Remnants of the Lost
Remnants of the Lost
The Elder Stones Saga Book 3
D.K. Holmberg
Copyright © 2019 by D.K. Holmberg
Cover by Damonza.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
If you want to be notified when D.K. Holmberg’s next novel is released and get a few free books and occasional other promotions, please sign up for his mailing list by going here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
www.dkholmberg.com
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Also by D.K. Holmberg
Prologue
The wind howled outside, occasionally gusting into the cell, and Rsiran sat with his legs crossed in the center of the small space, trying to ignore it. Pain throbbed throughout his body, everything within him hurting, the kind of pain he had come to know far too well over the last few months of his captivity. In all that time, he had struggled to maintain his calm, to ignore the constant torment, but it had grown increasingly difficult.
It should not be so easy for him to be confined in a cell like this. He was Rsiran Lareth, master of Sliding, a man who had held each of the great crystals of Elaeavn. Despite that, he had been unable to prevent his captivity.
And he had been unable to find any way to escape. So much for the plan he and Carth had discussed. This was to have been a brief stay, an opportunity for him to finally find Olandar Fahr. Now he was captured.
Footsteps thudded nearby, and he did nothing. He no longer even looked up as he once had, knowing that it didn’t matter. How could it, when torment would come regardless of what he might do?
A shadow moved in front of him, something he noticed through his closed lids, and still he refused to look. Opening his eyes took far more effort than what he was willing to make, and with all the pain he felt, everything he had experienced, he knew there was no point.
“Do you think that you can ignore my presence?”
Rsiran had come to hate that voice, much the way he had once come to hate the voice of his own grandfather when he had chased him. That had been years ago, long enough that he had begun to feel a semblance of peace, but then it had been a false peace, something that he had convinced himself was real, all while hunting down the Ai’thol.
Why had he ever believed that he was untouchable? He had known that they would come after him, and they had held him captive him once before, though never so securely, and never in such a way that left him believing that he would not be able to escape. In this case, his captivity left him with a helpless feeling.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Rsiran said without opening his eyes.
Olandar Fahr laughed darkly. “You have managed to withstand my questioning so far, and I must admit that I did not think I would have to push you quite so hard.”
“Did you think that I was soft?”
“Yes.”
With that, Rsiran opened his eyes and looked over to Olandar Fahr. He was a muscular man, quite a bit older than Rsiran, though he carried the weight of confidence about him. Power seemed to swirl around him, and Rsiran understood all too well how—and why—he was able to have such power. This was a man who had held many of the Elder Stones, and because of that, his power had grown.
He still hadn’t managed to acquire the sacred crystals in Elaeavn. If nothing else, Rsiran intended to prevent him from managing to do so, though he had attacked the Elder Trees, doing so in a way that even Rsiran hadn’t managed to overcome.
“Good,” he said, barely looking up at Olandar Fahr.
“Good?”
Rsiran smiled. “If it caused you to underestimate me, then it was good. What else did you want me to say?”
“All you need to do is answer the questions and you will be granted peace.”
“By peace, you mean death.”
“Yes.”
Rsiran stared at him for a moment, not sure what he could say. The cold way that Olandar Fahr had confirmed what he suspected left him not only uncomfortable, but still troubled. He had been around hard men before, but this man might be one of the hardest.
“I don’t intend to die.”
“All men must die.”
“Do you intend to philosophize with me?”
“I have no interest in debating with someone like you.”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“Only that your capacity to challenge me in any such debate is limited.”
Rsiran grunted, closing his eyes once again. There was comfort in keeping them closed, the same sort of comfort that he felt when ignoring Olandar Fahr. Eventually the torment would begin, and when it did, he would struggle to ignore anything, so these moments, however brief they might be, were all about him taking what control he could of the situation. It was limited, he knew that, but that didn’t change the fact that he was determined to find some semblance of control in the situation.
“If you don’t want to debate me, then continue with your torment.”
Olandar Fahr stepped through the bars. Rsiran noticed it as a stirring of power, though little more than that. He didn’t have the same ability to pass through the bars. If he had, he would have Slid free of here long ago, but there was something unique about the cell that held him. It wasn’t heartstone, though he would never have expected the Ai’thol to make that mistake. They knew his ability over that metal far too well. In all the time that he had been captive, he had continued to search for answers, trying to understand what they were using to confine him, but those answers had not come.
“It’s almost as if you look forward to this torment,” Olandar Fahr said.
“The only thing I look forward to is your defeat.”
“And yet, were you able to see the game board, you would know that my victory is nearly at hand.”
Rsiran blinked open his eyes, looking over at the other man. He grunted, shaking his head. “Game board? If this is a game to you, it’s one that you will lose.”
“And who will stop me?”
“You fear her.”
Olandar Fahr tipped his head to the side, regarding Rsiran for a moment. Shadows swirled around him, reminding Rsiran so much of the way they swirled around Carth when she was using her connection to the shadows. It was one sort of magic that he didn’t fully understand, though it wasn’t the type of magic th
at he needed to understand. It was tied to the Elder Stones, much the way all magic was tied to Elder Stones, and unfortunately, that sort of power could be acquired by those who were never meant to harness it.
“And why should I fear her?”
“Because you know that she can defeat you.”
“She has tried and she has failed. I don’t fear Carthenne Rel, no more than I feared you.”
“You feared me enough to send your men after me.”
“That is less about fear and more about a desire to remove any sort of obstruction that might prevent my victory.”
“What is the need for that other than fear for how I might prevent your victory?”
“What makes you think that I fear anything? I have complete control of the situation. And you can go nowhere.”
“For now,” Rsiran said.
“You will not manage to escape. You are my captive, from now until the day you leave this world.”
“That may be, but you are still mistaken if you think that means that I fear what you will do to me.”
“Why fight it? If you know it is inevitable, why resist?”
“Because I know what you would do with that sort of power.”
“I would rule. Is that so different than what you did with the same power?”
“I never intended to rule.”
“And yet you did. Perhaps you didn’t intend to do it, but your people looked to you, wanting to be tied to the power that you possessed, and with it, they expected you to take on a role where you would lead.”
“If you knew anything, you would recognize that leadership and ruling are quite different.”
“Oh, I am well aware that they are different. Only, there comes a time when a man must step forward, no longer fearing his place in the world, and accept the power that has been thrust upon him.”
Rsiran said nothing. He looked at the backs of his eyelids, steadying his breathing, preparing himself for the pain that would soon come. It was the only way he knew to get ready for it, even if he couldn’t fully prepare. How could he ever fully prepare for the torment? When it came, everything hurt, and he could focus on nothing else. There were times when he contemplated telling Olandar Fahr what he wanted to know, but he never did. While it might end his torment, it would cause people he cared about to suffer far more than Rsiran was willing to do. He cared too much about them to do that to them.
“You will fall,” Olandar Fahr said.
“I have already fallen,” Rsiran whispered.
“You believe that you can’t fall any further?”
“You can torture me, but there is nothing more you can do that you have not already done to me.”
Olandar Fahr laughed, the sound grating and painful. Rsiran had heard it often enough over the months of his infrequent visits to hate that sound. Olandar Fahr didn’t come every day, but he came often enough that Rsiran had grown to despise the visits, and each time he came, he had a new torment for him, something that Rsiran had not been able to prepare for.
“If you believe that, then you are quite mistaken.”
Rsiran opened his eyes, glancing over at the other man. He crouched in front of him, now close enough that Rsiran could almost grab him, but he knew that if he were to try, he wouldn’t be fast enough. It was tied to the other man’s magic. Not only was he incredibly intelligent, but he was powerful in a way that Rsiran—even with his connection to all of the great crystals within Elaeavn—was not.
He reached into his pocket, pulling out a strange dark bar of metal. It wasn’t the first time that Olandar Fahr had brought metal into the room with him during the torment. He seemed to enjoy that almost as much as he enjoyed anything, and he enjoyed testing Rsiran, seeing how much torment he could withstand from the various alloys that the Ai’thol had control over. For the most part, Rsiran had found that he could tolerate much of what they did to him. It wasn’t the first time that he had been tortured, and his experience had granted him a certain fortitude when it came to such things, though he wished that it weren’t necessary.
Something about this bar looked a little different. It was a deep black, almost inky, and as he stared at it, he noticed shadows swirling around the bar.
Rsiran glanced up at Olandar Fahr, and the other man grinned.
“You recognize what this is. Good. Then you will understand just what it might be able to do. It has taken me considerable time to create this, and while I had another purpose in mind, the fact that you continue to fight has proven to me that I must use this with you.”
Rsiran said nothing. He had no idea what the metal bar was, but he wasn’t about to let Olandar Fahr know that. Let him believe Rsiran was more knowledgeable than he actually was. He already underestimated him; admitting ignorance with this would only make him believe that he was every bit as ignorant as Fahr believed.
“What do you want to know?” Rsiran asked, eyeing the bar. There was something unsettling about it, and if he was right and they had somehow infused it with the shadow magic that both Olandar Fahr and Carth had access to, then it was the kind of thing he wanted nowhere near him.
“I have told you what I want to know. The question is whether you will be willing to share with me just what it is that you do know.”
“If you promise not to harm my people.”
“The way you promised not to harm mine?”
Rsiran said nothing. What was there for him to even say? He had attacked the Ai’thol, killing many of them, blaming them for what had happened to his people over the years. And they deserved the blame. They were responsible for what had taken place, led by Olandar Fahr, killing countless people. All because he wanted power.
And he was close to obtaining everything he wanted. He already had demonstrated considerable strength, and while Rsiran didn’t know how many of the Elder Stones he had not yet claimed, he doubted it was very many.
“What is the secret to holding the crystals?”
“There is no secret.”
“There is a secret. You are the only one who has held each of the crystals. No others have managed to successfully hold more than one.”
“The crystals decide, not me.”
“The crystals decide.” Olandar Fahr laughed bitterly. “Even if I believed that, there is much more to it.” He paused, studying Rsiran for another moment. “Perhaps you don’t know. I should not be too surprised by that, considering how little you have proven to know so far.”
Rsiran just stared at him. There wasn’t anything for him to say. He didn’t know, and it made no sense for him to tell Olandar Fahr just how little he knew. The crystals did choose, and because of that, he had been chosen to handle not just one of the great crystals, but all of them. It wasn’t anything he really understood. Then again, it wasn’t his place to understand such things. The crystals were powerful, ancient, and all he needed to understand was that he had been granted power by them, and through that power, he had been given aspects of the Great Watcher, a chance to see the world from the vantage that the Great Watcher had. It was a vantage that very few ever were granted, and he was thankful that he had been so blessed.
“You don’t understand the Elder Stones as well as you believe if you think that there is a way to force them to behave as you want.”
Olandar Fahr regarded Rsiran for a moment. He said nothing, merely watching him. After a while, he stood, holding on to the bar, and shrugged. “Perhaps I gave you far more credit than you deserved.”
“Perhaps you did.”
“And perhaps your ignorance is greater than I had ever believed.”
Rsiran looked over at him, and all he could do was shrug. “Perhaps that is true as well.”
“Or perhaps you merely want me to believe that you don’t know these things.” He held out the black bar, shadows swirling around him, stretching toward the bar before spinning away. “You would have me believe that you know nothing about this power, and yet, you have much experience with it. I doubt that you would have been so su
ccessful over the years without knowing more than what you have shared. You might not have enough understanding of the Elder Stones to be able to claim each of them, but you do know something about them, more than most. And you have successfully avoided my ability to find you, which tells me that you do know more than what you let on.”
The shadows began to push away from Olandar Fahr, stretching not only from him, but away from the long bar, reaching toward Rsiran. It streamed toward him, pushing outward, almost something palpable.
Rsiran recoiled, the first time he had moved since Olandar Fahr had come into the room. Everything in his being told him that he wanted nothing to do with that power, that he wanted to be away from it, but where was he to go? What was he to do?
When the shadows reached him, they were warm.
That warmth increased, becoming hot.
Suddenly, Rsiran thought he understood.
He sucked in a sharp breath, and Olandar Fahr laughed darkly once again.
“Did you think that we failed?”
Rsiran looked to the bar, much more afraid than he had been before. He thought they had prevented him Olandar Fahr from reaching the Elder Stone in Nyaesh, but could they have failed?
With his captivity, Rsiran wouldn’t have known.
The heat flowing from the bar suggested that Rsiran was right, that Olandar Fahr had managed to acquire the power of another stone. With that, not only did he gain increased power, but he now had the key to countering the abilities Carth possessed. How many more Elder Stones would he be able to acquire? Was there anyone who would be able to withstand him and his people?