*****
As they set out for Teuton Valley the next morning, Steffor appeared fit as ever. Their excursion began at the base of Razum Mesa Range, a ridged stretch of landscape between Razum City and the Trunk. The Primary Healers Ward occupied the bottom two mesas, the last before the Razum Buttress leveled off and the city began. Above, rural villages and farms populated the remaining six. A network of roads, stairways, ramps and vine trolleys connected the neighboring plateaus and provided a means to ascend the Trunk.
Since appearing on the veranda the day before, images of Steffor’s return had flooded the Mysticnet. As a result, every deck, guardrail, window and balcony along their ascent teamed with Citizens hoping to catch a glimpse of the reluctant legend. Sheepish children swam at his feet, clinging to a finger or caressing a portion of his garments before running off with giddy delight. Trolley Shifters yelled from their cars in hopes they could help him reach his destination, shops offered their finest wares and goods.
Still steeped in the confusion, Steffor was gracious in his refusal and projected the poise and confidence of renown. Relief washed over Calivera, grateful she remained the only one aware of the sadness etched deep into his heart.
By mid-morning, they scaled the ladder shifted into the steep cliff wall of the last mesa to arrive at the small landing that marked the entrance into the Sofelarus Pass. Shifted within the canyons formed between massive bark plates, the pass zigzagged up the section of Trunk that separated the Razum Buttress from the Sofelarus region.
They traveled up a moderate but continual incline shifted into the lower bark plates of each canyon. The far-off edges of each bark plate curved outward like scaled bluffs. Their trail skirted the smooth, inner Trunk wall, which also constituted as the canyon “floor”. Sunrays sliced through bark plate openings, penetrating the long, horizontal canyons, to shine wide beams against the Trunk wall. The partial light cast the pass in perpetual shadow and cool temperatures. The mild conditions nurtured the lush carpet of teal-green moss and mushroom colonies covering the canyon floor.
On several occasions, they spotted the graceful flight of a Sofelarian hawk as it knifed through abundant creases in search of prey. A myriad of insects lived within the shaded canyon floor, oblivious to the travelers as they scurried along or across the trail. Twice, the curious, man-size canyon mouse approached, sniffing their open palms for a brief second before leaping away with lightning speed.
By early afternoon, they reached the last canyon in the pass. The walls of the last canyon declined dramatically, diminishing to a narrow ledge by its end. They stopped for a moment to gaze over the edge and survey their progress. Miles below, positioned just south of their location, Razum jutted from the Trunk and sprawled far to the west.
Several hundred yards above their ledge, a new limb grew from the Trunk in the same, western direction as Razum. They turned around and started up the stairway shifted into the limb’s convex base. A half-hour later, they rounded the right side of the base and stepped onto the barren space between limb and Trunk.
The region of Sofelarus, stationed above Razum and below Instenkul, consisted of three, hardwood limbs. Each limb grew from the Trunk in relative altitude to the other. One grew downward to the northeast and another extended out and level to the southwest. The third, the one they currently stood upon, grew due west.
The longest bough’s known to the Provider, Sofelarus's three hardwood limbs extended well past the Deagron Fields. If one were inclined and able to trek the entire length of any, they’d be rewarded with a rare and spectacular aerial view of the Sevorist Root Mountain Range. Long as each limb was, they were also narrowest, the greatest width of any no more than a few miles. Mere twigs when compared to the squat Razum limb or the massive Constunkeen prairie bough.
The next leg in their journey was aptly named "Shifters Way". Shifters Way was a veritable, three-dimensional jungle encased by a canopy of reddish-gold foliage, replete with lush hanging fern gardens, reefs of countless epiphytes, bushes bursting with blooms and ripe berries and thickets of creeping vines. Countless generations of Shifters honed their craft on the convolution of sub-branch, stem, leaf and plant life. The limb offered travelers a never-ending selection of trails. Each trail displayed spectacular works of engineering and architecture. The trails offered a challenge to all, from the vigorous only the most adept climbers dare attempt, to the leisurely chosen by the regions residents and visitors alike.
Steffor trained his Guardian vision up the limb's gradual ascent, to a location several miles away. "At this pace, we should reach Fregak's Ladder before evening," Steffor stated. "If all right by you, once we reach Instenkul, I would like to make a short detour to Lake Arol, to meet with Master Kilton."
"I think that is an excellent suggestion," Calivera replied. She concluded if there was one who could lift the cloud of depression clinging over Steffor's soul, it was Kilton.
They chose a well-traveled trail, lit by brilliant sunbeams and a multitude of shifted steps and footholds. A half-hour in, Steffor guided them off the wide trail, up a latticed ramp shifted from stem and vine. Like any of the Provider's Citizens, Calivera was an adept climber and welcomed the change of pace. The new trail soon narrowed to shoulder width as it wound high above the main floor, requiring Calivera to exert all her energy and focus on the next step. The exercise, she soon discovered, brought reprieve from the concerns still lingering from her restless night before. Disappointment hit an hour later when Steffor plopped down to rest.
Dangling their legs over the thin stem, they ate a simple meal of nuts, berries and a few slices of kuwani, a novel treat Calivera was pleased to see Steffor enjoy. As the day wore on, Calivera sensed a lift in Steffor's spirits. When permitted by an open stretch or wider section along the trail, they listened to the other tell stories about their separate pasts. The diversion produced frequent smiles and genuine cheer from both.
Now, as they shared a meal in silence, Calivera caught Steffor admiring her bare legs, exposed high above the thigh by her sensible but tight-fit hiking shorts. The desire witnessed in his eyes stirred her libido, for many times that day she too caught herself leering at Steffor's taut backside. His feline grace softened every move and gesture. She often leading daydreamed of his embrace. She imagined her hands moving from his supple neck and shoulders, down the small of his back, to the cleft between buttocks and thigh, as he caressed her in kind.
It is the natural bond formed between patient and Healer, she told herself in attempt to dismiss both of their behaviors.
It will pass in due time. Besides, I am not attracted to Guardians.
Guardians were a Healers most common patient and before meeting Steffor, her view of the race, from an attraction standpoint, was one of indifference. By design, she did not spend much energy—unlike most young Citizens—pondering about her perfect mate. But as an unspoken rule, she had ruled out Guardians as potential candidates.
Just like the next Citizen, she was grateful for the role Guardians played. That included a love for the Guardian Games, though she preferred the ascender to the more popular dive. But it was the same physical traits that empowered the Guardians to protect and compete that unnerved her healer's sensibilities. The ease in which they could snap any bone in her body remained a pervading thought. In the past, when in proximity to a Guardian, she perceived their brawny build like a thick hide in need of grooming over a body beckoning intimate touch.
Calivera knew a meaningful connection of the mind and soul would overcome any physical objections. Some of the most popular passages in the Deeds often described the romantic bond between Guardian and spouse and the challenges they overcame together. Yet those passages never resonated with Calivera, drawn instead to the mundane aspects of love. Calivera desired comfortable silence, laugher at the trivial, tears over the meaningful. The patrician disposition of the Guardian, she concluded, just did not lend itself to that type of relationship.
As the day wore on, she
had to admit, Steffor was different. Of course she had heard about the ever growing legend of Steffor, it was impossible not to for the past decade. She was confident though that he would fall in the same bucket with the rest, when and if they ever met in person. This preconceived perception made her one of the few women that didn't swoon at the slightest Mysticnet update on his latest accolade.
Now, sitting in silence next to the legend, she relished the other’s company. Despite his broken spirit or maybe because of it, she realized her preconceived perceptions no longer applied.
For reasons she could not articulate but present all the same, she quelled her softening attitude. She rationalized that Steffor being different, defying all the stereotypes she had come to rely on, blowing holes in her "Healer-patient" theory, meant nothing. She peeled away another layer of denial, concluding her feelings were the result of too many seasons of self-imposed celibacy, not to mention the tandem of Steffor's seductive physique and natural charisma.
After all, while working long, intense hours with male Healers in the past, she had developed a level of intimacy with a few that resulted in similar lustful impulses. The feelings would always pass in due time once the Provider called them in separate directions. Steffor was her patient that would soon be following a separate path. All she needed to do was keep it together, long enough for that event to pass.
She brought her knees to her chest, stowing away the remnants of their lunch. "We should get going," she said, colder than intended.
Steffor rose without comment, a dejected frown seen creasing his face before he turned his back to her and continued down the small branch.
All too soon, Calivera discovered sticking to her new resolve had boiled down to an epic test of willpower, one she was failing at every turn. For moments after they resumed their trek, Steffor led them off all semblance of trail, deep into the jungle. High into the canopy, the new course had them scaling sheer cliffs of fused stems with no perceptible holds and vertical walls of tangled vine. Climbs a novice Guardian can make with ease but one the most competent harvest Shifter dare undertake.
Several times, she found herself clinging to his arm as he swung her over a jutting overhang. Or she would be forced to wrap her arms around his powerful neck and shoulders while he navigated a gnarly web of vertical vines. She stayed vigilant in her efforts to show no outward signs of joy during these encounters. But her inner child thwarted these efforts, burning her cheeks crimson with each the intimate encounter. Embarrassed as she was by this outward display, the little girl inside jumped on tippy toes, clapping in delight, squealing: "again, again, again!"
Every brush of skin against skin, whiff of musky scent or tight press of body threatened to unleash her lustful desires. She soon became resolved to the fact that it was only a matter of time before succumbing to her hormonal impulses. Determined to taste his lips, she'd pull him behind the next fern grove and unleashed urgings suppressed for too long.
The sun was setting below Razum, the fat limb blocking all but a few of the days’ last rays. Amber beams shot wide of their narrower limb and disappeared amongst Instenkul's needle covered twigs and airy canopy above. Either feeling the press for time or in need of a more strenuous work out, Steffor decided to test the full extent of his restored Guardian strength and dexterity.
Calivera had proven herself a capable passenger. Strong enough to hold with arms or legs when necessary, she knew when and how to lean into leaps and dives. So Steffor began to swing from twig and vines and catapulted from springy stems and leaf. Her heart oscillated from throat to pit of stomach with each bound that propelled them forward fifty to hundred feet. They floated just above the broad leaf canopy for a few terrifying seconds before gravity pulled them back down to start the process over.
Their progress increased and within minutes, Calivera began to see Fregak's Ladder, a thin thread off in the distance, slicing the open sky between the two limbs. Moments later the staircase came into focus. Shifted from Sofelarus’s sturdy hardwood, the spiral staircase elevated high into Instenkul's coniferous branches.
While between leaps, they spotted the staircase's small landing some thirty yards away, located just below the canopy top. With a slight grunt, Steffor stretched to reach and grip a thin stem jutting just above the canopy. He used their momentum to complete a full rotation before flinging them in a high arc through the air, landing soft onto the small deck.
The move had forced Calivera to wrap arms and legs around his neck and waist and press tight against his body. Both covered in grime and sweat, Steffor prolonged the intimate embrace a moment longer before he placed his hands about her waist and lowered her to the platform.
Faces but inches apart, his sapphire eyes dilated with desire, the throb of his powerful heart pounding against her own heaving chest, Calivera’s resolve melted away as she leaned up to kiss his waiting lips. Climax at hand, conscious or not, a triumphant smirk formed on Steffor’s face and stopped her approach short.
His apparent detection of her arousal had nothing to do with her sudden embarrassment. No, he had duped her and only now did she piece it all together. The need for an intense exercise or sense of urgency to reach Lake Arol had little influence on Steffor's decision to take the more hazardous route. It was all a premeditated attempt to break her defenses and set free the feelings she had for him. The same, blatant feelings he had displayed for her the moment he awoke on the veranda. The scheme, a breath away from flawless execution, scuttled by the smugness captured on his face.
To Steffor's soon to be discovered chagrin, manipulation was her biggest turn off. In an instant, the act removed her hormonal burden, providing the negative energy to counter the onslaught of lecherousness. Lust, she reminded herself, is a natural feeling. Despite the innocence of his trickery, anger began to mount.
I am his Healer, nothing more. I will see him to his destination and then part ways as it should be intended.
Calivera pushed away and walked over to a bench shifted into the semi-circle shaped platform. She sat down with her back to him and faced the tiny waterfall fed by one of the countless streams formed by shifted twig and stem. The water splattered against a mammoth three-pronged leaf before descending further into the dense jungle. The cool mist coated the front of her body, calming her frazzled emotions while washing away the dirt and sweat from the day's toil.
Still put off but less irritated, without turning she patted a spot next to her and said, "Come Steffor, sit down with me and rest for a spell."
A few seconds past, a time she was certain he spent sulking, before he came over and sat a few feet away.
"Lake Arol is but a few hours away, yes?" She asked, keeping her eyes forward.
"That's about right. Ginllats will be full tonight, so crossing the bark peninsulas should be easy going."
"A good night's rest at Lake Arol, a short journey to Teuton Valley in the morning...you should arrive at the ceremony well rested and in plenty of time. Are you prepared for the trials ahead?" She asked, doing her best to sound like a caring but platonic Healer.
"I hope." Steffor replied.
She let the indifferent reply linger for a few minutes, not sure how to respond, when Steffor decided to elaborate. "I had hoped the trip here would help clear my mind. Memories of my past, family and friends, places, have all come back. But I cannot locate a Mystic. For that matter, I can't remember what it feels like to sync with a Mystic. It’s as if my connection to the conscious whole is someone else's distant memory."
"You have no connection?" Calivera asked with concern. The concept was unnerving. "What of the Provider...of the Source?"
"I felt the presence of the Provider the moment I awoke from your table. My sense of the Source is strong. But I have not attempted to wield it, fearing I may lose control. My connection to the Provider and Mysticnet, both remain severed."
"The Provider controls the Source. Citizens are but the vessels to wield it." Calivera regretted her pious quotation of the D
eeds the moment it left her lips, realizing the Guardian would be intimate with the passage. "What guidance has the Provider given?" she asked, changing tack.
"None yet."
"What?" she asked, incredulous.
"The truth is, well, I just feel...I just haven't asked!" The anger in Steffor's words increased as he tried to explain his strange actions. "I know it is not right, or even possible for that matter, but I can't shake the feeling of being betrayed by the Provider. My entire life, I have trusted the Provider," anger transitioned into a sad quiver. "The Provider always rewarded my trust. The unexplainable appearance of that branch changed it all. Why?! What lesson is there to learn from that experience?" He directed his last question to her with tear swelled eyes, imploring her for insight.
She averted her eyes, disturbed by his confession.
Turning back to the waterfall, he released a sorrowful sigh, shaking his head. "I know it serves no good purpose to harbor anger toward the Provider, but I just can't bring myself to forgive."
Calivera took several deep breaths and pondered his words before stating the obvious. "You will need to connect to both Mystic and Provider if you intend on completing your role in the Forging Ceremony."
"I know."
She opened her mouth as if to add to the statement but chose to remain silent. Steffor, sensing she had an opinion on how he should go forward, turned back around to face her. On impulse, she did the same in kind and grabbed hold of his hands. With each straddling the bench, their knees pressed together, Calivera looked into Steffor's eyes.
She hesitated, fearful of what she might say. Exhaling a long breath, she found the courage to speak. "Steffor, you are like no other I have ever encountered."
"I feel the same way about you!" he blurted, misconstruing the meaning of her words.
With a curt sigh, she continued. "It was no coincidence that led you to be my patient. When I said you were dead by most definitions of the word, I was not exaggerating." Steffor nodded in understanding, his mood sobered.
"I watched them try to save you but knew they would fail. How I was so certain still bothers me but the feeling was undeniable. At first, when I joined you on the table...shifting the Source to heal both body and soul..." She was unable to go on, unwilling to relive the terrifying memory, her gaze lost on a small knot in the bench.
She started to pull her hands away from his, signaling she had said all she was going to say.
Steffor held her fast, forcing her to look back at him.
I must tell him, I must shed this burden.
Drawing another deep breath, Calivera sat up straight and squared her shoulders. "I found you in a foreign place. My connection to the Provider was gone, replaced by a presence so vast and powerful my mind, out of some desperate need for survival, refused to process it. You were my beacon that I clung to in primal desperation. Your energy came alive at that moment. You saved me. You carried me from the depths Steffor."
"Why are you so sad? Why do you look at me with fear?" Steffor implored.
"It was that desire, the desire I still sense in you now, to never leave that makes me sad. I feel that I made a horrible mistake by forcing you to come back." She stood and turned her back to him. Her rigid composure returning, she whispered, "It this undeniable desire, the reason you may never mend your relationship to the Provider. That, Steffor, is the reason I fear you."
Calivera did not provide Steffor the opportunity to discuss the subject any further. Instead, she walked over to the first step of Frejak's Ladder and began the long ascent without him. Steffor lingered behind, not catching up with her until she was within the last few steps. They stepped onto Instenkul's Forging Bough together, alone in separate thoughts.
A firm head wind leaned on them as they crossed the barren bark peninsula. Instenkul's higher altitude, the open sky between branch and Toliver's compact evergreen canopy above, the onset of night, it all made Sofelarus’s humid and confined setting feel like a distant memory.
Calivera unpacked her travel cloak and wrapped it tight around her weary body. She gave Steffor a sidelong glance and noted how his Garments had adjusted to the colder temperatures, forming a loose body suit with high collar. With hands tucked into deep front pockets, his face was blank. But his mood had changed, distant with a troubling resolve set into chin and jaw.
They crossed the sturdy bridge, the gorge between bark plates an impenetrable darkness below. Soon after, a steady incline began toward Lake Arol, a mountainous hulk of bark and wood that spanned a third of the Forging Bough’s width. The volcanic shaped knot loomed dark and ominous against the Trunk’s enormous outline eclipsing the night sky to the east. Depicted by its waterfall, the lake glistened in the distance as it sliced down the mountainside.
With Ginllats shining bright on their backs, the restive silence ensued as they hiked the straight trail, shifted into the smooth bark plate that led to the giant knot lake. A mile out, tall wild flowers began to crop up. At first one or two stray plants but within in minutes of spotting the first a quilt of violet, pink and yellow petals covered both sides of the worn path. The flower-infested path led them to a T-intersection formed at the edge of a cliff. They looked over the tiered edge, upon the Forging River churning within a wide basin as the bark plate walls corralled the flowing water down the bough.
"I used to dive from this spot," Steffor said, fresh with nostalgia.
Calivera followed the length of cliff down to the river basin, nauseous at the thought of diving three hundred feet into the swirling waters.
The trail leading south followed cliff-side and river down the bough, where it flowed into Teuton Valley several miles away. They took the trail to the north, which skirted cliff-side for another fifty yards to the edge of town, where it forked again. The path east led to the base of the mountain a few hundred yards away, to the town's lower avenues now bathed in Ginllats's ghostly green light. The path angling northwest skirted the western side of town, transforming into a steep and direct climb to the top.
"You are healed Steffor, my presence is no longer needed," she stated as they reached the fork, meeting his hurt expression with phlegmatic eyes. "We can part ways now. I will find lodging in town as you go to see Kilton," she said, nodding toward the path leading to the lake. "I hope and pray you find a way to join us with the Provider and once again bask in his unending love." She paused with her arms crossed long enough to confirm Steffor registered this as their final parting. With a final knit of her brow, she turned her back to him and started down the trail leading into town.
Twenty yards down the path, a confident voice, absent from his demeanor until that moment, called back. "Our bond spans many lifetimes, this much I hold true. I do not understand why you choose to deny this connection and mask your feelings, at a crossroads where we have never needed each other more. I am confident the reason will reveal itself, either in this lifetime or the next." He paused as she stopped in her tracks.
The sad boy, so prevalent since meeting him, had vanished. The Steffor of legend now spoke. With one blow, his powerful diction shattered the pathetic walls built around her heart. Yet she still kept her back to him.
"If this brief interlude is to be our only in this lifetime," he continued, "then I am grateful for it. I pray you enough happiness till the Provider sees fit to reunite us again in the flesh. If this is but the first of many encounters our souls share in this lifetime, then I pray you enough loss while we are apart to appreciate all that may become."
She lost track of time, battling with the undeniable truth of his words. Steffor's arrival in her life felt like an imposed rebirth on a life just starting its purpose. Altered forever was her perception of the world and, to her shame, she resented him for it, desiring to inflict a similar pain.
Calivera knew her parting words would do nothing in the way of mending his estranged relationship with the Provider or give insight as to how he may reconnect to the whole. On the contrary, she was confident her words would o
nly add to his insecurities and confusion. Faced with the biggest challenge of his young life, she chose to rebuke, not love.
But she had succumbed to a primal fear, hidden to the ego until that fateful moment she dove into the depths of his soul. Confused, scared and angry, she sought to explain it by making Steffor the source of her fear. She now recognized how Steffor shared that same fear, lost and confused as she was, groping for the one soul able to help make sense of it all.
Her back still turned to the one person truly capable of relating to her plight, she turned to face him with renewed purpose. She craved his strong arms around her, to have him whisper in her ear and tell her, so long as they stayed together, all will be right in the world. To know he would always be there to shine light on her darkest shadows.
Knees buckled as she locked onto the sight of his tiny form halfway up the mountainside, her desperate plea for forgiveness lost in the rowdy breeze teasing the waist high flowers carpeting the otherwise barren bark floor.
Known Afterlife (The Provider Trilogy: Volume I) Page 16