hands.

  “We Dwellers are the shepherds of the earth and its children, all which grow and graze upon it. The Gods blessed us with a love of our lives here, and we are a fortunate people. To balance that fortune and love, the Bolgers were born from the dark. Where we build, they destroy. They are not a people as we are, only a near-people, and one might pity them if it were not for their vile natures.”

  Smoke will fill the room then, as the listener contemplates, within the pause that has been given for such contemplation, the balancing of the world with good and bad, light and dark.

  The storyteller will inhale and accent his next words with a smoke cloud or clever ring. “Kernans came after, a taller people with ambitious souls. If we were the roots, they were the treetops, but they aspired to be mountain peaks. They built great cities, with gates, and armies, and levied taxes to keep their households furnished. It is said that from them sprang the Magi, when magic existed on Kerith. We know the Kernans love to talk to the Gods and in those days, the Gods talked back and even lay with them. Thus came the Mageborn, few but powerful.

  “From the Kernans, the Magi bred the tall and arrogant Galdarkans to guard the Magi and their fortresses of magical power. When the Magis destroyed themselves fighting to see who was greatest, it was said the Gods turned against them and stripped all magic away. Not a Mageborn survived. The Kernans were left bowed in humility and guilt for their past as the Galdarkans who survived took over the Empire. They did not hold it long, and there was strife on Kerith. Eventually, all fell.”

  The Dweller will pause, waiting patiently for the inevitable question, “What of the Raymy?” If asked, he will answer, if not asked, he will ask the question of himself, with a wreath or two of smoke to accent it.

  “What of the Raymy? The Raymy are not a people, as we reckon it. They do not birth young, they do not have compassion, and they cannot be reasoned with. Their existence cannot be fathomed and all we can do is be thankful they were driven back across the great ocean and pray they never return. To this end, the Magi were true, and with the defeat of the great enemy, and only then, did the Magi fall to arguing among themselves and earned the wrath of the Gods.

  “As for the Ravers, who can say what they are but a curse upon the living ground, wraiths of the Raymy left behind. Perhaps they are haunts of the Magi, twisted and corrupted and cut off from mortal Kerith. Smarter minds than ours have often contemplated this, with no answers.”

  At this point, the toback is usually bolstered with new leaf and tamped and relit carefully while the listener considers his or her own past and how the dread Raymy effected it.

  “We had peace for a while, uneasy and slow. The Galdarkans scattered away to the eastern lands, feuding clan lord
s loyal to Magi of old, fighting one another but leaving us alone. Our farmers and traders rebuilt the free cities, a light but strong spiderweb that wove us all together, and we began to prosper again.

  “Then the Gods struck Kerith with a great, resounding blow, the Hammer of the End Days themselves, and when the ground stopped shaking and smoking, the Vaelinars stepped out. If we can call the Bolgers a near-people, then I suppose we must call the Vaelinars a greater-people. High elves from our oldest wish-tales, closest to the Gods without actually being one or a Demon, some say, far nearer to the Gods than the Mageborn ever hoped to be. They came because they were God-ridden, but they do not accept that, and until they do, their lives here on Kerith will remain restless and fraught with anger and difficulty. Some of us they enslaved, others of us they taught and nurtured. They fought against us and have fought for us. Such are they, both light and dark in one people, and strangers amongst us. Yet here they are, and so are counted within our tales as a people of Kerith.”

  A last, fragrant cloud of smoke will be exhaled. A moment will pass in case any wish to add or correct the tale, but politeness dictates that it should stand as the teller has related it.

  “So be it,” the tale speaker will end.

  It is only the ending of one tale, and the beginning of others, or of much argument as to the wisdom of the tale itself, a wheel of life forever churning.

  Part I

  Chapter One

  703 After Empire, Stocking Month by Dweller Calendar

  THE LEADEN SKY WEIGHED DOWN on them, as their horses carefully picked out a trail up a treacherous mountain scape with necks and backs bowed against the incline and the cold wind shivering down about them as their hooves sent pebbles and shale clattering downslope. Sevryn pulled his greatcoat close, fanning the high collar around his neck to no avail, for nothing could keep out the bitter wind for long. Red and orange leaves lay flattened to the ground, the thinning tree stands little more than stark branches as they climbed upward. A somber song ran through his head from the last tavern they’d slept in, days ago, about the pursuit of a Vaelinar father after his kidnapped daughter, and the tragedy which ensued, and it fit the mood of the day. The sturdy folk of Kerith and its western city provinces would be salting away meat, preserving the last of their fresh goods, stocking away stores for the bitter winter to come, not far behind the heels of these storm clouds. It would rain again soon, it had to; he could feel the humidity building and the only question in his mind was whether the skies would open up with water, hail, or snow. It felt cold enough for snow but too damp. What did he know of things like that, really, he who preferred bad weather under a stout roof? What he knew of snow he’d learned on trails like this, following after his resolute vagabond teacher.