“No one,” Alicine responded. “Just come and see.”
Dayn set down the knife with a scowl. “Don’t scare me like that,” he grumbled.
“Come on!” Alicine grabbed his hand and pulled him from the bench.
“Lands, what’s goin’ on?” Vania asked from across the room. An armload of laundry was in her arms, and her startled eyes were peering over it.
“Nothing, auntie,” Alicine called back breathlessly.
“A lot o’ carryin’ on over nothin’,” Vania muttered. “Bout sent me to the grave.”
“Sorry,” Alicine said as she swept out the doorway with Dayn in tow.
“Let go my hand,” Dayn groused when they reached the barn.
Alicine dropped it, but grabbed his sleeve and continued to pull him along.
“And let go my sleeve. God, Alicine. What’s going on?”
She grinned. “You’ll see.” Then she led him toward the ladder.
Eyan peeked over the edge and watched as Dayn and Alicine ascended the rungs. He glanced over his shoulder nervously, then took Alicine’s hand when she reached the top. After she had stepped safely aside, Eyan offered Dayn his hand as well.
“I can handle it,” Dayn said gruffly as he crawled onto the platform.
“Sorry,” Eyan mumbled.
“For what?” Dayn asked. He slapped the dust and straw from his pants legs. “I only meant I was at the top and didn’t need any help.” He sighed with annoyance. “What is it you dragged me up here to see, Alicine?” he asked. “A trunk full of dresses or something equally important?”
Alicine curled her lip, then took the lantern from Eyan’s hand and marched to the back of the loft. Raising the light, she nodded toward the portraits tacked to the walls and said, “Look.”
Dayn’s jaw went slack as his eyes moved over Eyan’s drawings. “What the—”
“Eyan did them,” Alicine said.
Dayn turned to Eyan. “You did these?” he asked.
“Aye,” Eyan said meekly.
“Where have you seen people like this?” Dayn asked.
“He saw pictures of them in a cave near the river,” Alicine said. “And look, Dayn; look at this one.”
She moved the light toward the red-haired image at the far end of the gallery. Dayn stepped closer, then took a startled step back. He gawked at the Reiv look-alike, then wheeled to face Eyan. “Take me to the cave,” he said.
Eyan’s expression tightened. Dayn’s command clearly had him rattled, or was it something else?
Dayn moved toward him. “Now,” he ordered.
“But—but Father said I’m not to go back there,” Eyan sputtered.
“I don’t care,” Dayn said. “I need to see what’s in that cave.”
“What is it, Dayn?” Alicine asked. “He told me he was only copying old cave pictures. What else do you think you’ll find?”
“History. Or prophecy,” he said. “I guess we’ll know when we get there.”
Eyan nodded reluctantly and took the lantern from Alicine’s hand. He beckoned for her and Dayn to follow. They descended the ladder and headed out the barn, then made their way around to the other side of it. He motioned for them to keep quiet as he peeked around the corner toward the house. His mother could be seen heading to the drying line.
“She’ll skin me alive if she knows where I’m takin’ ye,” he whispered. “Where’s your mother right now? Do ye know?”
“Last I saw her she was heading to the root cellar,” Alicine said.
“All right,” Eyan said. “Let’s go then.”
They snuck around the back and high-tailed it toward the woods. Eyan took the lead, darting around the woodpile, then sprinting into a nearby copse of woods. The snapping of twigs shouted their every step, prompting Dayn to glance over his shoulder as often as Eyan did. But no one appeared to be following or standing with their hands fisted on their hips as they watched them go.
Before long they were following a brook which led to a widening stream. “Not far now,” Eyan said. He shoved aside a wall of brush and sidled into a narrow abutment of rock.
“How’d you ever find this place?” Dayn asked, stepping sideways as he followed.
Eyan changed direction and scrambled up an incline of gravel. “Chasin' a rabbit,” he replied, then vanished into the cliffside.
Dayn and Alicine reached the spot where Eyan had disappeared and realized they were standing at the entrance of a cave.
“Come on,” Eyan’s voice echoed from the shadows.
“I think I’ll wait here,” Alicine said.
“I think I’ll wait with you,” Dayn said with uneasiness. “How far in does it go?” he hollered in Eyan’s direction. “Do we need a torch?”
“No,” Eyan hollered back. “It’s shallow; plenty o’ light.”
Dayn drew a breath and ducked inside. Alicine followed close behind.
Dayn soon learned that Eyan was right; the cave was nothing more than a wide fissure in the rocks, eroded into a grotto of lichen and spotty mushrooms. Bright light spilled in at its mouth, but grew dim as it crept toward the throat.
“The pictures are further back,” Eyan informed them. “It’s not as bright there, but ye can still see ‘em.”
He waved for them to follow, and the three of them worked their way along a path littered with splintered bones and rocky debris.
Eyan stepped over the skeletal remains of a rather large animal, but Alicine worked her way as far from the carcass as possible. Dayn, on the other hand, stopped to lean over it. Perhaps it warranted investigation, he reasoned. The last time he’d seen bones in a cave, they had not belonged to an animal.
“What are ye lookin’ at?” Eyan asked, twisting around to see what held Dayn’s attention.
“Just wondering what these were,” Dayn said. He squatted down to get a better look. “It’s not a wolf is it?”
“No. It’s a mountain cat,” Eyan said.
Dayn’s eyes widened. “Mountain cat? They haven’t been seen in these parts for at least five hundred years.”
"I know, but I saw a picture o’ one in an old book once. I can tell by the teeth and the shape of the head that that’s what this is, or was.”
“How old do you think it is?” Alicine asked, glancing around nervously.
“Old, but not five hundred years, that’s for sure,” Eyan said. “I think this one was killed by a person.”
Dayn straightened up. “How do you know?” he asked.
“See the knife marks on the bones there? But I also found the knife and—” Eyan paused, watching Alicine cautiously. “There’s what’s left of a person back there,” he said, then motioned them toward the back of the cave.
The ceiling grew lower the further back they went, and Dayn and Eyan were soon walking with knees bent and heads ducked, though Alicine had far less difficulty.
The ceiling suddenly soared to incredible heights, and they found themselves standing in a tubular-shaped chamber. There was no exit, clearly they had reached a dead end, but above them a narrow shaft of light ricocheted in, leaving areas of the room illuminated in bright shades of gray. Eyan stopped and pointed. Slowly he moved his finger from one end of the circular space to the other.
“Those are the pictures,” he said, “and that—” He turned his attention to the floor near the far wall. “—is the person I was tellin’ ye about.”
Dayn tore his attention from the images he had only just begun to see and turned it to the musty lump against the far wall. He walked toward it then stopped, staring at it for a long silent moment. It was a skeleton in an advanced state of decay, curled up on a tattered pallet of moldy cloth. At its side sat several bowl-shaped rocks, each with a hint of stain at their center. A writing tool was propped nearby, and next to it lay a pouch and a rusty old dagger.
Dayn knelt down and fingered the disintegrating remains of the victim’s garb, then noticed a shriveled leather belt at its waist. Something about it caught his eye. He re
moved the belt gently, then ran his fingers along the symbols tooled into the grain. Runes, he realized, and Tearian ones at that.
“What is it?” Alicine asked.
Dayn rose with a start. He had been so immersed in his discovery, he’d not realized she’d come up behind him. “Look at this,” he said, thrusting the belt toward her.
Alicine leaned away. “No thank you,” she said.
Dayn shook the belt. “It’s Tearian, Alicine. Tearian!”
Alicine’s lips parted as her eyes gravitated to the belt.
“What’s Tearian?” Eyan asked. He was peeking over Alicine’s shoulder, curious as to what all the fuss was about.
“This belt has runes on it,” Dayn said. “And they aren’t Kiradyn. They’re Tearian. Tearia is on the other side of the mountains—that place we went to after we left the festival.”
“Oh…I heard ye tell your mother about it,” Eyan said. “But I didn’t think it was, ye know, real.”
Dayn brushed past him, ignoring the implication, and made his way back to the paintings nearest the entrance. As he studied them, he realized they weren’t just random images; they were faded petroglyphs, carved and stained upon the rocks. He stepped to the right as he slowly worked his way along the story pattern.
Alicine moved to his side. “A line of people,” she observed. “One after another, walking toward the mountains.”
“And Kiradyn, by the looks of them,” Dayn said.
Eyan pointed to a spot further down. “That’s where the demon images are,” he said. “They’re walkin’ toward the mountains, too. I guess that’s how they came to live there.”
“Demons don’t exist,” Dayn said absently. His attention was fully focused on the images before him, not the ones down the way.
Alicine stepped around her brother, anxious to see more. “Look, Dayn,” she cried. “It’s like Reiv said. There was a gathering beneath the mountains, in the chamber with the altar.”
Dayn shuffled down a few feet to see what she was referring to. Sure enough, beneath an exaggerated image of the fire mountain, was a cave, and within it a celebration of two very different races of people.
Eyan shuddered. “That’s where the demons sacrificed people.”
“No it’s not,” Dayn said with annoyance. “See, the people are smiling.”
Eyan moved closer. “Oh. I thought they were cryin’.”
Dayn rolled his eyes and stepped around Eyan, turning his attention to the line of pale-haired Tearians making their way to the mountain from the other side.
“Look here, Eyan,” Dayn said, pointing to the wall. “See? The pale people there are from Tearia. And the darker ones, over there, are from Kirador.”
Eyan surveyed them more intently.
“A long time ago,” Dayn continued, “they were friends. Every year they’d meet in a great cavern beneath the mountain to celebrate.”
“What were they celebratin’?” Eyan asked.
“I’m not sure. But one day something terrible happened.” Dayn moved down, certain of what he would find: the next chapter of the story that Reiv had told him.
“See, there,” Dayn pointed out. “The mountain erupted in fire and the people in the cavern died.” He leaned toward it. “You’re right, these are crying.”
“So are quite a few others by the looks of it,” Alicine said. She motioned her head toward the land depicted on both sides of the mountain—fire to the east, blackness to the west.
“Daghadar’s Purge,” Eyan whispered.
“No, no. Not Daghadar’s Purge,” Alicine interjected. “It just happened, like this last time, only back then it was much worse.”
“Will it happen again?” Eyan asked.
Dayn and Alicine exchanged glances.
“I haven’t been sick recently,” Dayn said, realizing the illnesses that once alerted him to such things hadn’t visited him in a while.
“That must mean it’s over then,” Alicine said optimistically.
“What happened next?” Eyan asked.
“Well,” Dayn said, “at first the Tearians were afraid, but then they grew angry. They thought the gods were punishing them for fraternizing with the Kiradyns. So they started killing anyone who looked like a Kiradyn. They thought that was what the gods wanted them to do.”
“Gods?” Eyan asked. “You mean they had more than one?”
“Yes,” Alicine said. “They have many.”
“Then that’s why they were punished,” Eyan said. “Because they didn’t believe in Daghadar. There’s only one Maker, and He’s it.”
“Well if you’re so sure about that,” Dayn said, “why did Daghadar kill the Kiradyns, too?”
“Because they were mixin’ with the heathens,” Eyan replied.
Dayn’s impatience flared, but Alicine placed a commanding hand on his arm. “Let’s finish looking at the drawings,” she suggested.
Dayn expelled a huff and moved down the wall. As expected, blond-haired people were shown dying on the Kiradyn side of the mountain, dark-haired people doing the same on the other.
“Here, Eyan. See? This shows the Tearians killing the Kiradyns, and the Kiradyns killing the Tearians.”
Eyan leaned in closer. “That’s not people, that’s demons.”
Dayn growled. “No, that’s Tearians.”
“How do ye know so much,” Eyan asked. “That isn’t what the Written Word says.”
“I learned of it while we were in Tearia,” Dayn said. “A friend—well, cousin actually—told us. He had visions.”
Eyan looked horrified. “Visions? That’s the Dark One’s work!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alicine snapped. “If that were true, Dayn and I never would have found our way home. Reiv told us how to get here, past the valley and all that. He’d seen it in visions.”
Dayn turned and crossed to the other side of the chamber, attempting to distance himself from further debate. But as new images came into view, he became more and more intrigued. These drawings held no semblance of order like the others did. They were more like a kaleidoscope, a hodgepodge of depictions that appeared to tell more than one story, or no story at all. He ran his eyes over the scenes. There were elongated swords and people tied to stakes, a sky turned black and…Dayn shuddered; these were nothing like the stories Reiv had told him. These were different—and far darker. Were they records of past events, he wondered, or prophecies of the future? He prayed they were only the hallucinations of a madman, for if there was any truth to them, there existed an evil that no one could have imagined. And it dwelt in Aredyrah.
He moved further down and discovered more disturbing images. One in particular caught his attention; it resembled a giant snake, writhing through the hills and mountainsides of the island. He took a closer look and was relieved to find it wasn’t a serpent, but a line of people. Dayn stepped back, trying to gain a broader perspective, and it was then that he realized the entire painting was a map of Aredyrah. It covered so much of the wall that he had not initially recognized that the images represented events and where they had occurred. The mountains were easy to identify now, as was Tearia and Kirador. He studied the snake-like line of people. They were moving northward, from Tearia toward the valley he and Alicine had crossed. A migration of people, but how many? He tried to calculate their number, starting at the head of the line, but he suddenly realized the leader had hair of a very distinctive nature—red. Red like Reiv’s.
Dayn glanced over his shoulder at Alicine. There was no need to show it to her, he reasoned, especially since there was no way to interpret its true meaning. The images could be of events that had happened in the past, not the future, and it wasn’t like Reiv was the only person ever born with hair like that. No, Dayn decided; he would not tell her, not now anyway. He would steer her away from it…make some excuse…say they had to leave or—
“Where’s the picture of the boy with the red hair?” he heard Alicine ask Eyan across the way.
Dayn cringe
d.
“There,” Eyan said, “and there, and there, and…”
Dayn turned to see where Eyan was pointing and realized: The Reiv look-alike wasn’t just on the map—he was all over the room.
Back to ToC
Chapter 21: The Gathering
Dayn paced the kitchen, deep in thought. It had been fourteen days since Haskel had left to notify the clans of the Gathering, and he had said he’d be back in ten.
“Stop your frettin’,” Vania said from the table. “There’s nothin’ to worry about.”
Dayn flicked her a look of annoyance. She had uttered those same words to him at least a dozen times, but Dayn was not convinced that she meant them.
He stepped toward the kitchen window and peered through the panes.
“It’s been fourteen days,” he said.
“Aye, it has,” Vania said. She smiled at Morna who was sitting next to her, chopping vegetables. “Was it you that taught him to count, dear?”
Dayn marched to the table. “Shouldn’t we at least go to Uncle Nort’s to see if he made it that far?” he asked.
Vania grabbed a turnip and cleaved it with a thrust of her knife. The blade tapped against the cutting board as she chopped it into pieces. “Of course he made it that far,” she said. “Nort’s homestead is the closest one, isn’t it?” She rose and scraped the pieces of vegetable into a pot, then slanted her eyes at Dayn. “What are ye implyin’, Dayn?”
“Well, if Nort’s place is the closest, why isn’t Haskel back already? I thought each family was to send the message down the line.”
“The entreaties we plan to present to the Plenum of Four must be addressed quickly. That’s why Haskel felt he should notify several homesteads himself. Accordin’ to the calendar, if we make the entreaties tonight, on the day we planned, the stars will be in the constellation of Konyl. Hopefully the Chieftains will see it as an omen that favors us.”
Dayn could not disguise his irritation. “I doubt even Konyl will be of much help tonight,” he groused.
Vania stepped to the sink where she gave the pump handle a hearty thrust. “Have you and Eyan got all the tables trestled?” she asked as she filled the pot of vegetables with water.
Souls of Aredyrah 3 - The Taking of the Dawn Page 19
