Blessings and Trials (Exiles and Sojourners Book 1)

by Thomas Davidsmeier

  “Gwyndolyn, is that you?”

  “Yes! Please come down and rescue me, dear husband! I am afraid there is something else down here with me!”

  “I’m sure you’re really afraid,” growled Wyddol as he made out the hint of chittering in the voice. “I’ve worked for you filthy eight-handed freaks when I was young and stupid. Even before I became a Sojourner, I swore I’d never help you mother-sister-daughter-demons again.”

  Wyddol built up as much force as he could in his arm and then sent it flying out like an incorporeal ax blade. He aimed at a particularly corroded part of the central column of the spiral staircase. The first aetherial ax sent shards of stone flying. The second one that Wyddol sent knocked clean through the column and brought the staircase crashing down on itself, collapsing into the darkness below. The dust and stone sent Wyddol diving back around the corner. He peered out, coughing, and found the whole end of the passageway filled in with broken chunks of stone.

  “Sorry if you were down there with that abomination, Gwyndolyn. But, that was a broodmother if I’ve ever heard one, and she had a fate worse than death in store for you if you were.”

  Wyddol felt a sob catch in his throat.

  For a moment, he saw his own sadness from what seemed like an infinite distance.

  “Not now,” was all he said. He locked his emotions away as he had done so many times before.

  Wyddol searched through the rest of the complex. He looked everywhere he could think of. But, he did not find a single Wildman corpse or the dead body of a seven-foot-tall winged man. And, while the state of the sanctuary puzzled him greatly, he felt confident that Haliel and Dargar had taken the children off to the Standing Rock already.

  Staring at the rubble in the sanctuary, he had tapped his chin and wondered, “Did I do that? Surely not. That little staircase couldn’t have caused that…” He had no idea about the passageway in the false crypt behind him, and so did not follow the children there.

  He had nodded approvingly at the pile of spideress corpses that had been split in half in the middle of the sanctuary. “Good work, Haliel, or Dargar, either one.” Then, he had decided to head back to the Standing Rock and then on to the Druspagos. “They were probably just delayed by all this and were late getting away…”

  CHAPTER 9 - YOUNG GILM

  15th of Kalora, 29th Year, 31st Aion

  “The Corrupted and the Relics have much in common. Both are bindings of Ouranos to Kosmos in artificed ways. The Corrupted, or Shard Bearers as they often prefer to be called, are of course living beings whose Kosmic forms are bound to a portion of the powerful Ouranic element of a greater Exile. These beings often have their own Ouranic elements intermingled with the portion of the element of the Exile.

  Relics like ourselves are again a binding of Ouranus to Kosmos, but here the Kosmic element is not living. Some Relics have been crafted with willing Ouranic elements like us. But, others have been more like prisons using captured unwilling or unwitting Ouranic elements. While the methods of binding are esoteric and complex, one thing is common. The Kosmic element of the union must be of special materials that have a closer connection to Ouranos, much like the Anchors and Conduits used by Exiles in the storage and transmission of energeias ourano in their cults.”

  -from Read Me Upon Waking attributed to Mekatikar 42 of the Machine City, taken from a copy of said text in Thoth’s Library, commonly believed to be authentic.

  The eyes.

  The voice.

  The hunger.

  And behind all, a whirling, swirling, chaotic mind.

  Anyone who managed to meet the gaze of those eyes knew. Those eyes looked out from the depths of a coldly cunning, utterly cruel, entirely inhuman place.

  The man hoeing his gourds in the field knew the instant it landed beside him.

  “Go and fetch the othersss.” the words came slithering over a forked tongue and past yellow fangs.

  He let his hoe fall to the ground and ran. He returned in a matter of minutes with a group of more than twenty men.

  “Thessse are not all of the othersss. Bring them all. Every little one, no matter how ssssmall. Go, all of you, and bring all of the othersss to me.”

  It took a bit more time for the whole village of Swiftwater to assemble in the gourd patch. When the last stragglers arrived, the creature appeared satisfied. It was impossible for the villagers to be sure what the beast’s alien expressions meant. The scaly creature let its long forked tongue dance over its fangs as it ruffled out its leathery wings to the full spread. The unnatural monstrosity looked bigger than a house as it reared back in front of the assembled men, women, and children. If any of them had been able to stop the fear coursing through their veins, they would have realized that the dragon’s actual body was only the size of a draft horse. It was using its serpentine neck and tail, and its fanned out wings to give it the illusion of great size. But, what it did next was no illusion and needed no exaggeration.

  With a twist of its neck and a flick of its jaw, the beast unleashed a gout of flames that looked like they were issuing from the Gates of Hell. Beside the dragon, where it was aiming, the green maple tree burst into flames under the onslaught of heat and hate. After the roar of the inferno died away, the silence of the villagers was broken only by the hissing and popping of the wet wood still burning. After a few more quiet minutes had past, nothing was left but an ashy stump.

  Words like buttered daggers slid out of the dragon’s still smoldering mouth.

  “You may be wondering why a dragon of sssuch tender yearsss hasss sssuch sssearing flamesss.”

  None of them wondered any such thing. The dragon was like a nightmare, inexplicably real and alive and staring at them under the noonday sun. Nothing it could have done would have surprised them any more than being there.

  “Resst asssured, your doom is no mere flying lizzzard ssspitting embersss. I am ZZZoamizzzeo, son of Cheopyr, son of Katanalisssko, son of Pyrhadesss, son of Molech, the Father of Dragonsss!”

  Again, the villagers stared on in ignorance. They knew the name Molech. He was one of the six most powerful Exiles in the whole world. The rest of the names meant nothing to them, especially since none of them knew Ancient.

  Zoamizeo stared at them as if waiting for a reaction. When none came, it seemed to change tactics.

  “I am only four sssiresss from the Father of Dragonsss himssself!”

  The dragon stretched around like a cat in the sun, letting the light play off of its scales. They ranged from emerald green to coppery brown to a few glittering golden ones. “My armorssskin is ssso ssstrong no weapon of man could posssibly harm me! Numaxxxiphusss isss the only blade to ever ssslay any of my kin ssso closssely born to Molech, and that blade isss at the bottom of the sssea with my grandsssire, Katanalisssko!”

  Zoamizeo had a faraway look in its eyes for a moment as it stared straight through the villagers.

  “You will never ssscrape together enough gold to hire a Blesssed to try to fight me. They may love gold, but they love their puny livesss of luxury more. I have not known any human Blessed to risk their preccciousss necksss for a mere haplesss bunch of villagers.”

  Again, the beast paused for an inhumanly long lull of silence.

  “Lisssten my little petsss, I don’t want to burn your village to the ground. And, I dare sssay you don’t want me to either?” It paused once more, but this time it stared at the miserable group of humanity, waiting.

  Finally, some of the villagers realized it was waiting for a response from them this time. They slowly shook their heads side to side. No one could find their voices at that moment except for one baby. The child began to wail. His mother put her hand over his mouth, and the rest of the village waited for the dragon to lash out at the offender or his keeper. They expected to smell burning mother and baby any moment.

  But, Zoamizeo ignored the child. Looking back and forth with its yellow eyes, the beast again queried the whole village, “Ssso, what do you sssupossse yo
u can do ssso that I won’t burn your missserable little hovelsss to ssscindersss with you inssside?”

  The silence dragged on for an eternity until many of the villagers thought the dragon might actually be expecting them to make suggestions. Instead, it finally broke the silence.

  “You will pay me one maiden per week until you run out of thossse. Then I’ll ssstart taking the married onesss. But,” it paused dramatically, licking where its lips would have been, “You must make the desssisssion of which one to give me while I watch. Hmmm, ssstarting now. Take your time and make the right desssisssion.”

  Zoamizeo settled back onto its haunches, an expression that might have been a smirk playing across its reptilian face.

  Jaws dropped. Eyes stared blankly. Eventually, there were even a couple of nervous laughs. Could it really be making them pick one of their own to sacrifice to it? Everyone’s minds raced. They began marshaling their forces for what promised to be a terrible battle between friends and neighbors.

  Before hostilities could even began, something made them suddenly unnecessarily. A young woman named Evali stepped out of the crowd. She stood for a moment between her village and its doom. After reaching up to a trinket on her neck, Evali looked back at her family for the slightest of glances. Then, she walked over to the dragon and said in a soft voice, “Take me.”

  The dragon’s yellow eyes widened with rage. “What?” it sputtered at the girl. “How dare you steal their hate from me...” But, its words were lost in the thunderous blast of flame that it hurled into the air over all of their heads.

  Some villagers flung themselves to the ground. Others huddled in front of their children. But, Evali just stood, slight and fair in front of the hideous beast.

  Roaring, the dragon spat out, “I’ll be back in one week. Do not desscide before I come. If you dare disssobey me in thisss thing, I will take two maidensss inssstead!”

  In a rush of wind and heat and spite, the dragon spread its wings, snatched up Evali in its claws and launched itself into the sky.

  “Now, Master Waterwright, as my daughter’s bride price...” began the burly farmer across the table.

  “Please, call me Gilm,” requested the blonde-haired young man on the other side of the table. He hoped it hadn’t sounded as nervous as he felt.

  “These be formal negotiations, Gilm, we should use titles and such to make it proper. That is how I had to do it when I married Nari’s mother, so that is how we’ll do it now.” The farmer gave the much younger man a good-natured smile.

  “Of course, Freeman Halvi Halvison.” Gilm paused and asked, “Is Freeman the right title for you now? The last of the thralls here were freed more than five years ago. Isn’t everybody a Freeman now? It doesn’t seem honorific enough to me.”

  The farmer laughed in a booming voice. “It will do just fine for me. Do you want to get betrothed to my Nari now or should we bicker about manners a bit more first?”

  Before Gilm could express how being betrothed to Nari was the second most important thing in his life right after serving his Lord and Savior, another villager banged through the door of the Arhaus inn.

  “There’s a dragon down river in Swiftwater!” the new man shouted, excitement mingled with fear. “Has anyone seen Gilm? Their man says they need a Blessed!”

  Gilm’s heart sank into his stomach as he stood up from the table where he had been about to agree to marry the most beautiful, sweet, perfect girl he’d ever met.

  Just when things had been turning around, he thought to himself.

  “Here I am. I’ll go.”

  Gilm hurried back to the village. He went over the stone bridge, through the main gate of the stone-walled part, and to the little open square in the middle. The south side of the square was a dilapidated chapel that Gilm had been working to fix up. He went through the front doors, down the aisle, and to a trap door at one side of the front altar area. He opened this and headed down into the subterranean complex of rooms, tunnels, and passages that honeycombed through the solid stone beneath the walled village and the hill beneath the old keep, to the south. Grabbing a hooded lantern off of a table in the stone darkness, Gilm adjusted the irises and opened up a bright white beam from the St. Petros’ Stone inside. He then navigated his way through almost half a mile of tunnels to the square little library room. Long ago, it had been where Litharus, Ingrid, and Gwyndolyn had hidden from the spideress. Later, it would be where Anya would read the old meeting notes before her fall .

  When Gilm got to that library, he went right to a particular spot on a particular shelf and pulled out a large, thick book and took it to the table in the middle of the room. Opening all of the lantern’s irises and hoisting it up on the chain to the ceiling, he filled the room with plenty of light to study by. Then, he cracked the dust-covered book and began flipping pages until he found a section that looked promising, if a bit dry.

  “Dragons and spideresses are both shatterlings of Great Ones. Dragons bear shards of Molech’s soul while spideresses do likewise for Arachne. Unlike dragons, which are only shards of Molech’s ouranic essence implanted into dumb beasts, spideresses are combinations of both beast and human with Arachne’s ouranic essence. This admixture of humanity leads some to believe that spideresses are more easily endured than their lizardly counterparts. This is altogether possible, given the foreign or incomprehensible feeling reported by those who have survived dealings with the spawn of Molech.

  These two types of beings, spideresses and dragons, are unique among the shatterlings, because they reproduce by ‘natural’ means. All other shatterlings (Drinkers of the One Who Thirsts, sorcerers of Abzu, Princepts of the Prince of the Air, children of Anak) must be created directly by their Exile progenitors. When dragons and spideresses reproduce naturally, their soul shards are divided further and further, creating weaker offspring. The number of generations removed from Molech or Arachne, will give a good proxy for a particular specimen’s strength.

  It has been reported that the shatterlings believe that human essences enlarge their own soul shards. It is unclear if they gain strength and power by the act, but both spideresses and dragons consume humans as often as possible.”

  Gilm paused for a moment. Scrawled in a different hand, perhaps even handwritten instead of transcribed by the typical waterwright or aetherial method, was a little note, “See Appendix C for slaying spideresses (novice) and Appendix D for dragons (expert)”

  He muttered aloud, “I wonder what they mean with that novice and expert bit.” He turned to the back of the book and found that these appendices were actually written in a different hand on different vellum and sewn in separately. It was also composed in a rather different style.

  The top of its first page was entitled, “Appendix C: Killing Spideresses.” It had only a short paragraph on it. “Squash them. Or chop them up. Fire works real good. So do big rocks. Watch out cause they bite. Some have poison, some have acid that eats metal. There is usually a lot of them, so bring friends or use choke points. Don’t try to talk, they’re crazy.”

  Gilm was unsure if the advice in the next section was going to be of any use after all. He flipped the page and was even more worried when he read, “Practical Considerations of Slayin Dragons.” Gilm readied his quill, ink, and vellum and began. The section opened with a disturbing illustration comparing sizes.

  “The first problem you’re gonna have killin one a these vile beasts is the fact that they fly. They’re slow on the wing, but it must be admitted, smooth. They ain’t above swoopin and divin like a hawk. But, most times they’re much lazier, more like a bald headed vulture. Hoverin is right out for them, they ain’t hummingbirds after all. They’ve gotta keep movin forward or fall right out of the sky onto their scaley rumps.

  For thinkin about them if you ain’t seen them before, you oughta picture a heron with shorter legs. That a course assumes we’re bein the frogs. Herons only got wings to get from one marshy spot to the next. Same way, dragons’ wings are mostly for get
tin from place to place and ain’t much good in a fight.

  Don’t get me wrong. They can spout out flames like a house-a-fire while they’re flyin. But, that don’t do them as much good as you might think. Picture yourself a tryin to set something a fire with a candle while you run right by as fast as you can. That ain’t gonna work is it? Same for a dragon. They can’t keep their flame on target near long enough to do much good.

  Here’s a point I ought to clear up. Dragon breath ain’t no Sea Prince Fire. That vile mixture those rotten boat jockeys cheat with brings its own burn with it. It don’t need to catch anythin a fire cause it’s made out of pitch and oil and all sorts of muck that burns of its own heart’s desire. Them boat jockeys think it’s all fun and games to watch their victims stomp that stuff to put it out and do no better than splatter it all over their boat so much to burn it better by. Maybe there oughta be an Appendix J for boat jockeys.”

  Gilm actually looked around the library to see if someone was somehow playing a trick on him. Was this book real? The writer was certainly confident enough in his knowledge, and it was firsthand knowledge by all indications.

  “Dragon breath ain’t like that. They don’t spit out nothin that burns of its own heart’s desire. Sure, their breath’ll light up things that can usually go a fire, like hair if you ain’t careful. That stink is awful. But, if the dragon stops breathin, the heat goes away.

  The whole point here is that you don’t have to be worried about gettin toasted from the air most times. Sure, they’ll do it to burn down a village or attack a small group, but if you’re serious about this, you ain’t wanderin around in a little close together group, are you? And you ain’t wearing a bunch a stuff that catches fire or gets hot fast like metal armor either.

  Better yet, you’ve got a Blessed with you. Flamewrights do good stoppin the dragon from roastin you, but they ain’t no good roastin it. All dragons ain’t hurt no more by fire than by their mother’s milk as the sayin goes. Though actually, I think they hatch outa eggs if I remember rightly, so no mother’s milk for them.