Bastion

by Kyle West

  We kept quiet, scanning the forest floor and bypassing most of the xen we found. We had already gathered these types, and Sage Alan wouldn’t be impressed unless we found something different, and explained how it was different and what purpose it served. The silence was starting to get awkward, but the truth was, I was a little peeved with Isaru because he wasn’t making as much time for me anymore. I wondered if it had something to do with what happened at the reversion, but I didn’t want to bring that up. I was still trying to accept it myself, so perhaps it wasn’t unimaginable that Isaru was having difficulty, too. He had seemed to accept it readily enough at the time, but it was possible his opinion had changed.

  It was only when we had entered the bright sunshine that Isaru broke the silence.

  “So…” He let the word hang in the air while I continued to scan the ground. “Anything new with you?”

  I started to shake my head, but then I remembered my dream. I decided to keep it back for now.

  “Not really. What about you?”

  He shook his head, and we spent the next couple of minutes in silence. Isaru knelt next to the trunk of a nearby spiral tree, examining the xen for a moment before standing up again.

  “We’ve gathered this kind before,” he said. “Let’s check down by the South Spring.”

  We turned in that direction. The Grove was silent and cool. Normally, a din of birdsong would be filling the trees, but it was mostly quiet, save for a woodpecker hammering into a tree from high above.

  “I had a dream last night,” I said.

  Isaru’s head half-turned toward me, waiting for me to go on.

  “It was a memory from Anna’s life, although I don’t know what I was supposed to get out of it.”

  As we plunged deeper into the trees, I explained the details.

  We stopped when we arrived at a thin stream flowing through the trees, running over and around rocks worn smooth over the centuries. Both moss and xen covered the stones, and the stream was narrow enough in most places for one to take a single, wide step across. A dark, but shallow, pool lay upstream from our position — the South Spring. The water wove through the trees until it reached the wall, barely discernible downstream. A grate had been built in the wall to accommodate it, where it made its way to the Silverstream in the canyon right outside the Sacntum’s front gate, the same which the stone bridge passed over.

  “What are you thinking?” I asked.

  “I think your memories are returning,” Isaru said.

  I frowned. “My memories?”

  “Well, not your memories. Anna’s.” Isaru waded into the stream, kneeling down and using his scalpel to cut off a small piece of xen covering a stone beneath an inch or so of running water. After he had put it in his gathering satchel he stood back up and looked at me. “That’s what I think, anyway. There probably wasn’t any rhyme or reason to the dream — certainly, it didn’t seem like anything was being specifically communicated to you.”

  “You think?”

  “Maybe. Is this the first time you’ve dreamed since the reversion?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  I joined him in the stream, after taking off my boots, and together we made our way in the water toward the spring. The water was cold, but wasn’t unpleasant. By the time we were scanning the nearby rocks again, I continued.

  “None of us have talked about anything. I was beginning to wonder if anything had even happened.” I paused. “Of course it happened. It’s just…I wish it hadn’t.”

  “I understand,” Isaru said. “It is a heavy burden.”

  I didn’t want to be reminded of it, but I supposed there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

  “Is it hard to accept it?” Isaru asked.

  I knelt down to examine a patch of nearby xen, just barely above the surface of the stream. “Is this what we’re looking for?”

  Without even looking long at the xen, Isaru shook his head. “Fons xen only grows beneath the water.”

  I nodded, and we continued on.

  “You never answered my question,” Isaru said.

  I was hoping he wouldn’t push the point. “I don’t know, Isaru. I guess, yeah, it’s a bit hard to accept. What if I told you that you were actually someone who lived four hundred years ago, and not only that, someone who people today think is a god?”

  Isaru gave an amused smile. “I’d say you were crazy.”

  “You know what I mean,” I said. “If I had inarguable proof that I was right, what would you do?”

  He waited a moment to respond. “I don’t know. I honestly…don’t know. There’s no precedent for that, is there?”

  “That’s the thing,” I said. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel about it. I would ignore it if I could, but every time I meet with Isandru he harps on and on about it. I’m tired of hearing about it.”

  Isaru nodded, as if he understood. I knew he didn’t really understand, but it still felt good to be listened to.

  “I know what it feels like to be thought of as someone you’re not,” Isaru said.

  I looked at him, curious. “What do you mean?”

  He exited the spring, and sat down on the grassy shore beneath a tall ash. I got out to join him. I waited for him to continue.

  “I’m the Prince of Haven,” he said. “My whole life, I never wanted to be.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Wouldn’t that be what anyone would want?”

  “Not me, I guess,” Isaru said. “I think, in the past, my reaction to that has been to run away. To run away a lot. As soon as Jorla could fly, we’d go all over — sometimes days at a time. I hated…” He paused, seeming to stop himself. “I hated being controlled, being told how I was supposed to act and who I was supposed to be. The person…” He trailed off again, seeming to consider whether or not to go on. “The person my father wanted me to be…the person he wants me to be…isn’t me.”

  He looked at me. His face was neutral, but he wasn’t fooling me. I could see pain in his gray eyes.

  “He wants you to be the Prince, and you don’t?”

  Isaru shook his head. “It’s not that. Not exactly.” He paused to collect his thoughts. “It’s just…different now. My father and I just don’t have much in common. My mother…”

  Isaru had never mentioned his mother, and I didn’t know whether he was going to talk about her or not.

  “Were you close?” I asked.

  Isaru nodded, looked as if he would speak, but in the end, said nothing.

  I remembered a little of what Isa had told me about her. Her name was Kaia, and she was a Samalite, at least officially. Some said she was a Wilder, and the only thing that was ever said with certainty was that she had silver hair and was beautiful. She had also died while Isaru was young of a mysterious illness. Beyond that, I knew nothing.

  “She died when I was ten,” Isaru said. “She could talk to dragons, too, and more besides that. She came from a tribe called the Invi.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “North, and west. Further north than even the Samalites.”

  “Very remote, then.”

  Isaru nodded. “She would tell me these stories of incredible things. Things I would never believe. I would believe them when I got older, though, if only to honor her memory. Things are different when you go that far north. People exist closer to the Red Wild. Their connections to the Xenofold are stronger. She told me that they often rode Radaska up there, and there were these wars with the Mindless…apparently, the wars never stopped up there. But anytime she talked about her home — a hold called Invia — she did it with nothing but happiness.”

  We sat there for a moment. I wanted Isaru to keep talking, but I could tell that the subject was sensitive and that prying would close him off.

  “I probably shouldn’t say this,” Isaru said, “but my mother didn’t really seem to be happy in Haven. I don’t know how she came to meet my father — or even what she saw in him.” He gave a short laugh — not amus
ed, and somewhat bitter. “Maybe she saw nothing in him at all. I’ve often wondered if she was forced into it.”

  “Forced into it?”

  “It’s not specifically required for a king to marry into another noble line, of Sylva or of the Samalites,” Isaru said. “Over the years, that’s led to too much intermixing. It’s common for nobles to take wives from a lower strata of society, and noble men sometimes look to Wilders of especially pure blood if they want to continue their line and have strong children. It wasn’t acceptable years ago, but it is today, because of the risk of siring a severed child.”

  “Severed?”

  “A child of Elekai parents with no connection whatsoever to the Xenofold. It’s rare, but it’s happened to enough people that it is a consideration.” Isaru shrugged. “I don’t know the whole story, and I don’t dare ask, even if I’ve wondered many times. Wilders often can’t live long in civilization, if they’re forced to move. No one really knows why my mother got sick, but my father wouldn’t allow her to return to her people, insisting that his doctors and his medicines were the best.”

  Now, Isaru’s face became steely, his eyes angry, and it was easier to understand why he despised his father so much.

  “Do you think she would have lived?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t prying too much.

  It was long before he answered. In fact, I didn’t think he was going to answer.

  “I don’t know, Shanti. Whether she would have lived or not, the fact that he wouldn’t let her go home was cruel. I had never been allowed to visit her people, even though my mother wanted to take me. It’s…complicated. I’ve already spoken too much.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know what else to say. Perhaps there wasn’t anything to say. One thing I did know was that what Isaru had told me, he didn’t tell just anyone. Maybe he hadn’t ever told anyone.

  We went back to gathering xen samples. It was quiet for a long time, but we just focused on our work. Any time I had a question about a particular sample, I would ask Isaru. By the end of a half hour, both our satchels were full and we started back for the Sages’ Tower.

  * * *

  We were the last to arrive, where a line had formed for Sage Alan to inspect his pupils’ samples. By the time Isaru and I arrived, Isaru laid out our samples on the table while Sage Alan inspected each with his hands and eyes, his long gray beard nearly covering them. He picked up a nearby magnifying lens for closer inspection.

  “Yes, good. I see you found some fons xen. Cleric Karai will want some of this; she was just complaining to me that her stores were getting low. It’s been weeks since I’ve found any samples myself.” Alan looked at Isaru curiously. “Where did you find it, exactly?”

  “By the South Spring,” Isaru said. “It only grows under a constant, slow stream of water and in shady areas, so it was on some of the rocks in the stream itself.”

  “Excellent,” Alan said. “Very good work, the both of you. It takes more than a good eye to gather samples. Cutting it the wrong way can ruin the sample, as you could cut off the connections that allow the xen to communicate with itself. It takes a great deal of intuition, an intuition born from the Agronomist within.”

  Isaru nodded his agreement, but I had little idea what Sage Alan was talking about.

  “Thank you, Sage Alan,” Isaru said.

  “Isaru, a moment of your time, if you would kindly stay.” He turned to look at me. “Until next week, Shanti.”

  I gave a slight bow, only casting a single glance back as I made my way out. Alan was speaking to Isaru in a confidential tone as Isaru listened intently. The Sage seemed to be taking Isaru under his wing already.

  I headed for Cleric Karai’s office in the Seekers’ Dome, trusting that Isaru would catch up later.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SEEKER KARAI LED US ON an expedition to Nava Village, where she wanted us to sit in on a house call. Often, sick people were brought to the Sanctum from hundreds of miles away, knowing the Clerics’ reputation for healing. In this case, however, the patient — a teenage girl — was too sick to even make the short journey herself.

  Nava Village was quite small. It stood on a cliff above the Silverstream, containing two dozen or so wooden houses of one story, as well as some basic services, such as a grocer, a blacksmith, an apothecary, a butcher, and a tailor. These buildings served the Sanctum just as much as they served the local village. Most of the people lived on Nava’s periphery, growing crops or raising animals for the Sanctum, and these fields and pastures were clearly visible from almost any point in the village, along with the houses of those who worked them. A large stand of Silverwoods stood in the very center of the village, growing on a wide field of grass. It was on this field that gatherings took place, and it would be the site of the Spring Festival two weeks from now.

  Several villagers going about their business nodded deferentially to Seeker Karai as she passed. She was well-known in the village for healing sicknesses and hurts, and her skill with xenohealing was among the best in the Order, despite her young age. I always enjoyed any trip outside the Sanctum, because it was easy to feel trapped in there. Often, I dreamed about getting away for good, but those dreams weren’t realistic. I wouldn’t get any opportunity to do that until I was an apprentice, and even then, only if I selected a Sect that necessitated travel.

  We followed Karai into a small house. Isaru was tall enough that he had to duck to get in, and Nabea as well. The two of them carried themselves like the royalty they were, something that seemed out of place in this humble village. Jaim went in next, the quiet and nervous youth who hadn’t opened up much in the two months I had known him, while Ret, Samal, and I went in last.

  We found ourselves in a crowded room, and the smell was the first thing that hit me. Even with the incense burning, it failed to completely mask the odor of sickness, and combined with the heat of the flame and the fireplace, my head started swimming. My eyes first went to a middle-aged woman, who was sitting on a stool near the bed where her daughter lay, whose was face was gaunt with sickness. The mother’s eyes were red, either from crying or tending to her daughter around the clock. Only the slight movement of the bed sheet told me the daughter was still breathing.

  “Has she eaten?” Karai asked.

  The mother shook her head. “No food, and no water. Not for two days.”

  Karai nodded, as if she had expected as much. She knelt beside the bed, and reached into her leather satchel, withdrawing a vial of pink, glowing liquid.

  The mother’s eyes widened. “Aether? Seeker…”

  “It’s the only thing we haven’t tried, but even then, I don’t know if her blood is strong enough to take it.”

  I watched the vial, remembering everything Elder Isandru had told me about Aether. It enhanced one’s inborn Elekai Gifts. It made one stronger, granting long life when taken over time. Also, it was highly addictive, and if that addiction wasn’t fed, it led to its user going mad. What was more, it sometimes didn’t work for Elekai who didn’t have any natural Giftings, overwhelming their senses and leading to a quick death.

  “It will kill her…” the mother said, her face tight with fear.

  “She will die anyway, Mara,” Karai said, gently, placing a hand on her arm. “She must be made well enough to eat and drink. Energy is life, and there is a lot of energy in Aether. I received approval from Elder Draeus. He doesn’t like it, but when I explained it might work in this situation…”

  Mara looked at her daughter. She didn’t even seem to see us initiates, and I felt as if I were infringing on them.

  “If you think it might work…” Mara sighed. “Go ahead. Do it.”

  Karai unstopped the vial as Mara roused her daughter.

  “Kilan. Kilan…”

  Kilan opened her eyes, which were filmy and unfocused. She moved her lips, as if to speak, but no words came out.

  “Seeker Karai is here,” she said. “She has some medicine that can make you better.”

  “Kilan,” Kar
ai said. “I’m going to need you to swallow. Can you do that much?”

  Kilan nodded, though it was barely perceptible. She struggled to open her mouth, but was only able to fully do so when aided by her mother. She made a strange, gurgling noise. I watched as Karai tipped the vial, watched as the Aether didn’t run out, but slithered out. It seemed to move in a way that was unnatural, and I could see its glow illumine the interior of Kilan’s mouth. When her mouth closed, she swallowed.

  There was no coughing or hacking, nothing I expected. She just lay there, as still as ever, as if nothing had happened, closing her eyes once again.

  “What now?” Mara asked.

  “We wait.”

  Time passed in silence. I looked at my fellow initiates, but all they did was watch Kilan. As the minutes passed, I did notice a change. Color returned to her cheeks, and her hair seemed to regain its luster and grow thicker.

  Mara looked at Karai, her eyes wide. “How…how is this possible…?”

  “She’ll live,” Karai said, her relief palpable. “At least, for the next couple of days. After that comes the true test.”

  When Kilan opened her eyes, and they were no longer dim, but seemed to see and understand where she was. “Mother…”

  Her voice rasped, and she went into a fit of coughing.

  “Calm yourself, dear,” Mara said, tears in her eyes. “You’re going to get better.”

  “I’m thirsty.”

  Mara found a nearby cup of water, and slowly put it to Kilan’s lips, which were now fuller in color. Karai helped her to sit up in bed, though it seemed as if Kilan needed little help.