The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Read online

  The Resistance

  THE FOURTH BOOK

  OF

  THE FEY

  Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  Copyright Information

  The Resistance

  Copyright © 2012 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

  Published 2012 by WMG Publishing

  Cover Art Copyright © 2012 by Dirk Berger

  Cover Design Copyright 2012 WMG Publishing

  First Published 1998 by Bantam Books

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  The Fey Series

  (In chronological order)

  Destiny: A Short Story of The Fey

  The Fey: Sacrifice

  The Fey: Changeling

  The Fey: The Rival

  The Fey: The Resistance

  The Fey: Victory

  The Black Queen: Book One of The Black Throne Series

  The Black King: Book Two of Black Throne Series

  The Place of Power Series: Book One [Coming Fall 2012]

  All of the Fey series will be published by WMG Publishing

  in both electronic and trade paper editions

  in chronological order starting in the summer of 2011.

  Short Table of Contents

  Start Reading

  Copyright Information

  About the Author

  For Phil and Flossie Barnhart with thanks for everything.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks on this one go to Anne Lesley Groell for taking on such a large project; to Carolyn Oakley for her belief in the Fey; to Tom Dupree for loving the series; to Merrilee Heifetz for all the help; to Matt Schwartz for designing such a lovely web page (please visit www.horrornet.com/rusch.htm; to Nina Kiriki Hoffman for her trusty red pen; to Paul Higginbotham for sharing his expectations; to Dean Wesley Smith for nagging, brain'storming, and supporting; and to all the readers who let me know how much they're enjoying the series.

  THE DISCOVERY

  ONE

  The day dawned clear and cold on the Eyes of Roca. The Shaman wrapped a blanket around herself and watched the sun turn the mountains the color of blood.

  She had not slept in two days, not since the Islander King, Nicholas, had arrived with his half-Fey daughter, Arianna. Arianna was unnaturally thin, her eyes sunken into her head. She had used her shape'shifting skills too often in her battle against her great'grandfather, Rugad.

  The Black King.

  The Shaman shuddered and drew her blanket tighter. She sat on a rock outcropping, her feet dangling above the snow. Behind her, Nicholas and Arianna slept in the cave the Shaman had found when the Black King invaded less than two weeks before. If she had not fled, she would have died with the rest of her people, the Fey who had come into the first invasion.

  Failures, Rugad had called them, and according to Fey law he was right. He had no choice but to kill them. He could not trust them. He certainly could not trust her.

  There was no wind. The air was so cold it chilled her lungs. Despite her lack of sleep, she was not tired. Her mind was too busy. She had Seen a dozen futures, and young Arianna, in her first Vision, had Seen a dozen others. The future was in flux.

  The Black King had brought danger to the world when he had come to Blue Isle. For one of the Shaman'Visions had shown the insanity brought on by Black Blood warring against Black Blood.

  She raised her head and looked toward the valley south of her. It spread below her, green and gold and crisscrossed with roads and buildings. In the distance, smoke still colored the sky, making it hazy. The Black King was there, in the city built by Nicholas' people, the city he burned according to Fey tradition.

  The Black King had ignored the wishes of his granddaughter, Nicholas' wife, Jewel. She had sacrificed herself so that Blue Isle could become part of the Fey Empire. Peacefully. She felt that her children would link the Islanders with the Fey, and the Fey would leave the Isle alone.

  They had not. Jewel's death and the strange magick that flowed through this Isle had created a rift so powerful not even the Shaman felt it could be mended. The events would play themselves out now. All she could do was counsel Nicholas, counsel his wild children, and hope the insanity would not come.

  She wiped a strand of her coarse white hair from her face. Her hands were cold. She had seen a dozen dawns on this mountainside, and none of them had been this red. Something was in the air, a change of huge proportions. She could feel it.

  Then she felt slightly dizzy. She let out a sigh and turned toward the cave. A Vision was coming. She wanted to get inside before it hit. The last time, she had wandered off and nearly died in the snow.

  A Vision —

  And then it struck, tilting her world, making her spin for a moment before she found herself in a cave.

  Not her cave. A different cave. It was dark, and yet it glowed with an inner light. All around her, Powers flew,whispering things she couldn't quite hear. She was half in and half out of the cave.

  She had been here before. On her pilgrimage as a young Shaman.

  In the Eccrasian Mountains, the birthplace of the Fey.

  It was the Place of Power.

  But Visions never went backward. This was the future. In the Eccrasian Mountains? How did they get to Galinas? How did they go all the way back to the place where the Fey began?

  Then she looked up. Nicholas was stroking her face, his eyes glinting with tears. He had Arianna over his shoulder.

  She looked dead.

  "What can I do?" he asked. His voice, usually so strong, was filled with panic.

  What can I do?

  Behind him, she saw Fey faces, peering out of the cave. Magick flowed beside them, like water.

  The Place of Power.

  She reached up toward him —

  And the world shifted again. Rugad, the Black King, was lying among shards of stones, his body crushing an ornate chair. He had a healing wound on his neck, and bruises on his face —

  — And the Black Blood boiled and spilled over everything. They were drowning, drowning, drowning in madness —

  She came to herself facedown in the snow, her entire body chilled. She stood slowly, trying to get her balance, then she brushed the snow off herself. The cave that she had found, the one Nicholas and Arianna slept in, was still behind her. They hadn't awakened yet.

  She gazed at it a very long time, remembering the shaky feeling she had had in her Vision as she lay within the entrance to the Place of Power. That feeling was familiar, yet unfamiliar, and mixed with it was a love she hadn't acknowledged.

  Her reasons for fighting against her own people might not have been as altruistic as she thought.

  Nicholas.

  The Place of Power.

  And the blood. All that blood.

  They still hadn't prevented the worst crisis of all.

  TWO

  The town at the base of the Cliffs of Blood was named Constant because, some said, King Constantine the First had been born there. Others said the town's name predated Constantine. The name Constant came because it was the oldest inhabited place on Blue Isle, older even than the capital town of Jahn, whose recorded history went back to the first Rocaan.

  Matthias loved it here. He always had, even though the town had never loved him. He had been born here, in Constant, to a mother he never knew. Because h
e had been a long baby — nearly twice the size of the average Islander — he had been taken into he Cliffs of Blood and abandoned. Sometimes he almost thought he could remember his first days there, cold and starving and crying. But he supposed he had heard enough about them to create the memory.

  And he had seen it enough. The people who lived near the Cliffs of Blood were hearty folk with superstition buried deep. They believed tall babies equaled tall adults, and tall adults were demon-spawn. Some people still clenched a fist when they saw him to ward off his hidden magick.

  Still, he loved it here. The air was fresh and cool, the sunlight was brilliant, and the killing mountains had a beauty all their own, a beauty that he had never found in Jahn. After he had left Jahn in disgrace some fifteen years before, after he had abandoned his post as the Rocaan — something no one had ever done — he had come here, to Constant, and here he had found peace.

  He had returned to Jahn only a few months before to test his scholarship, to try again to make a varin sword, as was described in the Secrets. The Secrets, which only the Rocaan knew, were considered a sign of power in the Tabernacle. But their purpose had been forgotten, or lost, and they had become a wealth of useless information. But Matthias had been the one to discover that holy water was more than a tradition; it was a weapon that killed Fey. And it made him wonder if the other Secrets had that same power.

  He had yet to test the theory.

  He sat on the doorstep outside his house and stared at the Cliffs of Blood. They were tall, the tallest mountains he had ever seen. They were part of the Eyes of Roca mountain range that ran from the Stone Guardians in the west to the Cliffs of Blood in the east. But the Cliffs were unique. They were taller than any other mountains in the range, and their edges were jagged, impossible, after a certain height, to climb. They were also an unusual color. The Eyes of Roca were brown, for the most part, except for their caps, which were covered in snow. But the Cliffs were red, and even the snow on the peaks was a pale pink. In the sunlight, the red deepened to the color of glowing coal, and it seemed as if the Cliffs burned from within.

  Sometimes he felt that burning. At night, he would awaken with an urge to climb the mountain, as if it beckoned him, as if it wanted him. As a boy he'd feel that urge, and his adopted mother would have to physically restrain him to keep him from the Cliffs. He had left Constant, in part, to bury the urge, to stay off the mountain, which, he believed, might some day kill him.

  Yet he loved the Cliffs. He loved their mystery, he loved their danger, and he loved the secrets they had stored within. The caves that riddled the Cliffs were filled with treasures, like the varin he was using to make the sword. The plants that grew on the lower mountainside were native to the region. Only a few grew elsewhere as well, like the seze that was in holy water. It also grew in the Kenniland Marshes to the south, and it had proved the ingredient that had nearly destroyed the Fey.

  The early morning was chill. The sun still hid behind the highest peaks, but the sky was light. Days were short here. Mornings started later than they did anywhere else on the Isle. But they were spectacular. Every sunrise was different, every storm that blew across the mountains unsurpassed in both strength and majesty.

  He had forgotten how much he had missed this place. He had only been away two months, and he had felt incomplete.

  Inside the house, he could hear stirrings. It was probably Denl. Denl was the only member of the strange band that had brought Matthias up here who had any religious sentiment at all. He called Matthias Holy Sir, even though Matthias had asked him not to, and he could not quite get over the fact that he traveled with the Fifty-first Rocaan.

  It was Denl who said, when they learned of the death of the Fifty-second Rocaan, that Matthias was Rocaan once again. Actually, Denl had said that it was God's way of showing Matthias that he had never stopped being Rocaan at all.

  A man canna stop bein Beloved a God, Denl had said, and in his heart of hearts, Matthias feared Denl was right.

  Denl wouldn't come outside for a while. He still had his prayers to say and his breakfast to eat. In the week or so that they had traveled together, Matthias had learned a lot about the habits of this group. And Denl's were the most predictable.

  Matthias's were the least.

  Pain had awakened him only a short time ago. He had been stabbed in the face and shoulders by a Fey nine days before, and he had nearly died. The wounds had destroyed his face. He saw the handiwork for the first time in the Cardidas River after the group had escaped Jahn. Long jagged cuts ran from his forehead to his jaw. Marly, the only woman in the group, was something of a healer, and she had stitched the wounds together. She had warned him that on either side of the scars would be tiny dots. He would be disfigured for the rest of his life, bearing the mark of the Fey outside as well as in.

  They were the true demon-spawn, although Nicholas had never listened to him on that. Nicholas, who had married one, bred with one, and corrupted the Roca's line with demons that had no soul. Matthias had proven that when he touched the head of Nicholas's wife, Jewel, with a small bit of holy water, and she had melted, as all the other soulless Fey had done. God hated them, and visited his wrath upon them every chance He got.

  Matthias would make sure he would have more chances. Now that he was back here, in Constant, and safe, he would explore the rest of the Secrets, and he would be ready when the Fey finally came this far north and east.

  The Cliffs were the northeastern point on the Isle.

  They were difficult to reach, and most Islanders never traveled there. They had to go along the ridgeline of the Eyes of Roca, or take the road built beside the Cardidas River. The trip was long and difficult, and because the Blooders were so unfriendly, often unrewarding.

  He shivered once and ran his hands along his sleeves. He no longer wore the robes of his office, hadn't since he had abandoned it after Jewel's death. Sometimes he still missed it, the heaviness and the comfort of it, especially here, in the Cliffs of Blood, where the air was never completely warm.

  His house was, though. It was, like the other buildings in Constant, made of the gray stone that littered the base of the mountains. He had always thought it odd that the stone that had fallen off the mountain was gray while the stone it was made of was red. He had once asked his adoptive mother — the kind woman who had taken him and nine others abandoned on the mountain in — why this was so.

  Mountains are living creatures, Matty, she had said, cradling his head with her hand as she spoke. The rocks that fall away lose their life force and die.

  He had thought her answer fanciful, but he always thought of it whenever he saw the gray stone littering Constant. He always thought of her, and how much he missed her. How much he appreciated her kindness, and how her kindness hadn't mattered in the face of her husband, who had been determined to get rid of the children as soon as he could.

  The door opened behind him, and he braced himself. Denl's religiosity disturbed Matthias, reminded him of his own failures, just as that young Aud had, the one who had passed through the tunnels on a Charge from the Fifty-second Rocaan, the one Matthias had lied to. Matthias still could see the boy's dirty, beautiful face, and Matthias had felt that urge, the one to hide what he had become.

  Even so, he had spoken a partial truth: I'm just an old Aud gone bad, and that much had terrified the boy to his underdeveloped toes.

  An old Aud gone bad.

  A Rocaan without a following.

  A man with a mission, a mission no one else could complete.

  "What're ye doin in the cold?" The voice belonged, not to Deni, but to Marly, the woman who had tended Matthias's wounds and had, more than once, saved his life.

  "Saying hello to the mountains," he said. He had developed a manner of speaking that kept him from moving his face too much. To his own ears, it sounded laconic and slow.

  "Ye saw em yestiday, n the day afore that, n the day afore that." She stood behind him. He could feel her warmth against his back. />
  "But not from here," he said. "Don't you think they're beautiful?"

  "N terrible," she said. "Too many ha died there. In the Soul Stealers."

  He'd heard that name for the mountains before, but it was a local name. Marly, too, had been born here, but her family spirited her away to the Kenniland Marshes, where the height prejudice wasn't as severe. She spoke like a marshlander, but she had the talents of the tall folk from the Cliffs of Blood.

  Her healing proved that.

  "The Soul Stealers," he said, musing. He wondered if she knew where the name came from. He did. It referred to the babies left on the mountain, the babies who survived. They were said to be demons without souls.

  "Ye," she said. "n they have an evil magick. Can ye na feel it?"

  He did feel something different about the Cliffs of Blood, something beside his urge to go to them. He had worked near the Snow Mountains in the south and he had never felt the energy, the life, that he felt here. It felt as if the mountains watched the valley, as if they stood guard, as if they would move if they did not like what they saw.

  Perhaps they would, when the Fey arrived.

  "It doesn't feel evil to me," he said. What would she think if she knew he had been one of the mountain's survivors? Would she still tend him? Worry about him?

  Touch him?

  "Ye are the Holy Sir," she said.

  He hated the reference. Especially coming from her. He stood. "No," he said. "I'm not. And I wish you'd stop referring to me that way."

  He swayed a bit from the suddenness of the movement. He still hadn't recovered. Marly said it would take a long time for his wounds to heal. He had overheard her once, telling one of the others that she was shocked by Matthias's strength. A normal man, she had said, would have died from those wounds.