The Truth about Heroes: Complete Trilogy (Heroes Trilogy)

by Krista Gossett

  “I’m Ashe, this is Rienna. You are?” Ashe asked.

  “Verity,” she announced, more her cheerful self, a little shy as she took her hand back. Ashe’s patented charm at work.

  “Well, isn’t that ironic…”

  There was still an hour or so left of sun when Ashe and Rienna had reached their camp at the red cliffs with Verity. Dinsch and Krose seemed anxious to know why they had brought a villager there and Verity had introduced herself kindly and sat on a log that they had previously dragged over to border the fire pit they would light up later. Rienna and Ashe explained what Verity had told them on the way back—about the places in Stoneweld that the Mycean Army had terrorized and how she had lost her daughter, son, husband, brothers, and parents when they had swept through. She had not known she had the powers of Mirage but the shaman of their people usually possessed the power and no one had been able to claim it after the old one had died. It had been gifted to her in time to save her own life but not those she had loved. The attack had been over a year previously (before Melchior had been under control) and she had lived in the Western Cyryl Desert. She had thought the voyage would end her but the powers to conjure illusions also meant that her illusions could manifest as real and the shade and fruit and water she thought of would appear and keep her going. Once she had reached Dreana, she had stopped and waited for a sign to move on. They were her sign.

  Melchior had still not returned but they had decided to attempt to call powers forth anyway. Verity knew a lot about the powers of elementals and old gods and had been able to shed some light on what they needed to search for. Earth was not just about destruction like quakes and landslides, it was about defense and growth. Light was also about growth but it was about hope and chasing shadows too. Water was a power of intuition and knowledge; water could reach the heavens and the farthest depths of the earth. Wind constantly changes and influences—her insights went so far in helping them decide what to desire. Before the sunset, they were able to discover so many uses that they were in high spirits.

  Krose was still looking for Melchior and shook his head unhappily. “Anyone have a tinderbox handy? Our torch-lighter is running late and it’s getting dark,” Krose grumbled.

  They suddenly jumped as Nuriel himself appeared in the fire pit, shouting “Damn it, Melchior, I’m not a toy!” and evaporating into smoke, not before leaving behind a roaring fire. Melchior shrugged and smiled that aggravatingly self-satisfied smile as he sat down on the log next to Rienna. She involuntarily scooted away in revulsion as he turned his charm on Verity. She wondered again at the odd coincidence of Nuriel using the word ‘toy.’ Melchior was revealing a playful side she had never seen and she didn’t like it. She still wondered how the hell he had his elemental even humoring his childish requests. He was always evoking stranger mysteries at every turn.

  “Who is this pretty one?” Melchior purred out lasciviously and Rienna could smell the spirits on his breath. “Uninterested, man-whore; I’ve heard plenty about you,” Verity purred back, a sly smile accompanying her silky words as she warned him not to press it with her very exotic, very dangerous eyes.

  Rienna decided she liked Verity more by the minute.

  Chapter 14: They Come Back to Haunt You

  The closer they got to the Uzhuak Forest, the thicker the air had seemed and the harder it was to speak. The mages had put up some sort of barrier to deter travelers, but the only other way to their destination would be through the desert, tripling their travel time, and was way too risky and conspicuous at that. Melchior had warned them they would need to take care—it had been a while since he passed through and he wasn’t quite sure if those wizards that had been here last were still here or not. As they approached the massive forest, they could see the Tree of Life hovering well above the other trees; at least twice as high as the tallest it stood. It was a strange sort of tree with a groomed umbrella sort of shape and lavender leaves with orange veins. The trunk itself was a stark white ivory color, each branch poking out as thick as a human and ascending like a spiral staircase leading up into the canopy where an eerie light was masking whatever awaited at the top. There was no mistaking it for any other tree since the others in this forest were a common medium brown/green combination. The oddity of the trees became more apparent as they neared and it was clear that these trees were roughly shaped like women.

  “Uzhuak, in the old tongue, meant ‘slave girl’,” Verity explained with reverence. “It was the origin of the dryad. It was said that the spirits of earth and water had been angry at each other and when the water refused to feed the earth, the earth turned the trees into women to steal water from the riverbeds to feed the forest.”

  “The old stories are pretty amazing, but we are learning there is much about them that is… more colorful than the truth,” Rienna countered. Despite the shape of the trees, they were immobile. As much as she wanted to believe they were ordinary trees, she still bristled at the thought of them ‘waking’ to attack.

  “The oldest stories are not so pretty as the newer ones, “Ashe started, in another mood for explaining lore. “The earth kept the dryads from rebellion by denying their roots entry into the earth unless the rest of the forest was well fed. The rebellious or the weak among them would die the horrid death of starvation. On the southwestern edge there is a petrified forest, the historical proof of one such uprising against the earth. The faces of their husks are eternally in such anguish that there is no doubt how cruel the old gods could be.

  “The old gods made the elementals and came to regret it. They tired of their roles in maintaining the earth and gathered the dead souls of humans they deemed worthy, molding bodies of pure power and setting them out to do their work. Some of the magics, like the one that governs me, they withheld to protect themselves but, like the elementals do, they only let humans borrow those powers. Creating immortal beings of power was their undoing and to keep the world from destruction they locked themselves away and fell into Sleep. Because of the corruption of the Elementals, some believe that the old gods will awaken once they receive a Dream of Undoing, to awaken and destroy the elementals. Most do not realize that the old gods were not reasonable beings either and the most learned humans fear their awakening is not our salvation but the world’s final destruction.”

  Melchior laughed and the others looked at him strangely. “I wouldn’t put much stock in any of it. If humans were so damned unimportant, Nuriel would have incinerated my ass by now. Let’s not forget that these ‘all-powerful’ beings call these ‘gifts’ and ‘blessings’ but if they were everything they pretend to be, why do they need our sorry asses to be their champions? I don’t buy it—the old gods, whatever they are, haven’t done for anyone in a long time and the elementals are just as nervous as we are,” Melchior scoffed. “Dream of Undoing? If this is what Mycean’s leaders are after, why we’re being chosen, then we’re in deeper shit than we thought.”

  Dinsch nodded miserably. “This is why Folk don’t know much about these things. Gives me a headache,” he added, his ears slightly drooping to indicate his unhappiness. Rienna reached out and grabbed his ear, stroking the soft fur behind it.

  “Yeah, no offense, but I’d much rather hear about something that they made that doesn’t suck,” Krose agreed, laughing unexpectedly when Rienna went to pull her hand away and he grabbed her wrist and kept nuzzling her hand. He did let her go after a few seconds, her blush in full bloom and contentment stretching his smile from ear to ear.

  Before anyone could go into it, Melchior abruptly told them to quiet down and started to fumble clumsily with his satchel.

  “Damn it, I knew my load was light. That stupid orb is gone,” he hissed, switching between looking through the satchel and looking around.

  Verity shook her head, unperturbed. “Get close to me; hold hands, skin to skin,” she ordered, obviously no stranger to command herself.

  They did as she asked and she nodded and whispered again “Fear not, they cannot see us,
but remember the illusion does not hide sound or make us less solid,” she instructed. She wanted to say more but stiffened as she saw a couple of mages in royal blue robes and clammed up quickly.

  The mages were looking in their direction and frowning; Melchior having been in the lead had unintentionally tripped some kind of magic alarm they had set up. How had he lost that orb when he had been so careful to secure it? Pierait, who had been a bit of a shadow since they had arrived was now emitting the greenish energy that marked the Void and the ones in their group that saw it were almost terrified enough to break the circle but he shook his head and gave them the best assuring smile a Soulless could manage.

  The Void was not a random shaped cloud this time but spread around them like a dome. Once it had finished forming, the mages stopped in their tracks, a few unnerving feet away from Melchior and looked at each other.

  “I don’t feel the intruders any longer,” the raven-haired mage announced.

  His auburn-haired friend kept looking in their direction in disbelief. “The alarm seemed pretty solid this time,” he swore, narrowing his eyes to sweep over the area.

  “That damn Tree has been setting off false signals all week. Amyra said that the stronger we make it, the more it seems intent to be rid of us,” the raven one added. Rienna clamped her teeth, thinking of course, it does. It knows you’re just here to take the fruit.

  The auburn one didn’t seem happy to give up and looked over the area again. He took two steps forward and stood almost noseto-nose with Melchior. Melchior stuck out his tongue in defiance. The mage sighed and stepped back, turning to his companion.

  “Another false alarm then,” he announced with exasperation. “We’ve been pouring our magic into that ungrateful pile of sticks for years and this is the thanks we get.”

  The raven one shook his head. “That attitude is why, my friend. Even if the Tree of Life’s roots don’t reach this far, those dryads are ears enough. The Tree probably thinks the same, you know. If the stories are true, that Tree made the first of us and we did nothing to protect it from destruction.”

  They watched the mages until they were well out of earshot but did not break the circle.

  “What on earth are you thinking, bringing out the Void, Pierait?” Melchior asked, none too happily. “I thought you couldn’t control it.”

  “I am glad all of you did not scatter with fear. While the others practiced their magic, I went off to practice my… notmagic. I had told you that I was unable to use my Void before we had met, but I used the feeling that hung around me after I had been used by your device. I saw that this method had worked for you once Verity had suggested it and it did so for me as well. I could not only use it for destruction but protection. You have souls so magic can still find you. I used the Void to mask that.”

  “You could have revealed us to them or killed us,” Verity warned him.

  “The Void would have killed them but not you. My Void recognizes you and avoids you. One thing I have always been able to do is differentiate the souls of friend and foe. We can touch each other, but anyone who comes too close to us loses that trespassing part to the void. It would devour magic as well of course. And your magic was voided, Miss Verity. I noticed that my Void has the ability to hide the thing it protects, even keeping sound or air from escaping. It is a Void, in all senses, and has its drawbacks. It doesn’t have the ability to create as yours does though.”

  “How did you think to try it?” Rienna asked, knowing more about Pierait than most of them. Creative thinking fell under imagination and that was supposed to be an impossible feat as well. If he couldn’t answer it, he simply wouldn’t.

  Pierait smiled at Rienna kindly. “That mage was right about the Tree of Life. I heard its voice telling me what to do to avoid them. The flowers speak to the Tree; I had hidden one with my Void and I did not think to try it on us.”

  Rienna always asked even though she knew Pierait could not think in possibilities on his own; still, she asked, hoping that somewhere they traveled, he might feel differently and it might be a lead. Surely near a wellspring he might be affected. She really did want him to fulfill his Purpose. She knew that the others were reluctant, both wary and protective of him because his death could certainly be theirs as well.

  “Ah, I guess I should mention we don’t have to link hands. The Void knows you and I can keep it up without touch. Please remember your magic will not work though. The Void’s null is temporary so do not fear that the elementals will abandon you. They won’t be able to find you either,” Pierait explained.

  After awkwardly dropping each other’s hands, it was decided that they should keep up their current path; too close to the desert, the Mycean Army liked to patrol but too deep into the forest, especially too close to the Tree, it was dense with mages.

  However, no matter how hard they tried to stay well away from the tree, the forest seemed to pull them in closer. Pierait had assured them no magic could be deceiving them but Verity knew that nothing could stop the Tree from having its way. The old magics were sometimes non-magics like the Void, without logic or physics. Uzhuak Forest was able to shift imperceptibly to guide travelers. It could trap you in it forever if you did not know how to maneuver or it simply didn’t want to let you. Verity explained that magics and non-magics could do the trick well; it was the bane of typical humans to enter this forest unprepared. It put them entirely at the mercy of the forest.

  Ashe had taken the lead once they had known that navigation was no longer a concern; they allowed the forest to test them. To their horror, the forest led them directly into the settlement of mages. Before they could decide next what to do, Rienna saw a Reishefolk breaking through the foliage pursued by mages, fighting not to be hit by their deadly magic. She gasped and stepped forward as she realized it was Finn and his wing had been shattered by a gruesome spell.

  “Finn! Damn it, Pierait, drop the Void, we’re fighting here!” she shouted, not leaving room for debate. The others seemed ready to protest but Pierait did as she asked and Rienna rushed forward to help her friend. Before her eyes, he turned into wood and disintegrated into the ground. She was horrified until she saw a great deal of Finns fleeing and laughing; as her friends fought off the mages that appeared, one of the Finns landed beside her and grinned, laying a finger over his mouth.

  “Shhh, Rienna dear, I’m the real one. I’ll explain once we’re out of this mess,’ he promised, winking and shoving her out of the way as a spell hit where she had stood. He helped her up looking apologetic.

  “No time to be distracted; let’s go!” Finn shouted, joining his copies as they fought the mages.

  Rienna noticed her friends were succeeding at using their elemental power as both barrier and weapon, but did not slack off on using their steel as well. Verity was using mirage to duplicate her friends; the ones that were not true had a transparent quality to them. She grinned at Finn and winked, thanking him for the idea.

  Dinsch was plowing through the mages, using the heavy earth to enhance his powerful legs while Krose was using the light to blind them and end them with his daggers. Ashe spun about in invisible cyclones, a deadly typhoon of invisible silks and razor swords. Melchior used the momentum from Ashe’s cyclones to wrap the wind in fire and it took out great groups of unsuspecting mages. Pierait stood against a tree, not fighting, but none could blame him; the Void in such a fray was as dangerous to friends as it was to foes. Rienna, once she had gathered her head, used great deluges of water to knock the mages off their feet as they flooded out of their makeshift buildings. Although there had been close to 100 mages against them, their battle fury had been too strong to take notice—the dryads and phantom copies made them look more like a proper army in any case. Rienna had gone against her warrior’s instinct at one point to stop and use her magic to heal her friends, although nothing too deadly came through their barriers.

  None of them seemed too thrilled that they had had to attack the mages but they hadn’t had any choi
ce either. Finn landed beside Rienna and the other Finns began to disperse; or rather they landed at the edges of the glade and resumed the form of dryads. They tensed as they heard the moaning of a dying mage. Melchior made to end the mage but Pierait stopped him and approached the mage, kneeling beside him.

  “Veylic,” Pierait said, without emotion. The mage that was his father met the eyes of his son, his look pleading.

  “Pierait. My son… Why have you done this?” Veylic asked, followed by a cough and a trickle of blood. His lung had been pierced and it would not be long before he drowned in his own blood.

  “The Tree made it clear you were not wanted here. If it can speak to a Soulless, it certainly spoke to all of you. You used your magic to restore it but your greed made your gift a burden. If your kind come back, the Forest will not spare them any longer,” Pierait told him.

  “Will you watch your father die now?” Veylic spat out bitterly.

  “You were never a father to me. You broke my mother but she never gave up on you and she never gave up hope for me. I will find a soul or die trying,” Pierait explained without kindness.

  Veylic looked at the man who his son had become and his heart softened, maybe with pity or the regret that the fear of death provided, but he gave up bargaining and tried for a smile.

  “You will die trying, my son, but your strange Purpose sealed that fate. To the West, there is a cursed pocket of land called the Barren Lands. It hides the only place in the world where humans cannot survive, the only place a Wellspring might still exist. The air itself seems to feed on souls. Beyond the Wraith’s Wall, and if you make it one step outside of those walls, it would be a miracle. To even get there, you have to enter the Western Cyryl Desert and cross that awful Wailing River. Find the city of Sorrow; it is past the River and you must turn left and follow the Barri Range south to find it. It will be your last stop in the human world before you enter hell itself,” Veylic explained, sputtering as blood replaced his intake of air.