Camoe’s icy blue eyes stared at her, stretching the moment into two. “Do not think there has not been an attempt. This age—along with some that passed before—has seen many attempts to cull the dark threat. Permit me a brief description of the most recent. The Dark Users swarmed from the Dark Citadel pushing their slaves before them and whipping their Dark Creation creatures frenzy high. The allied armies of the White Lands withstood the hordes of darkness this time, even pushing them back to their stronghold, back to the Dark Gate. There, they fled inside and the great gate closed behind them. The allied armies could only hurl their magic at the great gate to which it stood, dark, powerful, and scarcely marked. Terrible, flying Creations disgorged from the cliffs above then. While battling those evil things, burning oil, catapulted boulders, and barbed cross bolts as thick as poles flew from the cliff face. A multitude of dark flame balls, funnel cones, and acidic rain conjured by the Dark Users to name a few, harrowed the armies from above them. The allied armies folded, unable to maintain a siege for long with those conditions. The cost was too high. Eventually the commanders realized the futility of it and broke off to return home in defeat, but at least Astura had peace for a time.
“But that’s what I mean. Why let them regroup and destroy your world? Take their base and they won’t be able to come at you again, infiltrate it first if you must.”
“I was able to infiltrate the Dark Citadel by the pretense of paying homage to their Great Lord, but it wouldn’t work for a large group. Someone would surely give them away. As it was, I have spent years convincing them theirs is the greater power, training their elite with advanced sword and warfare tactics while discreetly dispatching some of their promising young magic users. I have shown the enemy a greater service than I care to admit, I have sworn service to their Great Lord, I am bound to serve as long as he lives, but it was necessary to convince them of my loyalty. Many have thought as you throughout the ages. Some have even tried a frontal assault or infiltration. All have failed. Come, I shall let you see for yourself. I know a place where you can view the grand west entrance into that blasted dark hole in the rock.” Slipping around a rock shaped like a giant stairway, Camoe vanished into a thicket of stunted trees.
Stunted yes, but trees all the same, living trees. Jade hesitated, gazing in reverence. It didn’t matter if they served no purpose other than fuel wood, or shade, or supplied precious oxygen. The trees were so majestic to her, at any size. She recalled the time dad showed her and Crystalyn the first fruit trees and vegetable gardens preserved under the dome of the Farm, back when she’d barely been old enough to speak.
The fruit trees had been the beginning research for the citrus and nutrients. If it weren’t for the trees and plants, the Farm wouldn’t have been able to synthetically manufacture them and stave off the palsy. The King’s Administration now provided the daily requirements in a capsule if one had the credits to buy it. Diminutive fields sown for certain vegetables too stubborn to synthesize on Mid Realm and above yes, but there was no place for trees, only those that had been grown to give up their secrets. Gazing at the living wall made her realize just how great a loss it was.
A moment of searching revealed the obscure animal trail Camoe used. Ducking under a branch, she caught sight of a boot heel. He must have waited for her. She hurried to catch up, her feet crunching on the dryer twigs. The boot halted. Camoe waited in silence until she clomped up beside him.
“We are still striving for silence, Jade. Your created friend does not do too badly and it cannot bend at the knee,” Camoe said as soon as she drew near. “Your legs work like they should, yet birds are taking flight for leagues.”
“I don’t know how to be quieter.”
Camoe sighed. “I thought you would say that. You were louder than I liked underground, but there was no help for it. I suppose I should begin your training. First lesson—watch where I step from now on; second, put your foot down from toe to heel, like this. Let your toes take the weight as you roll your foot to the heel so that most of your foot never touches the ground at the same time. Do it with both feet with each step.” Exaggerating each foot placement, he stepped forward several paces. “You can also go from heel to toe, depending on the terrain and situation, but not that often. Now you try it.”
Jade did so. It was much harder than the druid made it appear.
“Not like that! I told you, toe to heel. Visualize it. Imagine you’re walking on hot rocks. Try to keep as much of your flesh away from the heat as you can, for the barest amount of time. Try again.” Not waiting for her second attempt, he stalked silently off into the forest.
Jade sucked in her lower lip, but then spit it out. Left alone, it would heal, but it was hard with Camoe’s impatience to deal with. She was trying her best. This time though, she imagined she could feel the heat through her boots. Stepping gingerly, she concentrated on keeping imaginary red-hot coals from burning into her soles, toe to heel. Traveling mostly on an incline, it was hard, but she kept at it. After a time, her leg muscles loosened, making the hike less hard. The quietness of the forest around her with the bright patches of sunlight here and there, the wonderful pungent smells of fresh pine needles with the underlying hint of moss, it all felt so much better than tromping around in the dark. Vibrancy grew all around, instilling in her a keen sense of renewal, making her feel alive. It was good to be outdoors.
The path continued much the same way for a good portion of the day until she rounded a small ridge top to find Camoe waiting in front of a thicket. He flashed a partial smile. “Well, that was much better. Keep it up and we may live through this.” Turning his back to her, he slipped into a withered patch of tangled scrub oak without a sound.
Jade stared at the living wall for a long moment. How was she supposed to watch where he stepped, or where she was stepping through that dying mess? Sucking in her lip, she went after him.
Once she fought past the first few dry brambles, the scrub oak thinned, revealing sagebrush mixed with tall meadow grass. Jade drew in a lungful of the sage. The Farm had specialized in it; she’d never gotten tired of the scent. The sage made it markedly easier to move through since it grew in small, short clumps, but Camoe made for the thickets.
Forging ahead, he slipped into a thick stand of unfamiliar, evergreen-like trees, far bushier and taller than any trees she’d seen on the Farm or viewed in holos. Not even the great sequoia or redwoods compared. The thick, fern-leaves, and massive gray-brown trunks, lorded over their surroundings from great heights, farther than she could see. Jade was awed. Dwarfing everything around them, they stood as stoic testaments to a land lush and vibrant.
As she advanced on the stand, she noticed the lodge pole pines trying to grow under the great branches were in danger of perishing, if they hadn’t already. Caught in the behemoth’s shade, lack of direct sunlight had turned their needles brown, while the bark had faded to a repulsive rust color. Dense carpets of moss, ferns and sprawling crabgrass, grew up the great trunks, adding to the mess she’d have to work her way past. The whole forest appeared to be dying, even the great trees.
A thought occurred to her. Burl didn’t have knees. Something his dark creator had deigned unnecessary, or lacked the skill to finish. In the Dark Citadel, the only time they’d had to crawl was the last vent shaft, but it was too dark for her to see how he accomplished it. Well, that and she’d fell asleep. But outdoors, away from the citadel, it looked like crawling was going to be required often. How did he do it? She stopped and looked back.
A moment later, her curiosity was sated. Falling deftly to the ground as if commanded to perform Dad’s morning ritual of pushups before her mom’s disappearance, Burl crawled forward on his hands and toes like a bug going under tree limbs and deadfall. When the debris became lower still, he simply went down to his elbows with apparent ease. Thankfully, he did have elbows. Burl made a bit louder noise than she cared for, but at least he seemed to be able to keep up.
Jade put her concerns aside for th
e time being: slipping through the brambles quietly took all her concentration. Perspiration beaded her brow. With any luck, she was getting better at it: Their lives depended on it. If only she could make Burl understand the need for stealth. She paused. Why couldn’t she? Burl had already proven he was capable of understanding her to a degree, even if he couldn’t speak.
Crawling near her, Burl paused, too, looking up like an obedient pet waiting for a signal from his master. Jade immediately felt guilty for the comparison. She wasn’t his master. Only the rich kept pets, with most of them connected to the King’s Administration in some way. Besides, a pet would have emotion visible in the eyes, such as devotion. Burl’s yellow-orange eyes were devoid of any emotion, as impassioned as a wind-up doll. Yet, his eyes did glint with an inner fire. So how was she going to convey to her mute friend the need for silence? Wow, now there’s a paradox, Jade thought. Then she shoved the thought from her mind. Camoe was widening the distance between them every second that passed.
An idea occurred to her to hold a finger to her lips. Except Burl didn’t have lips, or a mouth, for that matter. Putting her hands over her ears wouldn’t do any good either. Burl had no ears, not even charcoal drawn ones. He did respond to her commands well enough, either through intuitive sight reasoning, or signal recognition—likely some form of both. She was at a loss what to do. Wait!
Eager, Jade motioned Burl to keep his eyes on her, then using exaggerated motions, performed her best imitation of a feline stalking prey. Three times, she went through the routine, making sure Burl kept his gaze locked on her. Satisfied the raggedy man had at least wondered if she was losing her mind—if he knew what one was—she continued after Camoe, concentrating on stalking like a feline, but only on two feet. Either Burl got the message or he didn’t. Before she’d gone very far, she found that stalking worked well with the toe-to-heel walking, making it easier to be quiet, particularly when navigating thicker areas for some reason.
Contorting around several entwined branches and deadfall a few hours later—the forest was looking further desiccated the farther they went— she was surprised to emerge in a small meadow. Relief flooded through her. The small clearing would provide sanctuary from the arduous task of quiet stalking through dry, crackling trees and plants, at least for a time. Camoe lay on his stomach, peering over a rock ledge below a cliff face. She crossed the clearing, hunching over when the edge popped into view.
“You will need to be prone,” Camoe said his voice barely audible. “Keep your body outline hidden and your movements minimal.”
Jade flattened out and crawled near the druid, avoiding the bigger rocks and thorny shrubbery. “What is it?” she whispered.
“Any other time I would not have come this close: there are safer places to keep an eye on the Dark Citadel’s front door. However, I wanted you to see what we spoke about this morning. Behold, the Dark Gate.”
Glancing over the edge, Jade hugged the ground. The Dark Gate was close, too close for her liking. A three-story drop would land her on top of the gate wall looming darkly below. She stared in awe. A hundred meters wide, the gate curved outward at its center a half kilometer away, back to span a narrow canyon. Built with the same color of gray stone as the brooding mountain, the gate defied her imagination by its sheer size. Except “built” didn’t seem like the right word. No stonework seams were visible, as if sliced from solid stone. Two gigantic, black iron doors stood closed halfway along each side of the center arc, hung on massive poles bored through the wall. On the top of the wall, two huge gears lay immobile above the doors. Crenelated turrets lined the outer edge, with many squat, sturdy-looking catapults placed behind them. Again, there were no seams or visible mortar lines on the turrets. Jade started, gazing wildly around. The gate, the gate wall, even the massive gears, appeared carved out of the mountain. The enormity of the task was staggering. How many years of backbreaking slave labor and slave lives had been lost in the construction of such a monstrosity?
Camoe gestured for her to look further behind the gate. Raising her neck at an awkward angle, she looked up to see a second wall towered above the one below. She wanted to sink into the ground. How had she missed it? Or had she? Not entirely, she’d thought of it as a cliff face when she’d first seen it, but it wasn’t. It was a major fortification of the Dark Citadel proper. Four great doors spaced evenly with room to slide each their doubled sides wide, stood as stark reminders of the dreadful flying things Camoe had mentioned. He’d taken a terrible chance in coming here. Anyone or any…thing, was sure to spot them from the upper wall.
Pushing back from the edge, she crawled, her cheek touching the ground. Lifting her head only when necessary to clear rocks or debris, she snaked methodically around shrubs and higher deadfall, vaguely noting Burl standing at meadow’s edge like a tree stump long forgotten. Oblivious to the sharp rocks and broken deadfall, she crawled until shelter behind a rock at the foot of one of the big desiccated trees, enclosed her. Safe from hostile eyes, she sat with her back on the far side of the wide trunk. Pulling her knees up, she wrapped her arms around them and lowered her head to still her racing heart and shortness of breath.
She wanted to cry. How could anyone expect to survive on a world where evil had a stronghold of such magnitude as the Dark Citadel? It was too powerful. How would she survive, even with Camoe’s help? After all, he’d lost the girl in the image. Why should she expect it to be any different for her? Astura was much too dangerous. Sometime, somewhere in her travels searching for Crystalyn or the way home, she was bound to make a mistake, a critical mistake. One stupid, simple mistake was all it’d take. She’d die, violently.
The worst part was she was clueless as to how to stack the odds in her favor. This dark and violent world wasn’t going to give her enough time to learn its ways. Her only defense was the ability to read images floating around a person. What good was that going to do?
The crack of breaking wood startled her. Camoe was bending small branches between his fists until they broke at a length he wanted. Burl stood close by.
Sounding as loud as a scream, at least to her it did, Camoe snapped another twig. “Come, we forced our luck too much here. I want to put some distance between us and this place before dark fall.” Content he’d made enough to start a fire at some future point; he tied them into a bundle and then tied the bundle to Burl’s back.
“Camoe, can I ask you a something? You’ve never told me about the girl in the image. Who was she?”
Reaching for his leather bag he’d hung on a lower tree branch, Camoe stiffened. His arm fell limp to his side. Moments passed. She was about to tell him never mind when he suddenly snatched the bag, and stalked into the forest. “She was my daughter,” hung in the air after him.
Jade scrambled after him, compassion, respect for his privacy, and questions about all of it, warring in her mind.
DO’BRIENI
Two short steps and Crystalyn would be beyond going back. Two small fir tree branches stood between her and the voice she had heard in her mind. Two short breaths and she’d finally come face to face with the Warden who waited in the small meadow ringed with trees. She knew the precise layout of the clearing; the image was still vivid in her mind, yet she had apprehension. The being that had projected the image remained a mystery.
She sensed the impatience from the Warden, who’d kept a patient vigil while she’d regained strength for days, maintaining a self-inflicted silence, telepathic or otherwise. The spiderbees had taken a toll on her. Much natural and magical healing had been required to keep her alive. The Lore Mother had done what she could, but the wound refused to close.
She’d kept it from the others, letting them believe she was on the mend so as not to further delay the search for Jade. If not for the spiderbees’ weakness to wood of all things, she wouldn’t be here, at least not in the corporeal sense. Every living thing has to have a weakness—as her dad would say—or it would take over the world. The spiderbees natural makeup—or leec
hers, as the natives called the creatures—apparently had a resistance to magic, since they were an aberration to the Flow. At some point in the past, they’d fed from the Flow, or a User had created them.
Either way, it made them magical creatures that had proliferated on their own, and they were not unique. The Lore Mother had warned there were other species. Had it not been for Lore Rayna’s Terra magic and Cudgel’s wooden weapon, she would’ve been lost. Or would she? The memory of the beautiful, beckoning light was fading, but she’d carry the sense of great loss from not reaching the golden light, with her from now on. She’d been so close to having all the trial of her past life stripped from her, as if they’d never been. Such things didn’t exist there in the light.
Shouldering through prickly—yet green and soft—pine needle branches, she took a few steps forward, and then paused. She was close enough she didn’t need the link to sense the excitement bubbling from the being nearby. Doubts assailed her. What if the Warden didn’t realize who she was and attack? Should she have a symbol ready? After all, there was only the assurance of a voice in her mind that no harm would befall her.
No, she was creating fears where none should be. There was no animosity from the Warden, only excitement tinged with its own apprehension.
It was time to get on with it.
Brushing past a final tree branch, she slipped into the clearing, and then paused, gaping in awe.
Lying sedately, a huge canine-like being sprawled on top a patch of meadow grass, reminding her of the great mastiff statue she had catalogued once for Ruena. The short and glossy sienna fur was similar to the fur of a golden Labrador the Farm scientists had retained, but any resemblance ended there. Massive paws supported thick claws. The being’s broad back and wide head bore a set of powerful jaws that stood out on a trim face, which reminded her of the holographic of the northern wolf. The eyes—hourglass in shape—were a vivid amber, gazing at her with a vast and somber intelligence. This being was beautiful and other worldly, beyond what she could have imagined.
Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) Page 22