The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 05 - Journey to Uniontown

by Jeffrey Quyle

  The shot of energy flew not at the god, but at the water skin, where it sat above the spring. As soon as the energy struck its target there was a burst of harmonious music, and the skin shone with a pure white light, then the light traveled in a pulse through the stream of water that was pouring out of the skin’s spout.

  The water that was altered by the pulse of energy fell in a stream from the water skin into the lake, and when it touched the lake’s surface, an exponential expansion occurred, as the pulse became a wave, one that moved faster than the water. The bright wave of light converted the water in all directions, swiftly changing the water as it swept outward, spreading the enhanced energy of Decimindion’s water everywhere it went.

  Kestrel floated in the water, and watched as in a matter of seconds the bright line surged towards him. It touched him, and then passed by. As the line of light touched Kestrel he felt a burst of energy, and a renewed feeling of joy entered his heart, while the front of the wave of the catalysis rushed onward through all of the lake, and then down the waterfall and into the river that flowed north on its steady way towards the Dangueax River, Uniontown, and the Inner Seas. In surrendering his powers to stimulate the water of Decimindion, Kestrel had irreversibly started the chain reaction that would spread to every drop of water in the Inner Seas, and inoculate every person against the influence of the Viathins.

  In the meantime, Kestrel knew he had to fight to try to win the immediate battle he faced against Ashcrayss, the battle he now waged to try to save his own life. Kestrel reached down and pulled Lucretia free, then tossed the blade into the air, directly overhead at the dragon that hung above him. He immediately followed the throw by lunging upwards himself, and grasping the dragon’s foot, just as the knife penetrated the side of its chest.

  “Foolish godling!” the dragon bellowed in pain. “No mere enchanted weapon can kill a god!”

  As the dragon spoke, the knife exploded in its chest, wounding one wing so that the monster could no longer fly, and Kestrel’s weight pulled the wounded divinity down into the altered waters of the lake.

  The first touch of the dragon in the purified, protective waters of the lake caused the water to sizzle and boil. Kestrel was deep in the water, beneath the dragon, and he sensed the beginnings of the reaction as the water touched the monster. He released his hold on its foot as he felt its searing heat, and dove away from the dragon. The rest of Ashcrayss’s huge body plunged into the lake, completely immersing itself in the life-giving water that was antithetical to the god’s destructive dominion, its methods of plundering, and destruction of other forms of life and energy.

  The water erupted in a vast billowing explosion as the divine powers of Decimindion’s water and Kai’s energy overwhelmed the invading god, destroying him. The explosion sent a devastating shock wave through the entire lake, sending a large wave of the enchanted water surging up over the shores, and spraying a drenching rain of heavy droplets throughout the valley. The Uniontown guards were doused in the liberating water, while the Viathins in the valley, standing among the guards or around the valley walls were soaked as well.

  Kestrel was knocked unconscious by the force of the blast. The Viathins were killed by the water that poured down upon them, each of them screaming in momentary fear and anguish before the waters ended their lives, while the enslaved Uniontown soldiers were set free by the water, liberated from the control of their overlords.

  Kestrel’s body was flung by the blast up onto the stone road surface, landing near the gnomes. Greta and Hansen ran to Kestrel and rolled him over onto his back, as the guards nearby stood momentarily frozen in shock at the cataclysmic events that had rolled over them.

  “He killed the god of the masters,” one guard officer said in wonder as he led a squad over to the gnomes. “He killed the most powerful one!”

  “Is he a god?” another guard asked. “Is your friend the new god of our people?”

  “I do not think he is a god,” Hansen said softly. “I just hope that he can be revived.”

  “If he is revived, does that mean one of us will die?” Greta asked her husband quietly.

  “He deserves to live,” Hansen answered. “He made it possible for all of us to be free.” As he spoke they heard the jubilant cheers of the Uniontown forces in the background, men celebrating their freedom from the influence of the Viathins.

  The two gnomes and the dozen men closest to them suddenly felt the air around them change, as it became both hot and cold. There was a sound like a fanfare, and the light around the whole lake seemed to take on a thick translucence, as though the light had a material quality to it.

  Suddenly three figures stood in front of the small tableau.

  “It is a pantheon of gods!” Greta cried, as she bowed down, and all the others in the cluster also immediately fell to their knees, their heads bowed. She did not know two of the gods, but she felt the power that crackled in the air around the visitors.

  “You may rise,” Corrant spoke to them, as Kere came over to Kestrel and gently stroked the wet hair back from his forehead. “We have come to honor the man who has saved the Inner Seas from the devastation of the Viathins.”

  “Even as we stand here, the wave of salvation that Kestrel created is sweeping towards all the cities and lands of our world. The monsters that live among our people are already quaking in their boots as they feel the death of their god, and soon they will also disappear, as the water finds them and sets their slaves free, then dissolves them as well,” Kai explained.

  “Kestrel did all of that?” Hansen asked in wonder.

  “Kestrel has done all of that,” Corrant confirmed. “He was the chosen champion of all the deities of this world, and we all have put our faith in him, as well as sacrificed portions of our own powers to give him the confidence to try to carry out this incredible mission, and to enable him to actually achieve victory against impossible odds.”

  “And does he have to die now?” Hansen asked. “If one of us must die in the Garrant Spark, I will be that one, so that Kestrel may live,” the gnome offered, as Greta tightened her grip on his hand.

  “No one else must die to fulfill the obligation of the Garrant Spark,” Corrant answered. “The debt is paid, and the duty is complete.”

  “But all three of us are still alive!” Greta protested, looking down to see that Kestrel’s bare chest still rose and fell with his steady, unconscious breathing.

  “You three are all alive, but there was a fourth participant in the Garrant Spark,” Corrant explained patiently. “The power of Ashcrayss’s temple had taken up residence in Kestrel’s soul, trying to eat away at him and convert him. That power was bound by the Garrant Spark as much as the three of you were. It was a fourth member of the covenant – truly it was a portion of Ashcrayss himself that sickened Kestrel’s soul – and the god’s death in the battle with Kestrel fulfills the requirement that a participant in the ceremony had to die.

  “The rest of you are safe, and free to live your lives,” the gnomish god continued. “And the two of you will long be honored and remembered for serving as the partners of the great champion.”

  “Will he wake up soon?” the officer of the guards asked. “We would wish to honor him.”

  “He will not awaken for many days. He has suffered a profound shock to his system. His body and his soul and his psyche must all readjust to the experiences they suffered in the past hour,” Kai interjected, speaking to the humans. “But you will serve him well nonetheless. I command you to accompany these gnomes to the river crossing of their choice, and carry our sleeping hero gently along the way, and carry him across the river for them.

  “You will then leave them in peace, and they will take him back to their village on their own, if they wish, if he hasn’t awoken by then,” she commanded.

  “As you command, my goddess,” the officer replied.

  Chapter 22 – The Journey Back to Normalcy

  Kestrel awoke twelve days later, when he began to coug
h, and then abruptly sat up, emerging from a nightmare, in which he dreamed he was smothered beneath a monster, unloved and unmissed by anyone in the world.

  “Garrant Champion, are you okay?” an elder of the village asked immediately, holding out a hand to calm Kestrel.

  “I think I’m fine,” Kestrel asked, looking around in confusion at the inside of the cabin the two of them occupied. “Where are we? What are we doing here?”

  “We are in the honeymoon cabin,” the gnome replied. A mischievous expression crossed his face momentarily, as he considered making a ribald joke, but then concluded that the presence of Kestrel demanded a more august, respectable demeanor. “We felt that the quiet and calm here would be best for you since you arrived.”

  “Arrived?” Kestrel asked in a puzzled tone.

  “The dragon! The god!” he suddenly remembered. “I fought the god of the Viathins!

  “What happened? Where are Hansen and Greta? Are they both?” he left the question unfinished, afraid to ask which of them had died as required by the Garrant Spark.

  “They are well,” the gnome answered. “We have not seen much of them for the past two days, since you all arrived back in the village; they said they needed to finish their honeymoon.

  “But they did say to come to them immediately when you awoke. Can you stay here by yourself for a few minutes while I go get them?” he asked as he stood.

  “I can go with you,” Kestrel replied. He flipped his legs over the side of the cot, and started to stand, before his legs abruptly collapsed weakly beneath him.

  “You’ve been asleep for a long time,” the gnome explained as he helped Kestrel back up onto the cot. “Just stay here and relax. I’ll be right back,” he promised, and then he was out the door of the cabin.

  Kestrel sat and caught his breath as question after question rolled through his mind. He wanted to know what had happened; he wanted to see both of his companions still alive, impossible as it seemed, if the terms of the Garrant Spark were upheld; he wanted to know how he had got to where he was, and what was going to happen next, and what was expected of him.

  He had been in pursuit of something – one goal or another – for so long, he felt he needed to know what his next assignment was; he felt incomplete without a goal to chase. He had been a spy, seeking information among the humans, then he had been a leader among the humans rebelling against the Viathin conquest, and a rescuer for the imps. He had been a man in pursuit of a woman, and all along, he now suspected, he had been a pawn of the gods.

  There was a sound at the door, and Greta and Hansen rushed in, followed by the elder who had watched over Kestrel, and many other gnomes as well.

  “Oh Kestrel, it’s so good to have you awake!” Greta shouted as she hugged him warmly, while Hansen wrapped his own arms around them both.

  “How are you?” Hansen asked. “Would you like to step outside?”

  With Hansen and Greta on each side of him to assist, Kestrel was walked outside, and was taken to the center of the village, where a seat was given to him. He listened in wonder as the two Garrant Spark companions reminded him of the battle at the lake in the mountains, then reported to him on everything that had happened afterwards.

  “The soldiers from Uniontown put you on a litter and carried you to a ford on the Dangueax River in about five days,” Hansen explained. “Then the soldiers gave us all kinds of supplies, and they left us to be on their way. They were anxious to go back to Uniontown and tell everyone what they had seen.”

  “They left the litter, so Hansen and I carried you the rest of the way to the village,” Greta interjected. “And we caught the elders by surprise! I don’t think any of them ever expected to see any of us alive ever again!” she laughed, as a few of the men around them harrumphed their protests of her assessment.

  “I don’t know if I always expected that we would all see them again either,” Kestrel smiled in reply.

  “Why are we all, still,” he stopped, uncertain of how to ask why no one was dead.

  Hansen repeated the story that Corrant had told at the lakeside, that the energy of Ashcrayss had been the fourth participant in the Garrant Spark ceremony, and the death of Ashcrayss at Kestrel’s own hand had killed the member of the ceremony who had fulfilled the terms of the binding obligation. Kestrel shook his head in wonder as he heard the story of the arrival of the three divinities, and all that they had explained.

  “The whole world is free of the Viathins?” Kestrel asked in astonishment. He left the enormity of the news sink in as Greta and Hansen nodded their heads.

  “It’s a great thing, Lord Kestrel,” one of the elders said. “You should be pleased,” he urged as he looked at the bewildered expression on Kestrel’s face.

  “I am,” Kestrel answered hurriedly. “I am so pleased, for all the people who will have better lives. I hope you and your people will be able to prosper now.”

  “We have sent messengers out to the other villages in the mountains to spread the great news,” the elder confirmed. “And now that you are awake, we will take you on a victory parade, so that all of our race may thank you for restoring to us the ability to hope for a better future.”

  “We will let him rest and recover first!” Greta spoke up protectively.

  “He has been resting for days!” the gnome leader snapped back. “But perhaps we should allow him a little time to prepare himself,” he conceded.

  And so it was, three days later, Kestrel began his Grand Tour of the villages of the gnomes in the Western Mountains. He asked that they travel in the direction of the villages of the elves, so that he could rejoin Moorin and Lake and Hierodule and Hye. The journey was via a circuitous route, so that every day Kestrel visited a pair of villages, along with his co-heroes, Hansen and Greta, and a small coterie of elders from their village.

  After five days they entered the elven village in the late afternoon, surprising the occupants of the village, who were all gathered at a meeting over which Lake presided. Kestrel spotted the elf sitting in a crude, throne-like chair on a raised platform, and was surprised to see Moorin sitting in a second chair, immediately beside him.

  He separated from the gnomes, and crept up behind Hierodule and Hye, who were sitting at the back of the crowd, paying no attention to the speeches which were being given in the elven language. They were playing with Hierodule’s baby when Kestrel snuck up next to them.

  “I think he looks like his mother,” Kestrel said in a solemn voice, pretending to study the baby intently, then studying Hierodule’s features.

  “Kestrel!” both women screamed in unison, startling the baby, who began to cry, as all heads turned to look at the commotion in the back.

  “It is Kestrel!” Moorin’s voice faintly floated back over the assemblage, as Kestrel and the human women hugged tightly.

  “What have you done? Are you alright? The world feels like a happier place,” Hye spoke excitedly. “The elves all agree that something has made the world a better place to live. They have been talking about trying to replant their forest.”

  “Kestrel?” Moorin said as she hurried up to the small gathering, then squeezed Kestrel tightly in a hug. “Your eyes are beautiful again!

  “You’re free of that energy, aren’t you? Do you feel good again?” she asked in the elven language.

  “I am free of the energy from Ashcrayss,” Kestrel affirmed, “and I think that it is gone from our world forever.

  “I’m getting closer to feeling good,” He gave a gentle smile.

  “These are my companions, Hansen and Greta,” he introduced his fellow members from the Garrant Spark. “They were with me on a perilous journey that accomplished our great achievement of setting the world free,” he deftly changed the topic from himself to the others, as Lake joined the group.

  Introductions were made, as Kestrel struggled to translate among the gnomish, elven, and human languages, and then the gnomes excused themselves to begin their journey back to their home village. “You’
ll come back to visit us, won’t you Kestrel?” Hansen asked.

  “You must promise that you will,” Greta added.

  “I promise that someday I will come back to visit, and I will try to bring gnomes from the Water Mountains to visit with me,” Kestrel assured them. “There could be nothing that would prevent me from wanting to come see you again, and to play with the babies that I expect you will have living with you by then!” he laughed.

  The gnomes blushed faintly, and smiled broadly, then joined their escort of elders and turned to walk away from the elven homes.

  Kestrel waved and watched them go, and realized that he had crossed a threshold. He had parted from the gnomes, the race that had been part of his victory of Ashcrayss, and now he was taking his first step out into the world, rejoining the elves of the Southern Forest, which had been so devastated. It was a step away from the apocalypse at the lake, and a step toward whatever the rest of his life would be.

  “Everyone! Everyone listen!” Lake called out to his people. “This is Kestrel, the great champion. He can give us news about what has happened in the world that has made all our hearts feel lighter. We will go now to learn more, then share the news with all of you.”

  Lake and Moorin led Kestrel, Hierodule and Hye to a large cabin, where the five of them sat down, as Kestrel began to recount his story, as he had experienced it and as the rest of it had been recounted to him by the gnomes.

  “You killed their god?” Lake asked in amazement. “The god of that temple where you found me? That was the most profoundly evil place I’ve ever experienced. I can’t imagine how evil it must have been.”

  “Truly,” Hierodule agreed, tears streaming down her cheeks, as she remembered the time she had spent in the Lakeview temple. “You have made the entire world a better place. Now Canyon will grow up never knowing how profoundly evil the masters were, and I’m so thankful to you for that Kestrel.”