The Return of the Fifth Stone

  The Stones of Haaret

  Book One

  The Return of the Fifth Stone

  by Vincent Todarello

  Copyright 2012 Vincent Todarello

  PROLOGUE

  Thousands of soldiers and morning dew droplets clung tightly to each their own blade in tense anticipation of the scorching that was soon to come. It was a hard, hot summer that seemed never to end. Things had changed there in the Highlands since Scievah touched the Firestone, even in the lush valleys below. Gareth stood upon a cragged boulder overlooking the stiff yellow grasses before him. His armor began to glow with the gleam of sunrise as its long bright tendrils swept across the field and fell upon him.

  Behind him the bustling city perched atop the high cliffs along the sea was eerily empty, its people fleeing to the west for safety. It was a grim foretelling of things to come. All four realms met there; the Junction of the Four. The birdkin of Alapis descended from their canopies and floating lands high above the clouds to aid in the cause, despite their growing reluctance. The swimmers of Aqos and the molemen of Uhaaretu joined as well. Gareth commanded them all, united them. The men were silent, their eyes fixed upon him, awaiting his orders.

  It was the first war Haaret had seen since the king sent Scievah to watch over his subjects, but it was not the first battle the loyal Haareti had to fight since Scievah tried to usurp the king's rule. For what seemed like a hundred cycles Gareth fought back against Scievah's tyranny unsuccessfully, but this time would be different. This time the armies of all four realms were with him, and the Divinae would be by his side. They would crush Scievah once and for all, and rid Haaret of his corrupt legion. They hoped.

  Gareth held a farlens to his eye. Across the battlefield he could see LeDodd mounted upon a dark steed, racing up and down his front line with two curved swords sheathed across his back. There was no sign of LeDodd's father Enasz, father of corruption, father of impurity.

  "If Enasz will not deny the forbidden waters, then may he die within them," Gareth thought to himself, imagining the once handsome Enasz, now grotesque with drunken desire, floating face down in the shimmering pools at the base of the Fountain of Power. Harsh ponderings for a man always willing to forgive, for a man who had welcomed those who turned their back on Enasz and sought a life of honor and duty.

  LeDodd raged with hands raised, a horde of haggard barbarians beat their breasts with pikes and pole-arms, and the ravenous ranks roused into a furious frenzy. With a slap and several quick clicks, Gareth collapsed his farlens and waited. He knew he would win if the outcome were solely based on numbers, but without the Divinae there would be no chance of defeating Scievah's men; those fueled with the forbidden waters that flowed from the fountain.

  "Where are they?!" He screamed it in his head, but outside he wore the patience of a seasoned commander. He preferred not to engage until the Divinae were by his side. When they arrived he would know that the power stones were safely hidden from Scievah's grasp. "And where is Scievah?" he wondered. The battle was staged solely to divert Scievah's attention while the Divinae took the stones from their proper altars and hid them. He shuddered at the thought of Scievah with the power of a stone at his fingertips. He had seen what just a touch of the stones could do; he pulled his mind away from such thoughts, fixing them back on the battle that was about to take shape before him.

  "Tillius," he called out for his son to his flank. "Ready the wildlings."

  Tillius responded with a nod from atop his lion. His name had already become legend; the man who speaks with the animals. Panthers, bears, wildcats, cheetahs, tigers, and wolves awaited his command. The animals would be the first to greet the enemy on the field. Tillius would ride out with them on his lion, as he always did. His leathers were all he needed; Tillius refused to fight with anything but his hands and his animals, or an occasional whip. He said that other weapons were unnatural, and looked down upon armor as if it exemplified some form of cheating. How he was able to keep using his fists after landing blows upon steel helms and breastplates was something that baffled Gareth, but he did not question the gifts Tillius possessed upon seeing him dent metal and shatter bone with ease.

  Gareth's son by marriage Ulrick mounted his horse in front of the pike men, and Ulrick's son Sabian climbed atop another nearby boulder, ready to relay Gareth's commands to the archers. Gareth knew it was time, whether he liked it or not. "By the king, where are the Divinae?!"

  A deep, ominous horn sounded from across the field, and again, blown through the long, wide molting shell of a giant Uhaareti grubworm. Then the battle screams of a thousand barbarians billowed in from the distance.

  "Now!" Gareth commanded with a hand toward Tillius.

  With a crack of the whip, Tillius' beasts were off, lining out across the field. Wolves and panthers, wildcats and cheetahs bolted out ahead of the rest. Their dagger-like claws ripped up bits of ground and flung them into the air behind as they glided across the field, spanning the length of ten men before the clumps of dirt fell back to the earth. They were the first to clash with the corrupt enemy, tearing at flesh and steel. The larger cats and bears lumbered behind, stopping anything that made it past the quick and the dead. Tillius was right behind them. When close, he dismounted his lion and let it wreak havoc as he dodged pike and sword, spinning in close, setting the grip of his hands and the bite of his whip directly upon his foes. Gareth wanted to laugh at the sight of it; Tillius, fighting with the ferocity of the wildkin he commanded, a ferocity Gareth could not muster even on his best day in battle. But Gareth stowed it and continued to wear his stony face; the cold, calm countenance of a commander.

  "This is no time for cheer," he thought. "It may be the last chance to stop Scievah for good, but where is he?"

  Tillius pulled back when the fireballs, summoned from those with the power of the fountain, began to storm down on his beasts. The animals knew to move; they sensed it. But the barbarians did not. LeDodd's sorcerers cast bolts of fire out upon man and beast alike, scorching their own front line without regard. Flames poured down as if made of liquid, like lava spilling from a hot cauldron.

  "How could one win against a foe willing to destroy itself as well as its enemy?" Gareth stirred.

  With a nod, his grandson Sabian gave the signal for the archers to return fire in kind. The Lapisian wingmen took flight high above the battlefield and rained down arrows the size of men that plunged deep into the earth like tent posts, impaling anything in their path. Gareth allowed a half smile when he saw LeDodd's front lines decimated so easily.

  Another sounding of the horn shook through the grubworm carcass and LeDodd began his second charge. Ulrick and his pike men, thirsty with righteous rage, raced out to meet them, and a shrill clashing of steel rang out across the air.

  The Uhaareti, hunched and carrying a short blade in each hand, scurried in from the Gates of Uhaaretu in the east. The Aquidians, elegantly slithering and clutching quartz-tipped tridents and weighted sea nets, flanked from the west. Gareth was pleased. Perhaps the Divinae were not needed after all. "Never had a victory come so effortlessly," he thought.

  But the sun was high and hot as midday approached. It blazed upon the dark, smoky skin of the Uhaareti, who were unaccustomed to such powerful light above the ground. Heat and dark they could handle, but the sun was draining, especially since Scievah touched the Firestone. The Aquidians faltered as well; their bodies dried with exposure, their scales shed and sloughed off, and their skin beneath dulled in color and shine as it flaked and chafed.

  The impure raged, igniting a ring of flame around the battle. It spread wildly in the dry grass, and only the feather-winged Lapsians high in flight could see what was happening
beyond the wall of fire that soon encircled Gareth's men. Flickering figures danced behind the flames, and crisped silhouettes of men screamed with agony in front, their voices carrying across the field and filling Gareth's ears. He lowered his face in sadness, pressing a mournful armored fist to his forehead, hoping the fury of the corrupt would diminish once their bodies ran dry of the forbidden waters. Their fiery powers would only persist while supplied with that wicked shimmering fluid.

  "We must outlast them!" Gareth shouted.

  A horn sounded from behind him, the fabled Conch of Aqos. Its high pitched blare bordered on painfulness as it pierced the air with pangs of hope. It was Luna, the first of the Divinae, the angel of the sea and protector of the Waterstone. Her serpentine body was wrapped in whirling wisps of water that floated in the air, encasing her in what looked like a bubble. Gareth's soldiers parted for her as she floated past and made her way out onto the field. When she raised her hands torrents of rain began to fall from the sky, dousing the flames around the battle. The ground hissed with rising white smoke as it cooled.

  A slow, steady rumble built from the east along the foothills of Felss Peak. At first Gareth's stomach turned with a deep panic. He remembered the terrible earthquakes that came when Scievah touched the Firestone. The tremors lasted for days, ripping chasms in the earth. He remembered the wicked storms; tight twisters on the land that ravaged through towns, and wide cyclones on the oceans that churned up the sea floor and destroyed so much of Aqos. He remembered the stories of unending smoke and fire deep within Uhaaretu. So many died. But this was not that kind of rumbling. This was like a stampede, only scores more powerful.

  Gareth sliced his hand above his brow to shield his eyes from the sweltering sun. He pulled out his farlens to spy what looked like a sea of grey washing down from the mountains. He beheld an avalanche of stone. Boulders, some thrice as big as the one Gareth stood upon, bounded down from the mountains and smashed upon the remains of LeDodd's men not yet engaged in battle. It was Felsson's doing; the Divinae of Gareth's own realm, Ahaareta. Felsson strode in behind the stone wave and stood upon the side of the battlefield, his rock-form body expressionless and statuesque. Gareth's jaw dropped in awe. He knew then that the Waterstone and the Earthstone were safely hidden from Scievah.

  Then his men began to rabble beneath him, all pointing up at the sky. It was Hemela, spirit of the sky and guardian of the Airstone. Her feathered wings glowed a bright white as she flew over the battlefield. Her melodic voice soothed the wounded and healed them with sound. Even some thought to be injured beyond mending were saved.

  Gareth led a charge with the rest of his forces out to battle. One last push to crush them for good. He sliced through foe after foe, anticipating their movements as if they fought in half speed while he in double. For a moment, he actually thought it was the end, the end of warring, the end of corruption and impurity. He wanted more than anything to lay down his sword and live out the rest of his days in peace with his wife, Faldyn, and their children and grandchildren. He hoped.

  LeDodd began his retreat. Gareth and his united army were victorious. "But where is Gelande, Divinae of Uhaaretu and guardian of the Firestone in the underworld? Three stones are hidden, but what of the fourth? And where is Scievah?" Gareth's mind was in a thousand places at once. He tried to think little of such concerns when he saw how proud and glorious his men were in victory. He was high with pride, and the celebratory cheers of pure men filled the air with merriment on through the night, and on through the day, and on through the night again. Goblet crashed against mug, flagon against flask, skin against bottle. Songs of battle and tales of legend were being writ.

  But still there was no Gelande, and still no sign of Scievah. Something was wrong. Gareth knew it, deep down inside, underneath all the joy. Scievah was still alive somewhere, he thought, biding his time, scheming, planning.

  The army camped on the edges of the battlefield, awaiting further commands from Gareth; they hoped it would be their release. They buried the dead in shallow cairns of piled rock that spotted the field, casting elongated teardrops of shadow in the western sunset along the foothills of the Highlands. The night grew quiet as solemn words were spoken in remembrance of the fallen. Gareth's men grew uneasy; they too were in desperate want of returning home to their families.

  The Divinae stood by Gareth, but they would not do so for long. Gareth knew they would need to return to the stones, to once again take up their sacred and eternal duty of protecting them, ensuring their safety, as the king commanded. It was the only time any of them had been away from their stones, save for Gelande, when Scievah deceived him and touched the Firestone.

  At sunrise the ground quaked again, and Gareth knew he had been duped. He knew this time would be worse than the last. Anyone who was standing lost their footing and fell to the ground. The earth rattled with fury, and the skies raged with thunder and lightning. The clouds began to swirl and funnel all around them, turning a deep green like the canopy high in Hem'l that shielded the light of day from reaching the damp earth beneath. Felss Peak blew its top like a violently shaken bottle of bubble wine, and a blackness crept in, dark as the trenches at the floor of the Western Sea.

  A massive fog of soot and ash blotted out the sun in the east that morn, as if night had fallen during the day. Red rivulets of lava ran down the ridges of Felss peak like a bleeding sore. Rocky debris rained down from above, mixed with fist-sized hail and torrents that raised the rivers and flooded the farms and towns in the valley below. The sound of ripped skies and torn earth deafened everyone to the point of pain.

  "This is the end," Gareth thought, "the end of everything the king has given us!" But he was wrong. The end would have been a blessing compared to what was to come. The Dark Times loomed ahead. Dark indeed.

  With hope of recourse, Gareth turned to the Divinae. He searched for them everywhere among his ranks, but all that remained was the Conch of Aqos, lying wet on the ground, covered with soot. The Divinae had vanished, gone from the world. Gareth knew then that Scievah had defeated Gelande and taken the Firestone. Scievah, the true champion of the Firestone Wars, finally had his prize. And with the Divinae gone from Haaret, nothing could stop him.

  Slowly Gareth's hearing returned to him with alternating high and low rings that encircled the muffled gags and coughs of his brethren. The sounds of pain and the taste of ash filled him with despair. When the violence of the world around him ceased, he picked up the muddied conch and placed it in the webbed hands of an Aquidian soldier for safe keeping. He wondered if it even mattered anymore. It was the last time he would ever see an Aquidian or a Lapisian again; the last time anyone would for many cycles to come. They abandoned the corrupt groundsmen then, retreating to the sky and sea, to be remembered only in legend and lore.

  The shattered army disbanded, and Gareth wandered hopelessly from the battlefield in a slow shamble back to a home and life that would never be the same.

  Between the time when the Firestone was removed from its altar and the Eons of New Purity there was an age of great despair. And thence, Valdren, a young Haareti with the blood of the four races, was destined to once again unite the realms in battle.

  CHAPTER 1

  He slowly crept up on his prey as it grazed in a small glade in the forest. His face was painted with a crude ink made from the mud beneath his feet. Over his body an intricate net was draped. Affixed to it were twigs, leaves and brush from the area. He mimicked the woods.

  His elbow drew back slowly, silently holding his bow at the ready. With a slight, even exhale of breath, he loosed the arrow. The prey, sensing something out of the ordinary, jerked its head in his direction as the arrow plunged into its abdomen, between the ribs, piercing its lung. It bolted with all its might out of the dell and back into the wood.

  “Valdren,” he called out to me, “come!”

  I leapt up from behind a downed tree where I was hiding and ran to him as he followed the stagdeer. He flung his chameleon-like
suit off his shoulders and released yet another arrow while in full sprint behind the majestic animal. This time it struck the soft of the neck. His precision was unparalleled. The animal slowed and we gained, and soon it was down, laboring in its last breaths of life.

  My father put his hand over the stagdeer’s eyes, closing them as the animal left this world. He whispered unknown words under his breath and pressed a fist to his forehead, trapping some of his silvering dark hair between. Then he drew a small blade from a sheath on his waist and handed it to me.

  “Son,” he said to me solemnly, “we use everything but the heart. Take the body, leave the soul.” I did as I was told, as I was taught, and we buried the stagdeer’s heart.

  I had just begun my thirteenth cycle. For the Haareti, the thirteenth cycle is a time of learning, a time of preparing for adulthood. I did not look or act like an adult Ahaareti, a Haareti living above the surface of the ground, but for the first time I felt like one.

  My father and I spent six days in the wilderness, where he taught me how to utilize what he called the Bountiful Gifts. He showed me how to craft basic weapons, to hunt, to fish, and to use and respect the kill; the hide of the stagdeer for clothing and bedding, the loin and meat cuts for food, and the antlers for weaponry. Pinestars and fan leaves from the trees south of our farm, hooves and teeth of the magboar, and ash wood beyond Sanji market to the north were all things put to good use.

  I learned that the chubfish was quite fruitful; food enough for two, and its blubber was a flammable oil used for lighting lanterns. Their shed scales could be gathered from along the riverbed and fashioned into drapery or formal attire by stringing them together through the small hole left behind, where the connective tissue once held the scale firmly against the body. A journal, which my father gave to me as a gift on the day marking my thirteenth cycle, was leather-bound in animal hide and embossed with chubfish scales, each page bearing a small scale on the top right corner for easy page turning. It was just one of many things around our cabin that my father made from the Bountiful Gifts.