by Matthew Lang
“Isn’t fire risky?” Adam asked as Joeri placed the platter down before them.
“Not as risky as trying to return to our kitchens at Boolikstaad. The other rivers here are too cool for our normal cooking methods, so our choice is either risk a fire or eat things raw.” Joeri smiled, showing his teeth. “And while that’s fine if you have no other option, I do not think we wish to risk becoming sick if we catch the wrong scarab or hunt the wrong spider.”
“Is everyone coming here?” Adam asked. “I don’t think we can fit all of Boolikstaad here.”
“No,” Joeri said, helping himself to a lantern berry. “There are other camps, much like this one. I know of one other—Captain Roelof is in charge of that one. There may be more, but for now it is perhaps best that we do not know where they are.”
They finished the rest of the meal in silence, and then Adam and Duin wordlessly followed Joeri down through the branches to the tree’s hollow. The inside had been separated into floors by carving out holes in which to place support beams, overlaid with rough planks of green wood and covered in rushes. Inside a stone bowl had been set up for light. Piles of documents were scattered haphazardly in the corners, and large rectangular stones had been used in combination with some wood offcuts to make rudimentary shelving. There were also bunches of herbs and flowers hung in bundles from the planks that formed the roof overhead and a small pallet of rushes and bracken in the corner for sleeping.
Elder Faas and Elder Thera were seated in a clear space in the middle of the room with a rough, chipped rock the size of a door lying on the floor between them. It was milky white in color, or at least Adam thought it would be, given the way the green glow reflected off its surface. “Ah, Sir Adam,” Elder Faas said, looking up. “I think we can get you into Aer Goragon.”
“You can? How?”
“This is a fragment from Selune herself,” Elder Faas said, “taken from the Temple of Selune in Aergon by the first to be cast out, and before that from the temple in Blackwater.”
Adam frowned. “If they were cast out, how did they sneak that out? It’s a bit hard to shove down your trousers.”
Elder Faas smiled. “When the first of our people left the Caverns of Aergon, there were a fair number of us, and many held important positions in the Temple of Selune. We were still cast out, but our lorekeepers tell us that the initial exile was more… civilized. They left with supplies and some of their artifacts—such as this.”
“I see.” Adam nodded, and then, feeling something more was expected of him, opened his mouth. “I’m not sure how this will help us, Elder Faas.”
“And until Waur Thera came up with her bright idea, I didn’t think it helpful either,” Elder Faas said. “Waur Thera?”
“We can use the stone to open a moon bridge between here and the temple in Aer Goragon,” Thera said. “I would not have attempted this before, but now that we know Khalivibra does not have the favor of Helene, she will not be able to stop us.”
“Stop you?”
“The chosen of Helene can feel us when we exercise the more… ostentatious gifts of Selune,” Elder Thera explained. “Just as we can feel when they exercise their gifts, or a sorcerer knows when another is working her craft nearby. For many cycles this has prevented us from using many of the blessings Selune bestowed on us so long ago.”
“Like the moon bridges,” Elder Faas said, beaming.
“And what exactly is a moon bridge?” Adam asked.
“A portal that bridges the gap between sacred stones of the moon,” Thera said simply. “Any raw stone can be used, but the portal size is only as big as the stone itself. As you can see, we have a stone large enough that you could even ride Zoul through to the other side.”
“And the other side being?”
“The fresco in the main hall of the Temple of Helene in Aer Goragon,” Thera said, smiling. “It is the only raw moonstone in the city that would be still intact. Each temple has a fresco reflecting their sister goddess, and from what Bern says, we know that the Temple of Helene appears largely intact.”
“How long would the journey take across this moon bridge?” Adam asked, his heart pounding.
“No longer than it would take you to take two steps,” Thera said, her smile widening. “And the beauty is, even if Khalivibra does detect what we do, she will feel us working our gifts here, rather than in Aer Goragon where you will be arriving.”
“And we couldn’t just have done this before?” Adam asked.
“Until Bern returned, we did not think the fresco was still intact,” Elder Faas reminded him. “And if Khalivibra could detect us, we would not have wished to lead her back to Boolikstaad.”
“Both are concerns which worry us no more,” Thera said, as four other haerunwoln entered, leading Zoul, Hele, Thandyr, and a fourth lizard that Adam recognized as Elder Thera’s mount. Rising to her feet, Elder Thera put on her riding harness and stepped gracefully into the saddle. “Mount up, gentlemen,” she said. “For we ride to Aer Goragon for good or ill.”
Adam double-checked to make sure all of Zoul’s packs had been put on before clipping himself into the saddle, just in time to see the four groomsmen hoist the large stone into position against the far wall.
Elder Faas approached it, pressed his forehead against the rock, and stretched his arms wide to grasp its edges.
“The stone remembers,” he said, his voice strangely choral, as if it were overlaid with another that Adam could hear but not quite hear at the same time. “The stone remembers all and was all one in times gone past. The stone remembers all and is all one in the time that is now. The stone is—” Elder Faas stepped to one side, and Adam was shocked to see his eyes were milky white, with no trace of the pupil or brown of the iris. “—open.”
And before them, in the middle of the milky white stone, was a glittering veil of green energy, leading into an inky darkness that fell away into impossible depths. Silently and in single file they entered the portal.
Chapter 24
THE BLACK of the portal turned out to be exactly that—the black of the portal. It was a bit like a sheet of darkness between the two places, one that allowed no light through but allowed the passage of the four travelers. Adam watched as his arm disappeared before him, seeming to be cut off where it pierced the veil, and then he was through, blinking in the red twitterlight of the sun. The temple room they were in was open to the air, with tall pillars of sandstone reaching to the sky, embedded with what looked to be golden cubes. The temple itself was bare and empty of any decoration other than the carved moonstone panel they had just exited from, giving no indication that this was—or had been—a place of worship.
“Why isn’t there anything here?” Adam asked as Duin and Joeri rode into the room, the black portal closing behind them silently.
“Good question,” Elder Thera said. “There should be a great gold statue of Helene here. Not to mention her altar was also solid gold.”
“Can’t have been,” Adam said. “That would be far too soft—look, this is still here,” he said, pointing at a crude sandstone block. “They must have covered this in gold.”
“And that plinth must have been where Helene’s statue would have stood,” Duin said. “I always remembered the story of the twelve flames of Helene that would dance on top of her temple to greet the sun—although I don’t understand why the sun needed greeting. It is not as if the sun ever goes away.”
“But it used to,” Adam said, staring up into the sky. “Twelve dancers—twelve pillars?”
“Yes,” Thera agreed. “Legends say there were twelve golden statues—one on top of each of the pillars, holding aloft their bowls of holy fire.”
“Why would they all be gone?” Duin asked. “Surely as a creature of Helene….”
“These dragons,” Adam said slowly. “They’re big, scaly, winged, and breathe fire—do they also like having large hoards of treasure?”
“Of course,” Thera said. “The tale of a dragon’s ho
ard used to inspire great feats of bravery amongst those who went to fight them. It means little to us now, of course. Gold is pretty, but not very useful to our people.”
“Then I think I know where the statues ended up,” Adam said. “She looted the temple of her own goddess.”
“But why not take the pillars?” Duin asked.
Adam rode Zoul closer and tapped on one of the cubes sticking out from the crumbling stone of the pillars, and then peered more closely at the pitted surface of the metal. “Pyrite,” he said with a grin. “It’s fool’s gold—not real gold at all.”
“Well, that answers my question, I suppose,” Duin said. “Does this mean we can agree that Khalivibra has fallen out of favor with the sun goddess?”
“We can hope,” Adam said blandly. “We still need to find Esmeralda and the dragon’s magic-boosting artifact.”
“Yes,” Joeri said from the single open doorway in the ring of walls they found themselves in. “And the first thing we need to do is sneak out of here.”
Adam dismounted, crept up to the door, and peered out to see the city that once was Aer Goragon. The Temple of Helene turned out to be atop a large ziggurat, with a wide stairwell leading from the top down to an equally wide boulevard. He could still see the original paving, although much of it was now obscured by dirt, rubbish, and overgrown mats of flowering plants that had sent their runners from the decorative garden beds and across the long causeway.
Far off into the distance, Adam saw a similar ziggurat facing them, and surmised that must have been the Temple of Selune. Toward the walls on the right, the great shape of Goragon Castle stood, its imposing form looming over the rest of the city buildings, even with the large space where the eastern side of the main hall had crumbled completely. Closer to the Temple of Helene, Adam could see the roofs of the city buildings, most of them now missing many of the slate shingles that had tiled them, as well as the wooden shutters that had covered their bare windows. Toward the castle, Adam noted the twinkling lights of fires and the plumes of woodsmoke that rose into the air and trailed off to the west—or dark—as the near constant trade winds pushed their way past the once proud stones of the golden city.
“I don’t think they’re using this area,” Adam said. “All of the people seem to be up there, where the light is.”
“Why would she let them have fire?” Duin asked.
Adam shrugged. “Maybe she likes fire. She is a dragon. Does anyone know what those giant overgrown trees are doing in the middle of the city?”
“That would probably have been the great park,” Thera said. “Where King Henricus kept a menagerie before his kingdom fell to Khalivibra.”
“Looks like much of it has been turned into farms,” Joeri said.
“I wish it was still a park,” Adam said. “We’d have more chance of sneaking through that.”
“Couldn’t we just walk through them?” Duin suggested. “Not through them through them, I mean, but among them. If we steal some clothing, we should be able to walk straight through the middle of the city.”
“Too risky,” Thera disagreed. “We don’t know how many people are really here—if there aren’t that many and they all know each other, they could sound an alarm. Not to mention we have to find the clothes before we can steal them.”
Duin shrugged. “Find someone, rap them on the head, and take their clothes. That shouldn’t be difficult.”
“If the dragon isn’t controlling them, yes,” Thera said. “I know she may not notice the loss of one connection—or even four—but we have the element of surprise here. Let’s not risk it unnecessarily.”
“Our mounts may also attract attention,” Joeri said, his eyes scanning the darkened buildings around them.
“Either way, we need to get to the castle,” Adam said. “If Khalivibra’s lair is there, that’s where Esmeralda is going to be.”
“We can skirt the fields to the light and north if we keep to the shadows of the buildings,” Joeri said. “I suggest we go across the upper level walls to avoid detection from the ground and the air.”
Adam nodded. “Sounds good. Let’s move.”
“I take it we are going to trust stealth and the dragon’s arrogance to prevent her from finding us with her mind, rather than invoking the blessings of Selune?” Thera asked as Joeri started down the ziggurat, darting quickly into the shadows of the western side of the large squared edges.
“Well, she hasn’t found us yet,” Adam said. “Let’s keep that for an emergency.”
“You put great faith in my ability to block her out quickly, Sir Adam,” Elder Thera said acidly. “I hope it is not misplaced.”
“I put greater faith in the ability of people to use their ears,” Adam said. “Especially if what they are hearing is an ongoing melody. That seems riskier.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Sir Adam,” Thera said as she followed after Joeri.
Adam shared a pensive glance with Duin, sighed, and followed after her. Nothing more needed to be said.
THEY MADE it down to the base of the ziggurat without incident, and Joeri led them a few streets away from the farmed fields before taking to the stone walls of the dilapidated houses. It was strange walking sideways through the abandoned city, hiding in the darkness but looking out into the light. The houses were made of the same crumbling yellowish sandstone as the city walls and the temple pillars, held together with a mortar that had almost completely rotted away beneath the attentions of the wind, rain, and various climbing plants that had taken up residence where the people had moved out. They found they had to move slowly, ensuring that each sticky-toed lizardstep landed on a firmly secured stone or risk being discovered or worse. Even so, their ride through the deserted northeast quarter of the town was almost fun.
It wasn’t quite a sideways walking tour of Minas Tirith, but Adam kept finding his eyes being pulled to little details on the old buildings—the elaborate carved wooden shutters that showed motifs of stylized wheat grains and what appeared to be pegasi, the various wood and stone merchant shingles that still survived, some hanging from rusted chains or others carved into the keystones over the arched doorways. The streets were wide and mostly clear of debris, bar the moss that was slowly and determinedly turning the wide bricked road into a swathe of blue-green, at least in the part where the light hit. Nothing more than slime and mold grew in the shadows, and tiny insects and lizards scuttled from light to shade and back again, feeding on the vegetation or each other. Thankfully, there appeared to be a lack of giant spiders in the area, although Adam supposed that probably came down to a lack of food and hunting from the dragon’s thralls. There were flocks of flitterfish roosting in some of the buildings, however, and the first time they stumbled upon such a roost they stopped and held their breath, waiting to see if the sudden egress of the winged creatures provoked an investigation. Thankfully, after several minutes of tense silence, they were able to proceed, winding their way toward the keep.
When they got closer to the northern wall, the streets started to curve around toward the west, and tendrils of smoke drifting out of chimney stacks indicated they were now in inhabited areas. There were also fewer shadows to hide in as the eternal red twitterlight flooded most of the east-west streets. Wordlessly, Joeri first checked and then guided them into an old warehouse via large attic windows, below which a large plaque reading Garandas & Sons, Merchant Traders sat crumbling beneath layers of oxidation and flitterfish crap. Inside, the warehouse was empty bar the walls and structural supports. Adam had expected a wooden floor, separating the great building into at least two levels, but someone or someones had clearly come through and stripped out the timber, if the holes in the wall where beams should have sat were anything to go by. So instead, Joeri led them down to ground level, where they gathered amid the dust of cycles gone past.
“I don’t think we can get to the keep,” he said simply.
“We have to,” Adam said. “Maybe we should have gone in from the sou
th?”
“I’m more concerned about noise, but I think we can stick to the shadows.”
“So we repack,” Adam said. “Make sure nothing clinks.”
“Yes,” Joeri agreed. “You especially, Sir Adam.”
“Sorry,” Adam said as he unclipped his harness and swung down to the ground.
“What do you have that is so noisy, Sir Adam?” Thera asked as the rest of them followed suit.
“Best you don’t know,” Adam said as he started shoving his spare clothes around the earthenware jars he’d so carefully constructed in Blackwater. “Just something that I hope will help.”
THE LAST leg of their journey was the most nerve-wracking for them all, taking them through inhabited streets to the keep itself. Joeri guided them down as many side streets as he could, sometimes dashing between buildings, sometimes crawling on the underside of overhangs where extensions thrust out over the streets below. From what Adam managed to see and overhear, the people of Aer Goragon lived stilted lives that bore some semblance to reality, but their existence reminded him of Sovereign Hill back home—a show for the tourists to see what life was really like in days gone by. There was the cooking of food and the eating of meals. There appeared to be the mending of clothing and the gathering of firewood. As they passed underneath a window, there also appeared to be rather enthusiastic sex happening, but Adam couldn’t help noticing the absences.
There was no play, for a start. Children toiled in the fields with their parents, scavenged for wood, mended clothing, and all in all acted like serious miniature adults—if adults were robots who spoke little and never smiled or laughed. From the smell of unwashed bodies, it was also fairly clear that no one bathed—or washed their clothes. From the stolen glimpses Adam occasionally risked, he saw their furniture was crude and strictly utilitarian, and indeed, daily life appeared to go on with next to no conversation or other forms of human interaction. The city plazas remained empty of markets or bazaars, and no thieves wandered through the crowd looking for an unsuspecting mark. No guards patrolled the streets, and no houses of any repute were open for business. Shops remained empty or were now used as makeshift housing, although it appeared that weavers still worked the ever-present spider silk into cloth, and a blacksmith toiled ceaselessly to turn out tools, nails, and other utilitarian items that people came to take, leaving food or clothing as a form of payment, all completing their transactions without so much as eye contact.
