Exile's Redemption Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Map

  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

  Epilogue

  Dramatis Personae

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Exile's Redemption

  Copyright 2014 © Lee Dunning

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To My Parents

  Thank you for my life and all of the love and kindness you've shown me along the way. Thank you for instilling in me a love for the written word.

  Prologue

  Spring had come to the Abyss. Not in the sense of new blossoms appearing on long dormant trees. For in this place no branches reached skyward. Not even a twisted bit of brush dotted the endless expanse of wasteland.

  Nor was it a refreshing breeze that broke through the cloying stench of hopelessness. There was no temperature change, or alteration in the quality of light. It couldn’t even be called a memory, for hope of renewal had never once visited this place.

  And yet something had changed. The shadow that was not a shadow sensed it. Slowly he stirred, his flame eyes shifting to fix on the direction that called to him.

  A doorway.

  From all around, and in the distance, the air reverberated with the claws-on-slate screech of unwholesome interest. He was not the only one who sensed the alien touch of another plane. Thousands upon thousands of the Abyss’ twisted denizens would slither, lurch, and ooze toward it. He must hurry.

  For the first time in over ten thousand years, escape was possible. At long last, his exile was over.

  Chapter 1

  Raven didn’t look up when the shadow fell across her. “Have you ever seen anything so magical?” she asked. She knelt before a silver tear bush. Its dew-kissed bark shone like the silver hair of a Sky Elf.

  The tears were actually the plant’s fruit. Clear and sparkling as cut diamonds, elf and human alike cherished them for their beauty. Right now the delicate shrub bore another miracle, a crystalline cocoon from which a crimson-winged butterfly had just emerged. With its wings still wet and held tight against its body, the insect stirred and shivered in the morning sun.

  When no answer seemed forthcoming, Raven tore her attention away from the butterfly to glance at the owner of the shadow. Linden. A young First Born. Not as young as she, of course. She had just turned twenty-one, and would have to wait another seventy-nine years before the elves deemed her an adult.

  Linden stood over her, grinning, apparently amused by her fascination with the insect. A week ago, when they had first met, his face had worn a very different expression.

  Back then, despite his much greater size, age, and strength, he’d kept his distance—posture rigid, lips set in a tense line. It was as if he doubted either the armor encasing his body, or the massive sword dragging at his side, could protect him from her. The green and silver tabard marked him as a young, inexperienced soldier of the Elven Nation. She surmised his superiors had stuck him with a task no one else wanted. He’d probably volunteered to come to the mainland, hoping for excitement and adventure. Instead, he’d been ordered to escort a child around the city.

  Worse, she was a Shadow Elf, and not one from his homeland of First Home, but a former resident of one of the subterranean Exile cities. Gods knew what terrifying stories he’d heard about her kin. That accounted for the waves of distrust coming off of him. She had expected as much. However, the underlying curiosity she detected surprised her. It gave her some hope, and despite her own nerves, she put on an impish smile that made half moons of her blood-red eyes. “I’m Raven,” she said. “You must be my keeper.”

  He didn’t answer right away, merely stared as if surprised she could speak. Finally, he realized he was behaving like a half-wit, and shifted his gaze to somewhere behind her. “I’ve been assigned as your guide during your stay, miss.”

  “You don’t have to act so formal—please just call me Raven.” She had to tilt her head all the way back to meet his eyes, eyes determined to focus anywhere except directly at her. She put him at about seven feet tall, and still young enough he probably hadn’t finished growing. She only came up to his rib cage, and despite her youth, doubted she would get much taller. “Do you have a name?”

  “I do.” His gaze finally settled on her just long enough to gauge her reaction to his terse reply.

  Her arched eyebrow brought color to his already ruddy cheeks. “I won’t use it in some diabolical ritual, if that’s what you’re thinking. Even if I had that mindset I have no aptitude with magic. Your people wouldn’t have let me in if I did.”

  Embarrassment and confusion radiated off of him. “I … I’m sorry. I’m Linden.”

  Raven nodded. Linden was a fairly common given name. It confirmed what she had suspected; he had yet to turn a hundred. Early on, she’d learned surface elves didn’t adopt a surname until their hundredth birthday. As part of the coming of age ceremony, they chose to take on the family name of either their mother or father, and officially joined that parent’s household. They almost always dropped the use of their given, or ‘child’ name at that point, sharing it only with direct family members and lovers. Even friends referred to them as Lord or Lady such-n-such from then on.

  Linden had worked up the nerve to speak again. “It’s just I’d heard … well, that the Shadow Elves from here on the mainland, the Exiles, can do magic.”

  “I fled before that happened to me.”

  “Happened?”

  She’d nodded, but made no other movement for fear of turning his uncertainty back into complete hostility. “We’re not born with the ability to use magic any more than the Shadow Elves from your homeland. We undergo a … process. Females, when they turn eighteen, partake in a ritual. Only about half of them survive. Many others go insane. A few gain the ability to channel magic. They’re forever changed, though, tainted. I didn’t want that for myself, so I ran away.” Despite her efforts at control, her voice shook at the last.

  Linden’s face screwed up, and he pushed his long yellow hair back behind a pointed ear, taking her words, trying to make sense of them. She doubted anything from his own experience made it possible for him to relate. She had no training as a bard, no skill with words to help convey the horrors involved in the Exile’s quest for power. Even now, three years after her escape, Raven could hardly believe what her mother had planned for her. I wasn’t supposed to find out was I, Mother? Is that how it happened to you? And to your mother before you?

  Raven realized Linden was speaking and forced her attention away from the past and their initial meeting. “I’m sorry, I missed that last bit.”

  “I said, you keep surprising me. You’re nothing at all what I expected.”

  “So I gathered,” Raven said with a smile. She carefully reached out with her senses and found what little fear he still possessed had shifted elsewhere. Perhaps to some hypothetical Exile lurking in the dark somewhere, but no longer toward her. After a week
spent nearly joined at the hip, he’d come to realize she posed no more danger than the flowers in the garden. On the other hand, his curiosity had grown. “Do I dare ask what you did expect?”

  “For one thing, you only seem to wear pink.”

  Raven looked down at the very short, very pink kimono wrapped tightly about her thin body. She thought it contrasted nicely with her night black skin. “I like pink.”

  “Not exactly intimidating. Councilors T’sane and Reaper always wear black. Helps them lurk in the shadows.”

  “That does explain my utter failure at lurking.”

  Linden laughed. “Okay, so you’re not a lurker. What about combat? What do you wear into battle?”

  Raven pursed her lips in mock disgust. “I see … because all Exiles must have elite fighting skills. I have no combat training. The only thing I carry is a knife, and I’d probably end up stabbing myself if I tried to fight with it.”

  “Are you joking? How do you protect yourself?” Linden said, incredulous.

  “With my dry wit,” she said, deadpan. “Really, truly, I’m no warrior. You’ve been with me a week. Have you seen me wield anything more dangerous than a quill? My only ambition is to be a scholar. It’s my hope, if I ever need protecting, I’ll have someone like you with me who knows which end of the sword to hold onto.”

  Linden shook his head. “You only need me for hauling piles of musty old books for you.”

  “Speaking of, shall we get going to the library?” She spun and skipped ahead of her large companion, her white, bobbed hair, bouncing with the rhythm of her gait. Her enthusiasm carried her faster than her short legs would suggest, and Linden had to trot to catch up.

  They left the garden and the crimson butterfly, making their way into the city proper. By now, Raven had little trouble remembering the way, but the vastness of the place still awed her.

  The elves had christened the new city Second Home. Until recently, all but the Wood Elves had kept to themselves on a massive island chain known as First Home. After the Great Settling, when the world quieted enough to allow people to settle in one spot, the elves had taken the islands for their own. No one, other than elves aligned with First Home, knew anything else about the place. A magical barrier kept it barricaded from any would-be visitors … or invaders.

  In contrast, the newly constructed Second Home had been designed from the beginning to welcome visitors. In the center of the enclosed city a vast library drew scholars of many races from all over the known world. Even Exiles, who had relinquished ties to their birth cities, could gain entrance.

  For three years Raven had lived as part of a tiny community of former Exiles who made their home among the Wood Elves, but she’d grown restless of late. The lure of Second Home’s library drew her with its promise of knowledge. The others had thought her mad to leave the safety of the woods, but once she’d made up her mind to visit Second Home, no one could dissuade her.

  “So, are you allowed to tell me about First Home? Is it similar to here?”

  “Here? Nah, this,” he said, waving at the soaring white, marble walls, “looks nothing like First Home.” Whoever built the city hadn’t been satisfied with simply erecting walls or columns. Instead, the two hundred foot walls resembled forest more than cold stone. Sculpted trunks and branches reached toward the sky, converging into an arched roof designed to mimic a canopy of leaves. Sunlight streamed down between the carved leaves, leaving visitors with the impression they had stumbled upon a fae forest.

  “Real forests and glades make up most of First Home,” Linden said. “Most of the buildings belong to families where everyone of that bloodline lives. They’re all different. My family’s property is big, but not very …” Again, he gestured at the elegant lines of Second Home.

  “Intricate? Fanciful?” Raven prompted.

  “Both of those things,” Linden said. “It’s practical, I guess. My family isn’t very artistic except when it comes to making weapons and armor. You can find quite a few estates much more spectacular.”

  Raven thought spectacular described Second Home perfectly. While she had heard the surface elves’ cleverness extended to architecture, just plain skill could not explain the majesty of her surroundings. Magic, and lots of it, could be the only reason such a structure endured.

  Magic. Often referred to as Mother Magic, many acted as though it lived and breathed and had sentient thoughts. As best she could tell, it more resembled an elemental force like fire. In the beginning, it had combined with other elements, creating the first three races of elves. The fiery molten core of the infant world, the air, and the raging seas had all been altered by the touch of magic. That union birthed the First Born, the Sky Elves, and the Sea Elves—the first three races of the Elven people.

  At long last, the pair came to an enormous archway which opened into the area where they had spent the bulk of Raven’s stay—the library of Second Home. Even after spending every day here for a week, this seemingly infinite cathedral, dedicated to the world’s knowledge, filled Raven with wonder. The first day, she had tried to walk from the entrance to the back, only to finally turn back without finding the end. On either side, bookcases stretched tens of stories upward, every shelf filled with an endless assortment of tomes, memory cubes, scrolls and loose sheaves of vellum. The immensity of it staggered the young Shadow Elf.

  She sighed. While she found the library spectacular, she also found it overwhelming. “How will I ever find everything I need here?”

  “It’s only been a few days. You’re young—you have plenty of time,” Linden said.

  “Yes, I’m young,” Raven said, making a face, “but I planned on staying here a couple of weeks, not a couple of centuries.”

  “Unfortunately, my skill set lies more in the area of hacking things to bits, but plenty of scholars lurk in here. They can help narrow down your search. All the tomes you’ve had me lugging around have been history books—maybe we could start by focusing on something specific? What exactly are you studying?”

  Raven hesitated. She’d purposely stayed vague up to this point, unsure of how her escort would react. After getting to know him better, though, he seemed fairly open-minded. “The events leading up to Umbral’s attempt on the First’s life, and the subsequent unpleasantness.”

  “You don’t need the resources of this place to study that,” Linden said. “There isn’t an elf in this city who hasn’t had that drummed into their head. I can probably dig up a few old books I had to study—you’re more than welcome to have them.”

  Raven fixed him with a glare.

  “Hey, how about that butterfly? That was pretty special, huh?” Linden said, as the full weight of Raven’s ire settled upon him. His smile faltered with uncertainty.

  Despite her frustration, Raven couldn’t maintain her glare, and she grinned at her young guide. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t understand why his offer offended her. “Come on,” she said. She needed to think how best to explain why she found his books unwelcome. Still thinking, she waved for him to fall in line with her, and they made their way into the vastness of the greatest repository of knowledge in the known world.

  “I didn’t come all the way here to read the history your government has officially approved,” she said, opting for the blunt approach.

  Linden started to object, but Raven raised a slim black hand to forestall him. “It’s the nature of the beast—the winners write down the history that shows them in the best light. I’ve read the propaganda your High Council doles out. And before you spurt blood out your ears, know that I’ve read the distorted histories the Exiles wrote as well. What I want to find is something … probably a diary, or maybe a collection of letters from back then. I want to read the actual thoughts of the people who lived through it all. Things were different back then. We didn’t have beautiful cities and libraries stuffed with books. No culture, no music … no appreciation of butterflies. We tend to forget that, and place our values and world views on the people from th
e past. That’s a mistake. I want the truth—not what passes for the truth today.”

  Linden took obvious pains to calm himself. Like the fires his people had sprung from, the First Born tended toward the more passionate end of the emotional spectrum. “So, you think everything my teachers taught me is a lie,” he said, his voice tight, angry.

  “I didn’t say that,” Raven said. Her voice rose to meet his. She took a seat at one of the long tables in the library and gestured for Linden to sit across from her. “I tend to believe there’s more truth in your histories than what passes for fact in my birth city. Still, plenty of things strike me as slanted in the writings of your historians.”

  Some of the other visitors to the library gave the newcomers nasty looks. One gnome made a hushing motion, and Linden bobbed his blond head in apology. “What exactly? Can you give me an example?” he whispered.

  Raven took the cue and dropped her voice. “Certainly. In the Treatise on the Fall, the description of Umbral is that of a boy with a twisted spine and a severe limp. The text claims his physical deformities reflected his corrupt soul. If not for the compassion of his father, he wouldn’t have survived. In fact, the First’s love afforded Umbral many luxuries any one of us would envy.”

  “Okay …”

  “So, then we turn to The History of the Elemental Wars. This book covers the conflict between the elves and the goblinoid races in great detail, and they write about Umbral quite a bit. The author states the First relied upon his son to gather information and strike at the heart of the enemy through key assassinations.” Raven spread her hands. “So, which account reflects the truth? Was he an invalid protected by the grace of his father, or a deadly assassin, integral to the war effort?”

  “I see what you’re saying,” Linden said, “but does it really matter? Umbral tried to kill the First, he failed, got exiled, end of story. Who cares if he had a twisted spine or not?”