“So,” Harlim continued, “You’re looking for Mage City.”
“Have you heard of it?”
“Of course I have,” the old man nodded. “As you might’ve guessed, I once lived here. It was so long ago that your Kingdom…”
Seeing that the old man was deliberately pretending not to remember the name, Hadjar prompted him with a quick “Lidus.”
“That’s right, Lidus.” There was a gleam of amusement in his eternal eyes. Once a cultivator became a Spirit Knight, they acquired an absolute memory, let alone an Immortal. “Anyway, Lidus didn’t exist yet. But there were already legends about Mage City. It would seem that, shortly before I was born, two red comets streaked across the sky and thousands of adventurers went off in search of it.”
Harlim’s eyes were looking at the past. Fragrant smoke swirled above his head and graying hair. Hadjar wondered if he could have changed his appearance, or if he was stuck in an old man’s body forever.
“No one came back,” Harlim finished.
“Soon, the comets will once again converge on the horizon,” Hadjar said. He lit his pipe, too. He didn’t ask for some of Harlim’s tobacco, though he was curious about what the Immortal was smoking. However, the old man didn’t offer him any. “Aren’t you curious?”
“Curious?” Harlim asked in surprise, then laughed. “I’m sorry, young man, I forgot you aren’t from my country. Curious... Mage City can’t provide me with anything that would help me understand the Laws better.”
It was Hadjar’s turn to look surprised. “The Laws?”
Harlim just smiled and shook his head:
“Some knowledge should only come in due time. It’s too early for you to be thinking about the Laws. “
They sat in silence for a while. Hadjar watched Azrea eagerly tearing into the huge, dead dragon with her tiny claws. She did it without even thinking about it. Nearby, watching the tigress, lay the mighty cheetah. The power it radiated was beyond Hadjar’s comprehension.
By the gods, that beast was much stronger than Azrea’s mother had been.
“What about the elixir of the gods?” Hadjar inquired, to break the silence.
“I’m in no hurry to become a god,” Harlim answered. “I don’t believe there’s anything in this world you can get for nothing in return. Everything comes at a price, young man. The more valuable the thing you desire, the higher the price.”
Surprisingly, his words plunged Hadjar into the past. He saw the Royal Palace of Lidus, and Primus, covered in blood, standing in front of him. For decades, all he’d wanted was revenge on his parents’ killer. By the demons, the price had been higher than he’d been willing to pay.
“You have cracks in your heart, young man,” Harlim said, his voice sounding as if it were coming from underwater, “Try to heal them, or you’ll stumble on the path of cultivation. Your search for Mage City would be more fruitful if you started at the Stone Trees oasis.”
Hadjar emerged from his painful memories. He turned to thank the old man, but he wasn’t there. There was only a small, plain leather bag where he’d sat.
The yellow sand was slowly turning black once more, and the sun was hidden behind thick clouds. At the foot of the dune, the black sand devoured the dragon’s carcass. The body sank deeper and deeper into the sand. Hadjar watched in disgust as the sand tore chunks of flesh from the dragon’s bones and then crushed them.
Azrea, whose white nose was now red, snorted angrily and tottered toward Hadjar. When she reached her friend, she rubbed up against his legs, then jumped onto his shoulder and hid in his turban.
Five minutes later, there was no sign of the Immortal’s recent appearance: the titanic face in the middle of the desert was gone, the dragon’s body devoured, the sun was no longer visible, and the yellow sand had reverted to being black. It was now the same eerie Demon’s Heart with its red lightning bolts, black sand, and sky.
Only the small leather bag had remained on the sand. Hadjar picked it up and untied the strings. Inside, as he’d expected, were dried tobacco leaves rolled into several tight bundles. The smell of them made Hadjar dizzy and his chest ached. Apparently, this stuff was stronger than anything Hadjar had ever smoked. Tucking the gift into his belt, he stood up and looked at his palm. The thin scar was still there, a reminder of his oath.
Hadjar clenched his fist and headed for the rest of the squad. The other hunters had remained in the same positions they’d been in when they’d been overwhelmed by Harlim’s power. Hadjar doubted that the old man had used any special Technique. He’d just... wanted it to happen, and it had happened. His power defied reason but excited the imagination, showing Hadjar what he should strive for.
Hadjar lay down beside his camel and waited. Half an hour later, the other hunters came to their senses as abruptly as they’d fallen into the stupor.
“Are you kidding, strangers?” Tilis snarled as she sprang to her feet. “Are you afraid of some thunder?”
Apparently, the old man hadn’t removed their memories of the dragon’s roar.
“Explain your behavior, Northerner.” Ramukhan’s eyes glinted dangerously.
“Let’s stay calm.” Einen answered instead of Hadjar, standing up. “If you’d lived through what Hadjar and I have lived through, you would be afraid of thunder, too. By the Evening Stars, I don’t want to encounter another Lord of the Heavens.”
The islander’s words were rather convincing. Hadjar watched in amazement as the sand, which had devoured the dragon in an instant, sucked in the carcasses of the scorched falcon and the snake slowly. He wondered whether this was due to the local anomalies or because of something the Immortal had done.
I’m in no hurry to become a god, Hadjar recalled. What had Harlim meant by that? That an Immortal could indeed become a god, or was it something to do with religion in his country? Was it just a religious phrase of sorts, like ‘the Evening Stars’ or ‘the Great Turtle’?
“If you don’t hurry, the Demon’s Heart will take your prey,” Ramukhan rumbled, brushing sand dust off the map.
Glen was the first to reach the bodies. As he drew his carving dagger, he radiated greed and excitement. It was understandable — the core of a beast at the King Stage wasn’t common prey.
“I just remembered something-”
“I don’t care about your remembrances, Northerner,” Ramukhan said, beckoning Salif over. “Shut up.”
“Don’t forget, Ramukhan,” Karis stood near Hadjar, “We’re all here on equal terms. The fact that we let you command doesn’t put you above anyone else.”
They looked at each other until Ramukhan turned to Hadjar.
“What is it?” He asked.
“I remembered Rahaim’s plan. He was Sankesh’s Teacher. He planned to start his search at the Stone Trees oasis.”
Salif started.
“Paris said that was one of the most dangerous regions of the Demon’s Heart…”
Ramukhan pondered this, and nodded to Hadjar.
“Your prey is disappearing, Northerner.”
Realizing that they wouldn’t listen to him if he said anything else, Hadjar turned and started walking toward the huge bird. Einen joined him along the way. Apparently, he would let Glen cut out the snake’s core.
“What’s going on here, barbarian?” Einen whispered to Hadjar.
Chapter 361
“What do you mean?” Hadjar’s intonation emphasized his faked confusion.
“Don’t play dumb with me.” Einen looked back, making sure that no one was paying attention to them. Glen was hobbling over to the squad with his core, and the rest were crowding around the map. Even Tilis was completely absorbed in the discussion. “One of the features of my Inheritance is that it’s very difficult to mess with my mind. And now I feel like someone’s done it so subtly and skillfully that the Beast’s blood couldn’t counter their prowess.”
Hadjar climbed onto the back of the giant bird, took the dagger from his belt, and started cutting. Einen stood n
earby. Some customs were respected in all nations. For example, the one who had killed a beast was expected to carve out its core.
Hadjar had butchered his first beast at the age of four during a royal hunt — he’d killed a rabbit by throwing a stone at it. His father had been proud and his mother had complained about him getting his hunting outfit dirty. Hadjar had stood over the dead rabbit for almost an hour, carving away. Some would’ve presumed it had been traumatic for him, and they would’ve been wrong. Everyone who followed the path of cultivation experienced such things eventually.
“An Immortal was here.” Hadjar didn’t see the point in lying to the only person he could call a friend.
“An Immortal,” Einen repeated. He swayed and leaned on his staff-spear for support. “By the Great Turtle, it sounds so absurd that it can’t be anything but true.”
“Why?”
“Because if you’d wanted to lie to me, you would’ve come up with something more believable. Now, Northerner, tell me everything.”
Turning his back to the others as he carved up the beast’s carcass, Hadjar told Einen what had happened. The islander listened in silence. During the course of the story, he gradually got paler. At the end of the story, he cursed vehemently. At first, Hadjar didn’t understand the reason for such ‘eloquence’ or Einen’s anger about losing two hours of his life.
“This Harlim just stole a piece of my life!” The islander hissed.
“Two hours of it.”
“Regardless! The life of Einen from Rainbow Bridge Island is only controlled by Einen from Rainbow Bridge Island!”
Such a credo was worthy of respect.
The bird’s core was a small, ginger-colored stone, no larger than the phalanx of an index finger. He put it in the bag where the Energy Stone and the fairy’s tears lay. Hadjar couldn’t even imagine what he should do with the latter. However, if he was lucky enough to reach the Empire, he would definitely find out.
Jumping down off the bird, Hadjar didn’t have time to lament the loss of its valuable veins and feathers, as the black sand had begun eagerly devouring the bird’s body.
That was good to know. Apparently, the desert didn’t eat creatures that still had cores. Maybe that was why the huge, sandy dunes hadn’t devoured the hunters yet.
“If the Immortal advised us to go to the oasis, then,” Einen sighed and looked at the black sky, “by the Great Turtle, we’ll find our deaths there.”
“Why are you so pessimistic?” Hadjar, after wiping Mountain Wind off on the feathers of the carcass disappearing into the sand, went back to the squad. The islander followed him. He was looking at something in the dark clouds, his violet eyes slightly unfocused.
“Because it’s either a perverted trap, or a stupid joke, or, even worse, the truth. And honestly, northerner, I’m hoping it’s one of the first two options. Because otherwise, we’ll run the risk of facing a huge number of adventurers, as well as Sankesh himself.”
“Someone recently told me that he went on this journey because his friend had decided to go.”
“But that doesn’t mean that I wish my friend success in his endeavor. By the Great Turtle, I want to go to the Empire, not to perish for the sake of other people’s weird fantasies.”
Hadjar looked at the bald man walking next to him.
“Then why are you still here?”
“As you said,” Einen’s lips trembled slightly, “I’m still here because my friend is still here.”
Sometimes, Einen’s logic seemed as unyielding as his staff to Hadjar.
When they reached the camels, they split up. Einen went over to Glen to discuss how exactly they would share the snake’s core. It turned out that the islander needed everything related to snakes to cultivate some kind of Technique. So, the Baliumian bargained for two imperial coins and the promise that, after their next encounter, Glen, regardless of the circumstances, would get to pay for the core which he would then keep for himself.
After petting and calming his camel down (although it was unclear which one of them should’ve been more nervous about the prospect of another camelback ride), Hadjar climbed into his saddle.
“I guess I must be crazy,” Ramukhan began casually, once everyone had gotten back in their saddles and the squad was once again ready to head out, “but I’ve decided to trust the northerner’s instincts once again.”
“Instincts that have just let us down so far,” Tilis interjected.
Ramukhan deliberately paused, letting the hunters feel the moment stretch out, and then continued:
“We’re going to the Stone Trees oasis. That’s quite far from here. It’ll take us at least a week, but I hope the trip will prove beneficial to our common cause.”
Right... Hadjar figured that at least three of the eight people present didn’t have a common cause.
Karissa sent out another fire sparrow, and the hunters set off toward the northwest. The journey, which was supposed to take a week, dragged on for ten days.
Along the way, they encountered all sorts of animals and monsters. They even saw a shadow that made Hadjar think it was a Lord of the Heavens flying over them once. Einen and Hadjar weren’t even the first to fall to the ground and take cover, but Ramukhan and Tilis, who’d noticed the shadow as well. Fortunately, the shadow passed by them. Hadjar didn’t know whether it had been a relative of the deceased dragon or not. He was glad that he didn’t get a chance to find out.
The practitioners — Hadjar, Einen, and Glen — had to cross blades with fangs, horns, and claws three more times over the course of their journey. Once, Hadjar overestimated his capabilities and fought against a monster at the peak of the King Stage on his own.
As a result, a white bandage was now wrapped around his chest. He now had another scar, but this time, only his own stupidity was to blame. Nevertheless, the creature, which had looked like a mixture of a beetle, rhino, and a meatball, had moved on to the fields of eternal hunting or wherever the animals of the Sea of Sand went after their death.
The Stone Trees oasis came into view on the eleventh day after their encounter with the Immortal. Given that their camels could cover a distance of two thousand miles in ten hours with ease, the distance they’d travelled was terrifying to imagine.
The oasis itself, or rather, the contrast when they transitioned to it from the black desert, was amazing. Once again, Hadjar realized just how many more miracles he had yet to witness in this vast world.
Behind the nearest crest of a dune was a small fragment of Paradise — a gorge filled with the murmur of streams and the sound of falling water. It was turquoise, beckoning the hunters with the promise of longed-for coolness. Their bodies had gotten covered in a layer of dust and solidified sweat during their journey. The trees provided shade for the green meadows, and their rustle awakened Hadjar’s distant memories of the years he’d lived in Lidus.
“I can feel a native wind,” Glen breathed in deeply.
For him, this was indeed a replica of his homeland: mountains, waterfalls, and forests. What else did a man from Balium need from life? Only a bit of snow and some strong brew.
As for the mountains, Hadjar would’ve rather called the oasis Stone Fingers, not the Stone Trees. However, no one had asked for his opinion.
Dozens, even hundreds of rocky peaks pierced endless streams and lakes, stretching toward the sky, which had a familiar azure hue here. The oasis stood beneath a funnel of black clouds, but the sun was managing to break through in the center, surrounded by fluffy, serene white clouds.
“Let’s dismount here,” Ramukhan commanded.
Chapter 362
They decided to camp near the edge of a waterfall that had an ancient wooden arch over it. Unknown hieroglyphs flashed across the connecting beam of the arch.
Ramukhan went to join Tilis and Karissa in studying it at first, but then he left them to it. His duties as the head of the squad (a title he’d given himself) demanded that he help with the planning and with setting up the camp, whic
h meant he couldn’t rush over to study the unknown hieroglyphs.
“These symbols are no less than half a million years old,” Karissa said admiringly.
It became abundantly clear that the witches would be busy researching the wooden arch for a while. Salif’s boy was already cooking something, the old man was mumbling something to himself (he always did that when delving into his bottomless memory), and Einen and Glen were tying the camels down. The animals looked very strange in the oasis, like alien intruders almost.
“Northerner.” Ramukhan went over to Hadjar and sat down next to him on the grass.
“Yeah?”
Hadjar, having cut off the branch of a tree with his sword, was now stripping off its wet fibers. He was wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Ramukhan looked at this with slight surprise and contempt. Apparently, doing this sort of work wasn’t considered honorable in Underworld City. Only servants did that sort of thing.
“What else did you hear from old Rahaim?”
Hadjar noticed the man’s hesitation and glanced at him. He tried to avert his eyes, but didn’t succeed. There was no doubt that he...
“You knew Rahaim,” Hadjar didn’t ask, but stated.
“Many people knew him,” the sorcerer nodded. “He was one of the few people who did honest work, never deceiving anyone... Well, no more than the customs of our people demanded. He brought everyone who paid him to the Empire safe and sound, whenever he could.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
Hadjar deliberately emphasized the last word, making it clear that he was referring to Underworld City.
“Do you think, barbarian, that Underworld City doesn’t have any of its own people in the Empire?” Ramukhan grunted and smugly scratched his plump belly. “Otherwise, we would’ve grown stagnant long ago and disappeared.”
Well, this explained how Underworld City had knowledge and artifacts that couldn’t be found by hunters. They traded with Darnassus. It was quite clever.
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