The Lost Princess of Aevilen

by D. C. Payson

  “You are to be cordial and to treat her as a friend,” instructed Alana. “Of course, you must also be sure that she never places Julia in danger.”

  “Then she will be with us?” asked Entaurion.

  “No; you will be with her. She intends to take Julia to the mountain monastery.”

  “It pleases me to see you again, Julia!” Balyssa called. Her glow was not visible in the daylight, though her skin looked even whiter and her eyes more richly purple than they had the night before. “My most beautiful Dancer has cleared the skies above and offers us a gentle breeze for our travels.”

  Alana stepped forward into Balyssa’s path and offered a shallow bow. “Goddess’s bounty to you today, Balyssa.”

  Balyssa acknowledged Alana with a quick nod of her head, then she refocused her attention on Julia. “Shall we go?”

  “I am ready,” said Julia. “These two Guardians are coming with us to keep us safe.”

  “I am Engar,” Engar declared, marching to the front of the group. “Guardian Warrior and Blacksmith’s Apprentice. I am stronger than a borum and swifter than a kwia, and I am honored to be protecting the Vorraver Julia!”

  “Very well,” said Balyssa. “If you are the one chosen—”

  “I am Entaurion, and I will also be joining you,” said Entaurion. He looked over at Engar and shook his head disapprovingly.

  “So, it is the four of us, then?” Balyssa said, examining the two Guardians. “Alana, I trust that, when asked, these Guardians will give me room to speak with Julia privately?”

  “They are going with you to protect her,” Alana replied coolly. “At her request, they may let off slightly, but never so far as to risk failing in their duties.”

  “Do not worry,” said Balyssa. “I do not expect anything so exciting to happen today.” She beckoned Julia, Entaurion, and Engar to follow her. “Come. It is time to go.”

  “Be safe,” said Alana as they formed up to leave. “And may the Goddess watch over you.”

  Julia waved goodbye. Many of the women and young men in the town furtively watched as the four made their way through the courtyard, sneaking glances as their labors allowed.

  “I think they’re looking at us,” Julia muttered under her breath, leaning toward Engar.

  “Indeed!” said Engar, puffing out his chest. “They’re wondering how you got so lucky as to have such fine company.”

  “Is that so?” Julia asked, her tone thick with sarcasm.

  Engar looked back at Julia and burst out laughing. He shrugged.

  Entaurion rolled his eyes.

  “Oh, lighten up, Entaurion,” chuckled Engar. “All that time in the guardhouse has made you dull! You should come join me back at the forge—we’ll bang a little metal around like true Guardian men and see if we can’t beat some humor back into you!”

  “My friend,” said Entaurion, shaking his head, “with all the hot air you bellow, it’s a wonder you even need a forge.”

  Engar laughed loudly again and gave Entaurion a friendly whack on the back. The guard opened the main gates as they approached, exchanging salutes with the party as they passed.

  “We are not going to the monastery quite yet,” said Balyssa. “There are things to do in the forest, first.”

  “Uh, like what?” Julia asked, surprised.

  “There are many hidden things, young Vorraver, that you must learn to see.”

  Julia tried to wrap her mind around Balyssa’s words. “Nothing too dangerous, right?”

  “The forest is safe for you; you need not worry. And we have two great warriors traveling with us, besides.”

  Julia looked behind at Engar and Entaurion, who seemed to be embroiled in the sort of whisper-argument Julia and her brother used to have in the back of the family car. She laughed.

  At the intersection with the main road, Balyssa led them south, away from the bridge, and deeper into the forest. They followed the road for the better part of an hour, reaching a particularly dense area well out of earshot of the river. Then, without clear cause or warning, Balyssa stopped. “Here we are,” she declared.

  Entaurion scanned the trees around them. “But—”

  “Say nothing,” Balyssa commanded. “This is part of her training.”

  Entaurion was taken aback by the hushing; he scowled but obeyed.

  Balyssa came around to Julia’s side. “What do you see here?” she asked.

  Julia looked around at the trees. As she had noted several days before, the great majority were very old conifers with gnarled bark and patches of green moss. Thick vines climbed across trunks and limbs, and there were holes in some of the trees or jagged edges where branches had broken off. The forest floor was blanketed by low-lying plants and dead needles, amid which a few new trees had taken root. Looking through the deep green canopy, Julia could see occasional patches of streaming light and blue sky when the wind pushed the treetops apart. However, no matter where she looked, she couldn’t see anything unusual.

  “I see the trees,” she finally replied. “And treetops with branches swaying in the wind.”

  “What else?” Balyssa pressed.

  “And, uh, some patches of sky above?”

  “Are there any animals? Any birds?”

  Julia scoured the upper reaches of the canopy for another minute, then shook her head.

  Balyssa nodded. “Alright then.” She turned to face the two Guardians. “Entaurion, Engar, may I ask you to wait here a moment?”

  “Why?” asked Engar. “Where are you going?”

  “I wish to take Julia up the road only a very short way,” Balyssa replied. “I need her to focus, and I fear that being near you might break her concentration.”

  Entaurion looked at Julia. “Are you alright with this?”

  “I guess so,” said Julia. “I mean, it’s why we’re out here. Thank you for looking out for me, though.”

  “We will stay nearby, watching closely,” Entaurion said. “Call if you need us.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Engar said in Balyssa’s direction.

  Balyssa ignored him. She turned and began walking farther down the road. “Come, Julia,” she called. “This way.”

  Julia followed. She was relieved when Balyssa came to a stop only a hundred feet or so from where they had been.

  “Look back, and you will see Engar and Entaurion,” Balyssa said, her voice hushed. “And they can still see us. I only wished to get far enough away that we could speak privately.”

  “Why can’t they hear us?” Julia asked.

  “Because it is best that they not know—not yet, anyway—about what I am going to teach you.”

  Julia raised her eyebrows.

  “You doubt yourself, but you are very special,” Balyssa said. “Your necklace is a powerful artifact to which only the Vorravers are attuned. As I told you before, it is a key. But it’s also more than that. It is enchanted with the energies of both the Goddess and the Shaper, and so it gives you power in both of their spheres.”

  Julia looked down at her necklace. “Power in their spheres? What does that mean?”

  “It means that once you learn to focus, to draw on the energies of the artifact, stone and earth, wood and plants, and all of the many creatures that fill the domains of the Goddess and the Shaper will be open to you. You will not be able to control them as if you were a god, but you will be able to hear them, understand them, and learn from them.”

  Julia felt a strange conflict within her. These words seemed absurd; yet as she listened, she sensed that she already knew what she was hearing. The same intuition had come over her many times since arriving in Aevilen.

  Hear them. Understand them. Learn from them.

  “That is how I came to understand the letters my grandmother wrote,” Julia said, her tone reflecting her budding epiphany. “And the language … ”

  “That’s right,” said Balyssa. “The paper shared its memory of what was pl
aced on it many years ago, and your necklace enabled you to hear and understand those words. You should also be able to understand creatures that the Goddess created, like the Sylvan. The same holds true for the Shaper and his Rokkin. But your powers do not end with understanding these creatures; as I said before, all of the Goddess’s and the Shaper’s domains are open to you.”

  “What does that mean?” Julia asked.

  Balyssa pointed to a particularly large tree just off the road. “Go place your hand against that tree. Open yourself to it.”

  Julia walked over to the big tree. She let her gaze fall loosely on its trunk. As her mind relaxed, she began to see the tree in ways she had not before: agedness and wisdom in the bark; vitality and life in the artery-like roots reaching into the earth; playfulness in the needles dancing in the wind above. Feeling centered, she reached out and placed her hand gently against the side of the tree and closed her eyes. Her necklace came to life, its warmth spreading across her chest. Suddenly a great tsunami of sensations overcame her. She felt like she was being pushed and pulled in a million different directions, and a great cacophony of sound and a blur of shapes overwhelmed her ability to make sense of any one in particular. Countless eyes flashed scenes from all around her, producing an overlapping mosaic of sky, branches, needles, and the forest floor.

  She gasped and pulled away from the tree, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. “What was that?” she exclaimed.

  “You were sensing what that tree senses,” said Balyssa.

  Julia put a hand on her chest, still trying to catch her breath. “Trees don’t have eyes, and I was seeing a million things all at once.”

  “That tree may not have eyes like yours, but it is very sensitive to light. Every one of those needles above can sense very small changes in the composition and intensity of the light hitting it. When you attune to the tree, you experience that as sight.”

  “Amazing,” said Julia, looking up at the vast blanket of green needles in the canopy above.

  “You need to learn to focus your experiences. Much as you have learned to focus your own sight, smell, and hearing, you need to limit your attunement to the tree so that you gather only as much as you can understand.”

  Julia nodded. “I-I think I get it.”

  “Good. Touch the tree again. This time, try to look down at us from the needles on a nearby branch.”

  Julia spotted a suitable lower branch and tried to keep a picture of it in her head as she closed her eyes. She placed her hand against the tree again, and soon her mind was flooded with physical sensations, sights, and sounds. This time, however, she didn’t detach; she wrestled with the overwhelming amount of sensory information, trying desperately to control it. She found the branch and tried to hone in on its outputs. It was like trying to hear whispers in a noisy hallway, but she refused to give up. Each time she felt herself losing control, she forced herself to refocus. Slowly, over what was probably seconds but felt like hours, the tide began to turn. She was able to block the branches on the other side, then the canopy above, then the trunk of the tree, until finally all that remained was the target branch and its many needles. Julia then relaxed her mental grip on the needles and let their individual outputs combine into an expansive view of the forest on that side. It was like seeing through an undistorted fish-eye lens. She looked down at herself from sixty feet above, awestruck by the experience.

  “That was incredible,” Julia said breathlessly as she pulled away from the tree. “I could see so much.”

  “Well done,” said Balyssa. “Now I have another test for you. Let us return to Engar and Entaurion. I want you to try again to tell me what is in the trees around them.”

  Julia nodded firmly. “Let’s do it.”

  Julia and Balyssa walked back to the two Guardians, who seemed grateful for their prompt return.

  “You know, if you had told us that all you were going to do was have a quick chat and rub a few trees, I think I would have felt a bit less concerned about letting you go,” said Engar.

  “Well, I’m glad you let me go,” Julia said. “It was—”

  Balyssa held up a hand. “Guardians, can you turn around for just one moment?”

  The Guardians looked at each other, confused.

  “Is this what you would like, Julia?” Entaurion asked.

  “Yes, Entaurion,” Julia replied, sensing that it was a part of her upcoming test. “It’s okay.”

  “As you wish,” said Entaurion.

  “What happened to telling us what’s going on?” asked Engar, frowning.

  “I’m sorry guys, just a bit longer,” said Julia. “Please?”

  The two Guardians turned around, giving their backs to Julia and Balyssa.

  Balyssa drew very close and whispered into Julia’s ear, “Use what you’ve learned to look into the forest around us. Tell me what you see.”

  Julia moved over to a nearby tree. She placed her hand against the trunk as she had before, and almost immediately felt the rush of sensory experiences. She focused on the needle clusters to get a view from above, but even going branch-by-branch around the tree she couldn’t see anything unusual. She decided to listen for sounds. The needles were too sensitive to allow her to distinguish sound from wind, so she switched to the trunk. For a few moments, she let the sounds of the forest fill her: swaying branches, a scurrying, squirrel-like critter on a nearby tree, a bird calling from overhead. Then she heard something else: the birdsong-like sounds of Sylvan. They were too faint for her to resolve, but even muffled whispers were enough to rekindle the fear she had felt her first day in the forest. She disengaged from the tree and looked back at Balyssa.

  “Do not worry,” whispered Balyssa, her voice calm. “They will not harm you.”

  After taking a moment to collect herself, Julia placed her hand on the tree again. She used the trunk to isolate the sounds, then she switched to the needles in order to see the hiding creatures. Sure enough, camouflaged nearly perfectly against a nearby tree were two small Sylvan. They were very still, and they seemed to be watching Julia and her companions with great interest.

  Julia opened her eyes and looked at Balyssa.

  “There are two Sylvan over there,” Julia whispered as she pointed over to where she had seen them.

  “Entaurion,” called Balyssa with a full voice. “Can you turn around, please?”

  Entaurion complied, though his scrunched face betrayed a growing frustration.

  “What did you see in the trees?” asked Balyssa.

  “Now you wish to know?” he grumbled.

  “Yes,” said Balyssa.

  Entaurion shook his head and gestured toward a tree nearby. “There was a Sylvan in a tree over there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, quite sure.”

  Balyssa turned toward Julia. “So, Julia, what did you see?”

  “Um, I saw two Sylvan in that area. One clinging to the trunk about three-quarters of the way up, and another lying against an adjacent branch.”

  Entaurion’s expression changed in an instant, from annoyed to surprised. He looked up at the tree and squinted, then he took a few steps to his right and looked again. “Well scouted,” he said quietly. He tipped his hood at Julia. “I would not have thought it possible that you might see something in this forest that I could not.”

  Engar spun around and cheered. “Hoorah! Well done! Perhaps now Entaurion will stop mocking my eyesight!”

  “You can barely see the trees,” Entaurion muttered.

  “Indeed, well done,” said Balyssa. “A god’s favor is no small thing. Now that you are aware of your power, I believe that the secrets of the monastery will reveal themselves to you. We will go there now, but we must hurry. I believe the Administrator expects us back before nightfall.”

  As Balyssa began walking down the road, Julia looked up one last time at the tree she had touched. She marveled at the thought that she had been able to connect
with it and share its experiences. And yet, this power had not come free of cost. It was connected to the necklace, which Balyssa had used to summon her here against her will. Now, Balyssa had introduced her to an incredible ability, but what did it mean? Why was Balyssa helping her? The wheels of fate were turning, and Julia was beginning to understand that she had been assigned a role in what was coming. The road ahead would lead to the monastery, yes, and hopefully to the hidden “Champion’s Gate” Balyssa sought. But would that be the end? She could only hope.

  The trees cast their shadows over the forest floor, the ever-shifting light offering a steady stream of illusions coming into and out of existence. Julia turned to follow Balyssa, breathing in deeply.

  I am in control of my destiny, she tried to convince herself. This road is going to lead me home.

  The sun was high overhead in central Aevilen when Lothic and Thezdan approached Domin’s stone house. Set into a hillside south of Riverstride, the home stood out in the landscape as the only intact structure amid a sea of derelict buildings. In all directions were the remnants of homes and businesses abandoned in the last Purge, some having been burned by the People’s Army but most having been left to rot, their thatched roofs long since caved in from years of inattention. In times past, this had been a famously beautiful part of Aevilen, known for its stone terraces built into the hills. Whereas once those terraces had teemed with flowering plants and fruits, now Lothic and Thezdan could barely see the stones beneath the thick vines and brush that spilled over them.

  “We are almost there, Eodan,” Lothic announced in a forlorn monotone.

  “Is everything alright?” Thezdan asked, sitting up and wiping the grog from his eyes.

  “ … Yes,” said Lothic. “We’re close now, and we need to be alert.”

  Thezdan realized that Lothic probably hadn’t been through here since before they fled the Trebain. “It is not only the South, you know. Much of the North and West have suffered the same fate.”

  “I’ve heard that report from Sinox, too,” Lothic replied. “Still, I was not prepared to see it like this.”

  Thezdan caught sight of a charred ruin just off the road, a simple hearth and stone floor all that remained of the home. The iron pot hanging in the hearth brought him back to his boyhood in the Trebain, when his mother would cook fragrant stews as he played with his carved wooden faeron on the floor.