V
The din in House Alder’s dining hall was as loud and chaotic as ever, the immense table filled to capacity with immediate family. Voices chattered, men, women, and children, glasses clinked, silverware clanked. Food was served, then eaten, rejected, or spilled in near equal proportions. Servants bustled about striving to keep flagons filled and the mess in check. How many conversations both friendly and heated competed for attention was anyone’s guess. Yet this was no holiday celebration, seasonal feast, or family reunion. It was just dinner, same as any other in House Alder.
It was Thorsday, so as usual Chef served roast boar. Large and meaty enough to satiate the entire clan, Chef broiled it whole on a spit in the Alder kitchens. Expertly seasoned, the meat moist and tender, its skin blackened and crisp but not burnt. With it came assorted vegetables, breads, and cheeses, homemade and imported. Potatoes from Kern — not the common white variety, but the large brown and yellow ones from the Northlands that tasted pre-buttered and fluffy. Choice local greens from Sanderson’s farms, corn and apples brought upriver from Dover. Biscuits baked in the kitchens, sourdough and whole-wheat, both made that morning and drowned in fresh butter. The tasty gravy poured over most everything was spiced with red peppers and tomato and sweetened only Chef knows with what.
The feast was served on heavy earthenware plates, square and colorful, a specialty of the Lomerian kiln-masters. The diners ate with silver forks, knives, and spoons, one set to each, polished so thoroughly they cast a reflection. Some of the men forewent the family cutlery and carved their meat with personal knives, some exotic, others utilitarian, almost all made of some variety of steel. Each diner had a water cup and a glass flagon for wine or mead. Pitchers filled with clear water from one of the Alder wells and chilled with shaved ice brought down from the mountains lined both sides of the table. A long sideboard held an array of desserts, homemade, local, and imported, ranging from delectable pastries and choice, fresh fruits, to whipped cream and assorted pies.
The matriarch of the House, Mother Alder, as everyone called her, perched at the table’s head, bejeweled at neck, wrist, ears, and fingers with baubles, pretentious and gaudy. A shapeless black silk gown engulfed her slim form, which always seemed to smell of mothballs, though none were present in the house. Her coloring and features, subtlely different from most Lomerians, marked her of far eastern origin to those of sharp eye and worldly ways, and her sultry twang confirmed her foreignness to all but the most dense. Where most Lomerian nobles would labor to lose such an accent, she took pride in it and dared anyone to look down on her for it. Marriages to foreigners were as common as dirt in the cosmopolitan city of Lomion, but scandalous amongst the great Houses, excepting for arranged nuptials with properly placed nobles of other realms. Whether hers was arranged or not was not commonly known, perhaps due to the passage of years, though unlikely tales abounded, one more scandalous than the next. Thankfully, her brood inherited few of her foreign traits, so they appeared properly Lomerian as noble folk should.
She glared at once with pride and disapproval at her progeny as she sat her throne, a ponderous oaken thing that nearly swallowed her. The massive armchair was an ornate affair, adorned with hand-carved engravings and cushioned with soft, tufted leather pillows stuffed with goose feathers imported from Ferd. The dining hall’s other chairs, though smaller and less ornate, matched it in style and color, and complemented the room’s decor, accoutered as it was with its thick-top, oaken trestle table, antique sideboards, glass curio cabinets, gleaming wood planked floor, tray ceiling, and fresh painted walls abounding with ornate mouldings and exquisite tapestries.
Mother Alder’s brother, Rom, sat at her right hand, tall, gaunt, and sullen. He was the younger sibling by some years, but looked at least twenty years her senior. Mother Alder’s youngest son, Bartholomew, overlarge and vacant, slouched at her left. Sundry other descendants and in-laws lined the lengthy board for the evening's repast. Two highchairs confined the youngest grandchildren in the brood to exile in the room’s back corner where their carrying on barely reached Mother Alder’s ears and hardly annoyed her at all.
At the table’s far end sat the Chancellor of the Kingdom of Lomion, Barusa, eldest son of Mother Alder, though he too looked some years her senior. Oblivious to the din that surrounded him, his attention focused on the pile of choice meat stacked high on his plate where no vegetables dared venture.
Mother Alder picked up the silver bell devoid of any trace of tarnish that resided beside her place setting and rang it in practiced fashion. Before she set it down, the room went silent, its occupants still, even the children. A wooden gavel sat by her other hand; the tabletop gouged from its use, though she spared it that night. An uneasy tension filled the air and grew by the moment as Mother Alder silently judged each face in the room.
Though the servants kept their eyes downcast, those of each family member shifted to Mother Alder as she spoke. “As we have each ten-day since their departure, tonight my dears we bow our heads in solemn prayer to the one true god,” she said, her voice haughty, sultry, and strong, though a bit gravely, better hinting at her years than did her youthful, comely face, “and beseech the safe return of Bartol, Blain, and our dear Little Eddy.”
“Lift now your flagons to drink their health,” she said, making a holy sign across her chest, “and may the good Lord forgive our transgressions in so doing.”
“Here, here,” said the family.
“Edith,” said Mother Alder, addressing one of the grandchildren, a slim girl no more than twelve. “Stand and recite the prayer.”
Edith bounced to her feet and pulled a small leaf of paper from her pocket, wrinkled and discolored from years of service. She held it before her. “Dear Lord,” she said, carefully enunciating each word, “bless House Alder and all those who dwell within. Bless Mother—”
— A sharp intake of breath and a startling groan of pain burst from Mother Alder. All eyes flicked to her. Edith fell silent. Mother Alder’s torso went rigid, and her hands crushed the arms of her chair, her knuckles white. She reached out to Bartholomew and met his gaze, her eyes wide, almost in a panic, a look wholly uncharacteristic. “Bring me the Alder Stone, now.”
Bartholomew froze. He didn’t seem to know what to do.
“Mother,” said Barusa as he rose to his feet. “What is it? Are you not well?”
Bartholomew reached out a hand and gripped her forearm, but she swatted him away. “Go, now!” she said, glaring at him.
Bartholomew hefted himself to his feet and waddled from the room with as much speed as he could muster, several servants following.
Barusa arrived at his mother’s side. “I sense contact,” she said to him.
“What do you mean?”
“Another Seer seeks me, you fool,” she said through grated teeth, wincing, her face white, sweat beading on cheeks and brow. “Someone of power and fueled by urgency. They’re attempting to contact me telepathically. I know not who they are, but they lack control for the contact is jarring and painful. They know not their own strengths. I can’t even tell for certain if this is meant to be a message or an attack.”
“What can we do?” said Barusa.
“Nothing until Bartholomew returns. The spell she’s using is too wild, I need the stone to help me focus and control it. Until then, I have to block it out.”
Some moments later, servants opened the dining hall’s door and Bartholomew gingerly stepped through carrying an ornate box — a cube, more than a foot across, plated in gold and studded with emeralds, citrine, and obsidian. That box had housed House Alder's Seer Stone for years beyond count, handed down from mother to daughter through the centuries. The Alder Stone, a priceless treasure, rare and powerful. Despite its import, the true account of its origin had long faded from family memory, and if ever recorded was lost in the great fire of ten generations back.
Bartholomew gripped the box in both hands and pressed it tightly to his chest. Servants hovered on each side, pillows cupped in their hands and held low, ready to cushion the precious box’s fall should it spill from Bartholomew’s grip. Other servants frantically cleared the place setting in front of Mother Alder. Bartholomew carefully placed the box before her.
She looked up and nodded to him, a signal to remove the box’s cover.
He fiddled with some concealed lever on one side and then the other, then carefully lifted the box. The top and sides detached from the base. As the box rose, the scent of red cedar wood, the box’s base material, filled the air.
Revealed within was a crystal sphere some nine inches in diameter, of emerald tint, transparent, yet cloudy and murky of depth, filled with swirling mists of green, yellow, and black. A Seer Stone. The Alder Stone. One of the rare few known, a survivor from the first age of Midgaard, the Age of Myth and Legend. An artifact possessed of powers deep and mysterious, its full potential rarely imagined even by its learned masters. Its surface, generally smooth and polished, though pitted and scratched here and there, but whether from age or careless use in times past, or marred by wild magics it had weathered, who could say? Something radiated from it — a strange thing. They couldn’t see it, hear it, or smell it, but bizarrely, they tasted it. Those within twenty steps of the stone suffered a heavy taste of iron in their mouths, tinged with something bitter, not easy to define. It dripped from the inside of their cheeks and clung to their tongues, relieved only by cleansing the palate with salty or sweet food or drink. Those closest to the stone tasted it the strongest, those farthest barely at all. From the stone also emanated a strange underlying vibration that afflicted all those that came too near — an eerie phenomenon that churned the stomach and oft set teeth to chattering.
Mother Alder breathed deep the pleasant scent of the red cedar and even welcomed the familiar bitter iron byproduct of the stone’s esoteric magics. She gazed deeply into the Alder Stone though she did not touch it. “A message,” she said, relief in her voice. “Not an attack. Someone seeks an audience.” She looked at the family, all standing about, concern on many faces, keen interest on all. “Best you get gone now, dearies.”
The family and most of the servants filed from the room without discussion or protest, some eager to leave, practically fleeing; others stepped out only reluctantly. Barusa, Rom, and Bartholomew remained, though each stepped back several feet, giving the Alder Stone wide berth. Two servants remained as well and hovered nearby, curious jars and white towels in hand. Mother Alder motioned to one of them. “Prepare the stone, carefully,” she said. “Miss not a single spot.”
The servant opened one of the jars that he clutched, dabbed the end of a special towel inside, coating it in a thick, green, but translucent gel, which he then used to vigorously polish the Alder Stone as Mother Alder looked on. Strangely, the stone somehow absorbed the green unguent as quickly as he applied it. It made the stone shine brighter and somehow its depths appeared the clearer. The servant grew paler by the moment and sweat beaded on his brow. The gel expended, the servant staggered a step or two and violently vomited, dousing a wide stretch of the floor with his stomach’s contents. Mother Alder shook her head in disgust and displeasure, though she didn’t look at all surprised. The second servant rushed up and began polishing the stone, this time with a yellow salve, thick and pungent, smelling of fruit and sugar.
Mother Alder noted a flutter in a nearby tapestry. When she looked over, she saw shoes jutting from beneath its bottom edge. Someone hid behind it, a child from the look of the shoes. “Get out from there, now,” she shouted.
The tapestry parted and Edith peeked out, terror on her face. “I’m sorry, Mother Alder,” she said, her words barely audible. “I want to stay. Please let me; I’ll keep quiet. I want to watch.”
“Do you now?” she said, eyeing the girl. “That’s a brave lass, or a foolish one. Which is it then, I wonder?”
Bartholomew put a hand on Edith's shoulder.
Mother Alder glared at him, then looked back at Edith. “Have you seen me use the stone before?”
“No, Mother Alder. Father says I’m too young.”
“Perhaps you are, lass, but perhaps you’re not.”
“I’ve watched the soothsayers in the market use their stones plenty of times. I’m not afraid. Nothing to be afraid of, if you ask me.”
“Ah, foolish then,” said Mother Alder. “The market soothsayers are tricksters. They pronounce false predictions for money. Their stones are common glass or cheap crystal — they’ve no power at all.”
“How do you know this?” said the girl. “They seem real enough. They foretell things.”
“When you watch them, do the people crowd close to get a keen look into the stones?”
“Yes, always. People fight to get closest. I’m not usually able to get close at all. When I’m older, I’ll push through to the front, then I’ll see everything.”
“When the crowd gets close and stays there, that’s when you know for certain that the stone is a fake. The magic locked in a real Seer Stone repels common folk. People inch away from it. It makes them nauseous if they linger too long or stray too close. You’ve just seen that for yourself,” she said, gesturing toward the servant who still retched in the corner. “It makes one feel morbid. They feel as if their life, even their soul, is being drained away. People shrink from real Seer Stones.”
“That’s why you always send the family away.”
“Aye. This girl has promise,” she said looking to the others. “Must take after her mother.”
The yellow salve expended, the servant stepped away and staggered to a far corner of the room, obviously fighting to keep his nausea in check. The first servant was back now, a jar of black gel in hand. He set to polishing the stone with it, a fresh cloth employed for the duty.
“I promise you, you’ll never see a real Seer Stone on a street corner or in Lomion’s market, deary,” said Mother Alder. “There are very few true stones left in the world, if ever there were many. All are held by powerful Seers, great Houses, or Arch-Wizards. The Elves have a stone or two, legend says, as do the Svarts, if any of them even still exist. Some great kings are rumored to have one too, though I doubt the truth of that. No my dear, I’m afraid the Alder Stone is the only one you’ll ever see.”
“Have you ever seen another, Mother Alder?” said Edith.
“Not in all my years. That's why the Alder Stone is so precious. That's why we guard it so closely. It can never be replaced. It gives our House power that other Houses can only dream of. That’s why they hate us, you know. Jealousy, envy, it drives them mad, the scum.”
“So if the other stones aren’t real, does that mean all the other Seers are fakers?”
“Not all of them. A Seer Stone doesn’t make a woman a Seer; it merely enhances the powers she was born with. A true Seer catches glimpses of the future and can commune with others over a distance — no stone required. Some few can even use plain glass spheres or crystal balls, as the commoners call them, to aid their skills, though the objects have no magic of their own. Mayhaps a few of your market soothsayers are of that ilk. Lomion has its share of Seers of varied skills, though none of them can match an Arch-Seer equipped with a Seer Stone.”
The servant stepped back from the Alder Stone, his polishing completed. A sickly green pallor hung across his sweating face; his eyes watery and bloodshot. He bowed stiffly to Mother Alder, turned, and took but two steps before collapsing face first to the floor.
The stone pulsed with a brighter light and more shine than ever, its original emerald color fully intact.
“Enough lessons for today,” said Mother Alder. “The stone is ready, so it’s time to begin. You’ll feel sick for certain if you linger any longer. Are you sure that you want to stay, deary?”
“I’ll stay,” said Edith. “I’m not afraid.”
“Brave lass. That’s good. We’ll see if your courage holds.”
Mother Alder’s face drew into rigid concentration, and her brow furled as she reached out with both hands, fingers spread and crooked, toward the Alder Stone. Just before her fingers touched the stone, streaks of white light leapt from them to the stone's surface, and similar streaks erupted within the stone, in dazzling, undulating patterns interrupted by multicolored swirling mists. When her fingers grasped the stone, a shooting pain careened across Mother Alder’s head. She jerked back and winced as it shot in streaks from her temples to the nape of her neck. She groaned and gritted her teeth, but mercifully, the pain soon passed.
Of a sudden, the room went hot; the air turned muggy and thick and reeked of old mothballs. A grating, high-pitched buzzing began, but whether it came from the stone or elsewhere was impossible to determine.
Barusa winced and stepped farther back, as did Bartholomew and Edith, though Rom held his ground, seemingly immune to the stone’s affects. Edith went all green, doubled over, and vomit shot from her mouth, drenching her uncle's shoes, as well as her own. Mother Alder didn’t notice, all her attention focused on the Alder Stone.