by Russ Linton
"This is for myself."
Izhar stared into the sky. "If you're going to fly, fly away from here. South, all the way back to the pilgrim's road."
"I can't do that. And you said yourself back in Stronghold, the road everyone else follows isn't the pilgrim's road. Maybe this is?"
Once he said it, Sidge knew it was the truth. Mantras, old and new, visions which had been incomprehensible, began to take a definite shape in his mind. He felt Chuman's gaze pierce him.
In each of the visions, the Jadugar-forged had been there; the Stormblade Sheath, the site of Stronghold before the city had been built, now the hill and the tree. Three places where ritual had taken place. Could there be a fourth? Mantras and Izhar's interpretations swam in Sidge's brain.
Before the thoughts could come together, his old mentor interrupted him. "I don't know why you'd pick this godforsaken moment to finally start listening to my rantings."
"Not rantings," Sidge said frantically, aware of the closing sound of wings. "You have taught me more than you know, more than I can comprehend in this one moment." He moved closer and tried to let his voice embody his teacher's former zeal. "Let us follow this path together. Restore the temple not with hollow politics but actual Wisdom." Inexplicably, Izhar balked. "I promise, I will do my best to be safe, but I am the only one capable of out-pacing the fliers. Once I have lost them, then we will see what glory Vasheru will provide next."
"You will be safe once we reach the tree," Chuman rumbled, almost forgotten in the quiet moment with Izhar.
"Tree?" befuddled, Izhar quirked his head. Sidge had yet to be given a chance to describe his latest vision.
"How do you know?" Sidge asked Chuman, ignoring Izhar.
"They cannot approach the One Who Sleeps. They live apart but are bound to him. You should understand better."
"Do you? Understand what he's saying?" Izhar eyed Sidge.
He thought so. If only in the way one interprets dreams. "Follow Chuman closely," Sidge ordered his confused mentor. "He will keep you safe."
###
The shadow of the pursuing swarm rode the shrouded landscape like a singular beast. Sidge hovered as close to them as his courage would allow. He grasped his corestone and fervently prayed.
"Vasheru, if I die here, grant me the Fire. Consume me. Do not abandon your faithful disciple in this wretched marsh."
Would his plea be answered? He wondered if this place were truly not meant for gods.
No, Vasheru was mighty. More mighty than the enemies of the temple. More mighty than the slaver, Kurath. This marsh held no power greater than Him. The damnable marsh would not succeed in its attempts to strip him of who he was.
Sidge looked to the swarm and cried out, "Over here, you murderers! You marsh spawned…" He struggled for what to say next, finding he wasn't nearly as practiced with either his fury or his cursing as Master Izhar. As he searched for the right word, the most hideous word, one slipped out.
"…BUGS!"
He may have been invisible among them without his robes, but once he shouted in the tongue of his adopted people, the whole swarm ceased their dives and hovered to listen. Then they pursued.
Sidge's gut pulsed with every flutter of his wings. His lack of practice at flight became more apparent as the bugmen closed. He sought refuge in the mist-laden air and found it burned away into stray threads.
At first, they trailed behind, no larger than their lesser brothers. Soon they became the size of starlings and then kites. Before long, they buzzed close, large as eagles, moving erratically as bugs do, the vibration of their wings deafening.
In the lead rode a spectral form. Its flight coursed with the high-pitched thrum of a hornet…and were those robes?
Sidge pushed for more speed, high above the bristling sea of reeds. Bare hills blistered the grasses like the backs of enormous tortoises and between these rested perfect circles of water. Lonely and serene, the landscape could've been one of alluring beauty with the skirt of fog lifted, but death buzzed close behind.
He could see the lead figure better. The shape was somehow twisted and awkward. Storm gray robes and a white stole draped it. Narrow wings shredded the sky behind and despite the rushing wind, the hood stayed firmly in place across a tilted brow.
They'd robbed the graves before defiling the bodies. Or maybe they'd found Farsal. The thought sent rage quivering through his insides and Sidge almost wheeled to face them and exact revenge. Then he saw the corestone swinging wildly from the leader's neck, large as a fighting dagger and suspended on a thick platinum chain. Those were Master Gohala's vestments.
Barbarians, cannibals. He could add defilers, blasphemers to the list of their inhuman deeds. Raw anguish sought to overcome him, and he tried to focus on his task. He needed to save Izhar. He sank further into an undeniable embrace, stronger than vengeance and song combined.
The tree, Chuman and Izhar's objective, towered far to the north, far enough he didn't think even the swiftest fliers could catch them before they made it. He'd done what he needed to do and led their pursuers away. Now he was alone.
Fight, flee, neither made sense. Surrender. That was it. His thoughts began to cloud. The mournful song from the tree had been overwhelmed by a heady odor. Well beyond a smell and more a sensation, it called him into the ponds. As he hoped, pursuers peeled away. Some resisted, sputtered in their flight and then dropped like stones.
Damp pollen and salty dew embraced him. He scanned the vegetation for flowers and saw the green, shadowy stripes of the reeds with their golden heads. He wasn't sure whether he'd led the voracious swarm away as planned or if he'd just given himself to them.
Sidge bowed his head and fought for enough speed to keep himself airborne and his head level with the horizon. Mountain peaks awaited him there. They rose like spires, impossibly narrow teeth biting at the sky. The Attarah himself had climbed those mountains, not paraded through some trader's pass as the other pilgrims. Izhar had once taught the Trials said these mountains led to Pama itself. If so, that's where they should go, too.
A swarm of devils and the weight of the insidious marsh would not, could not stop him.
More fliers dropped and Sidge sunk lower. He wanted the sky, but the earth released a siren call. An urge built inside like the Kiss of Vasheru bundled and trapped under his chitin, burning to escape. Never had he felt this way before. The closest had been late nights with Kaaliya's head in his lap and he combing through her hair.
He lost sight of the mountains and the pursuing cloud.
Drunkenly he skimmed. Cattails exploded against his shell. A weight overtook him.
He'd bought time for Chuman to deliver Izhar to safety and the Jadugar-forged would protect him. Without Izhar, he could seize up, be unable to fulfill his task. Surely that strange creation understood this.
He lowered his legs as he burst through a wall of grass and over one of the ponds. His feet skipped across the water, and momentum carried him to the center where he sank to his lower leg joints.
The scent which had drawn him here thickened and his legs plowed through the water on their own pursuit. At the far side of the pool, he parted the grass with a forearm and let the blades sift between his spines. He could almost feel her head in his lap, half-asleep while he combed.
He could see between the stalks and noticed he was no longer alone. Legs long and slender, she wore jade green chitin with dark lines to match the world that hid her.
Couldn't she see through him, somehow, with those mischievous eyes that held the wisdom of a thousand, thousand leagues traveled across the known world and the secrets of the hearts of so many men? She'd seduced him without so much as trying. In a strange, unwitting way, she'd become a presence in his every thought which had once been reserved solely for the temple.
She ran her legs together and chirped. The note infected him. He hadn't been fleeing the marsh's corruption, he'd been consumed and swallowed by it. He'd sacrificed himself so Izhar could live.
&
nbsp; He was grateful that Kaaliya was in Stronghold despite being in the arms of the mischievous noble, Chakor. At least she was spared seeing him like this—naked and bestial, given wholly to his nature, and the realization that the Temple hadn't been the only thing he'd ever wanted. Nor had it been the only thing he'd ever been denied.
CHAPTER XVIII
Sidge lay on the mat of reeds well after the moon disappeared. A subtle graying of the night took hold on the horizon. Had it really been a single day since he'd promised himself to behave as a Cloud Born or had an eternity slipped by with the passing of the moon?
It all happened so fast. She was there, they entwined, and then she was gone.
His desire to make right by his lost brother and battered father had been utterly erased in the frantic moments which followed. Dreams and visions, prophecy and mighty dragons, had all disappeared.
With the siren gone, the song from the tree returned. It didn't summon him anymore. He understood it to be a mournful dirge which filled him with dread.
Sitting up, Sidge folded his legs underneath him. He pulled his middle arms in tight and placed his upper hands on his knees trying to gather the remnants of his thoughts and his dignity. One of Izhar's lessons sprang into his mind:
Leave the pieces where they lie.
He'd never learned to do that. How could it apply here anyway? He needed order, not chaos. In the temple, his life had structure. Outside, the further he traveled from his home, the more the seams came undone.
The answers weren't in Izhar's lessons. While the old master's teachings offered explanations and speculation, they were incomplete. There had to be a true path. A way back for him and a way to find the grace of Vasheru.
Rage and lust were not befitting a Cloud Born of the Storm Temple, yet Vasheru had not struck him down and had left his prayers unanswered. He needed to continue on the pilgrimage and find the righteous path.
Chuman had led them to this place. True, Sidge could hear and follow the same songs, but they never would have left the trail if not for the giant. Neither would Gohala. Sidge took flight and rose high enough above the fog to see the mountains in the distance. The path Chuman carved headed there.
Once Izhar had said that to follow the Attarah was a symbolic gesture. He'd been right, before now. Along the true path, they would both reaffirm their faith.
###
Sidge arrived at the hilltop damp and cold. The shifting call emanating from the tree had struggled to turn him away the entire flight. Off-kilter vibration and a nauseating coating, the presence made him want to tear his antennae from their roots and peel away his chitin.
I will not lose control. Sidge ground his mandibles and pulled his middle arms tight.
Izhar slumped against the broken tree, his beard rising and falling as he snored. Deep in dream, propped against a fragment from a lost age, Izhar appeared every bit the mad upstart. Half-gnawed cattail roots littered the ground next to him.
Nearby, the torn slab flattened a patch of earth, just like the visions. Sap once dripping from the wound carried a glossy, hardened sheen. Runes, Jadugar markings, were etched into the slab.
Chuman sat at the east face, watching along the trail he'd rent through the reeds. When Sidge landed, the giant stood and faced him. As simple as it once seemed, the Jadugar relic somehow knew he was not one of their pursuers.
Sidge picked up a root lying near Izhar and nibbled on the end both to try and satisfy his hunger as well as give his gnawing mandibles something to do. A mistake. He gagged and scraped his tongue, spitting.
"There are rats in the bog," said Chuman, flatly.
Sidge scowled at him, mandibles quirked, antennae stiff.
Izhar stirred. "You're back!" He tottered to his feet and rushed to embrace him.
His annoyance at Chuman subsided. Sidge patted Izhar's back then stepped away. "Were you followed?"
"No sign once we got within sight of this," Izhar gestured up at the looming tree. "Your plan worked, but promise an old man you won't ever do that again, eh?"
Sidge intended to reply to the question, but another more damning inquiry surfaced, so he answered it instead. "I don't know what came over me."
"Well, I can't say I never did anything rash."
Sidge turned away, and while he could put Izhar in his blind spot, he couldn't leave out the tree or Chuman and his dead stare. Deep down, he wanted to speak with Izhar alone about his uncontrolled rage and other…lapses. He needed to understand what was happening to him.
Burdening his former mentor with those problems wouldn't be what a Cloud Born did. His duty should be to guide them and restore faith. He positioned his mandibles toward Izhar. "I have decided on our next course of action."
Surprised by the tone, Izhar inclined his head. "Very well, Master. What do you say?"
"We follow Chuman to the Teeth of the World. We pursue the Attarah's true footsteps."
"Are you certain, Master?" Izhar asked, his eyes narrowed. Both he and the giant watched Sidge closely.
"Yes!" Sidge exclaimed, recalling the near moment of clarity he'd had right before leaving Chuman and Izhar. "The Four Corners, the pillars, I understand them more. They aren't the mantras of the Trials, Rebellion, Forge, and Rule. They have to do with all the lost mysteries you've taught!"
He stopped to give Izhar a chance to relish in the same insight. One narrow eye had relaxed, but the other clung to scrutiny. "Continue."
"The corners are places and the beings of power associated with them. Vasheru in the Sheath. Alshasra'a and his Urujaav in Stronghold and here," he tilted his head to indicate the tree, "Sli'mir."
Izhar stroked his beard in contemplation but refused to speak.
"We have one more to go. We are on the pilgrim's journey, the real one." Sidge felt the words build as he spoke and they burst between his mandibles ever faster, his arms illustrating each point. "Chuman spoke the Attarah's name. Didn't you? Tell him!" The muddy face puckered and Chuman stared at the ground. Sidge didn't let the lack of confirmation dissuade him. "In the last vision I had after I…after our…"
He was panting, his arms frozen in four different directions and then slipping to his sides. Izhar placed a hand at the nape of his neck and moved close without any concern.
"Tell me about this recent vision."
Sidge nodded. He left out what he thought of as a memory, unable to describe his Master's disappearance and the blood. Instead, he described the part with the tree—this same tree doing its best to drive him from the hilltop.
The Jadugar-forged man remained silent as Sidge recounted his words.
"Then he spoke the Attarah's name." Sidge advanced on the giant. "In the first vision, he was at the center of the Undying Storm. He also performed a ritual under the foundations of Stronghold and trapped Sli'mir's vicious spawn in the marsh!" Sidge finished and noticed he'd risen off the ground, hovering eye to eye with Chuman.
Izhar had yet to respond. After all these years… Izhar had been the one to insist he contemplate these mysteries. He'd been the one to try to encourage him to push against boundaries. This staid reaction made no sense. Sidge's mandibles clacked and wings buzzed.
The marsh would have him again soon if he didn't calm down. He wrapped his arms around himself and lowered to the ground, but he couldn't help lashing out.
"Why do you resist this? You should be crowing to the sky you've been proved right. Your mysteries and Jadugar and beings of lost ages are all true! Well?" Izhar couldn't answer fast enough for the prickling under Sidge's chitin. "You've done nothing but lie to me since you spoke to Lord Chakor! Now you refuse to acknowledge the very things you taught me! Explain yourself, acolyte."
Calm, a rock in the torrent of accusations, Izhar whispered, "Do you remember Cerudell?"
"Of course." He'd met Kaaliya in Cerudell. He'd cleaned the sap from the vardo and his robes. He remembered traveling under the eerie trees with the wheel chains gripped in his hands, afraid of the steep mountain road. Chains�
�that was it. "The arch."
Izhar nodded solemnly. "You remarked on the Attarah's placement above Vasheru. Riding him, you said."
"I did." It had been obvious and repulsive to him. Though, like his own true status at the temple, nobody returning from their pilgrimage had ever spoken of it.
"Once I finally listened to your visions, I started to have my own theories. This new revelation about Sli'mir's Brood is more troubling. I believe the Dragon may share His power, not because of our veneration but because He has no other choice. The Dragon himself was bound, chained. Vasheru wanted you to know this, Master. This is why you have seen the visions which no one else has."
Sidge drifted to the ground. "If he really wanted me to know then why not give his Wisdom directly to me? Let me channel?"
"Your kind didn't make that pact." Izhar eyed the tree warily.
My kind.
Chuman moved closer.
Sidge held tight to his arms, kept his mandibles pointed low and shouted, "Aren't you the one who said you'd lost your faith? Who encouraged me to channel when you'd already convinced yourself I couldn't?"
"I did, and I am," Izhar huffed. "That doesn't make me wrong, it just makes me a bastard."
Sidge fought the atmosphere on the hill. Izhar's vexation and Chuman's dull detachment plucked at the frayed seams he struggled to hold together.
"You must be wrong. The temple is my life," whispered Sidge.
There was no other choice. He could let the savage inside take hold and commit himself to his kind, to the eating of human flesh, and constant pull of base desires or he could try and salvage what he once was.
Izhar sighed. "And you are mine, Master." He kowtowed and kept his face to the hill.
The words struck him like a mantra from countless voices and dispersed the rage. Sidge knelt and placed a hand on Izhar's pate.
Not waiting for the command to rise, Izhar held Sidge's palm in place and righted himself, peering up with red-rimmed eyes. "I will follow wherever you go. I just fear our path will only become more difficult for you."
