by Erin Hoffman
The mountain loomed before him, indistinct in the mist. Drawing in a deep breath, he filled his lungs with the pine-laced scent of the thick air, then started up the rocky slope.
Time gradually lost its cohesion, punctuated only by the heightened rush of blood in his veins. He repeatedly steered his imagination away from thoughts about the fanciful forms of torture a telepathic race might visit on a captive.
He did not know precisely where he was going, but the priestesses had offered only a single word in response to numerous queries: “Up.” Presumably the High Temple was at the pinnacle of Sher'azar Peak itself, lost somewhere in the maddening fog that engulfed the mountain range. The muscles of his legs and arms began to grow stiff in the clammy air, but he grit his teeth and forged on up one craggy pass after another.
Only when he first began to hallucinate did he stop to rest. The slender demi-peaks that reached up off of the mountain began to take the shape of hazy hooded figures, shadowed against the mist. Their invisible eyes seemed to reach right to his bones.
Blinking rapidly, he turned at the next spur leading off the trail and sat gingerly on an outcropping of blue slate. But the shadows still watched, and after a few moments he spurred himself on again, unable to stand their scrutiny while sitting still.
Driven by that new discomfort, he passed a ghostly night climbing the mountain. The unending mist made sunset unclear; he only became aware of it when there was so little light that he stumbled on the forbidding terrain. At last he found his legs would carry him no further; the air had grown cold and thin in the heights. Dizzied from lack of air, he made a poor excuse for a camp, did not bother with a fire, and set himself down in a shallow hole dug from the gravelly floor. He tried not to compare it to a grave.
The darkness that shrouded the mountain came at last to drape itself across his mind, and he slept.
The pale grey light of dawn did not wake him. Only when the sun began to burn through the mist, falling like liquid flame through the morning fog, did Vidarian stir. He struggled upward in his pit of a bed, blinked bleary-eyed at the rising sun, and prepared to force his aching muscles once more into movement.
A flicker of motion from the eye of the sun gave him pause.
Before he had time to stand, a figure separated itself from the crimson sphere that slowly flooded the morning with scarlet light. Her hair burned with wild abandon down the length of her back, seeming to take its color from the blood of the sun itself, and her skin in the painfully bright light was whiter than the finest porcelain. Sharp blades of sunlight, now streaking down across the mountain, gave the illusion of elfin slenderness to her burgundy-robed form and sheltered her feet from the indignity of making contact with the cold, wet earth. In the tepid twilight her hands glowed golden at her sides.
In a moment the fiery vision was gone and in its place stood a woman of indeterminate age and build. Her hair was indeed red, and gloriously so, but when separated from the sun her entire form seemed to dim into mortality. The smile that lit her features when she caught sight of him, however, reminded him of Ariadel. Presumably they instructed all fire priestesses in the art of smiling to dwarf the breaking dawn.
“Well, hello there,” she said, and there was a strange hollow quality to her voice as it echoed against the stone mountainside. “You certainly look a sight.”
Vidarian scrambled in the gravel, surprise making his sore muscles move faster than they might have otherwise. “Er, good morning, Priestess…?”
She smiled again. Her voice was like crystallized honey-strong and hard but sweet and bright at once, as if just on the verge of bursting into song. “My name is not important now. I was simply out on a…morning constitutional, you might say, and was surprised to see a Son of Nistra this far up our mountain.”
“S-son of Nistra?” Vidarian echoed, unsure that he'd heard her correctly.
“Well, yes, of course,” the priestess answered, pursing her lips and folding her arms across her chest. “You have the mark of Nistra all over you. Didn't you know that, boy?”
Miffed at her overfamiliar tone, but unable to argue, he only shook his head. She sighed in heavy exasperation, but did not drop her smile; if anything, it widened.
“It's no matter. Tell me, what do you want here on the Great Mountain of Sharli?” The title she emphasized grandly, as a jester would of a king who thought too much of himself. Vidarian had never heard the name of the fire goddess used so lightly, and this strange priestess intrigued him. She took a seat beside him on the shale and he found himself drawn into telling his story-for once not begrudging the time that slipped away while he did so.
When he had finished, she drew him back into a retelling of the spell cast on the sun emeralds.
“Do you remember, dear Vidarian, if the priestess stopped for breath when enchanting the two stones?” She looked at him intently, but, as before, there was a smile hidden beneath her seriousness.
Vidarian thought deeply, trying to call the memory back to his mind. “No,” he said at last, “I'm almost certain she didn't. There was only that strange glow, and then both stones were changed.”
“Interesting,” the priestess smiled. “Very interesting. Endera is out of practice.”
Vidarian tried not to gawk. “And-why would you say that, my lady?”
The priestess only broadened her smile. “If I were you, I should find those emeralds. They're quite valuable, you know. As for answers, you ask for too many, when you know them yourself.”
At length she stood and brushed off her robes. Vidarian spoke hastily as she turned to go.
“Lady, I must know. Who are you, who are so-wise?”
Her eyes were alive with secret mischief as she looked back over her shoulder, voice fading as she walked off into the mist. “The gryphons called me Ele'cherath of old. The seridi, my children, who have also been called so many different names, called me San'vidara. But for myself, I call me-”
Vidarian woke, gasping desperately yet finding no comfort in the air that rushed into his lungs. It was thin and cold, sending spangles of black across his vision as he attempted to focus on the blinding glare of the sun that beat down into his eyes. Thrown so suddenly from consciousness to darkness and back again, his body could not keep up, yet from the depths of his soul he clung to the striking sensation of a vast, pulsing rhythm that seemed to come from all around.
Gradually sounds began to separate from the pulsing beat-a flurry of rapid, excited whispers.
Finally his eyes focused, but he blinked again, not quite accepting what he saw. Leaning over him with an expression he guessed to be concern was a sleek face with a narrow nose and a line of golden dots painted above each eyebrow. The eyes below were a warm, almost molten gold, exotically tilted.
“Ah,” his watcher murmured, with a tiny tap to her nose, “he wakes.”
At her words the whispers that surrounded them increased in velocity and volume, though in his dazed state Vidarian could not make out any individual words. Shaking his head, he sat up.
There were fewer whisperers than he had initially thought, but the small handful of priestesses that crowded around him drew back as he moved. Only one among them did not.
“Priestess,” he acknowledged, then winced as pain lanced through his skull, awakened by his own voice.
“Captain Rulorat,” Endera answered, her half-lidded eyes evincing no sympathy for his suffering. “My priestesses found you out cold halfway down the mountain, sprawled on the rocks. Care to explain?”
“I think one of your priestesses knocked me out,” he answered testily, rubbing at his left temple.
“That would be impossible,” Endera answered, folding her ceremonially robed arms. “There were no priestesses on your side of the mountain all night.”
“Perhaps you can be a bit more specific,” the first priestess said gently, placing a hand between his shoulder blades. It was warm. “Did she give you a name?”
“I think she called herself…San'vidara,�
�� Vidarian said, eyes half closed as he attempted to clear his vision. He was looking at the first priestess just long enough to see her eyes do what a human's never would-the pupils rapidly shrunk and flared, pinning like an eagle's. All around him the whispers grew to a furor.
Vidarian turned swiftly to demand what was going on, but found his neck suddenly up against the edge of a dazzlingly shining knife. Endera's eyes were burning.
“So help me, Vidarian, if you dare to mock me at this time and place…” her growling tone promised the torture of a thousand deaths. Slow ones.
“I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Priestess,” Vidarian grated, being very careful not to move.
“It would explain his appearance, Endera,” the golden-decorated priestess murmured, her voice half an octave lower than it had been, with a harmony like tolling bells. “Among other things.”
Vidarian looked desperately at his strange-eyed supporter. “She said the seridi called her that. And that the gryphons called her…Ella…Ele'chertoth. Or something like that.”
// He speaks the truth, // a new voice rumbled in all of their minds, and the priestesses drew back again. Even Endera lowered her blade. // Even if he had somehow learned the Seridan name for Sharli, the name Ele'cherath is protected among the scholars of gryphonkind. // The speaker stepped forward, a gryphon more massive than any of the three he'd seen before. She was tall and muscular, colored like a goshawk but with an array of golden designs painted on her wings. Fiery red eyes settled like burning coals upon Vidarian. // She gave you her other names, those that we call her by, because to hear her True Name would unmake you, // she explained, with a soft tone that nonetheless gripped his heart with ice. // Our goddess is ever one to toy with our own mortal makings, but still you are lucky to be alive. // The stunned and frightened looks of the younger priestesses confirmed the gryphoness's statement.
“I trust your judgment, as always, Thalnarra,” Endera answered, but kept one hand on the knife and looked as if she'd rather have it in Vidarian's gizzard. Or somewhere worse. But she only sighed, then gestured to two of the other human priestesses. “This will bear some explaining. Bring him.”
The two priestesses closed in around Vidarian and helped him to his feet, not unkindly. They then marched him down a hall that carried a faint aroma of smoke and honey, barely perceptible but daunting to his spirit nonetheless.
At length they passed through a marble hall, but none of the priestesses showed any signs of slowing. At the end of the hall in either direction sat a huge white marble altar topped by a massive gold chalice, squat and crowned with a circle of bright fire. Even with the lengths of cold marble between them, Vidarian could swear he felt heat on his skin.
“Are those…?” Vidarian trailed off, staring wide-eyed at the chalices.
“Yes,” Endera answered shortly, continuing her brisk walk ahead of them and not turning her head. “Those are the Living Flames of Sharli.”
Never in his life did Vidarian think he would see the Flames, revered by all followers of Sharli, no matter how meek. Even as they passed, he caught sight of elaborately robed priestesses attending the twisting flames, their garments in the characteristic wine red but rimmed at cuffs, hem, and collar with white ribbon. The Flames had not gone out in twelve hundred years, and likely longer-twelve hundred years merely marked the point at which the priestesshood began to keep count, nearly four dynasties ago.
Beyond the marble hall was a door, plain by comparison but carved of fine heavy ironwood. A young acolyte garbed in ashen grey rushed to open the door before Endera's sweeping feet, and then they were all inside.
“Now then,” Endera began, settling down at her desk. Her eyes were clear as they looked up at Vidarian. “You've spoken with our goddess. It seems that she wishes you to pursue this quest.”
“I intend to rescue Ariadel, Priestess, no matter what it takes,” Vidarian managed, taking a step forward ahead of his attendants.
“Mm,” the priestess murmured, sliding open the top drawer to her desk and withdrawing a sheet of slick ivory parchment. “If it is the will of Sharli, we will certainly assist you. Even now my priestesses are sending for gryphons to carry you as far as you will go.”
“Sh-Sharli did instruct me to do one other thing,” Vidarian began, then plowed ahead before Endera's abruptly sharpening eyes could stop him. “She told me to retrieve from you the sun emeralds. She seemed to think they would be my key in locating Ariadel.”
For a fire priestess, Endera could pull off an incredible icy glare. Straightening as he would against a torrential wind, Vidarian steeled himself for the worst. In the end, though, Endera only reached once more into her drawer and withdrew a black leather pouch. It clinked softly on the desk when she dropped it.
“Sit down, Captain,” Endera said, so sharply that Vidarian did as he was told before even thinking about it. The priestess glanced up for a moment and the two other priestesses bowed out of the room. When the door clicked shut, Endera spoke again. “You're here now to give me a detailed report of your encounter with our goddess.” When he did not answer, she continued, but her tone slanted upward warningly. “The goddess comes to us in many forms, and, rather than waste her time in speaking, delivers her word on many matters through nuance of her appearance and slightest gesture. You are to recall to me as much as you possibly can.” Suddenly Vidarian became aware of how absolutely strained Endera was-he conjectured that he must have been the first of the uninitiated to give such a report. Maybe even the first man.
Endera glanced up from her parchment, lifting her pen from the paper and making that small gesture seem the greatest weighty annoyance. “You had better get started, Vidarian. I don't think you have much time to spare.”
The priestess grilled him until his head swam with fatigue, pursuing points on the tiniest possible detail yet telling him to skip entire sections of their dialogue. Finally he had described it all to her satisfaction, right up to a detailed account of the drowning sensation that immediately preceded his waking.
Endera abruptly dropped her pen, splattering black ink across the neatly lettered page. She did not move to pick it up. “You felt-what?”
Vidarian's brow furrowed. “I felt as though I was drowning-swimming through a sea, yet all was too thin for me to breathe. I gasped.”
“You were blue when we found you,” Endera said, retrieving the pen and absently sliding it back into its case. “But we thought it was from the cold.” She did not speak again, but stared for a long time into the tiny flame that topped the ornate oil lamp to one side of her desk. Finally she looked back up at him, golden eyes dark with tense confusion. “She's kindled you,” she said, then turned her head back to the flame, “but not to her own fire.”
Silence gaped wide between them as Vidarian stared at her in confusion. “I take it that's unusual?”
Endera glared at him, then returned her gaze to the candle, saying nothing.
“She said I was a Son of Nistra,” Vidarian thought aloud, and the priestess returned her burning gaze to him with alacrity.
“That you are, Captain. In more ways than you even know. Sharli has kindled-or, the Nistrans would call it awakened-in you the water magic of Nistra. We did not know she would ever do such a thing…though obviously it is possible.” Restlessly the priestess stood, the hem of her robes brushing the slate-tiled floor.
“Priestess,” Vidarian said abruptly, realizing something. “If I am kindled, or awakened, or what-have-you…do I have a life flame?”
Endera blinked. “No, certainly not. You-” she paused and sighed, closing her eyes for a moment. “There is much more information-theory if you will-to it than this, but what the Nistrans have that we do not is called the Sense. They sense the presence of living things in their vicinity, and further away when trained, through an ability to home in on the rhythm of the Sea that abides in all living things.”
“A rhythm. I heard a rhythm, when I woke-I felt it all around me.” He listene
d for it again and found it as it had been, pulsing softly in the background. If he let his mind wander, he imagined that he could feel the presence of every priestess in the temple, their ripples reaching him as those from stones dropped into still water.
“Yes, that's it.” The priestess sighed, settling back into her chair. “You hardly have time for an ecclesiastical education, but two things I can and must tell you: The first is that water magic is just as complex as fire magic, but it is substantively different. Water, along with earth, forms a side of energy called Substantive energy. Fire and air are on the balancing side of Ephemeral energy. Water works through manipulating the tiniest pieces of water that live everywhere-in the air, in your body, in the very ground. Fire, conversely, can act on these pieces, but of itself has no material property. This is what will differentiate your magic from anything I could possibly tell you about ours; water I only understand in theory, not in practice.”
Vidarian nodded slowly, wrapping his mind around the concept. “And the other thing?”
The priestess leaned across her desk, boring into his presence with her own. To his fledgling Sense she suddenly flared up into a towering flame. “What you now wield is more dangerous than any sword, any spear, or indeed any physical weapon you could possibly imagine. It is imperative that you understand this. The ripples that you can create by moving water will reverberate throughout the entire world, and as their ripples pass outward, they can potentially grow in size and cause catastrophic effects. As one new to the craft your own mind will limit you from doing most damage, but you must be aware of your potential.”
Then, like a candle snuffed, she dwindled to all his perception and fell back against the soft leather cushion of her chair. Vidarian only stared, an insidious chill seeping through his body.
“Ordinarily you would have the guidance of a Nistran priestess,” Endera muttered, gazing off toward the door. “I can only assume that Sharli gave you this gift-and understand that it is a great gift indeed-so that you could use your Sense to amplify the effect of the sun emeralds and locate Ariadel.”
