by Mia Taylor
A mystery. It churned in her brain. Begging to be solved. She clamped down the unease inside long enough to see the potential of her new situation. If something odd cropped up, it had to be explored. No matter what.
Even if her captors scared the living daylight out of her. Alron with his growls and feral nature. Kit with his smooth disdain, those sinister eyes. Narak with his ancient, twisted stature.
She didn't know how long they flew for. But when they landed, it was in a place Isera had never seen. A place of frozen morass, resilient mangrove trees and pines, a mashed ecosystem in a cone of cold and dark. The skies above flickered with lightning.
Blue lightning. Isera stared at what little dark sky she saw through the trees. Snow tumbled from the clouds. Blue lightning flashed.
This wasn't normal. You never had snow in storms. It required a certain kind of cloud to create the reaction for a storm – anvil shaped ones that hung low and ominous. Snow clouds were higher up, possessing a different texture entirely. And normal lightning was yellow.
“You'll see a lot more weather like this,” Kit informed Isera, grinning impishly. “You could say that things don't work the same way in this part of the world.”
You're telling me... Isera slid off Alron's back, boots squelching into spongy soil. The snows didn't coat the floor, but succeeded in covering the branches and leaves of the swamp. “Why did we stop here?”
“There's an entrance not too far. It's too dense from above to land right next to it, so we land nearby.”
Alron shifted into his human form, bending down to sniff at something.
“Come on, Alron,” Kit said. “Let's not leave the lady waiting any longer than she should.”
As Isera followed, she contemplated options for escape. Not many existed, really. Being this deep in an unknown land, without magic, without the appropriate knowledge to save her, she might as well be a damsel in distress. She absolutely despised being so useless. Back at school, her magic had blossomed to small fireballs, and likely would improve further with time. However, she suffered pangs of jealously when regarding her friend, Seon, and now Elise.
Both them had abilities that influenced the soul. Why, Seon managed to rip the souls out of two dozen wyrms, killing them instantly. A terrifying power that might turn the tide of battle if it came to full scale war. As for Elise, she cured the soul with her singing. She changed emotions with just her sweet voice.
All Isera knew how to do was fling some tiny fireballs at someone and light things. Still useful, of course. But not enough to do anything meaningful when push came to shove.
She would have died in that stupid cell. And she couldn't even defend herself when grabbing water from a stream. If only she paid more attention to the self defense lessons instead of allowing herself to be lazy enough to assume nothing would usurp her powers.
I wonder what matron Ana would think of me now, if she saw me. Matron Ana. The closest thing to a parent she ever had. The one who took over when the wyrms came for her parents and slaughtered them because of rumors of magic from her mother.
Matron Ana simply pretended Isera was one of her own, and the wyrms didn't question too closely. Isera didn't miss her parents, though. Only the thought that she might have had them, but since she never knew them... reflecting left a void.
Maybe her mother had fire powers too. Or maybe it was just hysteria that resulted in their deaths.
Presently, Alron sniffed about the entrance of a dark, vine draped cave with frost scatterings. Thunder rumbled, and the tang of ice, mud and the faint whiff of rotting fish entered Isera's nostrils. She bit the inside corner of her lip, hastily releasing the tender flesh when she stumbled.
“Your home is in some creepy swamp cave?” Isera didn't like caves. She thought of the ones back at the estate, with the canaries and that noxious lungdust that killed you from the inside out.
“It's through the creepy swamp cave,” Kit explained. “We're hardly going to have our home on full display for any old drake to spot when flying above.”
Isera wanted to ask more questions, but figured it best to wait until she'd seen the final result for herself. Not every day you saw a blue tainted sky with dark lightning and snow pelting down from thunderous clouds.
Not every day you found a wyrm that didn't want to disembowel a human, either. The journey through the tunnel took time, and they went in near blackness, with only the scream of the storm in the distance, and the drip and splash of water that coated the floor.
Slosh. Isera wished she had her magic back right now, because being able to see might stop her from accidentally breaking her neck.
Presently, one pressing question bubbled in her mind, before she answered it herself. Unlikely they saw if any of her friends happened to be in that fort. She would have been imprisoned with them, surely. And they wouldn't react with such amazement in witnessing a human with bound magic.
Light began to seep from the other side of the tunnel which ascended. Kit helped to guide her with his superior senses, one hand always resting on her shoulder. Not much further to go.
“Welcome to Wizen,” Kit said, as they emerged into what appeared to be a town made out of stone and wood, with all the houses clumped near huge, grasping trees which formed dark arches over the landscape. Above them, the sky was speckled with black and purple and blue and a myriad of stars. Isera inhaled sharply.
“The sky is enchanted,” Kit said, grinning at her amazement. “We're actually underground, but our best magicians some centuries back decided that they really missed the sky, so they created that.”
Passing some vegetable fields, Isera marveled as drakes and wyrms waddled down the streets. Not as many as she originally anticipated. Certainly not enough of a population to challenge the wyrms in their big cities. A shame. Some of the dragons stopped dead upon seeing Isera with her magical cuffs. Alron marched on Isera's left in his drake form, snapping at anyone who got too close. Kit stayed in his human form, escorting her with pride, basking in the attention.
“Kit!” A female voice tore through the gaping drakes and wyrms. A woman emerged from a house just behind, sporting golden eyes. “What are you doing with a human? What... oh.” Her eyes settled on Isera's cuffs. She chewed nervously on a strand of hair. She looked probably in her early twenties. For all Isera knew, everyone here might be centuries old. “She's magical?”
“She has a name, little sister. Isera. Isera, meet my little sister, Fran.” He emphasized little each time, which made the younger wyrm roll her eyes.
“Hey,” Isera said. Fran did look like her brother. Smaller nose, perhaps, and lighter hair, but the jawline and general muscle shape was unmistakable. Fran wore fur robes like her brother as well, with dark brown stitchings.
Other women also emerged from their houses, and silently observed as Fran stepped into line by Kit. Isera’s eyes fixed on a tall building at the end of the path, built like a bastion that protruded from the rock face itself, the steeples illuminated by the stars.
“You're taking her to the Old Ones, aren't you?” Fran glared at her brother. “You should wash her first. She smells like a sewer. Who knows what judgement they’ll pass on her in their short time awake.”
Alron barked something that sounded like a laugh. Kit smiled at his sister. “Yes, she does rather reek, doesn't she?”
“So would you,” Isera retorted, “if you'd been left in a dungeon to die. No thanks to you, by the way.”
“We saved you, didn't we?”
Didn't feel like it. Isera kept that sentiment to herself. Their “saving” almost resulted in her death from dehydration in the first place. Though, to be fair, if they hadn't attacked the fort when they did, Isera likely would have died to torture and experimentation anyway. Why else build a fort in the middle of nowhere, away from the bonds of civilization? They likely got drakes to help them build it, too, at that level of isolation.
Her thoughts drifted to the situation at hand. I keep hearing about the Old Ones.
Guess I’m about to find out what they are.
“What magic do you have, huma – Isera?” Fran raised one dark eyebrow, examining the cuffs as if they might provide the answer she sought. “You must be feared, to be treated in such a way.”
Yes, but fear had little to do with the strength of her magic. Just the fact she had it.
“Why are you so interested in the fact that I have magic?” Isera stopped for a moment, causing brother and sister to glance at one another. “Sorry, but it's just really weird for me. Where I come from, wyrms hate magic so much that they relentlessly seek us out and kill us. No questions asked.”
“Right.” Kit pinched the bridge of his pointed nose. “I forget about that. Knowing it’s like that outside is still new thinking for us, if I’m honest. We know… it’s bad, because that’s obvious. Just not how bad. Anyway, I’m taking you to the Old Ones. They’ll have answers. And they need to see you.”
“Excuse me? We’re taking you to the Old Ones. I’m coming along. I’m not missing out on the action.”
“Fran. This is something Narak wants me to do. I don’t remember him mentioning you could join.”
“He probably didn’t mention Alron coming along either, did he?” She continued walking next to them, a note of finality in her voice.
Kit sighed, but didn’t protest any further. During the exchange, a question bubbled to the surface of Isera’s mind.
“Okay, I need to ask you this.” Isera lifted one finger in a thinking gesture. “Do you fear me? Do you want me dead because of this magic?”
“Of course not!” Fran flared out her hands. “We've been waiting for humans to get their magic back. It's a sign the world's starting to heal itself. There are more like you, yes? More magic users?”
Isera nodded, slightly surprised by the outburst. “Yes. Not many. We were hidden.”
“Like us.” Fran indicated the false starry sky, and the thick, woven branches that formed a dark canopy over the strange underground town. Obviously they had a good source of air and water. But what about sunlight? Did the magic enchantments here provide the sunlight needed for the trees to grow as well?
That kind of magic seemed impossibly advanced to Isera. Complicated and not anything their teachers in the school could manage.
Before Isera succeeded in asking any more questions to the wyrm, they made it to the castle and pushed through the entrance. No guards. Whoever dwelled in here didn't expect to be attacked. Inside stretched a corridor, lit by flickering green torches in the walls.
Suitably ominous setting for a group of people called the Old Ones. Alron shifted again into his human form, twitching nervously at the claustrophobic setting. Imagine if her friends and teachers saw her now. Matron Ana might have a few choice words to yell at Isera for. Never go into an unknown situation without some form of protection.
Well, that wasn't going to happen now.
Their boots clattered on marbled tiling underneath, and they reached a junction leading off to many different rooms. The room Fran and Kit intended to show them through lay ahead. Fran had promptly attached herself to the group and no one raised a murmur of protest. Maybe she did this kind of stunt often, and her brother had tried one too many times to keep her away.
Isera focused on Kit’s strong back. He had taken off the thickest of his robes temporarily, displaying a shirt adhered to the shape of his skin. Isera admired it for a moment in the faint light, and the way his shoulders bulked out, the way his bare arms tapered around bone when they protruded from the sleeves. The only bodies she managed to see before were usually disguised in servant uniforms. And if anyone showed interest, it made her retreat from them, rather than investigate. At the school, people wrapped themselves up too thickly for her to appreciate much.
An ornately carved pair of doors greeted the end of their corridor walk, which creaked open with a hard shove.
Beyond lay a bright chamber with a fluorescent blue pool of water, a perfect circle in the center of the room. Attached to the pool were snake-like branches, which in turn spilled from trees that grew from the edges of the room. Eight trees. And in each of those trees...
Isera almost screamed when she saw one of the figures embedded in the tree open milky green eyes and stare at her.
Oh Gods. Each tree had someone buried in it. More than buried. Merged in a way that their torsos stuck out of the bark, and the rest of their bodies melted into the wood. No elbows and hands, no rear, no hips and legs. Vines wrapped around eight throats, holding the bodies rigid against the trees.
“What is this?” The green eyed elder rasped. Straggly red hair hung from the scalp. The bark covered chest had that familiar curvature to it. Female. The voice held a medium, rich timbre to it. Green eyes. Human? No. This thing couldn't be human. The speaker stirred the others into life. Three silver eyes. Three gold eyes. One green, one blue.
“Greetings, Old Ones.” Kit bowed, and Fran did the same. Isera remained stiff, unable to comprehend what she saw. Disgust, pity and fear formed a cocktail in her heart, making her blood pound in her throat.
Judging by the partial anatomy Isera caught of the others, five women and three men formed the group of eight tree prisoners.
One of the Old Ones started coughing, with a rattling, sucking sound that made Isera wince. A woman with pure white hair and deep wrinkles about a corpse like face. An amazement she even lived. An amazement any of them lived.
Never in Isera's entire life had she seen such twisted magic.
“Oh, shut up, Garia,” one of the elders wheezed squinting rheumy silver eyes at the cougher, “It's hard enough trying to sleep without you spewing up what remains of your organs.”
“Hard for us to sleep when you snore,” Garia shot back. “You're like ten thunderstorms in one!”
The green eyed elder focused her gaze upon Isera's cuffs. The pupils became sharp, alert. “You're not from here, are you, human? You're from outside.”
At this announcement, the bickering elders fell silent. All eight pairs of eyes trained upon Isera. Dissecting her. Isera pictured in her mind’s eye, all her clothes tumbling off, until nothing but her body remained, cold and naked and pink under the stares of those who judged her fate. She imagined it going further – her skin layer peeling off, her muscles, her bones, until the only thing that remained was the shimmery substance of her soul.
“That she is,” Kit said. “She's a human from the outside. A human with magic.” He reached forward to squeeze Isera's shoulder hard. Strong fingers, there. Strong enough to squeeze right through and seek out her fear. “A prisoner to the broken ones, as you can see by her cuffs.”
“Ah...” the green eyed elder let out a sigh. Kit whispered that her name was Morytania when Isera asked under her breath. “So, it's finally happening as we thought. Has it returned to many, human of the outside?”
Although Morytania looked somewhat pleased to see Isera, she didn't catch that expression from the others. One human and wyrm elder stared at her with something like disgust and deep suspicion.
“Not yet,” Isera said. She didn't really know how to conduct herself in the presence of these elders. By the way they talked, with archaic, unknown accents, she suspected they were far older than she thought possible. Though they certainly looked ancient anyway. Clearly, they desired information from her. She licked her lips and continued. “It's very rare at the moment. My teachers say it's because the magic souls that provide such power are still un-cured. They're tainted or lost or something like that.” Something about comparing the souls to a bag of marbles, too. Instructor Zannis did like her metaphors.
“Lost,” Morytania confirmed in her sonorous tone. “They can't return to the Source unless the taint is purged from them. Otherwise they wander between worlds. That was the price of that foolish curse.” Morytania bared her lips in a snarl, revealing blackened teeth. A ghastly sight, though she perhaps appeared the least alarming of the Old Ones there. The rest were simply corpses in trees with melted faces and
impossibly bright eyes, the only thing of them that truly lived. The blue light cast shadows that distorted them all like a living nightmare. Something that should only belong in dreams.
Not exist in reality. They didn’t carry the scent of death, at least. Their aroma permeated the room as old, stale paper from a book, practically screaming of the knowledge buried within their pages.
And part of that knowledge unveiled the concept of curse. “What do you mean by curse? How old are you?” The words blurted out of Isera's mouth before she could stop them. The way they spoke – as if they had personal knowledge of what had happened...
The corners of Morytania's mouth curved in a frown. “Those you see here in their trees have been living before the curse that ruined the world. The curse that turns people bitter, angry, lost to the trappings of their wretched black souls. We remember what the world was like when humans were in power.”
The wyrm that had glared at Isera now spoke. “Your kind did nobody any favors. Power hungry, selfish little fools. Driving the more reckless of ours to drastic measures.”
Isera took a step back. Kit's hand tightened on her shoulder. She took slight comfort from it, since otherwise she might have just tried to dash out of there. Why did this wyrm even provide any sense of solidity to her? Why did she close her eyes, and hope he didn’t let go?
Although the Old One’s animosity burst out of him in a wave, she realized at least that he probably couldn’t get out of that tree and strangle her. Probably no real need to dash out. She did need to ask, though, “How have you lived so long?”
“This is a waste of time,” the wyrm elder spat. His white beard quivered. “The world hasn't healed yet, it's clear from what was said. Kill this human so she doesn't reveal our location to others.”
“Quiet, Hristek,” Morytania said.
A human, reprimanding a wyrm. The wyrm obeyed her with grudging respect.
Given that they destroyed a town of wyrms to preserve their secret, Isera didn't think them above killing her. At all. A cold sweat shivered through her body. She felt more aware under the scrutiny of these Old Ones just how wretched she must appear. Her limbs ached even from the effort of standing up for so long, since she spent time lying down to conserve her energy in the cell.