by Kim Fedyk
She had only taken a few steps when she stopped. Oh but it was so tempting. She looked at the king a few paces ahead of her, he still hadn’t looked back at her. Well, she thought, maybe just a... she turned and looked back at Kiran. She gave him the ugliest face she could make and stuck out her tongue. Kiran looked at her in shock. She smiled as she turned back around. That had been well worth it; there was time to be mature later.
Absalom hadn’t noticed Arleth making faces at Kiran. In fact he probably wouldn’t have noticed if she had started yelling insults at the pair of them. For he was deep in his own thoughts. He had lied to them all. He had no interest in Bella’s lynstones, not even in the slightest. True there had been a trade agreement between the Sneels and the Amaras generations ago, but at the moment he had more important things to worry about than trade. He had also lied to Arleth about why he wanted her to come to Oherra. Val wasn’t an assassin, there was no group of assassins after him, and if there were he certainly didn’t need her help to find them. But his lie had served him well. She had believed him and it had allowed him to take her off of Tocarra with him. He couldn’t tell her the truth, not here and certainly not now. If she knew the real reason why he wanted her, why she was so important to him, she would be overwhelmed. No, he had done the right thing; he would tell her when the time was right.
He called one of his grekens over to him and muttered something in its ear. He knew that Val would be following behind in the portal, he had to; he had no other way back to Oherra. And Absalom wanted to make very sure that Val did make it back. He wanted Aedan to hear of Val’s failure first hand. It would spur him to do something rash. Something like coming after her alone. She was too valuable to Aedan for him to just accept defeat. He would have to do something. And Absalom would be waiting when he did. If Arleth could allow him to finally capture Aedan after all these years, she would be very useful indeed. Absalom looked back at Arleth and smiled. She smiled back unaware of the thoughts going through the king’s head. That girl had the power to break the years of stalemate between him and Aedan. But she was blissfully unaware of her importance. Absalom hoped he could keep it that way for a little while longer.
Chapter 9
Arleth hadn’t known what to expect when she walked through the portal, but she had certainly never imagined what she now saw. First of all, she hadn’t really walked through the portal at all, more like into it. She was standing at the entrance of a wide, dark tunnel. Even though the portal was still open behind her, with more of Absalom’s servants filing through, it was so dark that she could barely make out the shape of the king who was standing only a few feet in front of her. It was as if the tunnel was sucking in the light. She felt something brush against her shoulder and she flinched involuntarily. Someone was passing beside her. She heard soft voices ahead and a few more shadowy forms materialized out of the gloom, joining the dark figure of the king. A slow eerie melody drifted out of the shadows. It began softly, barely audible and then grew steadily louder until it reached a constant pitch. A woman’s voice started singing,
Through the dark I call to thee,
From every corner, crevice or crack
Wake from sleep and fly to me.
Be mindful of your ancient pact,
Hidden in shadow for evils past,
Bound to serve those seeking way.
Hear this song I sing to you,
Light our way and guide us through.
Arleth began to hear a faint rustling far in the distance. As she listened, it grew louder and became more defined. It sounded like thousands of wings beating together. Along with the sound, a faint circle of light began to form on the right side of the tunnel. At first it was just barely visible, a faint glow in the darkness, but it steadily grew larger and larger until a significant area of the tunnel had been illuminated. It was bright enough now that Arleth could see that the tunnel wasn’t straight, but turned sharply to the left about 400 paces in front of her. It was from around this bend that the source of the light and the fluttering noise was coming from. Whatever the woman had called in her song was approaching from there. Arleth had no idea what would emerge around the corner but she was pretty sure that whatever it was, there were a lot of them. She could feel her heart pounding in excitement. She had only just stepped out of Tocarra and she was already going to witness something remarkable.
The light continued to grow larger and larger, reflected onto the tunnel wall. The fluttering noise, accompanying the increasing light, had grown almost deafening and Arleth found herself covering her ears with her hands. A sharp gust of air blew into her, knocking her back a few paces into the person standing behind her. But Arleth hardly noticed the gentle push that helped her regain her balance, for at that moment, the creatures had finally emerged from around the corner. Arleth stared at them in delight; completely transfixed.
They were magnificent!
Hovering in the air above them were thousands of tiny winged creatures. They had stopped flapping and were instead soundlessly floating with their wings outstretched. Arleth stared at the creatures wordlessly. She racked her brain for all the creatures she knew, had seen, or had heard about, but none of them even came close to describing what she now saw. Each creature appeared to be slightly different than the one beside it. The only thing they seemed to all have in common were their wings, which glowed so brightly that they bathed the whole tunnel in light. Aside from that, Arleth didn’t even know where to begin to draw similarities. They were all different colours; some were gold, some blue, some green; and some were colours that Arleth didn’t even have a name for. Some appeared to have two legs, some had four or six, while others didn’t appear to have any legs at all. The more she looked at the creatures, the more varieties she found. Arleth felt certain that if she had spent days just looking at each one closely, she wouldn’t be able to find two that looked quite the same.
One of the creatures detached itself from the mass and floated down to hover around Arleth’s nose. She gave a delighted laugh and held out her hand. It flew down and softly landed in her palm. Slowly, Arleth brought her hand to her face and stared at the creature curiously. The creature stared right back at her, just as curious as she was. Its skin was the colour of magenta and looked shiny and smooth. It had four arms that were spaced equal distances from each other in a row across the front of the creature’s body. On top of its head there were three black antennae that were all leaning in Arleth’s direction. Below its wings at the back of its body was a long curled tail that ended in a triangle shaped tip. Despite how strange it looked, Arleth thought it was adorable.
“Hello little one,” she said softly. “What are you?”
“They are garrupi,” said Absalom with a smile on his face coming to stand beside Arleth. The creature flew away, startled by the newcomer and both Arleth and Absalom watched as it floated back up to join its friends.
“Garrupi?”
“Yes. They are a very ancient race. A long time ago, before the Great War, they lived all over Oherra. They were nomads, living wherever the fancy took them.”
“Why do they all look so different?”
“They have the remarkable ability to change their features and skin colour at will. The only feature they are stuck with are their wings. As a result, you will find no two garrupi that are exactly the same. Quite fascinating really.”
“So what happened to them,” said Arleth, anticipating the story. “Why are they here in the portal?”
“Well,” said Absalom, looking vaguely annoyed that he had been interrupted again, “They committed a grievous sin.”
“What did they do?”
“If you let me finish...” Absalom said a bit angrily, the annoyance showing more clearly on his face. He was a man who wasn’t used to being interrupted, especially not by one of his servants. When the King of Oherra spoke, everyone around him listened.
Arleth nodded hurriedly, “Sorry.”
Absalom stared at her for a couple more seconds
as if to make sure she wasn’t going to say anything further and then continued. “As I was saying, the garrupi committed a despicable crime.
At that time, the Garrupi desperately wanted to live in a southern Oherran city called Whinton. Situated on the coast and surrounded by lush forests, it was said to have been a very beautiful city. It was prosperous, cultured, and vibrant. It is no surprise then, that the garrupi were drawn to it. At first, the town’s leaders had no problem with the garrupi living there. Whinton was home to many different races and the garrupi were just one of many. However, their nomadic, free-spirited way of life started to cause problems. They refused to pay taxes. They set up their homes wherever they pleased even if it was in the middle of a street or on someone else’s property. Such things as private property and belongings meant nothing to them. But probably worst of all, they would impersonate prominent city officials and leaders. Since they could change their size, features, and colour at will they could perfectly copy anyone they chose. On one particular instance, a group of young garrupi thought it would be fun to kidnap the city’s leaders and impersonate them. A group of delegates from the neighbouring world of Sancronea were due to meet with these city officials. They met with the garrupi youth instead, not knowing that they were imposters. The garrupi insulted the delegates so thoroughly and caused so much trouble that a war was almost started. After this incident, when the confusion was sorted out and the real officials were back in power, a council met to discuss the problem of the garrupi. It was decided that the garrupi as a whole were too dangerous and too troublesome to be within the city and the entire population was banished from Whinton.
The garrupi thought this was a terrible injustice and so they banded together and attacked the city. In the battle that ensued, the city was burned to the ground and thousands of people were killed. After the fires were finally put out and the dead accounted for and buried, it was concluded that something drastic had to be done with the garrupi.
The most powerful sorcerers on Oherra decided to curse them. Their entire population was dispersed and sent to live in the darkest places on Oherra; in caves, mountain passes, underground caverns. Anywhere that the sun never touched, and they were forced to live in these places generation after generation for eternity. As a nomadic race, this was a terrible punishment to bestow upon them. Their freedom to live where they wanted had been taken away forever. This wasn’t enough for the sorcerers though. They didn’t just want to punish the garrupi, they wanted to humiliate them. And so they enchanted their wings to glow with inner light and bound them through the song that you just heard to aid any and all travellers who happened to be entering one of these shadowy places. The sorcerers also cast a restriction spell on the garrupi, which limited their ability to change size. Before, size was one of the features they were able to alter at will. They could become much larger than a man or smaller than a mouse or anything in between whenever they wanted. But the restriction spell ensured that they could not grow larger than ten inches. This was of course a further method of humiliation, but it was also pragmatic as it limited their ability to cause harm in the future..”
Arleth had remained silent through the entire story, but now she had some questions. What the garrupi had done was indeed terrible, but she didn’t think it was fair to punish a whole race for the crimes of a small minority. Also, they had committed these crimes thousands of years ago. Why should the current generations of garrupi still be so severely punished for crimes they never committed? She wanted to voice these thoughts but she knew better than to tell them to Absalom. He seemed quite satisfied with the garrupi’s punishment. Instead, when she was certain that he had finished his story, she said, “Oh, I see. That was a very terrible thing that the garrupi did.” She hoped she sounded convincing.
“Yes it was. But as it turns out their punishment has been quite useful to me. I would be hard-pressed to light up the portal so well if it wasn’t for them.”
Arleth nodded and looked up at the garrupi hovering in the air above her. Throughout the conversation she and Absalom had been walking down the tunnel and they had just reached the bend. The two of them were at the head of the procession and as she looked back she could see that Absalom’s servants were still entering the portal. The garrupi had dispersed and were hovering above the whole line of people. They glowed so brightly that Arleth could clearly see down to the opening of the portal where she had come from and ahead of her around the bend. Absalom was right; the garrupi served a very valuable purpose here in the portal.
Arleth and Absalom rounded the bend and the portal opening disappeared from sight. They walked side by side for a few minutes in silence. Arleth had a hundred questions she wanted to ask, but she restrained herself. Absalom didn’t seem like a man who had a lot of patience and he had already been kind enough to tell her the story of the garrupi. And she reminded herself, she had already managed to annoy him by constantly interrupting him with questions. She looked over at him striding confidently along beside her. He was still walking beside her though. If he was annoyed with her wouldn’t he have left her side by now? She wasn’t sure and she certainly didn’t want to overstep her bounds, although she wasn’t really sure what her role was. She had noticed that with the exception of a few words with his Grekens, Absalom didn’t talk to any of the other servants except for a few perfunctory commands. Certainly he hadn't spoken to them the way he had just conversed with her. Well, she concluded, there was only one way to find out exactly how he viewed his relationship with her. She would ask one more question. A simple one, one that wouldn’t require a lot of explanation, but one that she was quite curious about.
“How long until we arrive in Oherra?” Arleth asked.
Absalom looked over at her in surprise. He appeared to have been lost in thought, but surprisingly he didn’t seem annoyed that his thoughts had been interrupted. “Sorry I didn’t catch that.”
“How long until we get to Oherra?” Arleth repeated.
“Oh, about 3 hours.”
“3 hours !?!” Arleth couldn't help but interrupt.
“Oherra and Toccara are on opposite sides of the universe so it is a longer journey than it would be to travel to closer worlds” the king said briskly.
Absalom looked like he was about to add something else, an admonishment perhaps, but at that moment one of his Grekens came up beside him. Absalom looked at him and walked quickly ahead of Arleth, distancing himself from her. She saw the Greken gesture behind him and then Absalom smiled. They continued talking together for a few moments and then the Greken fell back in line somewhere behind Arleth. Absalom remained by himself at the head of the procession. Arleth wondered what the Greken had said, Absalom certainly looked interested. But she was curious, not stupid and she knew better than to ask that.
At the head of the procession Absalom smiled to himself. Val had entered the portal just as it was closing. He had known he would, but hearing it from his Greken had been very reassuring. His plan was working perfectly, actually, if he was honest with himself it was working out better than he had planned. He hadn’t counted on Aedan finding out about Arleth being on Tocarra, but now that he had and Val had failed to reach her in time, it was just all the much better for him. Absalom couldn’t wait to reach Oherra; the real fun was about to start. He looked briefly behind him at Arleth walking a few metres behind him. She was looking up at the garrupi and didn’t notice the look he cast her way. Talking to her had dampened his spirits a bit. He hadn’t thought it would be hard to win over a teenager. Especially a girl, he had certainly been more than successful in previous such endeavours. But she was different, she was much too curious and, if the rest of her family was any indication, she was probably quite clever too. He had already lost his patience with her; he would have to be more careful in the future. He needed her on his side; he couldn’t afford to slip up again. She had to trust him.
Chapter 10
By the time they had finally reached the end of the tunnel and Absalom was
preparing to open the way into Oherra, Arleth felt like she had been walking for days. Absalom had stayed by himself, a little ahead of the procession for the remainder of the journey. He hadn’t spoken to anyone for the whole time; not to Arleth, any other servants nor his grekens. For that matter, none of the servants or Grekens talked to each other. Arleth thought this was a bit strange, but she didn’t know what sort of rules Absalom had. She supposed it was quite possible that the king preferred to travel in silence. Since she really didn’t know, Arleth remained silent too and didn’t try and talk to any of the servants near her. Watching the garrupi occupied her attention in the beginning, but she lost interest in them after a while.
Left alone with only her own thoughts, she began to realize how exhausted she was and how much her feet hurt. The mile-long sprint across the desert and the chase through Sonohan, would have been enough to hurt anyone’s feet. But Bella had never believed in giving her slaves shoes and so Arleth had ran all that way barefoot and was now walking barefoot through the tunnel. The floor of which was uneven and at frequent intervals a jagged stone would cut into one of her bare and already tired feet. Every step she took was painful.
But none of this dulled her excitement about going to Oherra. In fact, if anything, she grew more and more excited with each painful step she took down the tunnel. She hadn’t had a clear picture in her head of what it would be like to go through a portal into Oherra. But having to walk through a tunnel for three hours had never crossed her mind. Although the details had always been fuzzy in her mind, the one thing she had assumed was that it would be faster. That one minute she would be in Tocarra and the next she would be in Oherra. The fact that this hadn’t happened and she had nothing to occupy her attention, had made the wait unbearable.
