by Joe Jackson
“We will not be able to move him, for practical and other reasons,” Grakin said, and Kari understood he meant because Ty weighed a lot more than any of the rest of them. “With that portal destroyed, I think it should be safe enough to camp the rest of the day and the night up here. Do you agree?”
Kari nodded. “Stay with Ty. We’ll get the rest of our things and bring them up here so we can get settled in for the night, at least,” she said. Sonja came over and knelt beside them, and Kari touched her sister-in-law’s hand. “Sonja, how did he get here? I thought your life-sensing magic said there was nothing here but rats.”
Sonja shook her head, clearly at a loss for words. When she finally found something to say, it sounded apologetic. “I don’t know,” she said. “All I can tell you is that even when he was standing right in front of me, I got no sense of life from him at all. He could’ve been here the entire time, and I wouldn’t have sensed him. I have no idea how that’s possible. It was like there was no one there.”
“I don’t get it,” Kari said. “How can he possibly be alive? Kaelariel said he’d killed him personally.”
Se’sasha and Danilynn returned with Eli and Aeligos. The rogue was already walking fine again, and though Eli was favoring his right side, he seemed more like he’d been in a fight in a bar than run through by a katana. Everyone looked to Kari, and she guessed they were all hoping for some orders or something so they wouldn’t feel so listless. What she wanted to do was step out of her skin and go hide somewhere for a while to get her thoughts in order. She was a commander now, though: head of the Demonhunter Order and, she realized, the unofficial head of the Silver Blades in Erik’s absence.
Kari rose to her feet holding her son. “We’re going to camp up here for the rest of the day and night,” she said, and most of her friends’ heads bobbed in agreement. “We’re staying here until Ty is up and about; I don’t want to risk moving him, even by arcane means, while he’s hurt and unconscious. Eli, Aeligos – see if you can go find some firewood so we can keep him warm and cook up some dinner. Danilynn, Sonja – I’d like you two to check the rest of the empty levels of the temple, but stay together and be very careful. Grakin will stay here and keep an eye on Little Gray and Typhonix, and Se’sasha – you can stay with them and keep an eye out for trouble, or an ear out for anyone who needs help.”
“Are you staying here too?” Aeligos asked hopefully.
“I’m going to take my bow out and see if I can find something we can have for supper,” Kari said. No one looked entirely happy with that, but she was the most proficient pathfinder and hunter among them. Everyone agreed with their assigned tasks, and Kari was glad that her decisions weren’t questioned.
The others moved off to complete their tasks, and Kari took out her folding bow and got it ready for a hunt. She kissed her son and her mate, and strode down the stairway of the temple purposefully. She tried not to think about the possibility of hearing calls for help again. She had to trust that now that her friends were wary, there would be no more surprises. Her sorrow gave way to anger as she walked, thinking about how casually Koursturaux had betrayed her, and she resolved to kill Amastri when she got back to DarkWind, the Council’s wishes be damned.
Once she was out in the forest away from anyone else, Taesenus’ words rang in her ears loudly again. Kari put her back to one of the trees and sank down to her rump. The anger gave way to sorrow, and she touched her hand to her lower belly and cried.
Chapter XXIV – Safeguards
Typhonix woke the following morning just after Kari did, and he only managed to curb his desire to scream with considerable effort. His pained grunts woke the others in short order. Ty managed to roll onto his stomach, but once in that position, he had no luck holding back the pain. Tears spilled from his eyes and he showed all his teeth in a grimace of agony. It took Kari only moments to realize he wasn’t moving his legs at all.
Grakin, Se’sasha, and Danilynn returned to their healing ministrations immediately. They didn’t even take the time to pray with the dawn as they usually did: Typhonix was in too much pain, and they couldn’t keep him waiting. Kari moved over to him and fed him what she could manage of her own healing energy, which felt meager and inconsequential when she didn’t see any immediate effects. When she considered that he wasn’t moving his lower body at all, the reason her healing seemed useless was fairly obvious: it was.
Once she felt drained, Kari moved to sit on the edge of the altar and touched her hand to her lower belly again. She suddenly realized that everyone was looking at her, even the three priests working on healing Ty. Her movements and her concern weren’t lost on anyone, and Grakin excused himself to go to his mate. Kari clutched tightly at him when he embraced her, and it was all she could do to contain her own emotions so as not to frighten their son.
Grakin drew away slightly after a minute and gripped Kari’s face. “The baby is fine,” he said quietly. “You were armored, and the baby is well protected. I know you are afraid, but do not be: the baby is fine. There is no need to worry.”
Kari closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. Grakin would certainly know more about it than she would, and his words did relieve her of an immense amount of worry. He hugged her tightly again but soon excused himself to return to Typhonix. Kari wiped the traces of tears from her eyes and called Little Gray, and her son dashed over and hopped into her waiting arms. He hugged her tightly, too, sensing his mother’s distress despite the fact that he didn’t know what his parents were saying. Kari held tight to him and tried to rest easy in Grakin’s promise.
She got to work putting together something nutritious for Little Gray’s breakfast, and Sonja began helping her. They got food together from everyone’s packs and tried to lay out a buffet of good food to get everyone ready for the day’s trials. The priests in particular would likely be working from sunrise to sunset, ministering their healing arts to Typhonix, and they would need to be taken care of while they did so. Little Gray was happy to be of “help,” but mostly just dropped raisins, nuts, and berries everywhere. It was a welcome bit of humor among the darkness that hung over them.
Once they had bowls of food for everyone, Kari and Sonja began passing them out. Eli and Aeligos expressed interest in returning to the czarikk village to search for useful things like rope, vines, and some linen to make a litter if they had to carry Ty anywhere. Kari agreed with their idea, and dismissed them to do as they pleased once they ate. She brought the bowls of food over to the three working priests and implored them to take turns having something to eat while they worked.
Ty looked bad, but he wasn’t groaning or crying anymore. There was a look in his eyes that said he was embarrassed to have cried at all in front of his friends, but nobody else shared in those sentiments. He had suffered a terrible wound, virtually a mortal one if not for the presence and work of the priests, and Kari knew that no one doubted how much pain he was in. Much like Danilynn had done for Kari on Mehr’Durillia, the priests had soothed the pain with their healing arts, letting him get rest even while they worked on him.
“I guess there’s no tip-toeing around this,” Kari said, kneeling across from Grakin. He had his hands to either side of Ty’s wound, and Se’sasha and Danilynn were taking turns washing the area, placing their hands atop Grakin’s to lend him their strength, and eating when they had the opportunity. “How is he?”
“Ready for one more round, sis,” Ty said through closed teeth, trying to manage a smile.
Kari seized the opportunity to lighten everyone’s mood. “Of fighting, or beer?” she asked, and her blonde brother-in-law’s shoulders rose and fell with a chuckle. The others smiled, too, with the exception of Grakin, who tried to mask impatience with his brother’s movements.
“Well, he cannot move his legs, so I suspect there is significant nerve damage,” Grakin said somberly. “I am doing my best to heal it, but damage to the nerves…” He paused, sighed, and put one hand to his brother’s shoulder. “This is not
something that can normally be fixed.”
Ty folded his arms under his head and let out a long sigh. “Shit,” he muttered. “Maybe you should just have Sonja take me back to DarkWind. The priests of Tigron can patch me up as well as Grakin can, and then the rest of you can go to the Temple and poke around without having to drag me along.”
“Give me some time to see if I can get you ambulatory again,” Grakin insisted. “Arcane travel may jolt you and cause even more problems. We are safe here for the time being, so let us work and see if we can at least get you walking again.”
“We are relatively safe, are we not?” Se’sasha asked no one in particular.
Kari glanced at Sonja, but her sister-in-law sighed. “I’m not sure,” Sonja said. “I didn’t sense anyone here when we arrived at the temple, but Taesenus didn’t register at all to my life-sense. We searched the place out, so I’m tempted to say that we’re safe, but I don’t know how Taesenus got here in the first place, or if he might return.”
“Not if he’s smart,” Kari muttered. She moved to lean against the altar again and folded her arms across her chest. Little Gray was content to play with some sticks near the remnants of the prior night’s fire, so Kari left him be for the moment. “Still, this is a bad development. We were told that Kaelariel killed him near the end of the War. If that’s not true, I can’t help but wonder if his mother is really dead, either.”
“You think Kaelariel lied?” Ty asked, trying to swivel his head to look at Kari.
“No, of course not,” Kari answered. “I’m sure he thought he’d killed Taesenus, but if the Demon Prince…” She paused and knitted her brows. “Wait; you said he didn’t register to your life-sense, Sonja? Would that not detect undead, maybe? Is it possible he was killed, but now he’s just undead?”
“It would register as necromantic power,” Sonja answered. “He wasn’t undead; he was just…I don’t know how to explain it. He didn’t register as a living creature. It was like he had no soul or spirit.”
“And if his mother was the same…,” Kari began. The others were clearly alarmed by her words except for Se’sasha, who didn’t seem to understand what they were talking about at all. “Grakin, you need to talk to Kaelariel about this tonight when you meditate. We need answers, and if he doesn’t have them, then he needs to know the possibilities we’re dealing with.”
Grakin agreed with a nod but didn’t reply. Kari did her best not to get too worked up over the issue. While Taesenus was called the Demon Prince, he was honestly just one serilian-rir among millions of people. The fact that he had somehow survived and no one knew wasn’t as big an issue as the same holding true for his mother. At the same time, Kari had to imagine that if Seril, who was a god-like being, had survived, someone would surely have known. It brought to mind the arcane seal spell Dominick had used in Barcon, and how it was able to detect not only the strength, but the species of people it passed over. Kari wondered if there was anyone strong enough – one of the gods, perhaps – to do the same over all of Citaria to see if Seril was hiding somewhere, alive.
Kari expressed her idea to Sonja, who was willing to at least replicate Dominick’s feat over the temple and nearby valley. It wasn’t much different than her life-sense enchantment, but if Taesenus didn’t register as a living thing, he might register as having or being under arcane power of some kind. At the very least, it would tell them if anything else troublesome was close by. Fortunately, after expanding the seal out for a ways into the jungle, Sonja assured Kari that there was nothing strange nearby except for Kari herself. Kari explained to Sonja that such was a side effect of being Salvation’s Dawn, which her sister-in-law found interesting.
They passed the rest of the day lazily, letting the priests do their work. Little Gray was getting antsy and bored, but Sonja was able to keep him entertained with illusions and minor bits of pyrotechnics. Kari had found a wandering flock of turkeys the day before, and she found it again and felled two more to keep the companions well-fed. By the end of the day, Typhonix’ wounds were closed, but he was still unable to wiggle his toes. They built another fire to help keep him warm, and Danilynn loaned him her cloak to use as a blanket.
Much of the following day passed the same way, but by midafternoon, the priests had finished their work. The damage was healed, barely a trace of the wound showing upon Ty’s skin. Still, he hadn’t regained the use of his legs, even to wiggle his toes. When Kari saw the look of concern on Grakin’s face as he watched his brother’s pained attempts to move anything below his waist, she understood that her mate had done all that he could. Kari looked at Ty and bit her lower lip, wondering how he – or any of the others – would deal with him being crippled for the rest of his life.
There was little reason for debate or plotting out the rest of his life then and there. Since his wound was healed as well as possible, Sonja used her arcane power to take everyone back to Atrice. Ty didn’t want to be left behind despite the fact that he couldn’t walk, so Aeligos once again did some haggling to secure them a coach and some horses. The plan was to take Ty to the city of Brigham on the west coast, where he could stay and rest while the others sailed across to Morikk and explored the Temple. Once they were done, they’d return for Ty, and Sonja could transport them all back to DarkWind.
Just as Kari had told Sonja, Ty was a fighter, and he turned away any attempts by his companions to fawn over him or nag him about how comfortable he was. He simply made do with the situation for the time being, and the group crossed the long pass through the Barrier Mountains to the plains along the west coast. Almost directly west of the pass was the port city of Brigham, and they came within sight of it after several days.
Brigham wasn’t one of the largest port cities on either coast – it was barely half the size of DarkWind – but it was a busy one due to its location. Just to the north lay the west-jutting edge of the Barrier Mountains that separated the Duchy of Brunswick from the northwest duchy, which was strangely called the Strekan Province. The northwest province was closed off from the rest of Askies Island by military and other means, and its residents were reputed to live in a far more technologically-advanced society. Still, like any other society, they had imports and exports, and Brigham was the closest outsider city to the Strekan Province. The proximity of the port city of Brigham to Atrice and thereby the heartlands made it very busy and prosperous.
What most interested Kari and her friends, however, was the city’s proximity to the now deserted island of Morikk off of Askies’ western coast. “Island” was a bit of a misnomer; Morikk was, of course, an island, but it was very large and could likely qualify as a duchy all its own, or even another kingdom, if it was inhabited. Since the seterra-rir were driven out centuries before, though, the island had stood deserted, with only the mystical Temple of Archons drawing any interest to it whatsoever. By all accounts, the Temple was straight west from Brigham, and it was said one could see it from the port city on a clear day.
The city itself was fairly clean and orderly for a port. Even from a distance, Kari and her friends could see that some of the technology reputed to be so common in the Strekan Province had made its way to Brigham. Large metal cranes with steel cables took the place of what would be wooden cranes and ropes in any other port, and some of the ships at the northern piers looked to also be made of metal. Kari wasn’t sure how that worked; she sank like a rock in water if she wore metal armor and carried her swords.
No one bothered to ask the fairly large group its business. The guards looked Kari and her friends over casually, but if they thought anything of the many sets of wings, they kept their thoughts to themselves. Se’sasha was inside the coach with Typhonix, so thankfully, she didn’t attract any attention at all. With the day almost done, the group found an inn near the docks and got settled in for the night. As he’d done in Gavean, Aeligos went to sell off the horses and the coach when everyone else was getting settled in, and his positive mood when he returned told Kari that he’d probably swi
ndled some poor merchant.
The following morning, Kari headed to the docks with Aeligos and began asking about securing passage across to Morikk. Not a single captain was interested in crossing to the island, which many flat-out stated was haunted. Kari tried her inquiries again with her dog tags out over her breastplate, and when she introduced herself by name and rank, she got a different reaction from the superstitious sea captains. With the thanks of the Demonhunter Order and the sack of gold Aeligos had gotten from selling the horses and coach, Kari was able to secure passage on a fishing boat that had only just returned to port from the deeper sea a few days before.
Eli agreed to stay behind with Typhonix, Grakin, and Little Gray while the others went across to the Temple. Kari couldn’t help but wonder where Eli stood with regard to the gods: he’d never openly said he worshipped any of them, and he always seemed a little uncomfortable in the temples they’d been in together. That he had no desire to go see the Temple of Archons seemed out of place for a rir, and she wondered if it had something to do with being serilian-rir, or half-corlyps specifically. Grakin wanted to see the Temple, but he decided that keeping watch over Typhonix and keeping Little Gray away from further possible trouble was more important.
Like most deep-sea ships, whether of the fishing or freighting variety, the fishing ship called The Maiden’s Lure was crewed entirely by humans. Kari didn’t quite understand it; she didn’t mind traveling on water, and she wondered why her people as a whole did. The ship was running with a skeleton crew for this trip: Captain John Smedley didn’t feel the need to bring his entire fishing crew with him to make a jaunt across to Morikk. Kari could only imagine how cramped the ship might’ve been with its full crew and a handful of passengers.
The Maiden’s Lure got them to the coast of Morikk in good time. There was a military encampment along the beachfront, which Kari found odd, since there was an abandoned village not far to the north of them. Captain Smedley opted to land at the long-abandoned pier of the old seterra-rir village, and Kari agreed with that. There was little sense taking lifeboats across to the shore when the fishing vessel could make it to the pier without trouble. Kari asked the captain to stay the night off the coast, and take them back to Brigham the next day, and Captain Smedley agreed.
