Rhuna- Black City

by Barbara Underwood

  A short time later, Rhuna was able to sit up and look around as her breathing returned to normal, but her emotions were still in turmoil. She felt the residue of immense anger as if it had been her own emotion.

  “He was so angry!” Rhuna exclaimed. “Such anger I can’t begin to describe.”

  “You were gasping for air,” Lozira said, her face still contorted by fright.

  “What caused his anger?” Goram wanted to know.

  “I…I think he had to accept defeat,” Rhuna said, shutting her eyes tightly as she attempted to recollect the thoughts accompanying the terrifying digression into the Dark Master’s black psyche.

  “Accept defeat? Never!” Goram protested vehemently.

  “No,” Rhuna admitted. “Only temporarily. A set-back. Frustration. Something he did not plan or expect…”

  “That’s interesting,” Aradin said, giving Rhuna’s hand a quick, reassuring squeeze.

  “We should tell the representatives – later,” Aradin said, letting Rhuna lie against his chest to recover from the distressing experience.

  The long hot season continued unrelentingly, and Rhuna paid special attention to Lozira’s wellbeing in the second half of her pregnancy. She also inquired more frequently of Goll’s wellbeing and his sensitive skin condition. His headaches persisted, and Rhuna prepared an herbal tincture for him while Aradin fashioned a piece of dark glass set in thick twine to protect his eyes from the sunlight.

  “It is marvellous!” Goll laughed exuberantly when he tied the eyewear around his head and looked around. “I can see the distance clearly now!” he said looking out across the terrace. In that moment his attention was directed to something moving in the near distance. “I see guests arrive…” he exclaimed, and then looked more closely. “But perhaps something is wrong.”

  “What do you mean?” Aradin asked, walking outside to look down the track at the approaching caravan.

  “They behave as if they are uncertain,” Goll answered as he continued to look through his new dark eye glass.

  Rhuna and Aradin walked the familiar track from the inn to the trade route, ready to welcome guests as usual when Rhuna also noticed the confused and bewildered behaviour of the Farsan traders.

  “Welcome to our inn!” Aradin called out in his usual, friendly manner.

  The four men and three women looked expectantly at Aradin and Rhuna, some showing relief while others still frowned in consternation.

  “Do lead your camels into the holding area, and make yourselves comfortable!” Aradin continued his welcoming speech.

  “We are grateful,” said one of the men who appeared to be the oldest of the group. His beard was no longer pure black, and grey strands of long hair had fallen out from beneath his tan-coloured headwear. “We were afraid that we were lost,” he said, looking at the inn ahead, and then back at the trade route behind him.

  “Normally it would be difficult to get lost if you stay on the trade road, and it is so well-trodden that even a strong windstorm cannot diffuse the route,” said the older Farsan man, impressing Rhuna with his educated and eloquent use of the Atlan language.

  “Why did you think you were lost?” Aradin asked, helping the man lead his camel into the holding area.

  “We could not find the Black City!” he said with a burst of awkward laughter. “Can you believe that?”

  Rhuna and Aradin stared at the Farsan man, and then stared at each other.

  “The city is gone?” Rhuna asked with a trembling voice.

  The Farsan man looked at Rhuna with consternation for a brief moment.

  “It is not where we expected it to be,” he answered carefully. “We have traded there seven times during our trade journeys, and we know the exact location of every city and landmark along the trade route…”

  “But the Black City was not where it was last time you came by?” Aradin asked, his voice also slightly tremulous with excited emotion.

  “N-no,” the Farsan man shook his head and frowned.

  “Did something happen to it since we last came?” asked one of the women in the group.

  “This is the first we’ve heard of anything untoward happening there,” Aradin answered, and then ushered the guests into the lodging house with more words of hospitality.

  When the new guests had entered the lodging house, Rhuna and Aradin rushed back to the inn to share the intriguing and breathtaking news.

  “They said they couldn’t find the Black City!” Rhuna repeated as the Atlan representatives, Damell, Goram and Lozira, along with Goll, Yarqi and Mohandu quickly gathered in the main room of the inn.

  “It is not a navigational error?” asked Greeter of Friends.

  “No. They sound like experienced traders who are familiar with the trade route and all the places along it,” Rhuna answered.

  “They wondered if something happened to the city since their last visit,” Aradin added.

  “A most significant development!” Protector of Remembrance said, agog at the meaning of such a monumental event.

  “It’s something that Tozar did in the past – I know it!” Rhuna exclaimed, looking around at the wide-eyed faces of her family and friends.

  “Let us attempt to summon a vision of the city by means of the Gazing of the Waters,” suggested Stillness of the Lake. The other representatives immediately agreed and turned on their heels to follow Stillness of the Lake out of the main building. Rhuna and the others followed them through the garden and across to the smaller building where the Atlans had prepared a quiet and dark room for the special purpose of summoning visions by means of the Gazing of the Waters.

  “How could a city completely disappear?” Yarqi asked as they walked briskly through the garden.

  “If the city was destroyed in the past time period, then it would suddenly disappear from our time, wouldn’t it?” Aradin responded.

  “Indeed it would,” Damell said. Rhuna heard a distinct tone of excited triumph in her father’s voice.

  Rhuna waited impatiently in the corridor leading to the small room containing the water basin, wishing she could see past Damell and the Atlan representatives standing in front of the basin. A solemn silence fell upon everyone as Protector of Remembrance spoke a few hushed words of incantation to summon a vision by means of the Gazing of the Waters.

  The representatives remained silent until they turned around in unison to face the anxiously awaiting group in the corridor.

  “It is the same as before,” mumbled Protector of Remembrance. “No clear images, only distorted shapes and colours.”

  “What does that mean?” Rhuna asked, suddenly deflated and confused.

  “Perhaps the traders truly are lost; disoriented,” Damell suggested.

  “Or perhaps the summoning of visions shall be permanently disrupted due to the conflux of extreme and extraordinary energy currents at that site,” Goram suggested.

  Protector of Remembrance looked sharply at Goram and then nodded.

  “Perhaps,” nodded the white-haired Atlan.

  “How should we proceed?” asked Damell as they walked slowly back to the main building of the inn.

  “Let us question the traders when we share the evening meal to ascertain the reliability of their report,” Protector of Remembrance answered. “Then we shall wait several days,” he added.

  “For what?” Aradin asked impatiently. “Maybe we should just…go there and see for ourselves!”

  “Should these traders be in error and the city remains as before, we would put ourselves in mortal danger,” Protector of Remembrance said emphatically. “Remember the Mages’ rule to kill any Atlan in or near the city!”

  “He is right,” Goram said.

  “Traders journeying from the direction of the Black City visit us almost every day,” the senior Atlan continued. “We shall wait for the next caravan from that direction. Should they also report to us that they were unable to find the Black City, then we can be quite certain that the city is no longer.”
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  Rhuna tingled all over in anticipation as they shared the evening meal with the confused traders from Farsa who expressed relief at finding the old inn occupied by new proprietors.

  “Could it be that the city was shrouded in dust?” Damell asked carefully. “Was it very windy on the occasion of passing by the city’s site?”

  “No, no,” insisted the older man and his companions.

  Rhuna looked at the unusual group of traders, noting the women among them, two of them quite young.

  “We are a family enterprise,” the older man explained. “Just like you are.”

  “It is good when the family works together,” said one of the women.

  Rhuna agreed, and then enjoyed the evening of pleasant and interesting conversation.

  When the merchant family departed the following morning, Rhuna and Damell went to their private room, anxious to view the site of the Black City through The Infinite.

  “Be cautious as usual,” Damell admonished. “Should the disorienting vortex around the city still exist, you must return your Extended Consciousness immediately.”

  Rhuna breathed deeply several times to release some of the pent-up nervousness over the possibility that the Black City had disappeared. Then she reclined and closed her eyes to prepare her mind for the release of her Extended Consciousness. When she saw the warm yellow-beige sandstone of the inn from above, she willed herself to journey to the site of the Black City. Almost immediately, she felt awash in a turbulent whirlwind of lights and sounds which made her nauseous and dizzy. Disappointed, she forced herself to retreat and then willed her Extended Consciousness back into her body.

  Rhuna gasped several times when she opened her eyes and sat upright, realizing she had returned to her body too hastily, and attempted to awaken before her mind and body were perfectly united again.

  She breathed deeply to calm herself as she waited for Damell to return and open his eyes.

  “It hasn’t changed,” Rhuna said with dismay when Damell sat up.

  “No, it appears to be the same,” he said with a frown.

  “Maybe Goram is right,” Rhuna suggested hopefully. “The energy conflux might cause this vortex in The Infinite, as well as block visions summoned by means of the Gazing of the Waters.”

  “Yes, perhaps,” Damell said, standing up slowly. “We must await the next caravan from that direction to determine whether the site is truly void of the city.”

  “I think something did happen,” Rhuna said as they stood up. “My last experience of…mental connection…with the Dark Master was so dramatic, as if something happened to make him extremely angry.”

  “Yes, it is possible,” Damell agreed. “Yet his anger could also have been directed at any number of plans that were thwarted. Your earlier visions revealed he was frustrated that he could not return to our present time, for example.”

  Rhuna reluctantly admitted that her glimpses into the Dark Master’s angry thoughts were not enough to outline any particular event. She left the small room and directed her attention to several chores around the inn before the heat of the sun made them too laborious.

  The cool of the approaching night brought relief from the day’s heat, and the innkeepers expected a quiet evening without guests until Lozira called out from the upper level sleeping chamber.

  “There are moving torch lights on the trade route,” she said as she came down the stairs. “They are coming from the direction of the Black City!”

  Rhuna jumped up and dashed out onto the terrace so that she could see whether the torchbearers were coming up the track towards the inn.

  “They are coming!” Aradin called out to others. Everyone gathered on the terrace in anxious expectation of the arrival of traders travelling from the direction of the Black City. Mohandu quickly lit the torches around the terrace while Rhuna, Aradin, Damell and Goll walked towards the approaching caravan.

  “Greetings!” Aradin called as the traders dismounted their camels and looked around. Rhuna quickly noticed that the traders were from Varappa, and many of the men resembled Mohandu. They greeted Aradin and then Rhuna, speaking the Atlan language fluently. After some general introductions, the traders quickly offered some of their goods in exchange for food and accommodation.

  “Share our evening meal on the terrace,” Aradin said, ushering the visitors along the track towards the inn.

  “Last time, this inn was abandoned,” said one of the traders.

  “We thought we would have to sleep in the open tonight,” said another. “What good fortune that you are here and…ah! I smell delicious food already!”

  The traders cheered and expressed their delight over a good meal and comfortable bed.

  “Normally, we would spend the night at Etzina, the Black City,” began one of the traders. “But it has been abandoned.”

  “The Black City is abandoned?” Damell repeated slowly.

  They had reached the terrace where the Atlan representatives and all the others stood waiting.

  “In fact, the city is no more!” said one of the other Varappan traders. “All gone!” he gestured wildly with his hands.

  “All gone?” Aradin and Rhuna repeated.

  “We walked all around, looking through some mounds of rubble in case some buildings were left, but everything was covered in deep sand!” exclaimed another man using animated gestures.

  “Even the Black River is no more!” exclaimed one man, shaking his head in disbelief. “Only a ditch where it used to run. As if it had been like that for a very long time!”

  “Yes. That is why we arrived here later than usual. We wandered about, looking, searching for the Black City!” added another.

  “This is confirmation,” Protector of Remembrance said with awe. “The Black City is no more.”

  Rhuna’s heart thumped hard and heavy as the senior Atlan’s words penetrated her.

  “You did not know what happened?” asked one of the traders.

  “We heard about it from previous guests only a day past,” Aradin replied.

  “Only a day past?” The traders became still and looked puzzled.

  “How can a vibrant big city become a ruin in a matter of days?” asked one of them.

  “It was not a normal city,” Greeter of Friends said cautiously.

  “No, it was not,” the traders agreed.

  A lengthy silence ensued as everyone on the terrace contemplated the sudden disappearance of a busy city.

  “Come, eat!” Kiana called, breaking the uneasy quiet of the early night.

  When the traders had retired to the lodging house, and the table cleared of plates and bowls, Rhuna joined the others in the main room of the inn.

  “Did my father…” Lozira paused as a sob caught in her throat. “Did Harbinger of Solace succeed?” she asked no one in particular.

  Rhuna looked at the awe-struck and sombre expressions around her.

  “It appears he has succeeded,” said Protector of Remembrance, and then smiled kindly at Lozira.

  “How, I wonder,” Goram said with a frown.

  “He said he would try to communicate with us again,” Rhuna said.

  “Perhaps a visit to the site of the Black City is appropriate,” Protector of Remembrance said as he looked at the other Atlan representatives.

  “Yes. Let us go,” Goram agreed. “The conflux of special energy currents interests me greatly.”

  “We shall also make observations and report to the High Council of Atlán,” Stillness of the Lake said.

  “We want to see it, too,” Rhuna said, grabbing Aradin’s hand.

  “I must see the ruin to describe it accurately for the Depository’s archival records!” Goll added excitedly.

  “Can we all go?” Yarqi asked.

  “I’ll stay here with Shandi,” Kiana said. “I don’t want to see that place again, even if it is a ruin now.”

  “Me go with them to protect,” Panapu said, looking apologetically at Kiana.

  The Atlan represen
tatives quickly consulted with one another.

  “Greeter of Friends and I shall remain here with Kiana and the child,” Preserver of Faith said.

  “We must prepare to spend the night at the site of the ruin,” Stillness of the Lake said with a slight frown. “It is a full day’s journey from here.”

  “Let’s pack food and other necessary items right now, and leave at first light!” Aradin suggested.

  “Yes,” Goram said decisively. “Lozira shall ride on one of our camels,” he added, gently caressing Lozira’s protruding belly with a protective hand gesture.

  “Then let it be so,” said the senior Atlan as the group disbanded to make preparations.

  Rhuna awoke in the dark, sensing instinctively that the sun would begin its ascent very soon. She and Aradin dressed quickly in silence, took their bag of personal belongings and met the others in the main room. Before descending the stairs, Rhuna went into Kiana’s chamber to kiss her sleeping daughter on the head and signal to Kiana that they were departing. Outside, the first rays of sunlight peered over the low hills that surrounded the inn, causing a gentle cool breeze to drift across the expansive landscape.

  “We should walk briskly while it is still cool,” Damell suggested.

  Goram held the reins of the camel that carried Lozira in a comfortable saddle, while Aradin led the second camel that carried most of their supplies for two days of food and a night in the sandy wilderness. Goll wore his eyewear and a length of fine linen textile wrapped around his head and upper body, and Panapu swung his heavy club as he sauntered behind them.

  Before the sun had reached its zenith in the sky, their surroundings had changed drastically from frequent trees and grassy plains to rock, sand and a gravelly road. Despite the dry ground, many colourful wildflowers dotted the low rolling hills as far as they could see.

  “Drink plenty of water,” Protector of Remembrance admonished when they stopped for their first break. “The heat shall soon escalate, and our progress shall be slower and more laboured.”

  As expected, the second section of their journey was much more uncomfortable, yet everyone continued walking in silence at a steady pace until the time of their second rest stop. Rhuna noticed that the landscape had changed even more by the time the sun was descending, and she missed the colourful flowers and green grassy hills. Fine sand and small pebbles gave the landscape a pale yellow appearance like the sandstone blocks of the inn, and only a few ailing trees provided shelter for small animals and birds.