Souls of Aredyrah 2 - The Search for the Unnamed One

by Akers, Tracy A.

  Jensa reached her hand to his face. She traced her thumb along his lower lip, then moved her mouth to his.

  The blanket fell from their shoulders and dropped into the mud. The air rushed around them like a blast of cold north wind. Dayn wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, savoring her warm body and soft feminine curves. He kissed her deeply, relishing the sweetness of his first kiss, wondering if he was doing it right, wondering if she felt as wonderful as he did at the moment. His questions were soon answered by the enthusiasm of her hands and the passion of her mouth on his. It was then that he realized what his sister had been so afraid of.

  He pulled away. “I—I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

  Jensa looked puzzled. “Didn’t you like it?” she asked.

  “Of course I liked it. You’re beautiful and…” Dayn looked down ashamedly. “It was wrong. Forgive me.”

  Jensa clenched her jaw. “Very well,” she said stiffly. “Let’s go back to the fire. It’s getting colder out here by the minute.”

  Dayn nodded silently in response, her meaning more than clear. He reached down and retrieved the blanket from the mud and followed her back into the cave.

  BACK TO ToC

  Chapter 17: Birth of the Clans

  Reiv, Dayn, and Jensa set out in a drizzle of rain that wrapped them like a cold, gray shroud. There was little point in waiting for the weather to clear, it obviously had no intention of doing so, and so they left the shelter of the cave in hope of reaching Pobu by nightfall.

  The main road was a series of washed-out ruts, but even had it been better fit for travel, they had already decided to take an alternate route. Though it was doubtful anyone else would be traveling in such unpleasant weather, they did not wish to be seen, not by friend or by foe. Conversation waned as they plodded through the thick, scruffy grasses of the meadowlands. Dayn and Jensa managed to keep courteous distances from one another, while Reiv trudged behind, lost in thought and seemingly oblivious to the misery of the other two.

  The trek took longer than it should have. By the time they were within sight of the city, the sun had long since set and turned the sky from charcoal gray to inky black. Only the occasional twinkle of lights in the distance gave them any guidance. They made their way in gloomy silence, the dreariness of the landscape and the chill of the air matching the aches in their bones and the frostiness of their moods.

  When they reached the city, Jensa led them through a series of muck-filled back streets until they stopped before a dilapidated two-story building. It was dark and quiet and seemed abandoned. They approached quietly, Jensa leading the way, Dayn hesitating as they reached the doorway.

  Reiv marched around Dayn and followed Jensa inside, unmindful of the heavy stillness that surrounded them. A single candle could be seen flickering in a nearby corner of the room. It reflected on Torin’s face, his eyes looking like shiny beads against a pallet of distorted patterns.

  “Are we to meet in the dark?” Reiv asked.

  Jensa went to stand next to her brother. He tilted another candle to the one that was already lit, then handed it to her. Candles brightened one by one as others in the room followed suit. Before long the entire place was alight with halos of gleaming flames and curious faces.

  Reiv took his place next to Torin and leaned into him, inquiring quietly as to Kerrik’s condition. Reiv nodded, relieved by the man’s smile and optimistic response.

  The interior of the place was larger than it had first appeared, and many people were packed within it. Most sat shoulder to shoulder on benches or makeshift chairs, while others lined the walls. Men, women, young and old, Jecta and Shell Seeker, even a few Tearians could be seen scattered throughout. Reiv stepped forward and eyed the crowd, capturing the attention of each and every one of them.

  “I know you have all come at great risk,” he said.

  “Yes, prince, we have,” a disgruntled Jecta man said. “Pray we haven’t found ourselves in a Tearian trap!”

  Voices muttered in agreement.

  Torin stepped forward. “You will hold your tongues until the prince has said his piece.”

  Reiv placed a hand on Torin’s shoulder. “I may not have their trust, but do not worry, I will soon have their ears.”

  Torin nodded and stepped aside, his arms crossed and expression hard.

  “The first order of business is this,” Reiv said, “I am no longer Tearian, nor am I prince. I am only Reiv. ”

  “You are more than that,” a Tearian woman called from the back. “You are the one the Prophecy speaks of.”

  “I am not here to discuss prophecies,” Reiv said.

  The crowd mumbled with confused and conflicted opinions.

  Reiv raised his hand to quiet them.

  “But you’re a Transcendor,” a young Shell Seeker man said from his shadowy place against the wall.

  “I will not dispute that I have undergone the ritual,” Reiv replied. “I am here only to offer what I have learned from it.”

  “What would that be?” a man said, raising his fist into the air. “Can you offer us freedom from the oppression of the Throne and the Temple? Can you offer us food on our tables and medicine for the sick? Can you offer our children hope for the future, or give us back the pride we’ve lost? What is it you can offer us?”

  “Knowledge. The rest is up to you.”

  “That’s easy enough to say,” a woman said. “But what good is it?”

  “You will have to be the judge,” Reiv replied.

  Voices in the crowd began to swell, and Reiv’s eyes flashed a command for silence. The room became quiet. Bodies stilled as they watched and waited.

  “The world of Aredyrah was once a larger place,” Reiv began, “but it is larger today than you have been led to believe. There are others in our world, those who live on the other side of the mountains. They have shared Aredyrah from the beginning. The people of the north are different from us in many ways, and yet they are more like us than not.”

  A few gasps were heard, and voices mumbled as heads leaned to listen to their neighbors. Words of doubt made the rounds.

  “What proof do we have that what you say is true?” someone in the crowd asked. “How do we know there’s this other place beyond the mountains? Who’s ever seen it?”

  “Dayn has seen it,” Reiv said, motioning his arm in Dayn’s direction. “Dayn is from the other place. It is called Kirador.”

  Dayn had remained in the shadows, staring at his feet in quiet contemplation. But his head shot up when his name was mentioned. Reiv’s eyes, as well as every other eye in the room, were focused upon him.

  Reiv motioned him forward. “Come, Dayn. Tell them.”

  Dayn stepped forward and gazed at the sea of doubting faces. “I…I am from Kirador. It’s true,” he said.

  “But he looks Tearian!” an elderly man on the front row cried. “How do we know this isn’t some sort of deception?”

  “It is no deception,” a woman’s voice boomed from the doorway. All eyes turned in the direction of the shadowy form behind the voice. New mutterings began as Brina stepped into the room with Alicine and Nannaven at her back.

  “Dayn is my son,” Brina said as she marched across the room and took her place at his side.

  Shocked voices echoed around her, but Brina gave the crowd no time for further comment as she ordered silence with a firm display of her palm. “He was born with a mark,” she said, gesturing to the birthmark on his neck, “and for that I was not allowed by Temple law to keep him. I took him to the mountain—”

  Words of astonishment resonated throughout the room. “To the mountains? The forbidden place? The home of the gods?”

  “Yes,” Brina shouted over the voices. “I took him to the mountain cave to beg the gods to cure him. I did not care if it was forbidden. I would have given my very soul to save him. It was there that I met someone I believed to be a god. He took my child with the promise that he would heal him and return
him to me in a year’s time. But he never came back. I went there year after year seeking to have my son returned to me, but never again did I see the god beneath the mountain. Then, several weeks ago, I went to visit my nephew, Reiv, and found him with two strangers, a boy and a girl. Reiv believed them to be Jecta thieves, but a miracle happened. I recognized the mark on the boy’s neck. When I questioned him I learned he had been taken from the mountains as a babe and raised by a family on the other side of it—a family from Kirador. It is there my son has been these past sixteen years, until fate gave him cause to leave that place and seek the truth.”

  “Maybe it’s just a tale he told,” someone accused. “Maybe he lied about his whereabouts.”

  “My brother doesn’t lie!” Alicine stepped to the forefront. “Dayn’s my brother, not by blood, but by the life we’ve shared. I’m also from Kirador, and before we came here we didn’t believe in you any more than you believe in us.”

  “Before I lay my life on the line, I want more proof!” a man said. “All we’ve been given is the word of a former enemy and that of a Tearian woman and two children.”

  Reiv threw a glare over the crowd. “You demand proof of what you know to be true! I am here to give you the knowledge I was instructed to reveal, so listen well. Truth is a power long kept from you, and it will be the power that frees you.”

  The room grew silent, and eyes turned to him with fearful longing. Even those who had expressed doubt stilled in their seats. Then Reiv began.

  “Long ago our people were not divided by mountains, or fear, or religious superstition. Though our cultures were different, our natures were not, for we were all made in the image of the Creator. While those of the north believed in one god only, and those of the south in many, we all shared the belief in the same Creator.

  “Generations ago, long before the mountains exploded and the seas churned, our cultures gathered together beneath the mountain to join in celebration. But there was an evil power at work. One day the earth sent up its fires, and the mountains burned and the earth shook. Much of Tearia plunged into the sea. Tens of thousands died. It seemed as if the world was ending.

  “Those who survived cried to the gods, but their prayers were not answered. The world became filled with famine and plague, and the Tearians felt betrayed and abandoned. An evil power whispered in their ears and told them lies. It told them the gods were punishing them for their sin—the sin of fraternization with those not of their kind, those of the north, the dark ones.

  “The Tearians turned their hearts against their neighbors to the north, and it was toward them, and those Kiradyns who had come to live amongst us or had united with our kind in marriage, that a terrible purge took place.”

  Reiv paused. No one said a word or moved a muscle. “I was once said to be the future Red King, the second coming of a king of old who brought Tearia back to greatness after the dark times. It was because of my coloring that I was identified as such, nothing more than that. But I tell you, I have been given a glimpse of that king, and he was as fair-haired and pale-skinned as any Tearian. Time and propaganda have twisted the truth of him, for it is easier to identify him by the color of his hair than by the nature of his deeds. In truth the red in his title stemmed from the bloody purge carried out at his command. He led a slaughter against those he believed inferior, proclaiming it all in the name of Agneis.

  “The killing stopped through the intervention of the gods, but the Purge continued. Those not worthy, those marked or of the wrong color, or with any deformity were cast out, forced to live in the outskirts of our society. Once the inferiors had been beaten down by the terror of the sword and the threat of starvation, they were enslaved. And that is what you all are today—slaves to Tearian masters!”

  Mixed emotions rumbled through the room, then a timid voice up front asked: “But what of those from the north? Why did we never hear from them again?” Others demanded similar answers.

  Reiv raised a silencing hand. “After the eruption of the mountain, the old passageways between us became too difficult to travel. To make certain no Tearian ever went there again, the Temple told the great lie that the gods had chosen to reside in the mountains. Anyone who dared trespass was threatened with death, and the Red King sent guards to stop anyone bold enough to try. Some from the north attempted to cross the mountains and contact Tearia, but they met their deaths at the hands of the Guard. After a while no one went there from either side. It is said the mountains are still guarded, but I have been there, as have Brina and Dayn and Alicine, and I tell you this: There are no guards there, just as there are no gods.”

  “What of those from the north? What fear keeps them on their side?” a woman asked.

  Dayn cleared his throat and took a step forward. “We’ve been taught that demons live in the mountains,” he said, “minions of the evil that nearly destroyed the world. The demons have always been described as white-haired and pale-skinned. There are many stories of people who went to the mountains and never returned. I was believed to be demon-kind because of my coloring. Maybe what the Kiradyns think are demons are in fact the Tearian guards from long ago that killed anyone who crossed the borders. Our leaders have spread myths about the eruption of the mountain just as yours have, and we’ve been kept just as isolated.”

  “Reiv,” the same woman said, “you say the gods don’t reside in the mountains. So where are they? Why have they deserted us?”

  “I have spoken to only one god,” Reiv replied, “and that was Agneis. She resides in the After Realm, not the mountains, and she has not deserted us.”

  “But Agneis speaks through the Priestess!” a voice cried.

  “No!” Reiv said. “Agneis is the Goddess of Purity. The Priestess represents another. The Priestess knows the truth of things, but speaks only lies. The power must be taken from her and the evil she represents.”

  “But if we move to take the power from the Priestess, won’t evil’s wrath descend upon us?” a frightened voice asked. “What’s to stop our total destruction this time?”

  The crowd grew loud with protest, and people rose in agitation. Reiv stepped forward and once again raised his hands to silence the crowd. “I went through the ritual of transcension to ask for the knowledge to heal a child. But Agneis in her wisdom granted me more. I did not come back as one who can lay a hand on the sick and make them well. I did not come back with the power to make wrongs right with the sweep of a hand. I came back with the knowledge of many things I did not know before, and one of those things is that the gods will never forsake us. We, and the gods, and everything of this world are entwined with the Creator. The gods cannot desert us; they are a part of us.”

  “But we don’t have the strength to fight the Priestess!” someone cried.

  “There is bad in us, just as there is good,” Reiv said. “The Priestess’s power feeds on the evil nature of things, but that does not mean she is stronger. Will we simply hand a victory over to her because we are afraid? Will we let her tell us we cannot embrace the gods who represent that part of us which we cherish? Our people did not perish when much of Aredyrah was burned into the sea. We survived, and our world retained its beauty even through its scars. It is only through fear that evil maintains its power. The gods are with us, but they do not promise the battle will be an easy one. We must prove to them that we believe it is worth fighting for, and we must trust them to guide us.”

  A cluster of men in the back raised their fists into the air. “You must lead us!” one of them shouted.

  Two Shell Seekers who had been leaning against the wall behind the men took a determined step forward. “You are the Transcendor!” they said simultaneously.

  “You have the power of the gods on your side!” a woman on the front row cried. She twisted her body around, eyeing the audience for assurances. “You can speak with them, Reiv!”

  A confusion of voices shouted a jumble of commands at Reiv. “You must be the one to lead us! You must be the one to take up the bat
tle cry!” The entire crowd was on its feet then, urging him to consider.

  Reiv raised his hand, then his voice. “That is not my purpose here. My role was to tell you, not to lead you.”

  A Tearian woman rushed forward. “But you are the Unnamed One. Do you deny your destiny?” Others behind her pressed forward also, shouting in agreement.

  Reiv took a nervous step back. Torin rushed to his side and barked an order for the crowd to retreat, but emotions were high and the mass of individuals had become a single entity of determination and purpose.

  “Silence!” Reiv shouted. “Silence I say!” The crowd grew quiet. “Think what you are doing! You risked arrest tonight by coming here, and now you fill the air with shouts and reckless actions. Calm yourselves or any hope for reform will be stopped before it is begun. I have come to tell you truths, and here is yet another—I am not who you think I am. I will offer what I can, but I will not lead you.”

  Reiv suddenly pushed forward and shouldered his way through the startled mob. Dayn called after him, but Reiv continued on and disappeared through the door. Dayn shoved past the crowd and dashed into the street. He paused, glancing back and forth, then spotted Reiv rounding the nearest corner. He sprinted after him, catching up quickly, and grabbed Reiv by the arm, spinning him around.

  “What are you doing, walking out like that?” Dayn demanded. “All those people back there are counting on you. Why is it every time the going gets a little rough you run away?”

  Reiv pulled his arm from Dayn’s grasp. “I am not running away, but if I stay they will not do what needs to be done. They will continue to look to me for something I am not meant to give. I do not think any more time needs to be wasted arguing the issue.”

  “What are you thinking? Of course the issue needs to be argued. How are they to trust what you’ve told them if you walk out like a coward?”