Unexpectedly, Razhier spoke up. Peering out from under the arm over his head, his voice trembling, he managed to say, "Theina wanted you to help us. She tried to convince you. She wanted you to be a part of this from the beginning."
“I couldn’t,” Aris said. “There is so much more at work in the palace than you fools know. The Mourisiels cannot be touched.”
“Not by assassins, perhaps,” Fiskahn said. “We have learned that lesson. But maybe there is another way to bring them down. Maybe we can strip them from power without taking their lives. I have been developing a new plan, Aris. If it works, nobody else needs to die. We could have the democratic government we seek, that Theina sought.”
Aris lowered his head. He was motionless for a moment, and Fiskahn could only watch and wait for him to make his decision. Finally, the Villain slid his sword back into its sheath. “Tell me your plan, old man.”
Camarei V
Vision or Dream
Unable to sleep, the White Star hot overhead, Erona pushed aside her fur blanket and sat up. Shavyn snored nearby and in the distance, Valkil's moans and Ahlaha's tender cries spurred the imagination. Erona sighed. Ahlaha certainly had a beautiful voice.
Malquin sat opposite her round the campfire, shoulders slumped, sharpening a blade against a thin strip of leather. He took his time through the completion of each repetitive motion, then brought the blade back quickly to the start, making a regular smack and elongated sigh, the blade against the leather.
Erona crawled to the smoldering fire and took a rujh bone with meat on it. She'd had her fill before rest-time but eating gave her something to focus on, and she didn't like to let her mind wander.
“You.”
Erona paused mid-chew and looked at Malquin. “Yes?” They had not yet spoken, despite the time they had spent on the road together since leaving his shack.
“You saw it? This therill we plan to hunt?” Erona nodded. “Was it like the stories?”
“Yes.”
“Big, black," Malquin recited. "Like a man but heavier. Stronger. Spines on the back and arms.”
“Yes.”
Malquin looked away and Erona followed his gaze into the distance. The heavy forest they had left behind was still visible, the scorched flatlands between them empty. No animals moved on the land or in the sky and only a few scrub brushes and stunted trees dotted the landscape. She had walked the same path on her way to Verden, at first with her mother and Mir, and then alone. Sometimes when she looked out across the flatlands, she thought she saw the therill’s shape in the hazy distance, a foreboding shape in the rising heat.
“What happened?” she asked, turning her mind to the nearest thought that wasn’t of therill.
“The heat,” Malquin said. “Next time the Blue Star rises, it will torch this land again. Push the edge of the forest back. Kill all those who don’t find shelter.”
“I know how the star cycles work,” she said. “I meant, what happened between you and Valkil?”
Malquin returned to sharpening his knife. “What happened to those of your village who were killed by the therill? What happened to your mother?” He shook his head. “There are some questions you should not ask.”
“I will answer yours. I have already told…”
“It is painful to think on it, is it not? To be asked to recall your suffering? Your loss?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“Why dwell on it?”
“So we do not forget the past. So we can use it to influence our future.”
He chuckled. “You have the look of a simple girl. I hope you don’t mind me saying that. I mean that you are wiser than you look. The thing is, Valkil and I served together for a very long time. He won fame and fortune but everyone else who helped him get it found themselves empty-handed. I would have been fine with that, perhaps, but then we both fell in love with the same girl and, well, you can see that he won that too.” He slapped the edge of the blade against the leather and dragged it across. Then again.
“You’ll wear out the edge,” Erona said. “If you keep doing that, I mean. It has to be plenty sharp by now.”
Malquin paused and regarded the knife. “I suppose it might,” he said. “But it’s better than doing nothing. Ain’t it?”
“There are other things worth doing.”
Malquin raised an eyebrow. Valkil's and Ahlaha's cries had risen to a crescendo, and Erona's cheeks went hot. “That’s not what I meant.”
Malquin laughed. He sheathed the knife at his hip, then folded the leather strap and put it into his pack. “What would you have me do, then?”
“Talk to me. About the therill. About what we’re going to do when we find them.”
“Valkil says he has a plan for that.”
“You trust him?”
“Ha! No. But I know him. He’s nothing if not clever.”
“How is he going to do it? What’s his plan? Who is this Aioni we’re going to see?”
Malquin paused. “She served with us, back when Valkil was the Verdant Knight. She’s one of the better hunters in Camarei. Track anything, anyone. Sets traps you couldn’t see on your hands and knees, your eye right up on them. Some of those we served with liked to say she could see the wind, given how accurate she can shoot a bow at distance.”
“So she can hunt a therill?”
“I’m sure she could.” Malquin laughed again. “You don’t look happy.”
“I just expected the plan to be something more clever than hiring someone to do the hunting for us.”
“She ain’t for hire and it ain’t likely she’ll work with us anyway.”
“Then why are we going to her?”
“Because of what she has become since her knighthood ended. You heard of the Qati?”
“The oasis people.”
“They’ve lived out west a long, long time. Legend has it they’ve been there since before the therill were driven back. Some say it’s because they’re not real men, not like we are. That they’re creatures of the oasis. Guardians. Protectors.”
“Are they?”
“No, of course not. There aren’t enough of them. Only a few hundred. But armies have tried to take the oasis before and failed.”
“I’ve heard stories,” Erona said. “The Qati avi-men. They dance in the heat of the desert and their enemies fall dead or crazed.” Erona crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you telling me Valkil wants to recruit Qati wizards to help us hunt therill?”
“Not the wizards themselves, no. Valkil’s just hoping they’ll teach us a spell or two, and it’s Aioni who can make the introduction.”
☆ ☆ ☆
A subtle breeze ran along Valkil's damp, naked body, cool and comfortable. Beside him, Ahlaha made a beautiful landscape of rolling hills and valleys, marked in red where he had grasped and kissed. The White Star shimmered overhead in an empty sky.
“Better get back,” Valkil said. “Malquin will be getting impatient.”
Ahlaha didn’t respond. Valkil idly reached out to touch her arm and found it cold. She stared up at the White Star, blue eyes dead and vacant. He shook her by the shoulders, repeating her name until it became a shriek and tears filled his eyes.
Hush, a voice whispered into Valkil’s ear. When he looked, there was nothing to see. He was alone. The world was still. There was no buzzing of insects in the air, no cries of avi.
Something snarled. Premonition turned Valkil's head so that he found the source; a great black creature with a pointed muzzle and long spines on its arms and shoulders watching from a cluster of distant acovet.
Valkil rose slowly, gaze locked on the therill. Another snarl, and another, and Valkil turned in place to see them all; a dozen therill gathering to surround him. His heart pounded and his mind reeled. He was weaponless. Defenseless. He thought to call out to Malquin but his body wouldn't respond, as though frozen by fear.
The therill charged in unison, lowering down to all fours as they came. Blood-red spittle strung
out from their slathering jaws, disappearing into the amber dust in their wake. They somehow made no sound but their paws shook the ground like thunder. Valkil stood over Ahlaha’s body and waited, fists raised.
The fastest therill lunged, claws outstretched and jaws open. Valkil felt its hot breath and smelled its wild odor, yet just before it struck, a brilliant light flashed and all the therill were thrown back. They rolled in the dirt and were still.
Valkil turned and beheld a white marble stone, tall and narrow and flat-surfaced. He and Ahlaha had left the others behind to examine it more closely, and when romance had taken them, they had laid together beside it. A rune inscribed at eye level, previously dormant, now shone with golden light, and as Valkil beheld it, the rest of the world seemed to fade away. In his mind's eye, he saw a similar stone, black rather than white, bearing an identical rune. It stood among strange acovet and running water. Inexplicably, Valkil felt sure that if he followed his intuition, he would find that black stone and that it would show him to another, on and on, until the last stone revealed the hiding place of something critically important to...
“Valkil?”
Valkil opened his eyes and found himself standing over Ahlaha. There were no dead therill, nor any sign there had ever been. The sigil scrawled in the stone's surface no longer glowed. All was quiet and calm.
“Are you well?” Ahlaha sang.
Valkil took a deep breath. “I really don’t know.”
“You look pale.”
“I had another vision. Or a dream, perhaps. A very strange one.” He knelt and touched her shoulder, comforted by its warmth. “It seemed very real.”
She sat up, brow furrowed. “The Moridah take visions very seriously.”
“That could very well be because they wear blindfolds and never see anything their whole lives. Any kind of vision must be very special indeed.”
“That’s not what I mean. Tell me.”
Valkil recounted the vision, including every detail. When he reached the end, he finished with, “That is all. It meant nothing.”
“That doesn’t seem like a dream.”
“It was. I was asleep here beside you and I dreamt it. I was thinking of the therill, fearing them and what we might do when we encountered them. My imagination turned that into something strange. I promise you, that is all.”
Ahlaha frowned but Valkil kissed her on the lips and she softened. “Come on, now,” he said. “Get dressed. We should get back to the others and back on the road. Aioni’s place is not far now.”
She laughed in her sing-song voice. “If she hates you as much as you say, why are you in such a hurry?”
“It is a fault of mine. I prefer to go charging towards a challenge rather than take caution like a wise man might.”
Skor-Adal V
The Sigil
Far from camp, Krudah sat alone, looking out across the vast landscape of dull yellow brush and blowing dust. He thought about his wife, remembering all the joy she had brought him and pitying himself for the personal weakness that had taken her.
Casually, as though she were out for a walk through Skor-Rek's streets, a vision of his wife wandered into view, tall form stark against the flat terrain. She looked just the way Krudah remembered in her last moments. He stared, and she stared back. The cool touch of the wind on his cheeks and the sing-song cries of circling avi faded until his only sensation was the sight of her.
Memories that Krudah wanted desperately to lose flashed before his eyes; the empty look on Koera's face as death took her, blood clotting her hair and sticking it to her head, teeth scattered on the wooden floor of their home.
Leave me," Krudah thought. "I will do what you ask but do not return until I have finished it for you, in your honor."
Koera shimmered and disappeared as if she had never been. Krudah fell to his knees and stared at the space she had occupied, cheeks wet and heart pounding.
“Can’t sleep either, can you?” Slither asked as she approached from behind. Krudah quickly wiped away his tears while she settled beside him. “Too damn hot, I say. Too damn bright. I ain’t used to the sleeping outdoors, least not without acovet. Nothing to keep that damn light at bay, block it off. I close my eyes and feel it on my skin like a living thing, like water from the rain or some like, and I just can’t get myself comfortable. You the same, General? Or am I as crazy as the boys like to say?” He shrugged and she laughed. “Guess that I am. There’s worse things to be than crazy, I says. Good thing for me. Good thing for you too, I suppose. Hope you don’t mind me saying it. At least not so much you break out the fists again and put `em into my face like before. I know I said I was sorry about that but I suppose it don’t hurt to say it again. I only knew how you liked the jan-jan from our times before. Thought maybe you’d need it or want it anyway. There’s worse things to be than wrong, I suppose.”
Krudah did not look her way, mind still reeling from the vision. Slither eyed him, squinting against the White Star’s light. “Still can’t speak, can you? You tried? When’s the last time?”
Krudah put his hand on the cloth around his neck. His wound there was still sore, still throbbing. He tried to speak but only made a thin, raspy breath.
Slither laughed. “Not so bad. Could be worse. May come back yet, don’t you fret about it.” She put a hand on Krudah’s knee and he glanced at her, confounded. She wore mock concern like a mask but Krudah saw through to the smoldering fire. “You’ve you’re own demons to wrestle, to be sure. I don’t doubt you that. But you don’t have to do it alone. Aye, it’s an easier thing to do with brothers and sisters by your side. Those that care about you, they’ll take up arms against your enemies, real and imagined. I’m one of those, General. You know me as I am. I’ll fight these crazy cultists, to be sure, until they take me or we win the day. I’d also help you to fight those dark enemies you’ve made what live in your own mind.” She squeezed his knee. “I’d be any kind of companion you need me to be. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t always wish I could be.”
Krudah lifted Slither’s hand from his knee and forcefully put in down on the ground between them, holding her gaze all the while. She sighed. “You think it too soon, I suppose. I don’t blame you. Can understand it quite well myself. I’ve done things I regret and time’s the only healer ever did me right. But still, I’m not ashamed to have said what I did. You know it now, what I’d do for you. When the time is right, maybe you’ll think differently on it. I hope you will.”
She returned to camp. Krudah watched her go until he realized his focus was on the sway of her hips and the curve of her thighs. Guiltily, he looked to the space previously occupied by the vision of his wife. He felt as though she were still there, watching and judging him.
When he got up to return to camp, Krudah put a hand on a nearby stone for leverage. It felt odd under his palm and he glanced at it in passing. A sigil, a simple crossing of several lines, had been carved into the rock. Each of the cuts was deep and smooth, made with remarkable precision. The stone itself was large, one of the largest in sight. Krudah scanned the horizon for another like it but found none.
He ran his fingers across the lines of the sigil, admiring its work. As a young man, when he had served in Camarei as a missionary, he had come across a smooth black stone, taller and thinner than himself, in a misty forest. A sigil had been adeptly carved into its surface. He had thought the stone a signpost or grave marker, the sigil speaking in a language long dead and lost to time. Now, seeing a similar sigil, thousands of miles from the last, he was struck by the coincidence and wondered at the meaning.
He half-expected to feel something as he passed his fingers over the shape, some mystical energy or revelatory sensation, but Krudah felt nothing. The stone was as cold as his heart, as dead as his love.
Yet when he turned to go, Krudah's fingers stuck fast to the stone. He tugged, straining, but they would not budge. He laughed quietly, confounded by the strangeness. He pulled harder, increasingly desperate, but his
fingers wouldn’t move from the stone’s surface.
The interior of the stone began to glow soft and yellow, illuminating the rune. A throbbing sound, so low it was nearly imperceptible, rolled out from the stone and through Krudah, setting his limbs to quaking. In his mind's eye, Krudah saw another stone like the one he touched, similarly inscribed. He knew at once how to reach it and that if he could, it would show him to another stone even further away. He couldn't see what waited at the end of the series but something like intuition, a foreign presence in his mind, impressed upon him that the waystones must be followed, whatever obstacles might get in the way.
The light began to fade and once it was gone completely, the stone released Krudah. He fell back and lay still a moment, considering the meaning of this new vision. He remembered where the next stone would be found; the memory burned against his consciousness like a brand.
He began to believe that his discovery of the stone just after beholding a vision of his wife had been no accident. Skor had let her step out of his halls so she could guide him in the mission he undertook in her memory. She had shown him to the stone. She would help find the next one. And whatever lay at the end, it would help him destroy Zor.
Mourisiel V
Setting Out
Bundled inside his warmest furs, Aris breathed into his hands and rubbed them together for warmth. The wind blew impotent over the outcropping of rock overhead, but the cold burrowed into the bones without its aid. A glance upwards at the passing islandic, lifeless stone drifting through the cloudless sky, confirmed that it would soon be gone and the White Star would return to warm the tundra.
Complaining and bickering, Jeppo and Vella announced their arrival before they came into view. Hoods and masks raised, only their eyes showed, but Aris knew by their heights which was the father and which was the daughter. The identity of the third figure was a mystery, however.
White Star Phase: Book One of the Ascendants Chronicle Page 8
