|
Chapter 33: “Xa-ar We There Yet?”
Finally here’s Chapter 33. But first a recap…
It is the latter half of Autumn, the fourth month of the year 6051. Jaiman is torn by war, with several factions locked in bitter struggles. In the east, Rhakhaan is besieged from the north by raiders from Zor, and west by the armies of Lord Frelik of Nolgara, a would-be usurper to the throne. In the west, the occupying Ulor forces face uprisings in Saralis and the land once known as U-Lyshaak. To the north, the Dragonlord Suthon Ni’Shaang strikes at whoever seems to have the advantage, and all across the continent the Priests Arnak are spreading their poison of fear and paranoia.
The Chronicles cast is large, and the characters come and go. Here’s a summary of the current primary players in no particular order:
Randae Terisonen: A (somewhat rebellious) Elven Loremaster
Marquess Kalen Avanir: Part Elf, son of the Duke of Prevan in the Rhakhaan Empire.
Jad Hurok: Also part Elf, Kalen’s distaff cousin, squire and companion.
T’tania Al-Nirak: A Dúranak woman from Tanara, daughter of a member of the ruling council. She is currently a refugee from her homeland of Tanara, having fled with…
Sten Kadeson: A Myri slave, and T’tania’s lover—a relationship forbidden in their society.
Kyan Kim: A Nuyani Changramai Monk, expelled from his order (for reasons yet to be revealed) and now employed at T’revor’s Tankard in Sel-kai, when not performing odd jobs for Randae.
More background and history can be found at http://nomikos.vroomfogle.com
(And as I mentioned before: events in the Shadowstone Chronicle are about to start seriously intersecting (and in some respects, conflicting) with published modules, where characters here take on certain quests already detailed for game players. I realized that some events were too important not to be ignored in this narrative, and while they may be playing out in countless alternate Shadow World realities, they had to also play out here. So why not have these characters be one of those realities? As always, use this narrative as you see fit: perhaps to enhance your understanding of the world, or to add to the flavor of your SW campaign, or just for a little light reading. Enjoy!)
As we rejoin the action, Randae has sent Kim, Kalen, Jad, T’tania and Sten-- along with the Sister of Eissa Liria—to deliver a message to a fellow Loremaster in the north of Saralis. Randae’s ostensible intention is that this would be a sort of ‘training exercise’ for the young group: sending them into a somewhat dangerous situation, but with the guidance of a seasoned warrior and the aid of a powerful Healer. It appears that this errand is more perilous than the Loremaster imagined, as the group has just barely fought off an attack by deadly Neng.
“All right then.” Kim stood slowly, as if the movement pained the normally agile Monk. “I know you all are tired, but we need to press on. Let’s head back to the road where we’ll make better time, and I think we can get to the Loremaster’s house by midnight. We’ll be safer and more comfortable there. Jad and Kalen if you don’t mind please take the lead. Liria and I will take up the rear.”
“Sounds good to me.” Jad stood up, sheathed his saren Kynoregnuth and stretched. “I’m already missing my warm bed back in Nomikos.”
As they headed towards the road, Liria—speaking in Iylar in a hushed voice—told Kim about the bodies they had found, and showed him the documents. “They had wounds consistent with Neng burns, and they wore matching tunics of a padded cloth, and bracelets of a golden metal. They still carried a fair number of coins, so it was clearly not a common robbery. The tunics had a symbol stitched in them and the bracelets bore an identical engraving: it resembled an inverted sunrise. It seemed like the insignia of some sort of group, something called the Winter Light perhaps, since that is on the outside of the sealed note. But it is not one I’m not familiar with; perhaps they are local to this region.”
Kim’s eyes narrowed for a fleeting moment when Liria said she was not familiar with the inverted sunrise group. “Do you have the bracelets?”
In answer, Liria only nodded towards T’tania.
“T’tania,” Kim raised his voice and spoke in Rhaya, the common tongue of Jaiman. “If you don’t mind I’d like to have the victims’ bracelets. You can keep the coins, as the previous owners no longer have any use for them.” His voice held just the slightest edge of disapproval.
The Dúranak sighed loudly as she fished the items out of a pocket, then stalked back to the Monk. “Here. The metal is far too light to contain much real gold so they probably have little intrinsic value anyway.”
“To you at least.” Kim gave her a slightly disapproving look as he took the bracelets. “Thank you.” He turned his attention to the metal bands, and spoke to Liria.
“So I assume you know the sunrise is inverted by how it appeared on the tunics… I don’t recognize it either, but it looks like something that might be associated with the north where sunlight is precious. This development—and of course the fact that we were attacked by Neng—is very troubling; it seems as though Randæ has dropped us into something far more complex and dangerous than he had anticipated. It does sound like the bodies were left where they could be found as some kind of warning.”
“But to whom? And by whom? Surely these Neng are operating under some organized direction. Oh, that reminds me: the bodies also had a symbol cut into their foreheads after they were killed. It was hard to make out for certain, though it didn’t seem to be a rune I recognized. It actually looked like a stylized flower.”
“Perhaps a rose?” Kim looked at her intently.
“It’s possible. Why?”
“There is an organization in this area I have heard of, the Order of the Four Roses I think it is called. I don’t know much beyond the name, except that they are a shadowy criminal group, possibly having associations with Ulor.”
“Not very reassuring.” Liria glanced over her shoulder. While Ulor was only a small island in the great bay of western Jaiman, the immortal Lord of Ulor had been a threat to the stability of much of the continent for thousands of years. It was the menace of Lord Lorgalis that had inspired the Loremasters to create the famous Six Crowns back in the distant Second Era.
They passed near where the Neng Kalen struck with the Phoenix fire had stood—in fact Jad pointed out a scorch mark on the tree-bark at about stomach level. But there was no sign of their attacker, and even T’tania and Sten could not find a clear trail in the brown pine needles and dead leaves of the forest floor.
When they reached the paved highway and returned to their march east, Kim resumed a quiet conversation with Liria, speaking in Shay. “I wonder if those Neng underestimated us, or if we were ‘allowed’ to proceed?” The Monk speculated.
“Perhaps some of both. I doubt they could have anticipated the weapons in our group’s arsenal, though I doubt we were the ones who were intended to find the bodies. I assume that other members of this order were meant to discover them.”
As Liria spoke, Kim broke the seal on the letter and unfolded the stiff paper.
“That’s private correspondence!” She gasped, then added sarcastically “Would you like me to read it for you?”
Her indignation was not lost on the Monk. “Since we are on our way to see the author of the letter, I will apologize and take responsibility. And I think I can afford to cast a second-level Nightvision Spell; I was planning to anyway.”
Then Liria noticed that the Monk’s pupils had expanded to almost envelop his brown irises. He scanned the contents. “Hmm, it is a letter to an order called the Winter Light—”
“As was clear from the address on the envelope.” Liria snapped.
Kim continued with hardly a pause: “—asking to meet with senior members of the order to discuss shared enemies, including the Iron Wind, and… ah, it is called the Brotherhood of the Four Roses. Obviously this correspondence will be somewhat delayed in reaching them.”
“I’m concerned about what we will find when we reach the Loremaster’s house.”
“Yes, that has been on my mind as well.” Kim said grimly.
“You did great back there, cousin!” Jad punctuated his compliment by putting his arm across Kalen's shoulders and pulling him closer in a quick hug as they walked. Kalen felt himself blushing, and was glad for the darkness in case any others happened to see. Then he heard T’tania snicker behind them and mutter something to Sten in their language, and they both laughed.
Jad seemed not to notice.
They continued east for about two miles along the highway. With the aid of their newly-acquired map, which Kim handed off to the cousins, they found the landmarks that marked the way north to the Loremaster’s house. The trail was little more than a dirt path, which they almost lost more than once. The going was definitely slower than on the convenient paved highway. However, after walking about another five miles or so up the path, climbing well up into the hills as they went, they emerged onto the western side of a relatively clear area covered mostly with tall grass.
The sky had cleared while they had trekked through the woods, leaving a dome of bright stars overhead; and the waning gibbous of Orhan was just rising. There was only an intermittent breeze blowing through the grass, but it had turned quite a bit colder: their breath was clearly visible as billowing clouds of steam. The nights would soon be below freezing. Near the far end of the clearing was a small rustic cottage with a few bare deciduous trees clustered around it.
“Kind of… homey… for a Loremaster’s house, isn’t it?” Jad wondered out loud.
“Not all Loremasters live in fine villas in the city.” Kim said in a sharp whisper.
“Indeed,” Liria added in a softer voice, “Many Loremasters have no fixed home at all. Instead they wander the lands, depending on others for food and lodging.”
The cousins exchanged incredulous looks.
As they paused at the perimeter of the clearing, Kalen saw a garden along the southern side of the house, the crops large and carrying their last fruits of the year. It was late Autumn after all, and a frost would come soon to this northern land.
As they drew closer, Kalen realized that there were no lights visible in the windows. This was not necessarily a warning of trouble since it was rather late, but Nascharath was an Elf and so might be active through the night. Even Elves needed some light to see, even if it was just moonlight or a candle across the room.
When they were about fifty feet away, Liria and Kim came forward to join the cousins at the front. “I think we should take the lead here,” The Monk said in almost a whisper. “But if you don’t mind, have your swords ready.”
Kalen and Jad looked at each other and wordlessly drew their sareni. Kalen felt his pulse quicken, but was secretly relieved when Phrurikanen’s blade was dark. Jad’s blade Kynoregnuth was also showing none of the blue glow from earlier that day, which had apparently been a warning of the Neng’s approach.
The trail became a stone-flagged path, and at about twenty feet from the front door there stood a pair of very large quartz-like crystal pillars flanking the way. Each was about a foot tall and as big around as Kalen’s forearm. “Some sort of warding barrier,” Liria noted, pointing out several other crystals, arranged in what appeared to be a ring around the house. Upon closer examination though, the two on either side of the path were cracked and blackened. “It was apparently defeated by dark magic,” she added. As she and Kim passed between them, the head of her staff glowed for a moment, and the crystals in the ring gave off a soft blue-white luminescence in answer—all but the two by the path, which responded with only a tiny flicker. When Kalen and Jad passed between, the crystals lit again, and Kalen noticed his bracelet glow for a moment. He wished he could understand what all this meant; he was sure that all of this activity from these items had some significance. He wondered why his mother hadn’t explained more about the bracelets; surely she knew of their powers?
Kim and Liria stopped abruptly, and they all bunched up about ten feet from the door. “T’tania?” He looked expectantly at the Dúranak. “Would you do us the favor of a Presence check?”
She cocked her head for a moment, her wild mane of spiked hair quivering for a moment. “I get nothing… human.” She said with some hesitation.
Kalen felt a chill run down his back.
Then after a long pause T’tania added “Nothing dangerous I think, just a few lesser Presences. Similar to what I get sometimes for small animals. Hard to be completely sure though,” she added with a smirk.
“That’s real helpful.” Jad snapped.
“Fine, you try it, pretty boy.” She retorted.
“Enough with the sniping!” Kim hissed. He quickly cast another Nightvision spell, stepped up to the door and grasped the latch, then looked back at them. “Do you think we should knock?” He suddenly asked the Healer.
Liria looked at a loss for a moment before answering. “I think since T’tania didn’t detect any human presences, and considering the state of the Loremaster’s Warding Circle, it’s unlikely she is home… alive. See if it is unlocked. If not, let’s enter with caution; there could be some kind of a trap inside.”
“My thinking exactly. Everyone move back and out of line with the door for the moment.” He raised the latch, stepped back and to the side, motioning for the others to do the same, and gave the door a hard push to open it wide. It swung in with a loud creak… and nothing happened.
Almost as one, they all crept forward to peer in.
The scene inside the Loremaster’s house was a shambles. While it looked as though perhaps this was always a cluttered home, the place had clearly been ransacked. Papers and books were everywhere, broken glass and crockery were strewn on the floor. There were no lights inside; they could even see a cold dark fireplace.
“Liria, check the bedroom; T’tania and Sten see what you can find in the main room, and Sten please start a fire. Jad and Kalen you are with me to the kitchen.” Kim directed as he headed right.
It was freezing cold inside. The house had a small bedroom on the north, a spacious central living area with a large stone fireplace on the back east wall, and a kitchen on the south end. In the main room, the walls were covered with shelves, which had held books, glass bottles, wood boxes and earthen jars. There was a large desk piled high with papers and scrolls. It was a charmingly rustic home, and Kalen felt kind of sad to see how it had been turned upside down.
Liria went into the bedroom, while T’tania began picking through the living room after closing and bolting the front door. “Not much of a lock here; I guess she didn’t think she needed one. I’ll see what I can do.” She announced to no one in particular.
Sten lit a lamp then started working on a fire in the hearth. “The ashes are cold,” he announced, “No one has been here for many hours.”
Kim, Kalen and Jad headed for the kitchen. A back door leading out to the gardens stood open to the night. There was a cage on the floor in the corner, and inside it was a thick layer of wood chips and some bundles of cloth like bedding. It also contained small food and water dishes; the (empty) food dish had the name ‘Swinky’ on it. As they looked through the kitchen, a small furry head with a pointed snout poked up through the bedding and regarded them with black beady eyes.
“Is that a ferret?” Jad asked a little uneasily. He wasn’t terribly comfortable around animals smaller than horses.
“Yes, I believe so. I wasn’t aware that she kept pets.” Kim closed the kitchen door and locked it. “I would think that she wouldn’t be able to be away for very long and leave them untended.”
The ferret emerged from his bed and scuttled to the front of the cage. As Kalen watched, the little animal looked up and met his gaze, then, in a seemingly pointed way, looked down at his empty food dish. “I think he’s hungry.”
“Well, feed it.” Kim left the kitchen with an impatient snap of his monk robes.
“Don’t look at me!” Jad exclaimed, backing away. “It looks like a long skinny rat to me, and I hate rats.”
Without any help from his cousin, Kalen found a tin of what looked like could be food for a small animal. He carefully opened the cage, poured some of the nuggets in the bowl, and snapped the door closed, wary that the little creature would try to escape. It showed no desire to do so, however, and waited until the door was shut to approach its bowl. After a few sniffs, it dug in with obvious relish.
The cousins returned to the main room to find Sten nursing a fire to life, T’tania shuffling around at the desk, and Liria emerging from the bedroom. The Healer looked troubled.
“There is no sign of the Loremaster, or of a struggle aside from the scattered items mostly in this room. The bed has not been used in several hours at least, though of course as an Elf she might not use it for days, choosing to meditate instead. In any case, I believe that she was not here when they broke through her protective barrier, or she fled before they got into the house.”
“I wonder if they found what they were apparently looking for?” Kim slowly turned to scan the room.
“There’s a ladder here going up to a loft,” Jad stood at the bottom of the recessed set of rungs, pointing up to a flat space beneath the vaulted roof.
Sten’s fire leapt to full life just then, brightening the room considerably and exposing even more how thoroughly it had been searched.
“What is that!?” Liria asked in an anxious voice as she pointed to the desk.
The Loremaster’s pet ferret, now standing tall on its hind legs on the Loremaster’s desk, was silently regarding them with those beady black eyes.
“How did it get out of his cage? Didn’t you lock it, Kalen?” Kim demanded accusingly.
“I’m sure I did! He must have unfastened it somehow.”
“Well, now we need to catch it.” The monk sighed.
Just then the ferret slipped down off the desk, onto the chair, then the floor, then skittered across the room to the kitchen doorway. It stopped there, rose up on its hind legs again and turned its head back around to look at them.
“It’s like it wants us to follow it.!” T’tania said. “We have pets not unlike ferrets in Tanara—Shaskan—that behave in similar ways sometimes. We wonder how intelligent they really are.” She and Kalen cautiously crept towards the animal, and when they were a few feet away it darted across the kitchen, running in a funny kind of way with its back arched up. It ran right up to the kitchen door and disappeared through what seemed an impossibly small hole.
“It’s gone outside!” Kalen wailed. “We’ll never find it now.”
“Well obviously it goes in and out as it pleases; why else would there be a hole there?” T’tania said, her tone exasperated. She stalked to the door and threw it open. “A little help here? Some of us cannot see in this pitch dark.”
Kalen followed her, sensing Jad’s presence coming to his side. “She can really get on your nerves, can’t she?” Jad whispered.
“My hearing, however, is excellent!” The Dúranak called from the middle of the garden.
Jad rolled his eyes and they followed her. “There he is, off to the right. He’s digging in the ground.” He snapped his fingers and his hand began to glow. The Squire raised his palm towards the sound and a ray of light sprang out to brightly illuminate the little weasel.
“I didn’t know you could do that!” Kalen exclaimed.
“I couldn’t till just recently. It’s a Mentalism spell I had been studying, as part of my Monk training with Kim.”
Kalen frowned, not sure what he thought about his cousin also knowing spells like this… and not telling him about it.
“Look, it’s digging something up, and it seems very determined!” T’tania whispered, creeping closer to the ferret.
Indeed, the little weasel was energetically clawing away at the clumpy earth, and it seemed unconcerned by Jad’s bright light now shining on it. They watched for a minute or so, unsure what to do next while the ferret dug several inches into the ground. Then they heard its little claws start to scrape what sounded like metal. It stopped digging and backed away, once again turning its head and watching them with its beady black eyes, almost like it was waiting for them to take the next action.
“Who else finds this ferret a little bit creepy?” Jad asked no one in particular.
“I think it’s cute. At least it doesn’t talk too much.” T’tania said.
After all exchanging looks, the three moved closer. T’tania, overcoming her natural urge to go for the loot, went to the ferret, who passively allowed itself to be picked up. In fact, it snuggled into her hands and seemed quite affectionate.
“Aw, he likes you! You have a new friend. That makes one at least.” Jad smirked.
“Jad!” Kalen snapped. “How about that light?”
The Squire aimed his directed light back at the hole. Still partially buried at the bottom was a metallic rod about three inches in diameter. Kalen reached in, grasped it and freed it from the ground. It seemed to have been recently buried from the loose dirt around it. The cylinder turned out to be about a foot and a half long, made of some smooth, uncorroded metal. It was so light that it had to be hollow. There was a thin seam about three inches from one end, and as Kalen twisted the short section above the seam it began to come off, but in fact it turned out to be a skillfully machined screw-top, with threads like those in a clock mechanism. It was similar to a leather or wood map-tube, but this metal one was a kind Kalen had never seen before. Kalen screwed it closed again, but as he tilted it, he heard objects sliding back and forth inside.
“Let’s bring it back to the house for Kim to see; it’s freezing out here!” T’tania suggested. Even Jad couldn’t argue with that.
Once inside, Kalen happily handed the strange silvery tube to the Monk, who regarded the object with less awe than wariness. “This is no common iron or even steel alloy; this is a light metal few but Elven-smiths can forge.” He looked to the Eissan sister as if waiting for confirmation, but Liria stood back, staff in hand, and only said after a long pause, “I know nothing of metallurgy, Elven or otherwise. I am a Cleric.”
“Very well. Apparently we were meant to find this thing, and barring any obvious warning not to do so, I think we should open it.” He walked to the desk as he unscrewed the cap, everyone but Liria following him in a pack as he went. The top came off with a little ‘pop,’ but there seemed to be no dire traps on the tube. Kim tilted it onto the cleared desk. Two small cloth-wrapped bundles spilled out, and a rolled document emerged an inch or so from inside. “Leave the objects for the moment!” Kim said quickly, as T’tania and Jad both made moves to investigate them. He eased the document out. By the mottled color and tattered edes, was clearly very old and damaged. As he gently unrolled the crackling paper on the desk, they saw that drawn on it were a series of circles linked together. It might have been a map, but if so a very strange one indeed. It would look like a series of caves, except all of the caves were drawn as linked, almost perfect circles, which of course would never happen in nature. There was some writing on the map, but most of it was faded and illegible. In one area there were a few lines in Iylar script that Kalen could make out:
Spherical caves, connected by metal doors
Bridges, some deteriorating
Salufa Tree in the Waterfall cave—lifegiving
Many Perils. Shards in the Forests
Also other Demons, and Guardians.
“Does that really say ‘Shards and other Demons and Guardians’? Jad asked, a little breathlessly.
“Close enough.” Liria said. Then, as she lightly rubbed the edge of the material, she added incongruously “This is suurt-papyrus, an unusual writing medium. When made properly, it is very durable. But it is not native to this region…”
“Yes, I believe it comes from southeast Emer. You can get it in Sel-kai but it is expensive.” Kim agreed. “Interesting that it would be used for a map found in Northern Jaiman, though I suppose the map could actually be of a location much farther south.”
“Do you think the Loremaster hid this from the intruders, but left it for the ferret to reveal to us?” Kalen wondered aloud.
“It certainly seems as though this animal is highly trained and was somehow instructed to direct us to it. It also suggests that she feared to take it with her, either because she was unsure that she could escape or defend herself against these intruders, or she wanted us to find it for some other reason. She was expecting us, and as Randae mentioned, she needed our help with something, though I wasn’t given any details about exactly what that was. I don’t even know what this is a map of, except that it is possibly of some cave complex. Who knows where it is.” Kim sighed. “I’m tempted to just take this, with the information we have about the bodies you discovered, and return to Ormian. I feel like we’re in a bit over our heads here.”
“Really?” Liria raised one eyebrow. She spoke again in the Emerian tongue of Shay so the others presumably would not understand, but her sarcasm was unmistakable to the Monk. “You barely survive an attack by demonic Neng, then we just manage to repulse their renewed attack, and then when we come to the Loremaster’s home we find it ransacked and that same Loremaster we were supposed to meet is missing, having apparently fled when her defenses were overwhelmed. A Loremaster was apparently ‘in over her head.’”
“Priestess, I think we need to have a private discussion.” He gestured towards the bedroom, then grasped the Eissa Priestess’s upper arm in a firm grip—an unusually aggressive gesture—and pulled her away from the group. “I am acutely aware of our situation. However, there may be a few things you are not aware of. For one, the Loremasters are stretched more thinly than they would like people to know. While Vena is by all accounts a capable member of their order, she is not on the level of Randae. And as for the Navigators… in the last few months they have taken to denying certain Jumps for no apparent rational reason, even to those willing to pay in advance. Of course, they won’t say why.”
Liria calmly but forcibly pulled loose of his relaxed grip, then stepped back. “And yet Sulfean Jumped us here with no complaint.”
“No complaint… that we know of. Sulfean and Randae have had past dealings and have developed a relationship of sorts. And beyond that, who knows how much Randae paid him. And do you have any idea of the cost of Jumping a group this large that distance, even obelisk-to-obelisk?”
“Yes I have a general idea, though until now I must admit I hadn’t given it much thought.” Liria was suddenly pensive. “It seems the Loremasters may have found themselves with more gold than manpower.”
“And another thing which weighs on my mind, something that I brought up to Randae more than once in private conversation after he briefed the group about our destination, and yet he was evasive in answering. We are not in Xa-ar, the land he went on and on about. Rapata is on the border and we have traveled east into Saralis to the Loremaster’s house. Xa-ar is to our west. When I pressed him he said he was just trying to make our destination sound more challenging and exotic for the others. I don’t believe he was being completely truthful.”
“A Loremaster, less than truthful! What an idea!” Again, Liria’s scorn was evident.
Kim stepped close to her again. He, though taller than most of his race, was just barely equal height with the Iylar Elf. The focus of his brown almond eyes locked with that of her clear blues. “Indeed. And what exactly is your motivation for being our ‘bodyguard,’ so to speak? I know something of the Sisters of Eissa, and for an Elder Sister to accompany us on this little adventure… well that must have cost Randae a very substantial… tithe.”
“Perhaps you overestimate my rank, Changramai.”
“I don’t think so. I suspected you could cast Absolution Pure, which you confirmed; and your healing powers are considerable. Instead I wonder why the Eissa prefectorate would spare a sister of such value on what would seem like a common message delivery with a few inexperienced (and so probably poorly-paid) bodyguards in tow unless they had something to gain from it. Do you want what the Loremaster was hiding, or something else?”
“You seem to know much, for a mere Changramai bodyguard, Kyan Kim.”
“Since I have no reason to conceal it, I will tell you that I am no longer a member of the Changramai order, though I was trained there. My allegiance is to Randae.”
“Well Randae Terisonen shares more with you than Loremasters usually do with anyone outside their organization. Though much of what you say is clearly also guess and deduction on your part. I am not at liberty to reveal the Sisterhood’s involvement in this venture, but I assure you we entered it without concealing anything from Loremaster Terisonen.”
“Very well.” Kim sighed. Let’s rejoin the others. I suggest we stay here at least for the night in case the Loremaster might return. If she is not back by dawn, I think we should return to Ormian with what we have found.”
“That sounds like a reasonable course of action.”
Something in her slightly condescending tone reminded Kyan Kim what he sometimes forgot when dealing with Elves: she could be hundreds or even thousands of years old, while he was barely older than this group of youngsters. It was probably very difficult for her to resist just taking charge of this expedition.
They returned to the main room to find the others all looking at them expectantly—all except T’tania, who was having trouble keeping her gaze from a small blue crystalline object she was holding gingerly in her hands. It was like a quartz crystal: six-sided in shape, pyramidal on one end and flat on the other, about an inch thick and three inches long. It was a perfectly clear blue crystal with no flaws, and it glowed in the firelight.
“She opened the packages! We told her not to!” Jad yelped in an unusually high-pitched voice.
“Shut up, tattle-tale,” T’tania muttered.
The other bundle lay open on the table: it contained a smoky grey crystal about the same size as the one T’tania was holding, if slightly shorter.
“We also found this, it was stuck further down in the tube. It’s on a different paper though, some kind of bluish parchment.” Kalen said, unrolling another document.
“We’ll get to that in a minute.” Kim snapped, and in a motion almost faster than they could see, he snatched the crystal from T’tania’s hand.
“Hey!” She snapped. “It’s a Mentalism enhancer! I should get it!”
“We’ll discuss that later, young lady.” Kim glared at her, trying to summon his most disapproving tone.
“I’m going to rustle up some food. I’m starving!” Jad threw up his hands.
“Good idea!” Kim snapped. “Make enough for everyone!”
“What’s the ‘Aargirpiri’? The letters are Iylar, but it’s not an Iylar word.” Kalen pointed to the main label on the second document. Jad leaned in next to him, apparently no longer interested in food.
Liria peered at the map. “The characters are Iylar, but the words sound like something in Kugor, the language of the Dragons, though I can’t be sure. Strange that the mapmaker would not use the dragon runes…” She said, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “But in any case, this looks like a style of map I have seen before, more abstract in a way but showing more realistic land contours. It could be hills, or a group of islands.”
“It looks like the islands here.” Sten said quietly. The big Myr spoke so rarely that everyone looked up. He was pointing to a map on the wall by the fireplace. He looked suddenly embarrassed. “I just happened to notice it, this map that looked like the one Randæ showed us. These islands west of Xa-ar look like that map.”
“That’s a map of northwest Jaiman, and he’s right, the outlines of the islands match perfectly.” Kim held the blue map next to the one on the wall. “It’s a cluster of islands further northwest of us. You have a gift of observation, Sten.” Kim said with no hint of condescension. As a Changramai Monk, he was taught the skills of observation and analysis, and this detail had escaped him.
“I’m pretty good with maps. This map seemed more detailed than the one Randae showed us so I was looking at it.” Sten said with a mix of pride and shyness. “I have a good sense of direction too.”
Liria was still examining the blue parchment map. “I am fairly certain that all of these labels are Kugor… ‘Vrak Pryka… Yaan Tanis… Ard Org Uscurac…” when the Elf uttered the last phrase, Kalen felt a chill go down his back. He looked at his cousin, who met his gaze, an apprehensive look on his face. Jad had felt it too.
“It’s so strange though that whoever wrote these would use the High-Elf letters yet words in the dead language of Dragonlords.” Liria seemed strangely mystified and obsessed by the map.
“I don’t suppose you can translate any of it?” Kim asked.
“Oh, no, I can barely recognize Kugor!” The Eissan Sister said quickly.
Kim’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he addressed the group. “All right, I know it’s been a long day. At least we have some warmth and shelter here, and it is as defensible as any place in the vicinity—though I doubt that the people who searched this place will return in any case. Let’s bolt the doors and gather around the fireplace. Kalen, see if you can help Jad in the kitchen, and the rest of us will pull together blankets and pillows. Liria, you might want to see if there are any useful herbs stored in those jars that weren’t broken. We’ll all sleep here in the main room. Based on what’s happened here, we may be facing difficult challenges before we get home. We’ll take watches through the remainder of the night. In the morning we’ll decide whether we should wait longer for the Loremaster to return or head back to Rapata.”
As it turned out there was some fairly fresh bread and cheese in the kitchen, and some preserved meats; and there were vegetables left in the garden to be gathered. They sat around the hearth and at a fresh (if not hot) meal, then took turns keeping watch in pairs while the others slept. Aside from a howling wind that rose during the night, they were not disturbed.
A grey overcast dawn greeted Jad, Kalen and Kim. Sten and T’tania, assigned the last watch, were already up. Sten was carefully stoking the fire, and explained that T’tania had discovered the rather sophisticated bathing room situated off of the bedroom. It had hot water, provided through some pipe and tank system attached to the main hearth. Liria was in the kitchen preparing breakfast.
“I hope the Tanaran princess will leave some hot water for others to bathe.” Jad stood up and stretched. “It’s only been a day since Ormian but I feel like it has been a month!”
Kim, stood in a fluid, graceful motion. “Everyone, have something to eat and let’s take some food for the road. We will be leaving here soon.” Then he unlocked the front door, opened it and slipped outside.
Liria appeared at the kitchen doorway. “I’ve put together the last of the good bread along with the cheese and vegetables. There was also some white wine; a glass might warm you up.”
Kalen was silently wishing for some strong Sel-kai coffee when Kim returned.
“The wind is rising, and there is the smell of winter—and snow—in the air. There is something else too… I am not sure what, but I have a bad feeling…”
“I have it too.” Liria said. “The primal Essænce is disturbed. If we are to return to Ormian via Navigator, I suspect it will need to be soon.”
“That’s it then. Everyone get ready to go immediately. Sten! Where is T’tania?”
“Here! What’s all the fuss about?” The young Tanaran elite shuffled in, wrapped in a thick robe. Her normally spiked hair was wet and slicked back flat against her scalp. She was almost unrecognizable. Kalen was a little amazed, partly because in all the time they spent in Ormian, he had never seen her like this. She looked muck more… feminine.
“Get dressed, we’re leaving!” Kim barked, barely giving her a glance. “Kalen, I am charging you to keep track of the contents of the tube. All of them,” he said with clear emphasis as he returned both wrapped bundles to the tube along with the maps.
“Kalennnn…” Jad said, raising his left arm and pulling up his shirtsleeve even as he drew out his cousin’s name. The mysterious blue-green bracelet, twin to Kalen’s and given to them by their sibling mothers, was glimmering. Not glowing exactly as they had before, but giving off a kind of fitful, flickering light that danced along the blue-green jewel-like insets. The Marquess raised his sleeve, and indeed his own bracelet was doing the same thing. What could it mean?
“Those bracelets, were did you get them?” Liria gasped. She stepped closer to Jad then hesitated. It occurred to Kalen that Eissan sisters might not have a lot of contact with the outside world, and didn’t have a lot of experience in controlling (or at least concealing) their emotions. But then Eissa was the tearful goddess mourning the dead; an emotionless demeanor would be more appropriate for followers of Valris.
“Our mothers gave them to us,” Jad answered warily. “Why?”
Liria paused before answering. “I am not sure, but they are of a very unusual design and craftsmanship. They look like they could be artifacts of the Essænce Lords.”
“What!? Where would our mothers get things like that, and why would they give them to us?” Jad recoiled as if he found the idea repugnant, but Kalen secretly thought it would be incredible if they wore real surviving objects from the First Era, a time in the unimaginable past.
Even as they spoke, the small flickering shimmers on both bracelets seemed to grow brighter and more agitated.
“We’re running out of time, I think.” Liria looked to Kim.
The monk pulled a palm-sized black disk out of his robe. “I really didn’t want to use this; Randae said it was incredibly expensive.” Then he pressed his thumb against the center. “Request immediate Jump.”
There was a pause, then a flickering in the air in front of him. It seemed like a person was appearing, but not clearly. Kalen thought it was as if he was looking at someone not quite ‘there,’ like some kind of ghost. He struggled in his own mind to find a comparison to the strange image he saw in the middle of the room. It was almost as if he saw the image through 2 pieces of very poor quality glass jiggled back and forth in front of his eyes. The person started to look like Sulfean, but it was hard to tell. Then he spoke, but that was equally difficult to make out. The speech was broken by silences and strange hissing/crackling/humming noise.
“Flow—rm. Cannot… at this –ime. Suggest… av—tor –elisk. Try to con… then.”
Then the image faded out and the voice died. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the rising and falling moan of the wind outside.
“What in Charon happened!?” T’tania exclaimed.
Kalen found the experience disturbing in so many ways, but perhaps the one that rode over the others was that it showed that Navigators were in fact not all-powerful. Even Sulfean, who had before his eyes used incredible Essænce power to save lives and control an entire skyship, seemed unable to even clearly communicate with Kim just now. It seemed like nothing was beyond the power of the tall lean Iylar Navigator, yet just now he seemed unable to even send a message.
Troubling as that was, Kalen’s reverie was harshly interrupted by a brilliant green flash of light from outside. Several of the group gasped, and all but Liria rushed to the windows. Before they could even reach them, a crash of thunder shook the cottage.
“By the Lords! It’s a Flowstorm!” Jad gasped.
The sky was as dark as he had ever seen during the day, covered by low black clouds. In one area they had begun a slow spiral with a downward-pointing greenish cone of thickening matter forming at the center. Kalen had never seen a tornado, but from what he had heard, this was what one looked like: it resembled water training from a tub, if you could see it from under water. But of course this was much slower, and much, much larger. Greenish lights flickered behind the clouds all around the top of the vortex. It was somewhat like the one they had seen nearly a year earlier when they were aboard the Naristral in the Melurian Straits, but that one had appeared larger, and higher in altitude. This one did not seem as large to Kalen, but closer—though it was difficult to judge distances.
As he watched, paralyzed with a combination of terror and fascination, the cone lengthened and extended towards the earth, just a few miles to the south. Lurid green lighting began to arc down from the clouds to the sides of the spinning cone, lighting the landscape with an unreal illumination. Then another area of the clouds began to spiral, and from them emerged another cone, this one further east but closer—probably not far from the highway.
“I guess we’re not going anywhere by Navigator anytime soon.” T’tania said.
“There’s a third one!” Jad exclaimed, pointing to the southwest. Indeed, it seemed like an even larger spiral was forming farther off towards Rapata and the bay.
“Randae told me that the Essænce around Jaiman has been disturbed ever since that blizzard last year, but I’ve never seen anything like this.” Kim said quietly.
“It’s as I feared.” Liria said, her voice flat. “Unfortunate that the Warding Barrier around the house has been breached; it could have given us some protection. As it is, we are trapped.”
|
|
