by Garry Spoor
“Oh, it was… just shoptalk. You know. He was asking me about a medical problem.”
“Since when is Master Boraro interested in medicine?”
“It was… personal. You know, I can’t discuss it. It wouldn’t be right. You understand.”
“Yeah, yeah, I am beginning to.”
“So, what’s up? You interpret that writing yet?”
“Writing?”
“Yeah, you’ve been staring at that parchment since we got back. I thought maybe you’d figured it out.”
“No, nothing. I think you were right—it’s only a bunch of scribbles.”
“Well, that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. If I were you, I’d forget about it. By the sounds of it, it won’t be long before we’re off this island and heading home. Personally, I can’t wait. All I want to do is put this entire expedition behind me and go back to doing what I know I’m good at.”
“Yeah, it’ll be great to get back home,” she said.
“Well, I’m turning in, I don’t know about you.”
“Maybe in a while.”
“Suit yourself. You know where the tent is,” he added before he walked away. He had only gone a couple of feet before he stopped and turned around.
“Kile, let it go, please.”
“It’s already forgotten.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
There was something more he wanted to tell her, but they were already lying to each other. What more could he say? She simply watched him walk away.
“I don’t know about you, Vesper, but I wish Grim was here.”
It wasn’t like the mountain pony held the best counsel. Most of his solutions required a touch of violence, but she always felt more in control when he was around. Maybe not so much over him, but over the situation, and right now the situation was completely out of her control. Daniel was lying to her and she didn’t know why. She thought he was the one member of the company she could trust, and now she was having her doubts.
“Don’t worry, it won’t be long now.”
Kile was so preoccupied with her thoughts, she hadn’t heard Private Eafer approach. The young soldier could be quiet when he wanted to.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s the island. You feel the change too, don’t you? It’s starting to creep me out as well.”
He had obviously mistaken her ponderings for nervousness.
“But I wouldn’t worry too much. We’ll be leaving first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow morning? I thought the repairs on the ship were going to take a day or two.”
Eafer laughed. “Yeah, well. The crew has been working night and day to get the ship ready. They want off this island as much as anyone. Most of the major repairs are nearing completion and they’ll handle the minor ones along the way.”
“That… that’s great,” Kile said, trying to sound more enthusiastic than she felt.
“Tell me about it. This little expedition, with the possible exception of the storm, was not all that difficult, and that’s what’s bothering me. It feels like the world is holding its breath, waiting to exhale at the right time. I, for one, will be happy to get off this island.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Well, you better get some sleep. Captain Dotol wants to set sail with the morning tide.”
Kile thanked him and watched him go. This new information moved her time frame up. If she wanted to read the writing on the wall, she could no longer wait until morning. She would have to go now. She thought about waking Daniel but decided against it. He would only try to stop her. No, she would have to go alone this time.
~~~***~~~
Sneaking away from camp wasn’t difficult since the few sailors who were on watch were more concerned with what might come out of the forest and not what was going in. Kile kept to the shadows, moving silently past the vir. Her feral side made it too easy. Once she was far enough away, and she knew she couldn’t be seen, she could move faster. This time, she didn’t have to worry about anyone trying to keep up with her or hold her back. With no obstacles in the dead forest to slow her down, she could run. As the trees flew by her and the ground passed under her, her concerns and fears no longer mattered. All she cared about was the wind in her face and the excitement of the hunt. If she couldn’t fly, running was the next best thing. When she finally reached the temple, she stopped to catch her breath. The air was stale and smelled metallic. If she didn’t know better, she would swear it was coming from the entrance.
Kile opened the courier’s bag and let Vesper climb out, onto her arm.
“You ready?” she asked the yarrow.
-Down again?-
“We have to if we want to know what the walls are trying to tell us.”
Removing the small lantern from her pack, she lit it and held it out in front of her as she descended, once again, into the tunnel. The light didn’t penetrate the darkness as far as it had before. It was almost as if the air had grown thicker and she physically had to push her way through it. Even the sounds of her footsteps were muffled. When she finally reached the chamber, it was like stepping back into the void. The lantern was insignificant as the shadows pressed in on her. The darkness was complete. All she could see was the small patch of interlocking stone beneath her feet.
-Don’t like.- The yarrow gripped Kile’s shoulder tighter.
“What is it, Vesper? What do you feel?”
-Don’t like. Not alone.-
Slowly drawing one of her Lann, she stood quietly, listening to the darkness, but all she heard was her own heart beating. Lifting the hood on the lantern, she held it up as high as she could. Even the unfettered light didn’t travel as far as it had the last time she was here. If anything, she should be able to see the edge of the pit, but now it was beyond the lantern’s reach. She knew it was there, she could feel it calling out to her, begging for her to come back, to abandon her search and sleep once more in the darkness.
Kile quickly turned away from it. Dwelling any longer on the pit was pointless. She would find no answers down there.
“Anybody here?” she called out, but her voice fell flat. There wasn’t even a decent echo.
Adjusting her grip on the Lann, she slowly moved around the perimeter of the room but found nothing.
“There’s nobody here, Vesper.”
-Not alone,- the yarrow repeated, but all his words showed her was darkness.
“I think this place is getting to you. You’re imagining things. We’re the only ones here,” she said, trying to set his mind at ease, or was it her mind that needed setting?
She awkwardly slid her blade back into its sheath. There was still a lot of room for improvement on that little maneuver, although it only took her three tries this time. Lowering the hood on the lantern, she moved closer to the wall and cast the light onto a small portion of the writing.
“Okay, this is what we came for,” she said before falling into her Edge. Taking a deep breath, she tried to center herself the way the mystics taught her. Her feral side tended to get carried away, and she needed to focus. When she opened her eyes, she expected to see the dull yellow squiggles start to move across the wall, hopefully forming words in a language she could understand. What she hadn’t expected were the pictures moving as well. The crude little drawings had taken on a life of their own. She didn’t have to read the wall; it was going to show her what it wanted her to know. If only Alex could see this, she thought as a story unfolded before her eyes.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t achieved the same level of consciousness the Orceen could, or maybe it was because the writing was so old and the pictures so crude. The story was hard to follow. Of course there was no sound so that only added to the confusion.
The first scenes were simple enough to understand. They showed two groups of people, meeting in the middle of a forest filled with poorly drawn trees and animals. One group of figures had to be the Orceen—they were depicted with animalistic traits. Some had
tails, some had horns, some had catlike ears, and one even had a pair of large wings. The other group must have been the Alva. They were tall and slender and the only other race to have met with the Orceen. Next were the Ogre, and the pictures didn’t look anything like them.
The next few parts of the play were pretty dull. They showed the Orceen teaching the Alva how to plant food, tend gardens, and care for the animals. These were, at least, things every version of the story agreed on. After that, the play became disjointed, as if there were pages missing from the script or the actors forgot their lines. Kile could only guess at what the wall was trying to tell her. Thankfully, her rudimentary knowledge of history, as taught by the Academy, proved useful. The wall was showing her the Mudd Wars, although it was difficult to tell who was who. She knew, from her studies, the vir joined with the Alva to beat back the Ogre, but that was about the extent of her historical knowledge. Beyond that, none of the images made any sense. There were stick figures talking with stick figures, stick figures killing other stick figures, and stick figures interacting with animal figures. Kile was so lost and was about to give up when she spotted a familiar stick figure. It was the Orceen with the large wings. Of course, what happened next went against everything she thought she understood. The Orceen was captured, tied up, and tortured. It didn’t make sense. To hear Galan speak, the Alva revered the Orceen and considered them almost divine, and yet here they were ripping the poor figure’s wings off. Why they were doing it or what they hoped to gain was unclear.
The torture went on longer than it should have when suddenly the scene went black. At first, Kile thought the wall had shown her all that it was going to show her, but she noticed the darkness was growing. It spread across the wall, snaking out black tendrils in all directions. She had seen this before. Did she just witness the birth of the Maligar?
As she watched, the black tendrils invaded the other sections of the drawing. It touched the figures and they were erased, it touched the trees and they withered and died. It touched the animals and they changed into…
-Saladog,- Vesper shouted in her head.
The yarrow saw it before she did. He knew it was lurking in the darkness and tried to warn her, but she wouldn’t listen. Kile spun around right as the Valgar lunged. She hurled the lantern into its face. The light shattered, sending flaming embers in all directions. Drawing her Lann, she pressed her back against the wall. The darkness crashed in on her and she could see nothing. The entrance was only a couple of yards to her left, but even if she reached it, what then? She would still have to deal with the Valgar.
Holding her breath, she listened. She could hear its clawed feet on the stone floor, moving to the left. It was trying to cut off her retreat. She couldn’t see it; she couldn’t sense it. The Valgar blended so well with the darkness spawned of the Maligar it was invisible. There was only one thing she could do—trust in the mystic’s training. Morgan had told her she was ready for this.
Falling deeper into her Edge, she reached out and touched the Valgar. Its mind was scrambled and its memories were meaningless. Visions of the void, of the darkness, was all that it knew, all that it understood. Created by the Maligar, it had but one purpose: to obey the darkness, and right now, the darkness wanted Kile dead. It would appear she knew too much. Unfortunately she didn’t know what she knew.
Even though she merged with its mind, she didn’t lose herself to it. Not this time. Thanks to Morgan’s teachings, she knew who she was and held on to her identity.
Kile threw one word at it—a simple command. She told it to stop, and it did, but the command wouldn’t hold for long. The control the Maligar had over the beast was far stronger than anything she could compete with. Seizing her opportunity, she ran for the exit and grabbed Vesper from her shoulder, stuffing the yarrow into the courier’s bag before sprinting up the tunnel and out into the forest. There was something else she had seen in the saladog’s head. She may have only caught a glimpse of it, but it was enough to frighten her. He wasn’t the only Valgar in the pit. He had a few thousand relatives, and they were all waking up.
Everything was connected—everything was linked. The Heart of Nilak had something to do with the Maligar. The whole expedition was a trap, but who set it up? As far as she could figure, there was nothing to gain by releasing the Maligar into the physical world. It was an uncontrollable force, a disease that would destroy everything. Who would benefit from that? Surely not even Ravenshadow would go that far.
Kile slid to a stop. She was so close to camp, but now her path was blocked. Darfin, the white-haired Alva, stood before her with his Lann drawn.
“I suppose I owe my cousin an apology,” he said as he paced the ground before her. “He told me you were getting close, but I couldn’t believe a vir, like you, could figure it out.”
Kile held up her hands. This was no time for a duel, not that she had a chance against an Alva.
“Master Darfin, we’re all in great danger. There are Valgar on this island.”
“It doesn’t matter. The Heart is on the ship. It’s safe.”
“But we can’t let the Heart leave. Don’t you see? It’s a trap. I don’t believe the Heart can reclaim Kalistar. I think it created the wastelands.”
“Of course it did. You don’t think we know our own history?”
Kile stared at the Alva, stunned by his confession. “What are you saying?”
Darfin laughed. She hadn’t heard the white-haired Alva laugh before, and now that she did, it kind of creeped her out.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand,” he said, raising one of his Lann and pointing it at her. “Prepare yourself, vir. Let’s see if you know how to use those blades.”
“I don’t want to fight you.”
“Good. It will make killing you that much easier,” he said, sprinting across the ground toward her.
His movements were so fluid, so elegant, it didn’t even look as if his feet touched the ground. Kile was mesmerized by his grace until she realized his blade was coming for her head. Diving to one side, she stripped the courier’s bag from her shoulder and tossed it to safety before drawing her own Lann. Darfin spun around, both blades whirling, and Kile stumbled to her feet. The Alva advanced quickly. His feet and his hands never stopped moving. She knew the movements, she knew the style, but he was too fast. He kept her on guard, forcing her to block across herself. She had to readjust her footing constantly while retreating. His blades kept finding their way through her defenses. First he nicked the inside of her arm. She flinched and his second blade found the outside of her leg. Kile kept stumbling backward while Darfin slowly circled her.
“Who taught you, vir?” he asked.
“Why do you care?” She tried to keep her voice as steady as possible. The small wounds were burning like fire. His blades were sharp and the cuts were clean. Small hits—that was the basis of the Tachiena style of fighting. Wear your opponent down, tire them out. Kile was already tired.
“It is forbidden to teach our skills to just anyone, especially a vir. Who taught you?”
“Why? Do you need a refresher course?”
Darfin laughed. “I like your attitude. Too bad it’s going to die here with you.”
He spun in with both blades. The lower one she blocked easily. The higher one, not so much. Although she maneuvered her blade under his, the tip sliced the right side of her cheek. She spun away, trying to put as much distance between them as she could but found herself standing on the edge of the cliff. Fifty feet below her, waves crashed on a rocky shore.
“Looks like you’re out of room, vir, unless you plan to jump.”
Kile looked down at the jagged rocks. Jumping was not an option. Her only other means of escape was getting past Darfin. With the Alva’s speed, that wasn’t much of an option either.
She readjusted her grip on her Lann.
Darfin shook his head and grinned. He was having way too much fun.
“It’s no use,” he said. “You fight like a clum
sy cart horse. You are too slow and uncoordinated. There’s no way you can win.”
Cart horse? Maybe it was time to change species.
Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Kile had no choice but to release her feral side.
Darfin seized on what he believed was a momentary lapse of judgment. He quickly covered the ground between them, bringing both Lann in. Without opening her eyes, Kile knocked one blade aside and dipped under the second. She spun behind him, throwing him off balance, before kicking out his left knee. The Alva went down into a roll and came up in a defensive stance, the cocky smile no longer on his face.
“Please stop, I don’t want to hurt you,” she pleaded.
The white-haired Alva shook his head. “I can’t,” he said before launching into another attack.
This time, his moves didn’t seem so fast. Kile could block them with ease, but she couldn’t bring herself to go on the offensive. She didn’t want to hurt him, but he wasn’t leaving her much choice. He kept switching up his attacks, first coming in from the left, then from the right. He was testing her defense, trying to find where she was the weakest, but in his attempts to locate her vulnerabilities, he was exposing himself.
Kile drew him in, making him think he was wearing her down, which wasn’t far from the truth. The small wounds he inflicted on her were taking their toll. She had to end the battle soon. Darfin saw his opening, and dropping his defenses, committed to his attack. It should have been fatal, but Kile was waiting for it. She slipped under his blades and came up between them. It cost her a hit to her right shoulder, but she got her Lann past his defenses. Turning the blades outward and pulling back, she sliced into both of his outstretched arms.
Cursing, Darfin retreated. He tried in vain to stop the bleeding. The cuts were deeper than she’d intended. Dropping her blades, she rushed to his side.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt you,” she said.
The Alva pulled away from her, laughing. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me,” he said. “You’re already too late.”
