Paul Lytle: The Eighth Power

Author of novels, short stories, essays, poetry, and the "Quick story . . ." blog.

The Eighth Power

Essays by Paul Lytle appear in:

By far the longest of my novels, The Eighth Power was created as sort of a strange experiment that I think turned out to be a great success. I wanted to write a long novel (success #1) that (1) could be read in one sitting and (2) created an utterly complete Fantasy world with a real history and mythology.

To succeed in the first requirement, I decided to write short chapters with quick action and discussion. I do not waste words in this book, which should give you an idea of exactly how deep this plot is. Obviously, it is unlikely that a work of this length will be read in one sitting, but this novel is not going to put you to sleep.

To succeed in the second goal, I outlined four thousand years of history for this world. As the characters travel, you will see ruins of different ages and hear tales of kings past. I created seven gods, and each god has his own set of myths. I gave the followers of each god their own set of goals and personalities. This was not done simply for show; the conflict between the religions plays a big role in this plot.

The result is the best of my sword and sorcery novels. It is at once exciting and deep, reckless and contained. Four sample chapters can be read below.

CHAPTER 1

It was Serren’s Day, or so the Prophet of the Wind believed, for it was nearly impossible to tell one day from another in the damp dungeon, especially after so many months. The barred window gave him a view of night and day, but it was easy to lose track of how many days had elapsed since he had been captured. It was almost certainly the month of Osilar, even if it was not its eighth day, which was a Serren’s Day, and there was little doubt that it was still the year 8704. Not for the first time in the last six moons, Larras Eysentgath wondered about exactly which dungeon he was languishing within. Perhaps it was the one at Saparen or Garrenmore, or another further west, toward the lands saturated with the ern, but there was no way to be sure, for he had never even visited the prisons in any of those cities, and the landscape outside gave him no hint, and no one ever walked by his window. Prophets were generally given rooms in palaces rather than cells in dungeons.

An odd string of thoughts, Larras realized of himself, considering that there was a rather large man standing over him with a bloody dagger. The blood that was dripping off the blade had belonged, only a few moments before, to Larras himself, but that dagger had taken much from him over the previous six months. So much, in fact, that Larras was awed that he even had any left.

Behind the Torturer were Mute and Ern, or so Larras called them, since they had not once revealed their true names. He called the first one Mute because he never spoke; he merely waited in the dark corner and watched. He wore a hooded cloak at all times, and Larras wondered if the hood was in place because the face behind it was perhaps recognizable. Would the Prophet of the Wind know this man if the hood was removed? Was it possible that Mute was known to Larras? Another odd thought, but the Prophet hadn't the strength any longer to concentrate on any one subject for an extended period, even when a dagger was piercing his belly. Ern was, in fact, an ern, and remarkably intelligent for his race, and it did the questioning when the fiendish trio was in the room. Ern had one eye, the other lost many years before, in battle, perhaps, but the creature could give such a glare with that one bloodshot eye as to make the most willful of Thanes shiver in fear.

"Tell me the secret," Ern said, its words slithering off its tongue. It ran its pale and clammy hand over Larras' face. The touch was almost worse than the knife. The Torturer seemed challenged in that regard, and he made his own touch, a cold and sharp one, worse still.

"I don't know what you mean," Larras replied as best he could. They had asked the same question of him for six months. "What you ask is impossible."

It truly was impossible, and Larras Eysentgath could not understand why these men — this dark group, led by an ern, of all things! — were so insistent in their efforts. Did they simply not understand? Could they not see that he was telling the truth?

There was a groan from the corner, and Larras turned, even though he knew the source of the noise. It was Baret Tsantle, the Prophet of the Flame, and he was rolled tightly into a ball, hoping that the position would quench the pain. He was once a large and husky man, muscular and proud. Once. Now the man was so thin it was a wonder he remained alive. Odd thought, because Baret would not, in fact, live much longer. There was a good possibility that the Prophet's last sound might have been that muffled moan. All Larras could think was, Thank the Gods, thank the Gods, for death was the best relief Baret could have hoped for.

It was astounding — these people had captured two of the seven Prophets, amongst the most powerful men in the world. How had they done it? For Larras it had been in his sleep. For Baret, they had come during a terrible downpour, when he had no hope to find fire. Without such fuel, the man had been defenseless.

Larras, on the other hand, had resisted for a long time. They could keep fire from Tsantle, but they could not keep air from Larras, and where there was air, there was wind that the Prophet could manipulate. But the Power, the Magic, as many called it, would not work when pain overcame it, and Ern knew that fact well. They had defeated that Power over time. They had defeated even the Prophet of the Wind.

"After all these months," Ern was saying. "You still will not say. We know that you have the ability to teach us."

"I do not," Larras said, and though the words were merely an answer to the allegation, the tone was one of pleading.

Ern looked to Mute, and the latter nodded. Permission, but for what? The answer was soon in coming. Mute took the Torturer's dagger and stepped forward for the first time in six months. Slowly, carefully, almost as torture itself, the man reached up to his dark hood, the hood that had kept his face in shadows for so long. The wool cloth yielded to his touch, and the man revealed himself for the first time.

"Whesler be merciful," Larras prayed to his deity, reeling from horrible understanding of what he saw. Suddenly, he understood exactly how two Prophets had been captured. Suddenly, so much made sense. This man who stood with Ern and the Torturer answered many questions by merely showing his face. But Larras would not be able to tell those answers to anyone.

Such was his last thought, for, still without a word, Mute drove the dagger into Larras Eysentgath's heart.

CHAPTER 2

"What about the other one?" the Torturer said, breaking the silence that had lasted several minutes.

The man Larras had called Mute spit at the comment disapprovingly, and said, darkly, "What about him?"

"Do we start again on him?"

Mute walked over to the Prophet of the Flame and laid a hand on the frail man's chest. Baret Tsantle did not stir. Mute made his report, "He's dead." There was no surprise for any of the three. "Just get rid of both of them. We can gain no more from them."

"Did we gain anything to begin with?" asked the ern, but he was ignored.

The torturer said, "Two new Prophets will be born on the same day."

Ern grunted. "It has happened before. When the nobles attacked the Tower during the time of that the Wizards controlled the human world, a full five Prophets died within two weeks. The last two had to finish the war without help."

Mute looked to the green creature in surprise. "You know your history well, for an ern."

"I do not easily forget."

"What do we do now?" the Torturer asked. "Do we capture another one?"

"No, not yet," Mute replied.

The big man with the knife pointed to the two bodies excitedly, saying, "Look, the Magic is departing."

Truly, mist was rising from the mouths of both dead Prophets, only faintly, yet still visible even in the dim lighting of the dungeon. The thin mist dispersed just as quickly, yet the Torturer leapt forward and down upon his knees, trying to breathe in what he supposed to be the final breath of each man.

Mute grabbed the Torturer and pulled him to his feet, saying, "Get off them, you fool."

"You would just let the Power escape?" the Torturer asked, bewildered.

"There is nothing we can do," Mute replied. "The Power transfers to a child without fail. You cannot interrupt that transfer by breathing in the mist."

"But some of the others told me . . ."

"What? You would listen to peasants and old women before me? There is no truth told over dice and ale. You would do well to remember that."

The dual mists seemed gone, but they were not. They were merely thinned beyond sight, spreading outward along the ground. They were blocked by no wall, hindered by no mountain, wearied by no sea. They merely spread farther and farther, expanding in a perfect circle around the deaths of the Prophets. For miles in every direction was the ground covered in the mists, and yet so thin were they that no one saw, and so light that no one felt them. They continued in this manner for several hours, until each found what it was searching for, and then each contracted to its chosen spot instantaneously. The giant circles of mist that had covered a fourth of the continent for that brief period of time were gone and were each contained in a very small vessel somewhere else.

CHAPTER 3

Larras had been right: it was Serren's Day, which was a tribute to his learned mind, that he kept track of the passing days even though he had hardly seen the sun in six months. But Larras, his sharp mind and all, had passed on to the Otherworld, and his Power, along with Baret's, was spreading over the land as a fine mist. In the evening it was passing over the small town of Lanshire, where Barrin Iylin was waiting just outside his one- room home, sitting in the grass, dying in the Autumn cold, with his had in his hands. He did not feel the mist, or see it, and he did not notice when it disappeared, contracting once again.

"Barrin," said a voice just before the man. Iylin was a tall and lanky farmer, his face worn and tanned, his eyes bright blue, shimmering like little lakes upon his tattered face. His cheeks were sunken and cratered, and his short beard could do nothing to hide it. He was not an attractive man physically, and his mind contained little except farming techniques and strategies, but his heart was of the warmest kind, and that alone made him a man worth calling a friend.

Iylin looked up to his neighbor, a kindly man increasing in years. Strangely, for such a frail old man, the neighbor carried a sword. Well, such a sight may have seemed strange at one time in another place, but no longer. "They've come 'gain, Barrin," the neighbor said. "Lord Draffor says t' get all the men together."

"Not now," Barrin pleaded, as though it was anyone's choice as to when such calls were made. "It cannot be now."

"Can't help none o' that," the neighbor said. "I'm sorry, but we need ye." And he walked off.

There was a scream inside the house, a yelp of pain. It was happening, and Barrin Iylin could not be there. He stood and touched the hilt of an old sword that hung at his side. He was a decent swordsman; people had to be in those times to survive.

The tall man crossed the dirty village in only a few score steps — Lanshire was barely a smudge upon the map, a cluster of houses where the Tarmine River met the sea. On the other side of the village, the western side, away from the ocean, he found Lord Draffor, who owned the land in and around Lanshire. He was a kindly young man, not rich compared to other nobility in the area, but well respected. He wore clothes only a little more expensive than the farmers did, dyed red to match his hair and beard. He was also the fattest man in the village, which meant that his figure was about what a man's should be, and not abnormally thin from hunger.

"Barrin," he said. "I'm sorry to bring you out today of all days."

"The ern come when they come," was Iylin's reply, and he drew his sword. It was a ritual to those men, performed irregularly throughout the year, but not so irregular that hope of its end ever shone within the minds of the farmers there.

The ern were slightly larger than the humans, and stronger as well. Their skin was pale white, almost colorless. If those were the only differences between the humans and the shadow creatures, one might pass itself off as a man, but the ern had snouts instead of noses, and two sharp teeth protruded from their lower lips. Their fingernails were like claws, and they curved inward to a point. They clothed themselves sparingly, only torn shirts and breeches they had stolen from their victims, worn out from time and lack of care. Perhaps they might have been a form of beast, except that they were utterly hairless from head to toe, and so no beasts were they, unless related more to lizards than dogs (which might have been since their cold skin suggested that they just have been a form of snake). But the ern were, in the end, an abomination, and that was all. A serpent was not evil; an ern was.

They came from over the hill to the west, axes and swords bared. They yelled in their own tongue, which seemed senseless to the men defending their land. Yes, the calls came as threats and curses, and curses also against the Gods. Let the Holy Six hear them, Barrin Iylin thought, and know who fights for them, and who against.

The bowmen of Lanshire struck first, and a meager wave of arrows sprung upon the ern as they charged. Added to the yells for war were cries in pain, and five ern fell in the attack, their blood almost white upon the brown grass. There were only a score in this raiding party, Barrin counted. Five had already fallen. They would not overcome the town on that day. They would try again, however. That was the true danger with the ern — they never quit trying.

The approaching monsters had no ranged weaponry, the ern rarely did, so they could do nothing but continue forward, desperately trying to reach the men before the arrows took them all. Another wave was let loose from the bows, and two more fell dead. There would be no time for a third ranged attack, for the ern were upon them.

Swords clashed with axes, and no one could hear the tauntings any longer. The ern overcame several of the men in their charge, for they threw themselves against the humans with weapons outstretched, and red blood splashed over the land as well as white, but the townsmen struck back, and their superior numbers pushed the beasts back. Iylin thrust his sword forward almost randomly when the enemy came, but the blade found the belly of an ern, and the enemy fell. The farmer withdrew the weapon, now covered in the corrosive blood, and struck again, always thrusting. Swinging a sword around might be a technique attractive to the eye, but his weapon was too dull for a slash to do much damage. Only thrusts would hold off the ern. The blade had to pierce the skin to do any good.

Five enemies were left, and eight men had fallen. A heavy price, but the battle was almost done. The village would survive another day. Lord Draffor called for his subjects to move forward, more around them, and the men, never pausing their attack, worked to surround the remaining enemies. The ern showed no fear. They never did. They would march right over a cliff if it meant the possibility that merely one human would die. They were that dedicated, that deranged.

Clang, a hundred times, and more men and ern fell. The lines became confused as the enemy mixed with defenders, and Barrin had to be careful with his sword to not strike a friend. Then it came to the last beast, even then was there no surrender. It just leapt forward, reaching out with his claws at Barrin Iylin, trying to take one last soul with it into death. Iylin's sword wouldn't be ready in time, and he so scurried back desperately, trying to move out of range. The ern came with him. Backward Iylin scrabbled, and tripped, but the ern jumped toward him.

And the blade of Lord Draffor came down, a blade with a decent edge, and caught the ern's arm. The beast spiraled away, his arm sliced nearly in two, but could not regain his balance. Draffor's sword found the beast's chest, and the battle was over.

Lord Draffor reached out a hand to Iylin, saying, "Return to your wife, my friend."

Barrin took the hand and stood, only in time to see a boy, no more than eleven in years, running up from the village. "Master Iylin," he called, no matter how many times Barrin had told the child not to call him Master. "Master Iylin! Come quickly. Your son has been born."

CHAPTER 5

The midwife came through the door just as Barrin approached, her hand up at him in defiance. The meager barricade made by the short woman worked well enough, however, for Iylin came right up the door, but advanced no farther. The midwife was as big as a thin woman of meager height might be, that is to say her presence was made up of more temper than actual physical form, and though she was one of the smallest women in the town, she filled the doorway as much as the largest man.

"Barrin," she said in a hard sympathy, never wavering from her position.

"What happened?" the farmer asked, and the possible answers passed though his mind like a galloping horse, picking up dust and rattling the earth with noise. Something was wrong, but the midwife was choking on her words, and all he could do was fret over the possibilities until she spoke. Why didn't she speak?

But then the words came, and Iylin wished they had never been said. Somehow, all those strange possibilities would have been better.

"It's Josette," the woman said, and no more needed to be explained. "We took the child away . . ."

Iylin heard no more, but instead charged passed the woman and into the house. Not even the King's Thanes might have stopped him in that moment, and certainly that woman would not have had the strength. On the far side of the small room sat a simple bed, and upon the bed his wife, pale in death, yet remaining so lovely. Her black hair was still matted with sweat from the birth, her hands gripped the blankets. She wore white on her last day, a ragged gown that had twisted around her in the throes of a coming end. Someone had closed her eyes, and Barrin was glad for it. He didn't think he could look into those emerald eyes again. Part of him wanted to, knowing that it would be his last chance, but he couldn't bear the thought. All he had to do was reach out and open them, but he could not.

The man collapsed, his scabbard scraping the ground as he fell, creating a harsh and distant noise on the stone and sand. Others sounds were soft and shifting, for the tears had paralyzed Barrin Iylin, and he couldn't even breathe. In those moments, he cursed the ern, and Serren, and he pleaded for the Gods to send her back. But most of all he cursed himself.

A gasp for air came so heavily that he sounded more like an animal than a man, and yet there was a pain in the sound so utterly human that so other beast might make it. Only a man could understand that sort of despair.

"My son," said a voice from the door, but Iylin didn't look. "My son," repeated the Priest of Serren as he came inside. He was a little wizened bald man, physically weak, and yet was the spiritual representative in the town. Of the Six, only Serren had a Temple in Lanshire, so small was the village.

"Why?" Barrin asked through painful gasps. "Why did she take her?"

"I am sorry, my son," the Priest said, for he had no answer to the question. Not even the old man, who understood that the Gods had a purpose in everything, could find meaning in that moment.

There was another silence, just as long and just as deep, for even the Priest was holding his breath. At last there was a break, when the clergyman said, "Look, Barrin. They bring your son."

The farmer turned to the doorway, where the midwife stood with the child. The baby was tiny and red, and seemed so like his father in that moment. He was weeping — mourning, perhaps — and his squeal broke Iylin again.

He took his son and cradled him in his arms, gently rocking. "Don't cry," he said. "Don't cry. She is with Serren in the Otherworld now. There are no tears there, and we should not shed them either. Do not weep that she is in her rightful place. Do not weep."

All the while his own tears were falling upon his son's face, and he could not convince himself to stop. Serren did have her, didn't she? Surely Josette was in the upper circles of the Otherworld. Surely that was true.

"I will call him Ayrim," the father squeaked. In his slight understand of the old language, he believed that the word ayrim meant, Worthy of sacrifice. It was a term he hard heard in connected with some of the heroes of old, for sometimes only the old language could describe a man fully enough. But he did not yet believe the very name he had given, and he prayed silently that this boy of his would be worth the loss of another, the loss of someone he loved so much. He could not yet see how Ayrim could possibly replace her, but he prayed with all his might that the child would, because Barrin Iylin knew that he could not last a day without Josette. Without Josette, he would not be able to survive at all.

He was wrong about the name Ayrim, for the word really meant, He who sacrifices. But that turned out to be just as prophetic.