Now Slurr sat up as well. “That’s not good. I’m thinking that perhaps these two bits of news may be related.”
“As am I,” said Cerah as she swung her legs out of the bed. She began to pull her armor on.
Slurr got up and pushed open the shudders of the dark room. The sky outside was still filled with early morning stars, but light from a street lantern streamed in through the window. To his surprise, he saw an old woman standing beneath the lantern. She had seen the motion of the shudders and now looked intently at the window. Seeing Slurr’s naked form, she began to smile. Mortified, he ran to where he had hastily dropped his duffel the night before and began to put on his own suit of molute armor. As he pulled the breeches up over his waist, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, seeing what had caused the crone to break into her lascivious grin. Cerah’s restorative spell had worked wonders. I almost look like myself again, he thought. And despite this alarming news, he saw on his face an expression of contentment that came with the “therapy” he and his wife had shared after she’d finished casting the healing magic on him.
As he pulled the shirt of his armor over his head, he turned to Cerah. She was fully dressed and held Isurra in her hand. She tapped her foot unconsciously as she waited for Slurr to finish dressing. He caught the gesture and sat back on the edge of the bed, quickly pulling on his boots.
“I’m ready,” he said.
As they walked several doors down to a slightly larger building, in which Kern and Parnasus were quartered—guests of the owners, who had remained when trouble came—she reached over and took Slurr’s hand. It was so good to have him beside her again.
“I don’t want you to think for even a moment that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy our time together last night. Being one with you was like a slice of the Next Plane. It may have been the best ever. It definitely felt special, different.”
“I wish we could have lain together for the rest of our lives,” Slurr said, looking down at her beautiful face. “But we have a demon to kill.”
“Yes, General, we do,” she said. She knocked on the door of the house where the wizards stayed. A young girl, perhaps just sixteen, opened the door. As she recognized Cerah, her eyes grew wide. Cerah caught herself thinking that this might have been her not too long ago. Although she was exiled to Mount Arnon to herd agorrah when she was this girl’s age, she saw in her eyes the same innocence that had been hers. It seemed like a thousand years since she’d been this young and carefree.
“Please come in, Chosen One,” the girl said, stepping aside to let Cerah and Slurr enter and, bowing, her eyes cast down reverentially.
“What is your name?” Cerah asked the girl, lifting her chin and looking into her eyes.
“I am Urtha,” she replied.
“Hello, Urtha. I am Cerah. You can call me that. I wish that you would.”
The girl blushed but nodded her head in response to Cerah’s gesture. “I’d like that. Cerah, please sit. I assume you need to talk with the wizards?”
“I do. Would you tell them that General Slurr and I are here?”
“I’ll get them right away.” Turning to Slurr she pointed to an overstuffed seat and said, “That chair is very comfortable. It’s my father’s favorite. Please sit while I fetch the wizards.”
As she hurried out of the room, Slurr chuckled. “She’s very bright-eyed,” he said.
A few moments later, the girl returned, this time with an older woman that Cerah assumed was her mother. The woman carried a tray with four steaming mugs. “I have freshly brewed jakta,” she said. “The wizards said they would like to start their day with a cup.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said Cerah reaching for the stimulating drink. “I’d also like to thank you for opening your home to my counselors. I hope they haven’t been too much of a nuisance.”
“Nuisance? Nonsense. We’ve been model boarders,” said Parnasus as he and Kern entered the room. “Elana and her husband Lutar have both told me that we were quite nice, ‘for wizards.’”
Elana now took a turn at blushing, and Cerah could see where young Urtha got the trait. “I’m sorry that I said that. It’s just that we have never seen wizards before your arrival in Kal Berea. We had only the old stories to go on, and I’m afraid that those were not always the most flattering.”
“We took no offense,” Kern said. “My teacher likes to tease.”
Parnasus smiled in the way that made his violet eyes twinkle. Cerah had seen it many times during her training with him back on Melsa.
“Yes, the First-Elder is a great wizard,” she said to their host, “but he can also be a bit of a rascal.”
The woman’s laughter led Cerah to realize that she’d been put at ease. As she brought the last cup of jakta to Slurr, she bowed politely and she and Urtha left the room.
Parnasus’s demeanor was instantly serious. “The projection. About Wert,” was all he needed to say.
“Yes, and about the sighting of those damnable clouds,” she replied. “I did not anticipate he would bypass the closer continents and head to Sejira. Ships left last night for Jenoobia and Illyria. We shall take the remainder of the army to Thresh at once. That is the city that Wert and Ratha were assigned to patrol.”
“I projected a response,” said Kern, “asking for more information. Alas, the details aren’t very revealing. Wert informed Kindalei that he needed a bit of time to get away from the city for a while.” Kindalei was the elder wizard that Cerah had asked to coordinate the activities of the riders she’d sent to scout the continent. She was an excellent leader and would have respected Wert’s request for respite, especially since nothing out of the ordinary had been seen anywhere near Sejira.
“It was she who sent the initial projection and it was she who Kern reached out to in response. I know Wert,” the First-Elder said. “He is a stout fellow and is very dedicated to the craft. But he does love his alone-time. More than once he was late for lessons because he and Ratha had been far out to sea, just circling around.”
“So, he may just be doing that now,” said Slurr, as he took a sip of the excellent jakta and felt it spread warmth through his veins.
“He may. I would tend not to be concerned if not for the report of the clouds.”
“Yes,” said Kern. “Kindalei told me that it was actually a human shore guard, manning the towers on the southern border of Thresh, who saw the clouds in his spyglass. He said they appeared near the horizon and seemed very localized, not spread out over a wide area as had been observed previously. They were gone after only a few minutes.”
“Slurr,” said Cerah as she finished her cup, “find Renton. Tell him to prepare the ships, then inform the commanders that we sail as soon as the army is loaded. Kern, round up the wizards. I am convinced that the appearance of these clouds indicates the presence of Surok himself, with or without his forces near him. If he is indeed near Sejira, I sense that it will not be long before he attacks. I will need to be alone while you are both making your preparations. It is vital that I reach into the Greater Spark to see if I can divine anything about Surok’s intentions. If we can get there fast enough, and if he tarries for whatever reason, we may not be too late after all.”
Parnasus called to their hosts and thanked them both for the hot drinks and for their hospitality. As they prepared to take their leave, Urtha ran up behind them. “Cerah,” she said, “thank you.”
“For what?” asked Cerah, a bemused expression on her face.
“For saving Kal Berea,” the young girl said.
Cerah laughed. “There were a lot more people than just me involved in that. I played but a small part.”
Now it was Urtha’s turn to laugh. “I realize there were many. But everybody knows that the Chosen One strikes fear in the heart of the enemy.”
“Well, I hope that’s true. In any case, I accept your thanks in the name of the Army of the Light and the wizards of Melsa.”
“Can I ask you a favor?”
“What is it, Urtha?”
“When you’ve killed Surok, would you come back and visit me? You…you are my hero!” The girl blurted out the words rapidly, as if she was afraid that she would lose the nerve to say them at all.
Cerah smiled warmly at the girl. “That is a favor I will be glad to grant,” she said. Assuming I do not perish myself, she thought.
Once outside, Slurr and Kern went off in opposite directions. Parnasus waited with Cerah. “Where are you going?” he asked her.
“I have found that when I most need the guidance of Ma’uzzi, I need to be by myself. Tressida will be with me, of course, but you know what I mean. It is easier to block out all distractions and focus totally on the answers I seek if there are no other voices in my head.”
“Well, carry my voice in your head until then,” the First-Elder said, placing his hand on Cerah’s shoulder. “I know you do not like being in a position of reactivity. Since we began you have wanted to know Surok’s plans and to strike first. Unfortunately, we have been unable to do so thus far. And for that you blame yourself.”
Cerah looked steadily at her teacher, but she did not contradict him.
“You must realize this: for all our extended lives, we wizards are still but a wisp of breeze across a field of heather. And for humans the gust is even briefer. When we deal with Surok we are dealing with the temporal framework of gods and demons. Pilka created Surok eons ago; the number of years we do not truly know—but it is many. She created him, then patiently waited millennia for his physical form to coalesce, content in knowing that he would be capable of wreaking havoc long before he could actually walk upon this plane. And Ma’uzzi’s works stretch back even further. When our world was just dust drifting through space, He already knew that all of this would transpire. And He knew that you, Cerah of Quadar, would arrive right on time. This is a grand clockwork in which we find ourselves. I myself am an insignificant cog, but you are the mainspring. Go. Seek Ma’uzzi. But know that whether we continue to chase Surok, or we manage to get ahead of him, the result will be the same. You will destroy him.”
“Thank you, Elder.” Cerah said. “Your wisdom and perspective continue to propel me forward. Your confidence steadies and strengthens me.”
“I’m sure your spark is burning a little brighter now that you have Slurr with you again.”
“It is like I had lost an arm, and it has grown back,” she said. Cerah thanked her teacher once again for encouraging her, then turned and walked away. As she did, she called to Tressida.
“Tress, meet me by the docks. I need you to take me someplace where we can be alone.”
“I will be waiting when you arrive,” the dragon answered.
True to her word, the great golden queen was standing near the docks, watching the work that continued there. A great deal of the structure had already been repaired, but there was much yet to be done. Cerah realized that the citizens of Kal Berea would have to carry on what her forces had started, as the army would be pulling out later that day.
“You look…well rested,” Tressida said. Cerah could hear the mischief in her voice.
“Never you mind,” she said, climbing upon Tressida’s back. “Fly us somewhere remote.”
The dragon took off immediately, kicking up a cloud of sawdust as her wings disturbed the air where workers had been cutting planks. Once in the air, Cerah allowed herself to take a deep, cleansing breath. Waking to such foreboding news had replaced the release she had felt after spending the night with her husband with the now familiar tension that seemed to follow her wherever she went. She knew that to reach out to Ma’uzzi she would need to shed that.
After nearly an hour in the air, Tressida spotted a clearing in the middle of a stand of woods. “That looks like an ideal spot,” she said to Cerah.
Cerah looked down and nodded. “That will be perfect, love. Take us down.”
A moment later, she slid from Tressida’s back, and she immediately fell to her knees. She thought of the last time she had done this. It had been the day the ships had returned from the Frozen South without Slurr aboard. Though she had felt in her heart that her husband was alive, she had desperately needed to bring her vulnerability to Ma’uzzi.
Now she was coming to seek Him once again, but this time it wasn’t for her own reassurance. It was for the salvation of His creation which had been entrusted to her.
“Father Ma’uzzi,” she called out, “I entreat you. Please give me direction. Give me some idea of what Surok is doing, that I might bring my forces to confront him. If I continue to simply hound after him, many more of the Free People will die. I would give anything to prevent that.”
She remained on her knees for a long time. Tressida had settled down beside her, near enough that she could touch Cerah with her tail, although instead of the playful poking she so often did, she gently ran it up and down on her match-mate’s arm; a subtle reminder that she was nearby.
As Cerah continued to wait, she repeatedly put down the urge to let impatience claim her consciousness. No, she chided herself, you will not wait for the Creator with a clouded heart! And so, she again drew in a breath to sanitize her spirit, expelling her growing contrary sourness as she exhaled.
Then, with a suddenness that took her next breath away, Cerah found herself unable to see. Where an instant before there had been trees and the hulking form of Tressida, there was now a blank white canvas spread to the edge of her awareness in every direction.
“Tress, are you there?” she asked, but the dragon did not answer. Instead she heard another voice. It was the same she had heard on Niliph as she cried out in her anguish. It sounded like light and life, like the beating of a baby’s heart and the roar of a durra.
“Child, be still,” it said. “I wish to paint you a picture.”
Even as the words echoed within her, she saw something new. The pure white was gradually being replaced by a shoreline, long and sandy. Where the beach ended, an endless grassland was visible. Standing in the grass, which grew as high as their waists, stood thousands upon thousands of warriors, with dragons and their riders interspersed. Cerah wanted to ask what land she was seeing, but Ma’uzzi had told her to hold her tongue.
Now the sky above the landscape grew dark. As Cerah continued to look on, jet-black clouds formed above the army, swirling insanely as if a foul stew, stirred by some mad, unseen chef. Then a long line of the dread black ships could be seen in the water, careening toward the shore, just as they had done at Kal Berea. This time however, there was an even more vile sight. For as the ships approached the waiting army, a huge dragon, bigger than Cerah could have even imagined one growing, literally blinked into being above the black sails, appearing out of a shimmering rift in the sky. Although she was seeing all of this from a point of view farther out to sea, so that she saw the ships and the enormous dragon from behind, she could clearly see Surok sitting upon its back. His hand was thrust out forward, as though he was pointing to the army in the grass. Cerah watched in horror as a jagged flash of lightning shot from Surok’s extended finger and tore through the ranks of the army. Wherever the flash passed, the warriors dropped, screaming in agony.
And then Cerah saw Zenk on his green dragon, flying in Surok’s wake. His staff was ablaze with energy as he sent blast after blast into the assembled force, striking warrior and wizard alike. As she watched, she felt her heart begin to fill with anger and hatred.
“No!” said the voice. “You cannot face tomorrow with a darkened spirit. Banish it now!”
Cerah wanted to scream. She wanted to argue that this wizard was the traitor who had led the Silestra to her and who had been responsible for the death of her brother, but as these thoughts arose, the vision seemed to race forward, until all she could see was the men and women dying as Surok’s lightning and Zenk’s energy blasts tore through the ranks.
“Those are brothers too. And sisters. They are sons and daughters. Fathers, mothers. Grandparents, even. And they are dying, just as Beru died
. You must refuse your anger. You must empty your heart of hatred. You must do it now.”
Cerah drew in a gasping breath. It burned her lungs as she breathed it in, as if she had inhaled one of Surok’s jagged electric bolts. She tried to push it back out, but it was as if her chest had become paralyzed. She felt as if the fire within her would cause her to burst.
“That is your hatred that you feel. If you let it settle, it will never leave you. Cast it out. You must do it now!”
With every ounce of strength and energy within her, Cerah forced the burning breath out of her body. As she did, she felt as though her lungs were collapsing. Pain tore through her, shooting out to the tips of her fingers and toes. Just as she was sure she would perish, she felt a coolness wash over her, as though a wave from a lake in autumn had splashed against her back. She inhaled again, another great gasping breath. But this time, the air she drew in tempered the pain.
She had cast out the bitterness and antipathy. She had put it down, and in its place was…nothing. She felt no emotion at all. She felt as though she were a statue, carved from stone and placed in the ocean to view the battle, but not to interact with the beings in the air, on the ships, or on the shore. It was as if she’d become nothing at all.
While she processed this alien experience, she saw the warriors begin to fight back, hurling javelins and shooting arrows into the air. The wizards began to use their staffs to retaliate against the energy that was being fired at them. As dark figures poured off the ships, the warriors ran forward and met them at the waterline, slashing and cutting into their lines. She saw, however, that nothing sent toward Surok was having any effect. The spears bounced off him and his dragon as if they were made of rubber. Some of the arrows reached him, but he brushed them away as if they were insects, no more than a nuisance.
Zenk, however, was maneuvering for his life. Bolts of red fire whizzed past his head, and he ducked and twisted to avoid them. She watched as a bolt struck him squarely, knocking him from Balthus’s back. His body fell, spinning into the water below. But, oddly, this made her feel nothing at all. She did not celebrate her enemy’s doom.
Many Hidden Rooms (Cerah of Quadar Book 2) Page 25
