Stranger in the Twisted Realm by Kay Kenyon

Author:Kay Kenyon [Kenyon, Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Winterset Books

Late into the night Tirhan sat with Lodwyn around the dying embers of the firepit. Morwen had long been asleep, and the men relinquished the circle around the fire for their prince.

Lodwyn prodded the remains of a log with a stick, answering a question Tirhan had asked. “We have had no word out of Volkia, my lord, but sometimes we are the last to have news.”

It preyed on Tirhan that Yevliesza was in Volkish hands, as the spirit had told him. How her capture had happened, he did not know, but Yevliesza would never submit to them. He feared that if they could not take advantage of her skill, they would kill her. If they knew what her second power was.

“Do your foreknowers see an outcome, grandfather?” he asked, using a term of honor for the renunciate. Foreknowing might be unreliable, but the quiet of the cave and the growing dark set free his hidden thoughts.

“Foreknowing is a close thing. What may happen to our sheep grazing in the valley, whether a stranger will visit, or the storm come . . .”

Tirhan pressed on. “Nor any presentment, however small, of what may happen to the realms?” Surely the fate of their very existence might send a tendril of knowledge to those with the gift.

“Who knows but that there may be a select person who will be vouchsafed an arresting power, a power of foreknowing beyond the normal?” Lodwyn shook his head. “But not in our sanctuary, nor even in all of Alfan Sih that I have heard of. You have reason to think the Volkish will take other kingdoms, my lord?”

“I know not. But why should they stop? What have they gained in Alfan Sih that would not be thrice or five times enhanced by taking all? If they spread their diabolic machines, when might they surpass what the Mythos can bear?”

The elder held the stick across his knees, letting the embers sleep. “You have a personal reason entwined with all this, my prince?”

The word came to Tirhan in the next instant. Regret. His rash action in coming home—the way he came home—had exposed Yevliesza, left her open to danger, to the peril of them all and also to her person. His actions had benefited Alfan Sih. But at a price he should not have so carelessly risked.

“I have not always acted wisely, grandfather. It weighs on me.”

“Then you are a better man than most.”

Tirhan considered this but pressed on. “If a spirit brings a message to a man, does it mean he has strayed from a good path?”

“I would think perhaps the opposite, my prince.”

“But do the spirits deign to speak to the living, grandfather? And should we listen?”

“It is a long journey from the otherworld.” Lodwyn cocked a smile at Tirhan. “Perhaps they speak to kings.”

Or queens, Tirhan thought, thinking of Queen Gwenid.

“But not to those in the temples?”

“Visions are for those who receive them. To tell others . . .” He shook his head. “It is like describing a song in the wind.

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