On the ship, she had finally been able to rest and her spirits had lifted for the first time since she couldn’t even remember when. When she had first found out she was pregnant, she had been tense throughout, praying every day that the child wouldn’t give away her secret, but she didn’t stick around to risk it. She sat on the ship’s deck and her baby was kicking and cooing and absentmindedly she reached out to touch the child’s cheek and the baby had laughed. She was not sure of what to make of it, and started to worry. The baby started to look distressed and started to cry. The young mother looked at her child and suddenly it became clear what her daughter’s gift was and it hurt her heart. The gift of touch-reading among the Diviners was among the most powerful and the least desirable. They were always women and none of them ever ended up bearing children—their gift was non-stop, out of their control and it overwhelmed them. She wished that the universe had given her a son to save her from that ‘gift.’
She tried to look on the good side—at least she knew she could touch her daughter, as long as she was careful to think of happy things; she could not deceive her child with a smile so it had to be genuine. Her baby, her daughter… She realized she had never given the baby a name yet. She watched her cooing, kicking daughter sending her echoes over the ocean and decided to give her a musical name: Lyria.
Her intent was to take a long journey, as far South and still in civilization as she could go so her aim was Myceum, but on the way there, she found the town of Maharyjab and fell in love with it.
From the onset, her mother had decided on a humble life; one thing her tribe had always taught her was that too much attention might leave them exposed to keen inspection and someone would know their game. She set her sights on the Sea of Sand Inn and the innkeeper named Urys. She used persuasion to gain his admiration and a place in his house. She never had any intention of marriage, so she kept their position discreet.
By the time Lyria was 5, she was eager to help out too but Urys didn’t like the girl underfoot. Lyria didn’t like to be left out so she decided to go against her mother and help out like no one else could. Lyria would whisper to Urys and tell him when someone was paying in fake coin or if they were on the run with a bounty on their head, or anything else she could think of to help him increase his profits and Urys had no idea how the girl did it, but it wasn’t long before he had found the girl a job around the inn. As young and pretty as she was, he only let her be around during the day and always under supervision.
It was not long after that that Lyria had woken up to Urys standing in her room frowning, looking as if he struggled for words and Lyria had simply gone over to him and touched his hand. The girl had smiled sadly, tears in her eyes.
“If mommy’s dead, does that mean I have to go too?” Lyria asked, her little lip trembling fearfully.
Urys had shook his head and held the girl as she wept and it was the only time they ever hugged—their thoughts had been the same then and it sealed an understanding between them.
Although Urys kept the girl there, he made it clear that she would still need to earn her keep. He would make sure that no matter what, she was not harmed or in danger. Their arrangement was more of a business one but that was Urys’s way of showing he cared. When she was old enough, around 14 or 15, he would let her work in the early nights in the tavern as a barmaid. The rowdy drunks were inevitable but she was always sent to rest for the night before the crowd got that bad. Urys would see some men grow lusty and bold and asked Lyria if he should take her off of tavern duties, but she had told him she could handle it. Sometimes she had been pulled aside by an overzealous man with forceful intentions, but Urys had always showed up and beat anyone who went that far within an inch of their life.
Lyria had done her job without illness and without resistance or fuss for years and until she had met Pierait, she had been content to live as she was until the end of her days. Until he had come along, she had never imagined leaving that place.
It had barely been an hour on the horse before Lyria started feeling ill again; at first, she had stifled whimpers, but she started sweating and the groans had been harder to stifle. Pierait had been at a loss but he had halted the horse and spun her in the saddle so that her legs hung to one side and he could see her face. He frowned as he inspected her sickly face. She had leaned her cheek heavily against his hand and her eyes fluttered closed. Absently, he had pushed her hair away from her damp forehead, but he was also wearing riding gloves so he could risk it.
“It’s not the air, is it? Somehow I’m still making you ill. The clothes probably only dampen it,” Pierait asked.
Lyria’s eyes shot open immediately. She had felt sad because she had already thought that it might be the case. If it were only the air, she would’ve felt sick overnight but she had been feeling better again until they had to sit together on the horse. She didn’t have time to feel sad for too long because Pierait had once again done something the Soulless don’t normally do; he had guessed at the problem and in three clear ways.
“Pierait, you’re talking less like a Soulless the farther we go,” Lyria finally spoke the words that had been in her mind.
Pierait frowned, his gaze full of introspection and wonder.
“I don’t know. You say it as if I’ve done it before,” Pierait said, his face looking a little frightened as he caught himself doing it again.
Lyria nodded excitedly and even though it might make her feel more ill, she laid her hands on his cheeks now.
“You have; more and more as we’ve traveled here. Pierait, I think your Purpose isn’t so farfetched after all…” Lyria breathed out happily, laboring with the sickness nagging at her. She didn’t have to say that it could be proximity to an actual Wellspring that might be the culprit.
Pierait frowned. “It doesn’t seem right. If it were this obvious, then all of the Soulless would have come here by now,” Pierait again surmised, his voice weak and shaky with the inability to figure out what was going on with him. He tried frantically to look at Lyria and calm himself.
“Lyria, we have to stop; you’re really bad off,” Pierait said, gentling his voice, but Lyria shook her head.
“No, Pierait, we have to keep going. You heard the dwarf; there are restless spirits, dangerous ones, which come out at night. We have to get to the city of Sorrow; I can recover once we get there.”
“Lyria, we’ve only been riding an hour yet; there are many more to come,” Pierait reminded her.
“So you’d better hold on tight then—I’m going to be unconscious,” Lyria told him and he started to frown, but she tilted her face and placed a kiss on his lips. Her body tensed for a moment as her eyes rolled back and her body finally went limp. Pierait had an odd sort of feeling in his chest—it was like the feeling he had felt for his mother, but it was more intense, tinglier. When he realized he was recalling an emotion, he wanted to panic but he gathered Lyria’s limp body securely against him and spurred the horse into a fast gallop.
Pierait was able to make it to the city of Sorrow well before sunset and the guards that saw him approaching with an unconscious girl rushed ahead to help.
“Is the girl okay?” the older guard had asked sternly. Pierait nodded. “Yes, but please take her. We have to get her to an inn to rest; she’s been unconscious most of the trip and she’ll need food and comfortable rest.”
The guard took the girl gently without asking anything more and the guard that came out with him took Pierait’s tired, borrowed horse as he leapt down from it.
“The horse—” Pierait started to say.
“We recognize her, kid, just see to your friend and I’ll see it taken care of and sent back to the dwarf,” the young guard assured him.
If Pierait had thought Maharyjab was an amazing city, the city of Sorrow was simply spectacular by comparison. The city itself was a strangely technological one, a direct contrast to the more traditional stonework of Morgaze. Although a great deal of the structures were solid welds or plates
of chrome, Pierait thought the buildings were strangely similar to Morgaze, if only because of all the purple stone of Morgaze and the way the chrome reflected the purple stone of the Barri Range. Where Morgaze wasn’t flashy, this city wasn’t afraid to show off its magical base.
There were enormous glass tubes running between some of the buildings, nearly 3 or 4 floors up, that looked like skywalks but they didn’t contain passengers; they contained great flows of elemental magic. He would see fire roaring through one, water twisting in unnatural helixes in another and the wind tube… you couldn’t see the wind itself but the wintergreen-hued glowing leaves showed that the wind inside was making them dance about in a kind of mesmerizing choreography no natural wind could do.
Pierait wasn’t solely fixated on the wonders above, as it was no less impressive on the ground. The elaborate stone shapes of the paved streets were not particularly exceptional but there were stones specifically placed along the streets that would slowly and dimly glow in random colors. They weren’t lit from within but more like the kind of glowing algae you might find in natural caverns; every cell of the thing was a source of light.
There was little opportunity to appreciate every little detail of the city—even after sunset it was still fairly busy and since it was a large city, it had its fair share of sleek hovering vehicles and foot traffic. Pierait felt out of place again; the mages here favored the robes he had been used to and he was still in his desert garb. Even having been covered for his journey, the sun had still managed to darken his skin and his yellow eyes and pale blue hair were now even more startling in contrast to the deep desert tan. Even Lyria, for all her years in the desert, only managed to tan a little. However, her people were from the far north and they were lucky if sun didn’t turn them the color of Swoonfruit (which is a rather severe shade of red).
Pierait stole glances at the wonders around him and took note of things he saw, but his mind was a little distracted trying to keep up with the guard holding his… what? He stumbled on it mentally. He might have said companion, but then he thought maybe there was more to it than that. Maybe, he thought, shaking his head in frustration. He didn’t like maybes.
Of the things he did notice, he took in that he did not see any other Soulless. Not a one. If there were any undead walking around, Pierait certainly couldn’t tell the difference—they certainly weren’t like zombies or mummies or any of the fantastical depictions he’d seen in books. Pierait was careful to keep his face covered as much as possible, especially since he wasn’t sure if he was out of danger yet.
“Guard,” Pierait started.
“Oh hey, where are my manners? Name’s Iric. And you?” the guard offered.
“Pierait. Iric, are there no Soulless, no undead here?” Pierait asked without hesitation.
The guard was not fazed be the question.
“The undead are everywhere—don’t have tattoos or anything so you don’t really know who’s who, short of asking, but it’s not exactly polite asking. The best way to tell is to shake their hands. Cold as ice. The Soulless though. The oddest thing. In the past year since Myceum decided to go to war with the north, they all started mumbling something about the other side of the Wall and heading off for it, but they don’t come back.”
Iric shivered involuntarily.
“It’s not easy finding your way past the Wall; no one was intended to pass it ever anyways. They say the Valley of Death is right outside of the northern gate and that’s certain death, so if you managed to get away from them at all, you end up in this big waste—no food, no water, no nothing, and on and on as far as the Barren Lands meets the Barri.”
Pierait did not know whether to trust the guard but he nodded anyway and stopped talking for a moment when the guard had turned into a building labeled with a neon sign proclaiming them to be at ‘Violet Nights Hotel’. Hotels were not a common moniker on either continent since Inn was a more welcoming term and usually insured a tavern for nighttime entertainment. Hotels were typically exclusively made for sleeping; all the better since Lyria would need lots of it and he didn’t like the idea of leaving her in some place with a seedy tavern when he set off for the Wall.
Pierait took the lead as they approached the hotelier and he quickly made a transaction for a single room. Iric carried her still as they took an elevator tube up to the 8th floor and Pierait led them to the door. He was going to let Iric carry her in and place her on the bed, but he unlocked the door and gestured for the guard to hand her over. Iric smiled kindly and Pierait thanked him, carrying Lyria in himself. Iric’s hands had been ice cold.
It didn’t do Pierait any good to know that at the moment—the undead could still lie to your face. What they couldn’t do is lie to Lyria. Pierait had read that Sorrow was also once called ‘The Bed of Lies.’ However, if they weren’t able to find any other undead with any luck, they would at least know of one who might be of use to them again. They couldn’t very well go around shaking everyone’s hands and if Iric were any indication, you’d never be able to tell them apart from anyone else on sight.
Pierait watched Lyria sleep for hours as he sat on a comfortable sofa. The room itself was fun to look at but his eyes mostly fell back on her. The healthy color had slowly returned to her face and her cheeks even had a slightly rosy blush to them as good sleep warmed them. He was anxious to cross the Wall, but he did not want to hurry her either. He had paid the hotelier enough in pearls to cover nearly a month of nights. He would tell Lyria that if he could not be back in three weeks to send word to Urys and plan a trip back home. Although, she could stay in Sorrow if she liked; despite the overall gloom of the Barren Lands, Sorrow was actually a marvel of beauty and she would not be unhappy here.
After that was decided, Pierait locked his thoughts on what must be done. When Lyria woke, they would grab a bite to eat and head off to the Fount of Death. It seemed as good a place as any to start. The Founts were the same wherever you went. They were pure elemental magic vessels, usually shaped like urns and were protected by a magical barrier. They were housed in separate rooms in governmental buildings. There was only one Hall of Founts on either continent so the Founts themselves were on limited access. You could arrange for a tour but only on an appointment basis. In Sorrow, there was an extra one, of course, the one and only Fount of Death and it was in the center of the building. Pierait knew that much because, although they couldn’t see it during the day, at night a weird tower of swirling violet light had come from that building. Pierait didn’t dare leave Lyria alone so he had peeked out of the room and found a maid in the hallway to ask. She had politely told him that the Fount was hungry for the restless souls at night; it was one reason why the City itself wasn’t plagued by the random attacks that nighttime travelers between the River and Sorrow were subjected to. If the Lost were close enough to the Fount, they were drawn to it docilely like moths to a flame.
Unfortunately, Vieres had a place that was becoming like the Barren Lands as well—a place where lesser wraiths would recruit unfortunate travelers who came through. Finn had mentioned it before Pierait had left his companions and it was much like how the Barren Lands were; an area where towns and cities had become ghost towns and nestled in an area that was mostly surrounded by mountains. If it continued to spread, they would end up walling it off as they did in the Barren Lands. According to Finn, though, the wraiths of the north had also taken to using magical ships to travel the ocean and he knew that once people knew of that, they would also want to block the ocean routes. The natural barrier of the Barri and the Wailing River had been sufficient to keep in the dead/undead, but the Nadivya Ocean between the three continents was just an ocean. The common belief that wraiths did not like water was false. The wraiths must not head west along the coast where the Echoing Ocean carried the trade ships between Vieres and Stoneweld or else there would have been rapid talk about doing something about it.
Pierait was pushed from his thoughts as he heard Lyria stir on the bed. He got up and sat o
n the edge of the large bed and made to wipe the sweat from her head, but stopped himself. He no longer wore the gloves and he did not like that he was forgetting simple things like that lately. The part of his personality that was making this trip less dangerous seemed to be weakening and he did not like that in the least.
Lyria’s eyes had fluttered open as he was frowning at his hands and she smiled groggily and tapped his knee with her finger. His eyes shot up to meet hers and she laughed at that serious face with the empty eyes.
He got to his feet casually and tilted his head in that way he did when he was searching for what to say next.
“You should eat something. I can order food or we can go out. You look healthy again, so I will let you decide,” Pierait finally told her.
Lyria knew that even though he was changing, it must have taken a lot of effort to leave any decisions to her when he was so close to his Purpose. While he seemed to be increasingly unsure if it was really here, she was ever more convinced that it had to be. She didn’t know if it was just because of his changes or if something in her head was just adamant about not thinking of the possibility of losing him. She smiled and pushed herself up, watching a little frown of concern on his lips. She folded her hands in her lap and watched his fine blue hair dance slightly in the air that circulated in the room. He waited patiently for her to speak again and she almost forgot what the question was.
The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy) Page 36
