Shattered Gods Series

Chapter 1
NORTHWEST

Somewhere in the Hidden Green Wilds.

I have seen many strange and unknowable things stemming from the Castles in the sky. These massive and varied constructs cast shadows over towns, even cities, but roam the skies impossibly and relentlessly as they hold to their tracks. The Mad Lords that rule them impose insane systems of government upon those below. Yet there are those who managed to nearly remove themselves from the influence of the Sky Castles. Those of the Hidden Green Wilds.

San-Sarrinha Jo rolled to her right as she heard the telltale sign. The slight scratching upon bark came in disjointed cackles. The tree cat leaped at her but she’d already removed herself from its path. She raised up to her full height and met its eyes. The beast was no taller than her mid thigh but winter had left it hungry and eager for a spring kill. Jo did not intend to be such.

She held no weapon on her predawn hike with the other apprentices. There was no need. For Jo, like the others that trained with her, was to be of the forest and not fear it. The cat shuffled forward tossing an open clawed paw in her direction. Jo did not move and instead grinned, baring her teeth. Her ground held and her height shown, the cat hissed and loped off to find another tree and another meal. Jo nodded at the retreating hunter then turned to rejoin the rest of her party.

Jo met the other apprentices who had taken to the main path through the new growth. She picked up her own pace to drive the rest of them harder and was rewarded with a few grunts of displeasure. As they neared the camp the group of them had to skip over the grasping vines and duck and tumble beneath the spiky branches that sought to ensnare them. The outer defenses of the camp, put in place by the Caretakers.

Jo caught sight of a Caretaker pressing his palm to a tree to spur the spike growths that she had so easily avoided. She almost missed his guardian. A full Hidden Blade, back pressed to the leeward side of a tree that cast a long shadow before him from the early dawn light. Jo grinned to herself for having spotted the veteran of the order she would soon join. Yet seeing the reality of her future duty, she could not help but resent that she too would be standing idly watching a worthless Caretaker poke and prod foliage.

They left the outer lines behind and soon slipped through the thorny hedges that marked the camp’s main boundary. Jo pressed her tired legs and burning lungs harder for the final push to the clearing where they trained. Some of the younger apprentices were faster in a dead sprint than Jo but they could not match her endurance. She had run them all hard at the end and they had nothing left. Jo pulled ahead with only San-Finnla Ke keeping with her. Ke was a third year and one year Jo’s junior. Ke had proven herself the closest thing Jo had to a rival. Often their sparring matches garnered whoops of appreciation from veteran Hidden Blades. Like those matches, the final race to the clearing was another competition. One Jo intended to win.

Jo managed Ke by a couple strides and they both took to their knees and sucked in as much wind as they could while the others arrived. There would be no dueling or complicated technique work today. Their final day of training before the night’s tournament would be filled with basic drills and general exercise. Not that Jo minded. She was glad for the rest before the night’s contest.

Master Ra was going through a simple disarming technique. He speared at them with a south-lander weapon and they were to deflect it with their mock-wire-blades and then sever the blade near the cross guard. They had all trained with real wire-blades, the special metal was capable of cutting through anything without resistance. Yet there were not enough of the true weapons for all of them to hold one while training. Instead they used wooden replicas that exactly matched the balance and weight of the real ones.

It was Jo’s turn. She met her Master’s weapon along the flat of her own and twisted around to her left as his attack carried him forward. With a quick twist of the wrist she tapped the edge of her weapon against the long blade near the hilt to indicate she’d severed it. Master Ra nodded with approval. Had Jo been using the real thing the blade of her Master’s sword would have fallen to the ground leaving him holding a worthless hilt.

Jo looked past the line of apprentices to where the many Caretakers went about their duties. It was magical in a way. Yet Jo couldn’t suppress the tingle along her spine that somehow it was all so wrong. As her head turned away she caught the glint of metal closing in on her. Her eyes snapped back as her master was in the midst of an attack against her. He’d taken advantage of her distraction. To be a Hidden Blade was to be without distraction. She, like her fellow trainees, were always to be vigilant for the guard of the tribe and the Caretakers.

Master Ra was large and well muscled. He was easily twice her weight and a head taller. Her only advantage was the speed and agility of her youth. The surprise of the attack had removed most options that her abilities would have afforded her. She watched as her Master’s shoulder slowly closed on her. She spun into Master Ra’s attack. His charge hit the back of her right shoulder and it first felt as though a warm blanket was being pressed against her. The warmth grew to a painful heat and she listened for a familiar popping sound; her right shoulder was dislocated. She continued her spin until they were back to back and her thoughts raced to find a way out.

Jo launched into a one handed cartwheel which removed her from striking distance of Master Ra. She adjusted her stance and took the wooden hilt from her numb right hand, the shoulder now worthless, into her left. In any of the other trainees’ hands the blade would be of little regard to Master Ra; however in Jo’s, he knew it to be deadly. For he had been the one to introduce her to the elder Sur-Vanni Po, the last living two-blade master.

“That is why we always consider the unexpected. That is why we always do what is both prudent and, at first thought, reckless. She removes herself from the engagement despite the disadvantage of her weapon’s reach. Even with injury she seeks to prolong the engagement for a more favorable position. This is exactly how you all shall seek to act, should you be caught unaware.”

Master Ra walked up to her and looked her square in the eye, his blade at his hip. “Yet, as San Jo has bought the knowledge for us all, we should never find ourselves caught unaware. The mind never wanders, the eyes never look away, the ears never cease to listen.” Jo held his stare. She knew what he sought. Confirmation of what he’d just stated, why had she cartwheeled. She offered him nothing. He nodded then resumed the morning exercises.

~

Marsek watched the Hidden Blades apprentices from just outside the main camp. San-Sarrinha Jo had just vaulted on one arm away from her Master who had attacked her suddenly. Marsek longed to join them but knew that wasn’t his path. He wandered away from the camp and found himself near the sacred grove. He was not forbidden from venturing into the grove but nor was he encouraged.

He made his way up the small rise until he entered the densely grown softwood trees. If he had not been led here previously he would not know what to look for. The barrow was well hidden in mossy growths and well led vines that concealed its sides. A single Hidden Blade stood half cast in the shadow of a tree, the only guard to this most solemn place. Marsek knew that within the earthy bulwark was a stone coffin of sorts. The resting place of the artifacts that gave the Caretaker’s their power. The hair on the back of Marsek’s neck rose as he looked for the hidden entrance to the barrow. He’d soon find out what treasures slumbered within. Tonight he would enter that place and see if he was chosen.

Marsek shook off the tension the quiet grove with its slumbering power stirred in him. He turned around and made his way to the meditation stones. There he found the other two members of his class, those who would join him as a Caretaker or fail that evening. He sat down and tried to focus his mind.

A soft snoring sound came from Marsek’s left and he knew it was his fellow initiate, Yalsek. They had been at their meditation since the first light of morning had entered the sky. Yalsek was a year younger than Marsek but had proven a quick study within the Caretakers. To Marsek’s right was his other initiate, Yalyeen. She was Yalsek’s older sister and Marsek’s age. Marsek had often overheard his parents praising her hard work. Marsek mostly ignored his parents. He mostly ignored everyone but the Hidden Blades.

“Always daydreaming, that one.” Their teacher’s soft words startled Yalsek from his slumber and he twitched awake. Marsek giggled at this.

“Always distracted, that one.”

Marsek knew the words were for him and he straightened his back returning to his meditative posture. Mayyeen stepped around them and seated herself before them on the flat stone, Marsek opened his eyes as he knew the others would.

Her pale skin was nearly white and the veins beneath were slightly raised and a shade of purple. To any outside the tribe, she would be considered sick, but here she was revered as a true Caretaker, holder of a sacred object and retainer of the lost truth.

“Fine morning to you my master, how is your charge?” Yalyeen said formally and Marsek chided himself for having not done the same.

“F-ffine morning to you my master, how is your charge?” As if reading Marsek’s thoughts, Yalsek stumbled out the greeting.

“I bear it with joy and for all to see.” Their master returned the second half of the formality before Marsek could make his own greeting. With the words spoken, she slowly folded aside her robe so that the three could see the metallic sheen of the artifact that seemed to grow from the flesh between her breasts. How a small piece of extraordinary metal could blend with skin and bone, then impart power by doing so was unknown, even to the wisest of Caretakers.

Marsek recalled a death burning of a Caretaker some years prior. He had seen the body burned. When those that had been reduced to ash the artifact remained. In the last embers of the fire he saw many filaments that had woven themselves among the bones of the dead retract and return to the artifact. Once cooled it was recovered, to be used again should another Caretaker be proved worthy.

“The day is young and there is much you will undertake before finding your beds this night. Go and breakfast yourselves. Return to the high hill and the stone after you have fed and changed.”

With their master’s words, they were dismissed. As Marsek rose to find a cook pot among the Caretaker families, he looked once at the sparing ground, briefly catching the eye of one of the apprentices, San-Sarrinha Jo. The intensity of her gaze caused him to waver and look away. Marsek envied her as he made off to find something to eat. After tonight, he would no longer be a child, but share in the power and the duty as a full Caretaker. That will be enough, he told himself. He fought down another urge to look upon the practicing apprentices. It will have to be.

Chapter 2

NORTHEAST

The 6th Barony, Barony of Gurlain, nation of the Eight Barons.

    The strangeness of the Sky Castles can be well expressed in the oddness by which they rule the lands below them. One of the stranger systems imposed by a Castle is that implemented by the Sapphire Castle upon the Eight Barons. To see the charter of the Eight Barons is to be befuddled with governmental oddities. Within this nation are eight baronies. Each one is ruled by hereditary title, a baron or baroness, yet has limited means with which to control their piece of the national pie. Use of force is the most common and effective. 

Yet there is one large hitch to this. The Eight Barons elect, from one of their own, a national head they call the “Supreme”. If a baron should find himself elected by his peers he surrenders all that his family line possesses and takes residence in the capital. While he may wield great power for a period of nine years, he loses all that his family once held dear. Another family will be elevated to his former position and rule the barony the new Supreme once held. In this way becoming the head of the state of the Eight Barons is very undesirable for any sitting baron.

The hall leading to the baron’s personal apartments was empty. Suelin knew her father had summoned his counselors to discuss something important today. Suelin’s primary attendant, Joan, had also just returned that morning. Joan often went on errands for her father, but why he chose to send a lady’s attendant, Suelin hadn’t worked out. Joan’s absence that morning, however, allowed Suelin to give her other maids the slip and make her way to her father’s chambers.

She bubbled with excitement finding difficulty in keeping a slow and soft pace. Suelin had turned fourteen, and that meant only one thing so important to her house that her father would have a closed meeting such as the one he now held. Suelin was to be married. She didn’t want to alert her father or his men. Her uncle and older cousin would be there along with the creepy man, the Castillian Attache. He was her father’s primary adviser when it came to dealing with the Sapphire Castle that plagued their nation. Suelin knew little of the tall, wiry man and had never heard his name spoken. Always he was simply referred to as the Attache. The man unnerved her and if her father was discussing what she suspected, she couldn’t imagine why the Attache would be present.

She approached the closed door of her father’s study. She stood motionless before the door, her breath was nothing more than the whisper of a draft through walls. She was the wall on which she leaned against, she was stealth itself. Or so she thought. She checked the hall once more, then leaned in near the door.

She carefully removed the pewter cup she’d absconded with from her breakfast as the keyhole of the door loomed in her vision. A boldness took her and she placed the slim cup, the serving girls had said could hear through walls, to the keyhole of the study. She turned her ear to it and startled as the cold metal pressed against her skin. With her ear firm against the base of the cup she heard the sound of the voices inside come clearly to her.

“… can’t be happening.”

“It is and there is seemingly nothing I can do. They will run over us and that will be the end.” Her father’s voice sounded with resignation. She’d never heard him so defeated.

“Surely we can press Baron Georgeia and find a way-” Her father’s top adviser, her uncle, was interrupted.

“This is not happening. There must be a way, threaten war. The Sapphire is always so pleased to see us die for it.” The last words were burdened with bile, spoken by her cousin.

“All our threats are empty, the southern barons are united.” Her father said, “It is done. My line is finished.”

A long pause held and Suelin hung at the door suddenly aware that they were not discussing her marriage but the fall of all she had thought solid and predetermined, for her line had reigned over two hundred years. The surety of her father and the barony he ruled had never come into question. She felt cold in the lonely hallway, unable to fully accept what she was overhearing.

“There is one way.” The sudden intrusion was more than jarring; it was eerie, it gave Suelin a tingle down her spine as the Castillian Attache voiced his council. He looked strangely to her, a darkness about him. As if the sun didn’t fully reflect off him. Even the way he walked unnerved her; his gait was that of a wraith. It was as if he flowed forward as his legs and feet could not be seen under his robe. No other repelled her as he did, yet he was one of the most accomplished of the Attaches, and so far he had deterred the Sapphire Castle from visiting any ill will upon her father or their people.

“Well speak man. Don’t fool around with holding your tongue for drama’s sake.!” Her cousin said and she blessed him for his bluntness.

“Send an emissary to the Great Rift, seek the City that withstood them and seek out the proprietor of the Shop of Ordinary Things.”

“What damn foolishness is this?” Her cousin stomped around the room to Suelin’s ears.

“Truly sir, we have all heard the rumors. Do you now claim there is truth in them?” Her father said. He was quick to fight but never around her. She’d heard of the bear he could be. What she eavesdropped on now she could not reconcile with her image of him. More a meek lamb than a marauding bear.

“I’ve heard the Shop wields some influence. But to risk our fate on such a distant hope… no I believe we should do as my son suggests. We should fight.” Her Uncle said.

“We have been well maneuvered and well defeated brother. Fighting will only bring blood and fire to our people. Take comfort in what we’ve accomplished, and plot now how to keep what we can if and when the vultures descend.”

“My Lords, if I may?”

“Continue Attache.” Suelin’s father said.

“The Shop of Ordinary Things has, in the past, been petitioned by the University. When something inexplicable happens we have had cause to seek the Shop and inquire as to what it may know of such things. While we do not have much influence in the Great Rift we have accounts in our historical record that show promise in the Shop’s ability to change or influence the actions of the Castles. Thou I admit-”

“Enough of this lecturing. The only thing our enemies understand is steel. I say we give it to them.”

“My son speaks truly my Baron.”

The Attache spoke quickly. “My Lords, how those who operate the Shop of Ordinary Things achieve such improbable outcomes I cannot say. But I am well aware that they are capable. Perhaps sending an envoy of a significant stature will sway them to your cause. The entirety of the Eight Barrons could be changed for the better if you make this trek.”

Suelin had heard rumors of the Shop of Ordinary things but hadn’t thought it more than a fairy tale.

“I cannot risk leaving at a time such as this. No, we will accept our fate.” Her father finished and her mind raced. He’s being weak. We should fight them. So what if the damned Mad Lords say papa has to give up our barony. They can’t take what-

    She would never finish that thought for the door had not been locked. As has rarely been the undoing of many fine agents of stealth, the overestimation of the security of a locked door was Suelin’s. She tumbled into the study very unceremoniously as all four men turned to regard her intrusion. Yet with the quickness of youth she regained her feet, if not her pride, and stood before them. As an afterthought, she tossed the pewter cup behind her and it made the most awful clang as it slowly took part in a number of impacts throughout the hall. Suelin kept her face still as the racket of her discarded eavesdropping aid persisted behind her. The members of her father’s counsel spoke all at once.

“Daughter?”

“Precisely!” The Attache.

“Fool!” her cousin scowled at her as her uncle just shook his head at the sight of her.

“’Precisely’ sir?” Her father asked.

“My Lord, should not we adjourn until we can be sure of the integrity of the company we keep?” Suelin blushed with fury at the Attache’s suggestion that she was inadequate to attend their conversations. Her tongue struggled free of her embarrassment and words formed.

“As heir, I should think I hold all necessary integrity!” The reactions of the men were clear, she had definitely shouted without the restraint she had thought.

“She is right, and she is exactly the right choice. Send your heir to the Shop, send her with a plea. You may pay my guild more than you care to, sire, but in you I see a good ruler and one that would do well for the entirety of the nation. In this council, here and now in this very moment, I would see all your money goes to good investment and prudent advice-”

“See that? He undermines you.” Her cousin said.

“Such advice I will rephrase, as the haste and suddenness of the intrusion caused my words to pass swiftly.” The Attache continued unfazed by the rough tone of her cousin and walked casually past him and then past Suelin. She steeled herself not to flinch or step aside. The Attache gracefully maneuvered around her and pulled the door to the adjoining chamber closed and clicked the lock.

“If you make a plea to the Shop’s proprietor you may find yourself with an ally that few, if any, could challenge. I believe the owner would find the heir a clear and pressing show of our need, as well as her particular personality, as refreshing and inline with our cause. We would be asking for a great service while providing the proprietor an opportunity to judge our future leadership. If not young Suelin I fear no other will impress our need upon the Shop’s proprietor.”

For the first time Suelin saw the weirdly tall man as genuine. She shuddered and ventured to speak into the silence as all considered the Attache’s words. What he suggested was akin to the stories of heroic quests she delighted in sneaking off to read in the corners of the family library. She’d always wanted to be a part of one, a real adventure. There could be no greater one than heading off to the one place in the entire world that had defied the Castles. The one place that had stood against them twice and forged the truce that now held. The Great Rift itself.

“I’ll do it!” She blurted out.

Looking at her father she saw the water there in his eyes. He did not want this. Did she want this? Before she could break her eyes from her father’s, their silent, shared moment was interrupted.

“You must be thinking like the Castle Lords to have gone so mad. It’s hundreds of miles to the Great Rift, let alone to Victory Town, and to send the heir. You’re all mad.” Her cousin said.

Her Uncle raised a hand to silence his son. “I would not send your only child and rest all hope upon an Attache’s word. Rather we should gather what we may for war, signal the northern tribe folk we have long made good toward.”

“Failure, then.” Whatever regard she’d gained for the Attache was suddenly gone with his flat and chilling statement. He continued. “To speak plainly I offer you the only chance you have to remove yourself from the inevitable. I could go before the Mad Lords of the Saphire Castle and plead your case for years and fail. Yet whatever manner of influence the Shop of Ordinary Things possesses it is known in our histories to be far greater than any efforts of the University. What may be a tall tale and rumor to you is documented and real to me. Petition the Shop owner and you may find the Sapphire Castle comes to usher in a new and better system for all of the Eight Barrons and your people. Do not, and there is no way to change the vote as it stands. You will be the new Supreme. You may wage a war but when the Sapphire Castle comes you will be a scar upon the world. The only way to change that now is to change the minds of the Castle Lords. Despite my abilities, this task is beyond me. The way to do it is to seek the Shop.” The Attache looked down as he finished. All stood in silence. Suelin noted his emphasis on the final word “shop”.