Free Mortals & Deities by Maxwell Alexander Drake Page A

none other with the power to create such energy. The fact that the Father considered this weak…Samlin shuddered at the thought of what power the Father had lost. And at the power he meant to gain.
    Gasping, the Father dropped his arm to his side. His shoulders slumped and for the first time in Samlin’s presence, the man looked tired. Old. “I grow weary of hiding. Sulking in my defeat.” He laughed once, without mirth. Taking a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders. “Do not fret, Vilt. The Shikalu will last long enough to fulfill her task. And once I have this Mah’Sukai—have drained his power from him—there will be no one on this Plane who can match me. I will be a true god among men once more. All will quake at my name!” As he spoke, he seemed to grow in size and bearing. “I will no longer be forced to hide on these accursed islands! I will seek out those who are left, those who opposed me so long ago! And with their deaths, the secrets they hold will die with them. Their deaths will ensure that none will match me! None will attain the true power ever again!” The Revered Father’s scream bounced off the marble walls, and all of Samlin’s little treasures fell, prostrating themselves upon the floor. Samlin himself thought of falling before the might and rage of this man who stood before him.
    For the second time in a long time, Samlin felt the prick of worry.
    And what of me? Will I gain power in your shadow? Or will your shadow crush me?

Though the trip through the main gate was uneventful—well, as uneventful as it could be with the return of someone reported dead—Alant Cor found the act of arriving at the home he grew up in a bit more intense than he expected.
    The wail that ripped from his mother’s lungs still haunted him. She had been in the kitchen, as was her custom, and had dropped a clay baking pan of cheesed potatoes in her haste to reach him. It was a testament of her pure joy that she did not even fuss over the mess it created.
    That eve saw a grand feast in the dining hall. All his siblings were there—except Arderi, of course. Alant learned his younger brother had run away for a time, returned without notice, then left again the following day. Headed to Mocley of all places, on some undertaking no one quite understood. Siln was still Siln. Living at home and barely doing his duties. His sisters Baith and Tary, the gangly little girls he had left behind, were growing full into womanhood. Even little Rik, a mere babe in swaddling clothes when he left, now toddled around, forcing everyone to keep him out of harm’s way. It seemed like folks from many houses attended lastmeal at his parent’s public house to hear the tale of how their boy—their man—once a common fielder like themselves, now a Shaper, had found his way home after so many winters.
    At least, that is what they expected.
    Alant had not been so forthcoming. He avoided as many questions as he could and ignored those he could not. For the most part, it seemed to him that they were satisfied with the answers they received. It was painful at times, uncomfortable at others.
    Still, I am home! I am really home.
    That was almost a tenday gone.
    And thank the gods it is over!
    Now he sat in his old room. About the same size as the rooms he occupied during his training at both the Chandril’elians he had attended, and near as sparse of furniture as well. A bed, washstand complete with washbowl and bubbled mirror, and a small chest to store his clothes in were all the room contained. It felt as empty as he himself did.
    The events of the past three turns of the seasons—two winters studying at the Chandril’elian in Mocley, the voyage to Elmorr’eth, and the near season spent at the Chandril’elian of Hath’oolan—
    Not to mention my near-death experience at the hands of Prince Aritian!
    —had left him shaken to say the least. He still had no idea what had happened to him, how he had Traveled home, nor any idea of