by Lori Hyrup
Aria leaned back and wrinkled her nose. “Are you serious? One person could control another?”
Kharra tapped her chin with the handle of her fork. “Not completely control, no, but the wearer of the bracelet was aware of the wearer of the necklace and could cause them pain just by thinking it. Some people used those devices to train other people to be obedient slaves.”
“What does that have to do with my situation?” Aria asked with a raised eyebrow.
“What if this bracelet you saw was similar but different?”
Aria shook her head. “I don’t follow.”
“What if this bracelet worked differently? Instead of controlling people, it allowed the wearer to control these shard beasts.”
Aria stared at Kharra. She slowly finished chewing the food in her mouth and swallowed. “No one controls shard beasts.”
Zephyron swallowed his own food, a thoughtful expression spawning on his face. He began nodding. He held up a finger toward Aria and said, “For the sake of this discussion, let us say someone did have the ability to control them. Then that person could send them after a target, say a kruusta. Should the kruusta die, people would think they did so in the line of doing their job. Would that be safe to assume?”
Aria frowned but nodded. “And if for some reason the attack failed,” she added, “then no one would be the wiser. It would just seem like another shard beast attack.” She studied Zephyron’s face. “Are you suggesting Priest Malechi tried to kill me?”
Sympathy filled Zephyron’s eyes, and he shook his head. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m merely theorizing based on the pieces displayed before me. I mean no offense.”
Aria pursed her lips. “No offense taken. Your theory may be correct, though I still don’t see how someone can control shard beasts.”
Zephyron’s eyebrows scrunched in disbelief. He had not expected her to agree. “Why would this priest want to kill you?”
Aria furrowed her brow and stared into the fire. “I think I stumbled onto something I shouldn’t have.”
“Like what?”
Aria collected her thoughts, and then for the next hour, she recited the history and doctrine of the order, information that every trainee and acolyte knew by heart before they graduated to become full-fledged kruustas or priests.
Long ago, in the early days of man’s life in Tanoria, a young man by the name of Therian Graymist awoke in the night to a dream so profound he could not shake it from his mind. Each night the dream returned. He grew more and more distracted, unable to complete even the simplest of chores. When asked by friends and family why he was in such a state, he answered, “It calls me.” When asked to clarify, he would simply repeat, “It calls me.”
Concerned that their beloved son and brother had succumbed to an illness of the mind, the Graymist family sent for a doctor. When the doctor arrived, Therian was nowhere to be found.
Unknown to the family, Therian had followed the call he alone could hear. Pausing only to catch brief moments of rest, the young man traveled through the wilds and eventually climbed the treacherous slopes of Mount Eishar. At a point where even he began to question his sanity, he came upon a vast cavern with walls and a ceiling rising some hundred feet overhead, blanketed with veins of crystal of all colors. From the middle of the cavern rose the most magnificent crystalline structure. Over thirty feet in height at its apex and nearly as wide around the base, the pyramid-shaped structure contained millions of sparkling facets. Natural skylights in the ceiling of the cavern caught the rays of Isor at all hours of the day and delivered the sun’s brilliant light to the giant shard below. The resulting meeting of light to crystal created a visual cacophony that radiated every color of the spectrum.
That was the Dragon Shard.
Spent physically, emotionally, and mentally, when his eyes at last came to rest on the Dragon Shard, Therian fell to his knees and wept. The weeping did not last, for a great surge of strength and energy flooded into the young man, and with it came understanding. This magnificent shard was a nexus point for the Great Consciousness, the mind of the world of Tanoria.
Therian become the first oracle of the Dragon Shard. Eventually word spread of this discovery, and others came to him. Acting as the voice of the Great Consciousness for those who could not hear it, he told the visitors about smaller shards spread across the land; they were giant crystals connected to the Dragon Shard and the Great Consciousness over vast distances.
Oracle Therian explained to his visitors, these pilgrims, that the shards were sacred but vulnerable—accessible and exposed for anyone to touch. In order to protect the shards, Oracle Therian asked these pilgrims to go find the shards and build around them protective structures. He told them that people should be able to visit and share in the splendor of the Great Consciousness, but he did not want human ignorance to bring the shards harm.
The pilgrims dispersed and found the shards. Around the shards people built temples, some grand and others small and humble. Some people demonstrated the potential to learn how to commune with the Great Consciousness using those shards. Thus formed the Order of the Shard and those people became the first priests of the order. Using the connection to the priests through the shards, the Great Consciousness conveyed its desires to the general populace.
Aria wet her throat with water and continued, “Over time, many people came to live near the temples. While some of those areas remain as tiny villages, other places have become large cities with populations in the multiple thousands. The village we met in, Murali, has a shard temple.
“A kruusta such as myself can commune with the shard on their own, but because that is not what we are trained to do, the communion is more difficult and less clear than for a priest. That is why we tend to leave the communing to them. Like kruustas, the priests are selected and taught from a young age. Their focus is communicating with the shards and interpreting the will and desires of the Great Consciousness so that other people can understand what is expected of them or receive answers to their prayers. Kruustas tend to get their assignments from a priest after their communion.”
Aria frowned. “After meeting you two and declining to act as your guide, I started second-guessing my decision.”
Zephyron raised an eyebrow.
The corner of Aria’s lips turned upward. She nodded. “Yes, I was having doubts.
“In any case, Priest Malechi pushed for me to allow him to do the communion for me, but I needed to commune on my own for personal clarity rather than just to receive an assignment.”
Aria looked Zephyron in the eyes, their blue depths threatening to swallow her.
“What I found disturbed me,” she said.
“What did you find?” Zephyron asked.
“The shard is in terrible pain, and it’s dying.” Her voice sounded strained to her own ears.
Zephyron held her eyes and said something she had not expected to hear. “I know.”
Aria blinked at him. “How?”
“In a moment. Finish your story first.”
Aria nodded. She finished her meal while she recounted the dialogue she had with Priest Malechi, the subsequent attack on the village, and her harrowing race to lure the drakes away.
Zephyron smiled at her. “That was an amazing feat you performed. You not only got them so far away that they would never be able to backtrack to Murali on their own, but you managed to kill two of them by yourself.”
Aria shrugged. “That’s my job.”
“From what you described, your performance seems a little beyond the normal job description. You said two or three kruustas are called to fight one drake, yet you took out two by yourself.”
Aria smiled, still unused to having such a casual, friendly conversation with anyone. “The same goes for you. Had you not come when you did, I would be dead right now. Xierex as well.”
“You can thank Kharra,” he said, gesturing with his head to the young woman. Caught at an awkward moment because she was taking a large
bite of her fish, Kharra’s eyes went wide. Zephyron watched Aria as if he was performing some sort of assessment. At last he continued, “She has the ability to sense things. She sensed your distress, so we came back as fast as we could. She was worried I wouldn’t get there in time.” He made the last statement seem as if they were sharing a private joke.
“Hey,” Kharra said, trying to cover her mouth, “that’s not fair.”
“I expected you two to be much farther away. You had a significant head start.”
Zephyron finished off his meal. “We were.”
Aria narrowed her eyes. “I know there are things you’re not telling me.”
Zephyron set his plate aside. Instead of responding to her statement, he said, “We still need a guide if you’re interested.”
With a sigh Aria pushed her blond hair back behind her ear. Too many moons had passed since she had last cut it. “I’m not certain I can, not now anyway. I need to return and find out what’s going on with the shard in Murali and how Priest Malechi is involved.”
“Understandable,” Zephyron responded. He sat there for a moment and then said, “Do you know if he has used shard beasts to attack the villagers before?”
“If that is what he is doing, I don’t think so. I only came out here to deal with a glimmer worm, which was just a minor annoyance that managed to cause a lot of destruction. No people were hurt. Someone would have mentioned anything larger attacking or if anyone had been injured.”
Rubbing his chin, Zephyron continued with his line of thought. “If he is the one controlling the shard beasts, then whatever is going on, his objective doesn’t seem to be targeted at the local people. He didn’t send those creatures after you until you found out something was wrong with the shard. I can sense the shard.” Zephyron paused.
Aria blinked at him a couple of times as she let his words sink in.
Zephyron continued. “In fact I can sense most of the shards in your land. Some areas have grown dim and others dark. To me, those two things say there is probably something larger going on. The situation will likely require a detailed investigation.
“Regardless of the objective, the villagers do not appear to be in any immediate danger, and since he sent three shard drakes after you, it’s safe to assume that if you do not return immediately, he will think they killed you.”
“If he was the one who summoned them,” said Aria.
“If he is the one who summoned them,” Zephyron conceded. “Our mission is vitally important not just for our people but likely for yours as well. If you help us with this, we promise to assist you here however we can to uncover what is going on with your shards.”
Aria picked up a twig from the ground, stood, and stretched out her legs. She winced at the pain in both her side and calf. She walked over to the edge of the firelight, twisting the tiny piece of wood between her fingers as she went. Her anger still simmered. She placed her hand over her bandaged side. The wound throbbed, partly in response to her anger and partly in response to the healing. While her crystal allowed her to heal fast, the process was always painful. The bigger the injury, the greater the pain.
As much as she wanted to deny it, Aria suspected that the assessment of Priest Malechi was accurate, that he had summoned the shard drakes to attack her. She wanted to do nothing more than confront the priest and show him the type of wrath only a kruusta could bring, to teach him why people feared her kind. Her rational side, however, agreed with Zephyron. Her gut told her something bigger was going on. She needed to get more information and a better perspective.
Turning to face the pair of travelers, Aria said, “Ei’ars’anu, the place you seek, is on the pinnacle of Mount Eishar, the very place that is home to the Dragon Shard. The place is dangerous. From what I was taught, something tragic happened there about a century ago. The Dragon Shard somehow became tainted and twisted. When it first happened, some people in the area were killed. Some transformed. Others were consumed. When the event was over, the area for leagues in every direction was overrun with all manner of shard beasts, some of which do not exist elsewhere.
“Today, no one journeys to Death’s Pillar, not even kruustas. To do so is suicide. Most of the shard beasts created during the event, as well as any spawn of that ilk, stay on the mountain. If any do come down, then people call for us to destroy them, but we don’t go into their lair to provoke the swarm.”
Aria studied first Zephyron and then Kharra to gauge their reactions, but neither face revealed what might lie beneath.
“Thank you for the information,” said Kharra. “What we seek is more valuable than either of our lives.”
Aria weighed the woman’s words and what she had observed about the two of them so far. Their attitudes and demeanor were not those of glory seekers or treasure hunters. They did not behave nor were they outfitted like mercenaries. At the same time, their cause was great enough for them to risk their lives.
With a mental nod to herself, Aria said, “I’ll guide you, but I have one condition. Four other kruustas have died in the past two weeks. With the exception of the Battle of Death’s Pillar, there has not been a time when so many died in such a short period. I’m afraid you may be right. Something bigger is at work here. I don’t know what, but I intend to find out. On our way we’ll pass through a number of other villages and cities with shard temples. I wish to investigate them as we travel.”
Both Zephyron and Kharra smiled and agreed to her condition. They happily welcomed her, a kruusta, into their company. They even expressed concern for her situation. These people fascinated her.
“It seems you were right,” Zephyron said over their small campfire.
Kharra nodded. She looked over toward the sleeping woman and frowned. “This isn’t exactly what I had expected when I said I thought we’d cross paths with her again.” She returned her attention to Zephyron and noticed he was studying Aria as if trying to solve a puzzle. Kharra’s mouth twitched up at the right corner, but she only waited silently.
The white-haired man looked up at his companion. “What?” he asked.
Kharra smiled and shook her head. “Nothing.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I know that look and that tone. What is it?”
“What are you trying to figure out?” she asked.
“Figure out? Nothing. I just find these kruustas fascinating.”
Kharra nodded and did not pry further. Kharra had seen Aria’s reaction when she and Zephyron had first clasped hands. The kruusta had sensed something from Kharra’s companion, and Kharra suspected Zephyron had sensed it as well.
Kharra stared into the fire and bit at her lip. She did not yet know why she was drawn to Aria, but she knew that her own fate somehow intertwined with that of the kruusta.
When Aria awoke the next morning, Kharra and Zephyron were up and packed for travel. They sat a short distance away, chatting casually. The dew had already burned off. Aria glanced up through the trees, but they obscured the sun. Kharra moved toward her.
“How are you feeling?”
Aria winced as she sat up. Her side burned. “Sore,” she said. She licked her lips. “And thirsty.”
Zephyron joined Kharra and handed Aria a canteen. She accepted the offering and took several long swallows.
“Sorry, I don’t usually sleep so late. Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”
Kharra’s expression grew concerned. “You were feverish. I hoped the additional sleep would help fight it off.”
Aria frowned. Feverish? Kruustas never got fevers.
“Do those shard drakes possess any type of venom or toxin? Like the prism wraiths?” Zephyron asked.
Aria shook her head. “No.”
Kharra frowned. “Your body is reacting to something,” she said. “The fever broke a little while ago, so I think the worst of the reaction is over. Would you mind me checking your wound before we leave?”
Aria shook her head again. She turned to her side and lifted her shirt. Kharra carefully un
wrapped the bandage. Her sharp intake of breath startled Aria. Zephyron moved closer and knelt beside her, his face appearing intense.
“What is it?” Aria asked as she stretched her neck to see. Her own breath caught. The wound had not only healed, but the area where it had been had crystallized.
Kharra reached out and touched the spot. “Hard, just like crystal. Can you feel me touching it?”
Aria nodded.
“Does this hurt you?” Kharra asked.
“It did last night but not now.”
Aria’s new companions stood, grabbed their packs, and waited, neither saying anything nor giving anything away in their expressions. Aria followed suit, gathering her own gear and packing it onto Xierex’s saddle. She offered to do the same for them. Once everything was secured, they headed out. Since neither of the other travelers possessed a mount, she decided to walk along with them. Aria made it a point to remind herself to purchase some horses at the next village; otherwise, their trek could be very long.
After a time Zephyron said, “The crystallization, that is a side effect of the crystal embedded into your hand?”
“Yes,” Aria answered.
Looking forward, Zephyron nodded. “If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the longer one has been a kruusta, the farther it spreads. It probably also ties in to how much power the kruusta draws from it. Am I correct?”
Over Kharra’s head, Aria studied the taller traveler out of the corner of her eye. Who was this man? Aria walked in silence for several moments, staring downward, though at nothing in particular. “Yeah,” she answered, her voice a whisper.
Kharra turned her head to regard Aria. “How far does it spread?”
Aria sighed and pursed her lips downward. “Eventually a kruusta is consumed by the crystal.”
Kharra simply watched her as if she knew Aria had omitted details.
Aria gave herself a mental shrug. It was not like the rest of Tanoria did not already know. After all it was the main reason why people feared kruustas. The only person not of the order to have ever truly treated her like a normal person was her brother, Delf, but he had died over two decades before. “When a kruusta is consumed, the person becomes what we call a krumetus, a monster that is no longer human. We call the process ‘conversion.’”
