by Scott Kaelen
Scapa Fell was a region no one with an ounce of good sense would venture into. Though the corruption of Lachyla did not continue beyond the edge of the graveyard, the mere knowledge that it harboured a legion of undead negated any enjoyment over the notion of lazing around among the grasses or taking a noon-time stroll along the stony coastline and its scant beaches. The rest of Himaera was a verdant contrast with these uninhabited wilds. Here in the Deadlands, the trees were few and far between, small swatches of fir, copses of birch and aspen like those they camped beside tonight. The loneliest sight in the south of Scapa Fell was the solitary oak or gawek tree, its boughs reaching like the arms of lost wanderers who came searching for their own story but found only despair, rooted in place by their own loss of hope.
There was nothing good here, nothing worth the journey unless you came with the express purpose of carving your way through a horde of pissed-off dead things. They'd found what they were sent here for – the burial jewel – so good riddance to the rest of it. Lachyla could rot for another few centuries for all he cared. There was one thing to say for this desolate heathland, that it did a great job of keeping the blight from the rest of Himaera. For that, he was grateful. It was a place for fools and risk-takers, Oriken knew in hindsight. And yet, despite all that, the desire to enter the city and search out its untold treasures was still strong.
They were going hungry tonight. No rabbits, no fish in the nearby stream except for a whiskery brookbug that darted away as soon as Oriken spotted it. The animals likely smelled the unnatural corruption on him and his friends, wisely deciding to stay quiet and give the camp a wide berth. Nature bores a… what did Jalis call it? He shrugged.
Rocking back on his heels, he lowered himself to the blanket, removed his hat and placed it on the grass, scowling at the state of the material; it would be getting as good a scrub as his own body when it was his turn to venture down to the water. Dagra had gone first, given how his cuts required more urgent attention than either Oriken’s or Jalis’s minor scratches. Dagra sat now in sullen silence upon his bedroll by the fire, while on the other side of the copse of trees, down where the stream meandered around the foot of the flat-topped hill they were camped on for the night, the faint splashing of water drifted to him as Jalis bathed herself and her apparel.
Oriken laced his fingers behind his head and gazed up at the sky. Only a few stars were visible, but the large moon of Haleth hung bright above the horizon, its light beaming through the thin clouds and bathing the heath in a lambent lustre. The second largest moon – the dark-green Larindis – peered down through a break in the clouds high above its brighter, larger sibling. Of the ever-present Grey Watcher there was no sign, though Oriken knew its faint smudge was hidden somewhere up there, in the same place it always was.
The gentle sound of trickling water melted with the crackle of the fire and the distant chorus of night bugs. He glanced along the ground to where it sloped down through the tree-line. The camp’s higher elevation offered a view through the trees to the black stream, moonlight glistening in its ripples. He could just see Jalis, silver-edged and dark, partially obscured by low-hanging branches. The shallow stream scarcely reached her knees as she crouched and scooped water into her hands and poured it over her hair. She repeated the process several times before taking a bar of soap from the bank to scrub the grime from her body. She was a fine sight to behold, here under the pale light of Haleth, or anywhere. Scarcely an inch or two taller than Dagra, on any other woman her slight figure might speak of frailty, but Jalis exuded vitality and elegance with or without her blades in her hands.
He turned his eyes away, sat up and shuffled closer to the fire; not that he was cold – far from it – but the heat of the flames felt good on his skin. It was optimistic to build a fire tonight since there was nothing to cook, and he’d argued that making it was a waste of time, that the moon and the stars gave enough light to see by. But, when Dagra returned from the stream, he insisted a chill was in the air, that the ocean breeze was blowing cold from the west. So, as Jalis had started down the embankment to the stream, Oriken and Dagra gathered wood. With the fire built, he helped Dagra apply a poultice prepared by Jalis to his cuts, pressing nepenthe leaves over the worst of them.
Dagra was sat with his back to the flames, his bearded face in shadow. He coughed, then groaned. He hadn’t been right since leaving the graveyard, complaining of a headache and tender guts. The hour following their departure from the Gardens of the Dead had mostly been spent in tired speculation as they approached the campsite. Dagra became more irritable and sullen as the minutes stretched by, at times ignoring Oriken and Jalis completely.
Fair enough, Oriken thought. He took a fright back there, but it was a waking nightmare for all of us.
He preferred not to think too hard about things that made no sense. The dead don’t get up and walk around, especially bodies that had supposedly stopped being alive centuries before. And yet, it seemed they did get up and walk around in Lachyla. What troubled Oriken, though, was that the worst moment for him had been the spider webs in the tunnel, not the vicious horde of undead. By the stars, those webs were embarrassing, especially in light of everything that came after.
Still, what’s life without a little fear, right? A crippling phobia reminded a man he was alive. No matter how much embarrassment it caused, it kept you on edge. He sighed inwardly. Yeah, or it makes you panic. And panic leads to mistakes. A mistake in the wrong place and your life’s over, gone to the under-side of the world to be reborn, if you believe that nonsense, and embarrassment be damned because dead men don't feel emotions. No, he added, nor do they attack innocent freeblades, or so I believed, except that belief is a load of old cowshit now, isn’t it?
A cough from nearby brought him from his ruminations and he looked across to see Dagra holding a hand to his forehead.
“How are you holding up?” Oriken asked.
Dagra reached for the tin cup of boiled nepenthe tea beside him and brought it to his mouth for a sip. The fire’s glow lit the side of his face, deepening the shadows on the other. “Bloody headache’s worse,” he said. “Throat’s burning, too.” His voice was raspy, and a little slurred, likely from the herbs coursing through him.
“Give the nepenthe time,” Oriken told him. “You’ll be good by sun-up.”
“I believe you, but my head doesn't. Gods, I could sleep for a week.” He took another sip, then set the cup beside the fire.
Oriken turned at a soft sound behind him to see Jalis approaching, barefoot but dressed in her freshly-washed leggings, a clean corselette of thick cotton, and a fine lace chemise that reached almost to her hips, its diaphanous sleeves hanging to her elbows. Her wash gear and shoes dangled from one hand, while the other clasped a bowl filled with white and brown berries to her breast. Several superficial scratches lined her cheek, scarcely more than grazes, with several more across her arms and hands.
She gave Oriken a cool glance as she passed, then squatted beside Dagra and offered him the bowl. “Here,” she said. “Eat. It's the best we’ve got tonight besides the jerky.”
“Fuck the jerky,” Dagra drawled. “You want more, you can have mine.” He took a handful of berries, muttering something that didn’t sound particularly grateful, something about meat.
Oriken could guess. And he agreed. He scarcely had an appetite either, and the lack of a fresh, roasted rabbit was not a huge loss for one night, given the abundance of bogberries in the region.
“You’re welcome,” Jalis said to Dagra. With a rueful smile, she dropped her shoes and wash-gear and sat cross-legged before Oriken. She reached for the backpack containing the Chiddari jewel, took it out and unwrapped it. “I was thinking about these runes while I bathed,” she said, stroking a finger across the silver band.
“Of course you were,” Oriken said. “Of all things.”
She gave a small shrug. “I recognise a few of them. Many antik rukhir have never been fully translated, their meanings only g
uessed at. But symbols like those for the old gods are quite common if you know what you’re looking for. These here”—she pointed to a section of the band—“they represent the Supreme God, differing slightly depending on whichever of the gods held that title at the time or place. Back in the Umbral Era, most of the tribes seemed to worship Banael as the supreme god, but the sun rune is missing here.”
“This is Himaera, lass,” Dagra said from behind her. “They never worshipped the sun here like your ancestors did. At least not as the ruling deity.”
“He’s right,” Oriken said. “They were all about the Bound and the Unbound in equal measure back then, Banael and all the others. Then they worshipped the Dyad after the apostles came preaching from across the Channel. But Himaera's goddess was always Valsana. Morta’Valsana, if you prefer her scriptured name. There are still some people who say that the duality of the Dyad are just a fancy modern interpretation of the old goddess.”
Jalis raised an eyebrow. “That would explain it. Of course. Morta. Surely it cognates with the Sardayan word, Mortas.” She checked the runes and pointed to several. “Yes, here are the symbols for fertility, birth, life, death, and… what’s this one? Hm. If I had to guess, I’d say this represents undeath. Interesting. This jewel pre-dates the blight by a couple of centuries, no?”
Oriken yawned. Whatever nonsense was scrawled on the band was of no interest to him. Besides, their reward was for the jewel, not for the silver surrounding it.
Jalis traced her finger over another rune. “This one represents Drilos, though how his rune came to be on an ancient Himaeran artefact, I couldn’t begin to guess.”
“Who’s Drilos?” Oriken took a handful of berries from the bowl and popped one into his mouth. He knew the names of most of the gods, but he’d never heard of a Drilos. “Is he one of those, what do you call them, patrons or something?”
Jalis made a noise of exasperation. “Patrons are people, remember?”
He rolled his eyes. “I know that!”
Rummaging in her pack and withdrawing a pair of short woollen socks, she said, “Drilos is a god from a land beyond the city of Midhallow.”
Oriken barked a laugh. “Well, I know that’s nonsense. They say there’s nothing past Midhallow, that it stands guard against the edge of the world.”
“Oh, Orik.” Jalis’s expression turned to one of pity as she pulled her socks onto her feet. “Do you really believe that? Have you no grasp of the concept of size? You do realise the difference between, say, somewhere like Brancosi Bay – you know the town, you’ve been there often enough – and the whole world of Verragos? Do you suppose the people of Midhallow hear stories that the world ends on the western coasts of the Arkh? If that were true, there’d be no Himaera, and yet here we are.”
“Huh. I know you’ve been a lot of places, but are you saying you’ve been to Midhallow, too?”
“No, but I’ve seen it from a distance, sprawled across what used to be called the Ÿttrian Pass. It wouldn’t be called a pass if it didn’t connect two places, would it?”
“All right, okay,” he mumbled. “I get the point.”
He didn’t like being made to look stupid. He’d been the object of Jalis’s ridicule many times, but he knew he often deserved it. A moment of feeling foolish was worth it if he could see the look on her face, the one she got when she spoke about faraway places or ancient things. He considered himself a creature of logic, but Jalis possessed a worldly knowledge that went beyond his grasp. She spoke to him like a teacher to a student, but little did she know that he saw her more as a priestess. In his mind, he played the role of the eager acolyte, ever wanting her to properly notice him, but never daring to voice how much he revered her.
As she sat cross-legged before him, the fire and the moonlight enhanced the glow that she naturally exuded. After so many years of working together, of tightening the bonds of friendship, he guessed he’d become as addicted to her as he had to the tobah. And yet, despite their closeness, she still remained exotic, and his sense of wonder for her had not dulled but strengthened. Watching and listening to her was almost enough to chase away the nightmarish images of undead things that clawed at the back of his mind; almost, but not quite.
“Snap out of it, Oriken.”
“Huh?”
“You're staring.”
“Oh.”
A low growl resonated from Dagra's direction. As one, Oriken and Jalis turned to look at him. He held his hand to his belly and cast them a sullen glance. “Ignore it. I'm not hungry.”
“Have you finished your tea?” Jalis asked as she pulled her shoes on.
“Not yet,” he muttered.
“Drink it up, Dag. We need you fit for the road.”
By way of an answer, he belched loudly, turned to face the fire, then hawked and spat into the flames.
Jalis suppressed a sigh as she returned her attention to the runes. “What I can’t figure out is how knowledge of a god from a thousand miles away reached Himaera long before anyone in the Arkh had even heard of Drilos. It’s a mystery.”
“That’s all well and good,” Oriken said, “but it’s a mystery that’s worth less than the bounty on that fancy lump of rock. Why don’t you give Cela a visit after we’ve passed the jewel on to Maros? Maybe she knows something she never told the guild.”
“I might just do that.”
The conversation lapsed into silence. Dagra closed his eyes and hung his head to his chest. Jalis continued to inspect the runes around the jewel. Oriken gazed past her into the treeline, his thoughts drifting past their escape and back into the Chiddari crypt, grunting softly at the memory of the thickly-bunched cobwebs.
“Hey!” he exclaimed as a sudden thought came to him.
Jalis dropped the jewel to her blanket, Dusklight instantly appearing in her hand. She sprang to a crouch and pivoted, scanning the clearing and the trees beyond. The moment grew, and the chirping of the heath-hoppers resumed. She glanced over her shoulder and shot Oriken an exasperated look. “What did you see?”
“Hm? Oh, nothing. I just realised—”
“Oriken, you fucking dolt.” Sheathing her daggers, she sat back down with a sigh. “You realised what?”
“Ah… Yeah, so, er…”
“Oh, for the love of the gods.” Jalis pressed her lips together.
“Sorry.”
Dagra gave a mirthless chuckle.
Oriken cleared his throat and cast Jalis an apologetic glance. “Do you remember when we entered the main chamber of the crypt? What I said about the spider webs?”
Dagra nodded wearily. “Sure. I vaguely recall you making a tit out of yourself.”
Jalis cast Oriken an incredulous look. “You’re still thinking about spiders?”
“No.” He pulled a sour face. “Not really. It’s just that I realised what I was trying to think of back there.”
“Go on,” Dagra said flatly. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“It almost seemed,” Oriken said, brushing aside the sarcasm, “as if the place used to be looked after and the webs cleaned away, say till the Great Uprising. But they only maintained the crypt area. We ran into cobwebs all the way down the stairwell and through the adjoining corridor. Don’t know why they’d only do half a job, but there you go. My point is, I reckon the webs used to gather in there all the time, right up till they didn’t.” He nodded at Dagra. “The burial hole you checked is testament to it. The way I see it is, at some point, two things happened. The main hallway was no longer cared for, and the spiders stopped spinning their webs. Why do you suppose that would happen?”
Dagra cast him a disinterested look. “That’s great, but I scarcely have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Fascinating,” Jalis breathed, seeming to genuinely mean it. “I see what you’re saying.” Her eyes glinted and her lips curled into the trace of a smile. “Well spotted. It makes sense. Something did happen that stopped the natural course of everything in that place; not the Uprising,
but the blight. Whatever transpired in Lachyla didn’t just affect its human inhabitants.”
Dagra closed his eyes and puffed his cheeks. “If you’re suggesting that there are little undead spiders scuttling around in the graveyard, too brain-dead to make webs any more, you’re wrong; there wasn’t a single insect or bird or cute little mouse – alive or dead – in the whole blighted place.”
Oriken grabbed his hat from the ground and pushed it onto his head. “It was just an observation.”
“What it tells us,” Jalis said, “is that the crypt entrance might not have been used by whoever cleaned the place, which would explain the presence of the webs.”
“Right.” Oriken gave her a brief nod. “So wouldn’t that suggest there might be another entrance after all?”
Jalis raised an eyebrow. “It does seem possible.”
“Or,” Dagra said, “only the main hallway is clean because it’s the only part that’s sanctified.” With a wheezing sigh, he turned an intent stare first on Oriken, then on Jalis.
“What is it?” she asked.
“One of those corpses spoke to me, you know?”
Oriken snorted. “Come off it.”
“I’m not fucking around!” Dagra snapped. “The cursed thing called me a liar. A liar!”
“That’s not possible, Dag,” Oriken said. “Get some sleep.”
“It’s just your imagination fuelled by fear,” Jalis said.
“Oh?” Dagra fixed them with a fevered glare. “And the dead walking around is possible? Thanks, both of you. First a corpse calls me a liar, and then my friends do too.” He burst into another cough, and this time it went on for a full minute, culminating in a hacking bark that made Oriken wince, punctuated by a long belch. Climbing unsteadily to his feet, Dagra headed for the trees at the edge of camp. The lower trunks and boughs were silhouetted against the moon-washed backdrop of empty heathland. He wandered around the side of the copse, a black shape crunching through a carpet of brittle twigs, and disappeared behind a birch.
