Gwyndolyn had sat up now, though that didn’t make her voice come from much higher above the floor. She had ended her recount with a note of forced hope, obvious in her young voice.
“At least, he was a Sojourner and is at the foot of the Throne of God now,” Litharus managed to make this statement convincingly firm, even though his heart was melting in his chest. He had grown very close to Dargar in the eight months since his father had gone ahead to Fireheart. The Wildman’s lessons in cunning and directed violence had complimented his father’s in planning and strategy.
They all paused quietly for a few moments before Litharus spoke up again, “Ingrid, you said we were trapped in the dark. What’s keeping us from getting to the storeroom with the food at the end of the tunnel?”
“We weren’t going anywhere because I couldn’t carry the two of you while you were out like snuffed candles. But, now that you’re awake, that shouldn’t be much of a problem. As to the supply room with food, I didn’t even know there was one. The first time I ever even heard of this tunnel was when you and Dargar were going over your plans before that battle.”
“My mother discovered the stonecrafted secret door and told the Elders. My dad included this tunnel as part of the evacuation plan he gave them, but I don’t know if they told anybody else about it. They did stock a supply room at the end of the tunnel or close to it. There are supposed to be seven turns and then one set of stairs right before the room. Then, the stonecrafted door and the outside.” Litharus demonstrated the good memory his father had helped train into him.
Gwyndolyn piped up again. “I know it is terrible because of what just happened to Dargar and probably a lot of other people, but all I can think of is finding something to eat. It’s like I haven’t eaten in days. You don’t think we’ve been asleep for days do you?”
“No, it’s alright. That’s normal for a Blessed who overused their gift. I’m just glad neither of you went too far. If you had, you might not have ever woken up.” Ingrid managed to parry the sword of reality for a little longer by focusing on just their little dark bubble of the world. She let a whirlwind of distraction spin her away from the realization that was waiting for her. Unlike Litharus’s mother and Gwyndolyn’s father who had been in the village, Ingrid’s grandfather had been in the tower. With forced cheer she managed to say, “Let’s go find you two some food.”
The store room had a special sort of lantern waiting for them. “It has a St. Petros stone inside. It will never need fuel or blow out,” explained Litharus. “I’m not sure why they put it here actually, but my dad made a point of mentioning it to me.”
“Oh, I know about those. My father had one before we got here, but I think he sold it,” volunteered Gwyndolyn.
The lantern was quite terrific, except for one problem. They couldn’t find it in the pitch black room once they got there. Either it was gone, or more likely, it was closed tight to let no unwanted light out. Litharus looked on high shelves, Ingrid on lower ones, and Gwyndolyn on the lowest ones. They rummaged around blindly for ten or fifteen minutes. Or maybe it was five or maybe it was thirty. Darkness was playing havoc with their sense of time. Gwyndolyn was constantly claiming that every interval was at least twice as long as Ingrid or Litharus thought.
Even in the blackness, the first thing they could identify during their rummaging was the dried mutton. No other meat smelled so very much like the living animal from whence it came. It was a testament to their hunger that Litharus and Gwyndolyn had devoured half the supply before Ingrid found the raisin cakes and dry biscuits. The two ravenous children dropped the meat and fumbled for the raisin cakes.
Even old and stale, the cakes were delicious. Litharus wondered if his mother had made these. They were one of her specialties after all. Litharus gasped at the sudden thought of what might have happened to his mother. He choked for a moment on a loose raisin and stood up in a coughing fit. A clang filled the little room as his head slammed into a metal object. The two girls jumped in the dark. Gwyndolyn came close to having her own coughing fit, but managed to swallow the bite she had just taken.
Reaching up and feeling around on the object, Litharus managed to guess, “It sure feels like the lantern, but there aren’t any levers or spots to push to slide the shutters open.” He did managed to unclasp it from the chain that was holding it up though.
Gwyndolyn’s little bright voice answered, “There won’t be any because it isn’t an ordinary lamp. My father’s St. Petros stone lantern would only open if you said the right thing to it.”
“Maybe your father didn’t sell your family’s lantern. Maybe this is the same one because he gave it to the Elders to use as they saw fit when he got here,” suggested Litharus.
“Let me try something then.” Little hands took the lamp from Litharus and Gwyndolyn sweetly spoke a few words in the Ancient Tongue.
“Gwynny, what are you trying to say?” asked Ingrid gently.
“Please do not call me by that babyish name. I am Gwyndolyn Tollonyn. And, I am saying ‘Let there be light’ in Ancient like my father used to do to open his lantern.” The stiffness of her voice let her hurt shine through even in the dark.
“Well my dear Miss Tollonyn, you’re actually saying ‘There should be cheese.’ The last sound of the verb is more open mouthed for the proper case and I will admit that you only have to switch the soft ‘th’ into a hard ‘k’ to make cheese into light in Ancient.” Ingrid had replied with a warm but similarly formal tone. “Oh, and sorry about the name. I’m just not all the way used to using your full one. I’ve called you the other one for most of the time I’ve known you, you know.”
“That’s all right,” smiled Gwyndolyn back. “So, I should say it like this then,” and she tried again. As soon as she said the syllables, the lantern’s shutters slid open. Inside, too bright to look at for their light-starved eyes, was a St. Petros stone. Made by a Blessed who had known the Son of God himself, St. Petros stones were all perfectly smooth, round, and white. They glowed with a warm, golden light like the sun. The stone was suspended inside the lantern by two narrow columns of metal that cupped the top and bottom of it.
“Do you know how to make it go completely dark again?” asked Litharus, his tactical mind already assessing this miraculous new tool.
“Why would we want to do that?” asked Ingrid quickly turning toward the now brightly lit face of her older friend.
“When we go into the forest to meet up with the other survivors, we’ll need to be able to disappear at any instant. The villagers have had no love for Sojourners, even children. You remember how they’ve been ever since we wouldn’t send anyone off with the Pale Lady’s flamewright last spring?”
“How could I forget? After the marketplace, I was the ‘tribute’ he kept asking for from the Sojourners. But, the villagers wouldn’t side with...” Ingrid could not put to words the things they had seen.
“They might. We don’t know. They’ve been giving us much higher prices and offering no help ever since. Perhaps that is just an outward sign of inward hate. ‘If they hated your Lord, how much more will they hate you?’ Right?” Litharus was looking very seriously at the two girls.
“I guess so. I’ve just… I’ve lived here longer than either of you.” Actually, Ingrid had only been there a few months longer. But since she looked like the villagers, she fit in more easily. “I know little girls and their families across the river. They were nice enough to us until last spring.”
Litharus turned to Gwyndolyn, “So, Miss Tollonyn, can you extinguish this light instantly? If not, I’m not sure we can take it along.”
“Of course I can. Ummm. Ingrid, how exactly do you say, ‘And man loves the darkness’ in Ancient?” Gwyndolyn was admitting her limitations, and Ingrid loved the beautiful little bronze-skinned and silver-haired girl all the more for it. If not sisters by birth, then sisters in the family of God for certain.
Ingrid explained and Gwyndolyn said the phrase perfectly the first time. “We sh
ould all practice the words a couple of times to make sure we can say them,” suggested Gwyndolyn humbly.
So they took turns with the lantern as they inventoried the supplies. They made ready to find the door. Hopefully not our Door, thought Litharus with dark humor. Hopefully just one door of many more for all of us.
Beyond the tunnel door, they would need stealth, wisdom, and awareness. For all they knew, there could be a hunt on looking specifically for them. They knew even if there wasn’t, the villagers and Boreal farmers were normally no friends to Sojourners now. Wildmen tribes away to the south were not friendly either, Dargar notwithstanding. In fact, the spot they were headed to was chosen to avoid both those groups.
The children found ready-made packs on one of the shelves, but they had been packed with adults in mind. They had to remove the least necessary objects from each pack to make them manageable weights. At least they had been wearing their heavy cloaks and did not need to trim the adult ones to fit. Instead, they rolled up the adult cloaks to use as bedding and strapped them onto the bottom sides of the packs. The skyship should come back for them if nothing had happened to it, but they did not know how long they would have to wait in the woods.
Their discussion turned to the stock of weapons in one of the corners. Ingrid, the most advanced theology and ethics student of the three, admitted that it was an open point of debate among Sojourners. Some said that violence was always sinful. These scholars and thinkers often referenced the role of the War on the Numa in the fall of the Sons of Enoch in their arguments on the point. However, others argued that it was the disobedience that was at the root of the fall and not the violence in and of itself. These would argue that if an individual was called by God to defend someone or something by certain means, violence would become an obligation.
Litharus waded into the discourse, “My father has a lot to do with these problems. He left the Kaladarian Legion because he knew God didn’t want an empire of corrupt men, Exiles, and Abominations protected. But, he didn’t stop soldiering. He’s been a man-at-arms or militia leader for every Sojourner community where we’ve been. He’s in Fireheart right now to help organize their defenses and advise the ruling council. God is clearly calling him to help protect his fellow Sojourners by all the means he has. That was how he sees it.”
So, in keeping with his father’s beliefs, Litharus examined the weapons and selected a long knife for himself and two hunting knives for the girls. They aren’t trained with blades like me, but at least they’ll look armed, thought Litharus. He ignored the ridiculousness of two little girls being considered armed and dangerous. In truth, their Blessings made them infinitely more dangerous than the blades on their belts.
None of them could shoot the heavy bow that was there. They left the spear, swords, thick staff, and shields. “We can’t use any of these can we?” asked Gwyndolyn, a little disappointment in her voice. She had been strongly on the side of just violence in the discussion earlier.
“No, none of them would be of any use for us,” replied Litharus. “But, this tomahawk on the other hand might be good for all sorts of things if we have to stay in the woods very long.”
“We should take the arrows too,” said Gwyndolyn seriously. “And these lead sling bullets. If I can toss an Exile back from across a room, I can surely toss little lead lumps and frilly sticks hard enough to hurt whoever needs hurting.”
“Yes, but I could make you stones just as round easily with my Blessing and we wouldn’t need to carry them,” replied Litharus. He had been on too many camping excursions scouting the local land with his father not to appreciate the cost of each pound of pack.
“But they wouldn’t be as heavy as the lead or as pointy as the arrows,” replied Gwyndolyn with as sweet smile in the lantern’s golden glow.
“Fine, I’ll carry the arrows and you can carry the lead.” Litharus recalled numerous descriptions of Aethereal Blesseds fighting as powerful ‘archers’ in the military histories his father had him read.
As he slung the quiver of arrows over his shoulder beside his pack, Litharus laughed to himself. During the many reading assignments his father had given him, it had struck Litharus as very funny that the Sojourners called them “Blessed.”
Most people with gifts from God behaved like anything but blessed.
Of course the name went deeper. Sojourners believed that it was different before the five Sons of Enoch fell. After the building of the Pillar of Heaven and the War on the Numa, the first men and women without Blessings had been born. It was a curse for Man’s disobedience, but Sojourners felt it was a curse that reflected a change in the souls of men.
Litharus knew that his merry little band were a very rare collection of young Blesseds outside of some academy or guild in one of the mountaintop skyship cities. Perhaps that was why the Exile had been so surprised by their coordinated and varied attacks.
Most people would have protected the Blessed children like they were fine porcelain or a delicate work of art, or sold them off like fine porcelain or delicate works of art to the highest bidder. If they were not Sojourners, the Blesseds would have been the first passengers on the first skyship to Fireheart instead of the last. Sojourners said that God had given the Blessed enough gifts that they should be serving the weak and protecting them instead of getting special treatment.
So, Litharus had stayed behind with his Blessed mother, and Gwyndolyn had stayed with her Blessed father. Ingrid had stayed with her friends and grandfather, even though she was the only Blessed in her family.
Ingrid adjusted her pack as the three finished their preparations. She put thoughts of her grandfather out of her mind with a quick prayer, “Lord, I know you hold us all in the palm of your hand.” She did not want to admit that her grandfather was probably sitting at the foot of the Lord’s throne already. She tossed her travel cloak around her shoulders and over her pack.
Litharus and Gwyndolyn were making similar preparations. As soon as all three were ready, they headed back into the passageway and walked up to what looked like a simple dead end.
“Douse the lantern. We don’t know if anyone or anything is out looking for survivors,” ordered Litharus as he paused in front of the empty wall. As soon as Gwyndolyn had whispered the command, darkness swallowed them up again.
Litharus waited a few moments so their eyes could adjust to the dark. They were not certain of how long they had been in the tunnel, or what time of day it was outside. They hoped it was dark. Carefully, Litharus touched four spots along the edges of the door in an order that would have drawn a cross. Similarly to the door from the sanctuary into the tunnel, this door had been reworked by a Sojourner stonewright. Slowly, the stone twisted and flowed out of the way.
A somber scene met them. There was more light outside the door than inside, but not as much as they had expected. A steady rain was falling from grey black clouds that were hanging low overhead. Litharus had known that the door opened into the back of a narrow, deep cleft in the rocky ledge that ran alongside a stream. They could hear water rushing a few paces away.
“It sounds like the stream is high. Do you think we’ll be able to get across?” asked Gwyndolyn.
“We have to. We’re probably already late for the meeting at the Standing Rock. In case of evacuations, everyone is supposed to meet at the Standing Rock in the forest. We’re supposed to be there by the next dusk or dawn, whichever comes first. There is a path on the other side of the stream’s defile. The Standing Rock is about three leagues from the tower. My father picked it for a meeting place before he left for Fireheart. Not too close, not too far away. I never heard of any change to the plan after he left.” Litharus was pulling up his large hood. “Dargar certainly still thinks it is the place to go, too.”
Ingrid wanted to correct Litharus and tell him he should have said, “Dargar thought.” Given Gwyndolyn’s description of how she left him, their Wildman friend was probably dead. But Litharus was already out the door and into the drumming rain. He
wouldn’t have heard her anyway, and she didn’t want to worry Gwyndolyn. At least there was the rain. Ingrid loved the water everywhere. It was like her mind and senses could expand to fill the air when there was so much of her Blessed liquid about. She happily followed Litharus out the door with her hood down to let the raindrops pelt her.
Little Gwyndolyn hummed a bit of melody and wove her hands and fingers about in front of her like she was playing Cat’s Cradle with the air. She snapped her hand round about at the end of the ‘game’ so her fingers were curled like a hollow fist around the air, but her thumb was pointing straight up. Cheerfully and with silent words of thanks to her earthly and Heavenly Fathers both, she stepped out under a little invisible canopy of aether or force that kept the raindrops rolling right around her. Thus kept dry, she followed her friends into the storm.
CHAPTER 8 - SURVIVORS
23rd of Sorun, 2nd Year, 31st Aion
“Your castellum should be ready for any sort of attack. Our Empire’s enemies are numerous and well equipped. However, we typically have more and superior stonewrights or disciples of Pagoros than any attackers. This should especially be the case for you in those wretched Northlands as you’re taking extra for the mining. Most of the native Talented there are either waterwrights or flamewrights, and the cults of Abzu and his Exile Servitors are almost unheard of from what I’m told. I’m sure that once you begin extracting the silver and sending it back to Kaladar, the locals will start wanting a share of the proceeds.
In order to secure those proceeds to their rightful owners, our stoneworking advantage must be maximized. You should be selecting sites for castellum that provide ample substrate with which to work, both at the time of construction and in case of attack. There are numerous works that describe advanced combined tactics for use by mundane forces and many stonewrights inside a castellum. These are beyond the basic siege tactics you’ve used as a tribune. You should really put aside your hatred for the written word and read one or two before you set out.”
Blessings and Trials (Exiles and Sojourners Book 1) Page 13
