I jumped, but couldn’t force myself upright.
“I can’t move,” I muttered, staring at him from my back.
“Your feet need to be treated.”
“Tell me something I didn’t know,” I groused. “Sorry. But I don’t know what to do for them.”
He just shot me a reproachful glance as he knelt down in front of me. From his haversack he retrieved a few items and a wad of clean cloth, then he placed my foot on his leg to treat. He worked quickly, and he certainly knew what he was doing. I barely felt him lance the blisters with a thin, sharp blade. Once he had drained the fluid, he opened a tiny leather case and scooped out a bit of pale green paste. It smelled strong and somewhat familiar. Camphor. Shan’s salve. It cooled and numbed the blisters, relieving the stinging pain. When Yatol finished he bound my feet with cloth and wiped his hands on the edge of his tunic.
“Akhmar will come. You can’t walk anymore just yet.”
I frowned at my feet, furious with them but strangely relieved that Akhmar would be coming. Maybe it was the grey gloaming of the forest pressing down on me, or some residual alarm creeping back over me, but I wanted nothing more than for Akhmar to be with us. Now.
“This should give you some energy,” Yatol said softly.
He was slicing a strange, gourd-like fruit in half, sawing through the squeaky thick rind. On the inside it looked like a pomegranate, with hardly any meat and only a small handful of bead-like seeds in its hollow center. Yatol handed me half of the fruit, and I watched him to see how to eat it. Like I thought, he scooped out the seeds and munched on them, but he didn’t spit out any fibery bits like I’m used to doing with pomegranates. I shrugged and followed suit. The yellow juicy flesh tasted like grapes, and the inner seeds just melted away. But even better than the sweet, tangy seeds was their thirst-quenching juice. When I’d finished the fruit, Yatol gave me a few pieces of crisp, airy bread. I didn’t notice if he ate any himself.
“I’m sorry there’s nothing else,” he said when I had finished.
“Nothing? I’m famished. I thought you brought food from the camp.”
“It was all they could spare. And the food from the camp is for when there is nothing else.”
That didn’t comfort me, but I forced the thought away. “Where’d you go to get it, anyway?”
He nodded over his shoulder. “There’s an outpost nearby where scouts can get food and rest. But their supplies are nearly exhausted – there are far more scouts abroad these days than usual.” I frowned, so he said, as if it were obvious, “War.”
“Right. Yatol, if the Ungulion force is all gathered in the Perstaun, then where is the rest of your army?”
“You’ve seen all the army we have.”
“That was it?”
“What do the numbers matter?” he muttered. “You’ve seen the most damage we can do them.”
“Then why have an army at all?”
“To give our people some semblance of hope,” he said, his voice thin. “We’ve always had an army. For a long time it was merely ceremonial, before the Ungulion began to plague us. Then they came, and the people fled to the city and begged the army to defend them. So they marched. They went bravely enough until the city vanished beyond the horizon, then they took to dodging shadows and lying low, trying to keep the enemy at bay without doing battle. It worked for a while.” He shook his head. “The Ungulion are indestructible, as far as we can judge. And yet, we go to destroy them.”
Everything inside me went cold. I wished he hadn’t said it. I supposed I’d always known it, but I had never let myself think about it. I stared at my hands, clenched white-knuckled on my lap. I forced them to unlock. Forced myself to breathe slowly.
“We haven’t had much time to talk since you returned,” Yatol said. “What did you learn?”
I had gone back, hadn’t I? I’d almost forgotten. Gone back and failed.
“Not as much as I would have liked,” I said. “My father taught literature. Kurtis said his interest was mythology, and the work of a man named Tolkien.” I frowned, trying to think of how to explain it. “Tolkien wrote a book he called the ‘Epic History of the Elves,’ which had some retellings of real myths.”
“Elves?” said Yatol, his eyes glinting strangely. “Interesting. Immortal beings?”
“Yeah, something like that. Kurtis said my father thought Tolkien’s mythology was as real as the other myths.”
“As real?” He shot me a curious glance. “Or do you mean, as true?”
I thought about that a moment, then smiled. “Yes. As true.”
“Did you find the book?”
“Kurtis gave me a copy. I left it behind. But my father had marked a passage, something about an island being drowned and part of the world being torn away.”
Suddenly I remembered the sheaf of papers that had fallen out of the book. I hadn’t had a chance to look at them yet. Actually I’d completely forgotten about them, in the aftermath of our return to Arah Byen. I opened my pouch and pulled them out.
“I found these in the book,” I said, smoothing the paper on my leg. “The book was my father’s. Maybe these papers were his too.”
I squinted at them in the dim light, and Yatol shifted closer to look over my shoulder. I could make out a drawing, which looked like a map of the Mediterranean. Maybe. Geography had never been my strong suit. There were other markings on the page, too, like some strange script. I pointed at it.
“I can’t read that.”
Yatol slanted me a curious glance. “So you can speak the language, but can’t read the writing? Fascinating.”
“Well, children learn to speak before they learn to read,” I said glumly.
I shot him a furtive glance and saw him smiling. Teasing. I knew what that look said: You just called yourself a child. I shoved him.
“Shut up!”
He just grinned at me, then tugged the papers from my hands. “Do you mind?”
“Have a party.”
That got a skeptical look from him. I hoped the phrase didn’t mean something different in Arathi than it did in English. For a while he sat quietly, studying the papers.
“Let’s see,” he said after a while. “This talks about the ayshkahl, some of the old rune verses. Then here…”
He paused, then pointed to a set of markings. That I could read.
“Tolkien.”
“Ah. This talks about Tolkien’s work. There are a bunch of names, all pointing to each other.”
He held it in front of me so I could look on with him. I saw the names he was talking about, written in my kind of alphabet.
“That first one is Andor. I remember that from the book. And it points to Atlantis? Atlantis in myth was an island that was drowned,” I commented. “Then we have The West, pointing away to…”
I tapped a couple of foreign words, both connected by arrows to ‘The West.’
“Arah Byen. And n’Talanthis.”
“Oh, Yatol! Elekeo mentioned that name, n’Talanthis. He said they assaulted it.”
“Hm,” Yatol said. “Andor sounds remarkably like a name I recall from the lore masters’ books – Andenor. Not our ancient home, but the land of a rival king. We know nothing much besides the name, and that it was drowned. Where, when and why had all been lost. But the other name, n’Talanthis, was there in our books too. Your father believed it referred to the land we had left.”
“So, my father is saying that Andenor is the same as Atlantis? But why does Atlantis sound so similar to n’Talanthis, if Andenor was your enemy?”
The similarity had just occurred to me, but now that I thought of it, it seemed obvious. Yatol leafed through the papers, scanning the notes my father had scrawled.
“Well, your father writes here that there was some kind of confusion in your world’s myths. He says that Andenor was a neighboring island.” He made a noise of surprise. “And n’Talanthis was apparently an island, too. I never knew. The doubters always claimed it was a region i
n the Perstaun that got ‘drowned’ by the sands…as if it hadn’t always been a desert. But your father believed it belonged to another world, and that the drowning wasn’t just an allegory.”
“Wait, wait. Let me get this straight. We’ve got two islands, Andenor and n’Talanthis, apparently at war. Then, you said that Andenor was drowned? And n’Talanthis seems to be the same as Arah Byen, or Tolkien’s West, which got torn away from Earth. And then people got confused and forgot about n’Talanthis – the real one – and called Andenor Atlantis by mistake?”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“But what was the war about? And what does Andenor have to do with us now, if it got drowned? Oh,” I gasped in realization. “The Ungulion? If they assaulted n’Talanthis, you don’t think they’re…”
“That’s what your father writes here,” Yatol said, drawing up one knee and leaning on it. “He says that the Andenori thought the n’Talanthi had some kind of immortality.”
“The life-gift! Elekeo mentioned that too.”
His eyes flickered at me briefly, then he went on, “He writes that the n’Talanthi were renowned throughout the world for virtue and excellence. Arts, sciences, military prowess. There’s mention of the Brethren walking openly among them. Apparently the Andenori got jealous, maybe thinking they could win immortality through combat. But the n’Talanthi king disregarded all the warnings as the Andenori fitted a fleet of ships and set sail to seize the island. But then the…”
His voice died, and for a while he read quietly. I watched him surreptitiously, noticing that his face paled two or three shades as his gaze flitted over the pages. But his expression never changed. He glanced at me and saw me studying him, so he jabbed a finger against the paper.
“Your father says here that a great flood rose up, swallowing the fleet and the whole island of Andenor. But n’Talanthis was preserved, and somehow was removed from your world and reestablished here. But the Andenori had made a vow to an evil being – what is this, some god or spirit, maybe? – that they would never stop until they had destroyed every last n’Talanthi. And that spirit held them to their oath, giving them a mockery of immortality so that they could continue their hunt.”
“Ungulion.”
He nodded. “What’s this say here? Looks like a drawing of Pyelthan. It has the rune verse written out that Enhyla mentioned, ‘The Circle of Judgment / in the Judgment Seat.’ And here’s a name, King Silon, and I believe that’s an angelic symbol. Nothing else but some isolated words. Here’s Mekaema. Then, let’s see, death, judgment, hell.”
“That’s helpful,” I commented dryly. “So Pyelthan is the Circle of Judgment, whatever that means. And the Ungulion are trying to finish what they started, long ago.”
For some reason, my words fell like a dead weight on the air. Then Yatol laughed, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes.
“The foolishness of it all is that they drew this punishment on themselves seeking something they could never have. And they still seek it! And would destroy us all for the sake of it.” He sighed, folding up the papers and handing them back to me. “Well, did you learn anything else from the book?”
I shrugged. “Just something about a road that still goes into the West, that the elves could travel, only nobody could make the voyage alone. Yatol, it’s the portal, isn’t it? And that’s why the Brethren have to bear us over it. But how exactly does it work?”
“How does it work?” Yatol echoed blankly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, why is it only sometimes open? And how do the Ungulion cross it if the Brethren have to carry us? Is it because they’re not…alive?”
“No,” he said, grim. “When your father discovered the portal, they sensed its presence. I don’t believe any of them can actually call it open, but they can force passage on it if one of us does. Which is why…”
“…there’s a portal guardian,” I finished. “To make sure none get through.”
“Right. We aren’t always able to prevent them, if there are too many or we are too weak.”
“But how do they travel it?”
“The Forsworn of the Brethren could bear the Ungulion over that path, if they could be persuaded to.”
“You mean demons?” I shuddered with horror. “Kurtis told me there was a professor who wanted to steal Pyelthan from my father. Dr. Balson. I met him before we left. Somehow he reminded me of an Ungulion, but he looked like a normal person. Do you think he might be one of them?”
“Yes. Your father warned me about him. He appeared in our lands before my time as portal guardian.” He hesitated, plucking a leaf and smoothing its curling edges with fierce attention. “A brave man guarded the portal then. But this Ungulion was too powerful. No one expected it. We mourned a great hero that day. Some of us still mourn him.”
I watched his face in the dim light for a while, then lay down in silence.
Chapter 24 – Royin
Akhmar came hours later. I had been sleeping, that horrible sort of sleep where you linger just at its edge, not dreaming but not thinking anything coherent either. Just a helpless paralysis that clings to your mind as well as your body, so that even waking up seems beyond reach.
Slowly I sensed his warm, ethereal light bathing me, then I became aware of the voices speaking nearby.
“Bless the hour of your coming,” Yatol was saying.
“A dark hour, nonetheless.”
“Should I wake her? We have no time.” An unsettling pause. “Akhmar. Do we have any time at all? How far has the force gone?”
“To the edge of the Perstaun, but no further.”
“But how much time before they come to Alcalon? A few weeks? Longer? But even if it were months, how can we possible reach K’hama so soon?” Another pause. “Even if you were to carry us to its borders…”
“Even if I do, you must still find your way to the Citadel, midway into the Void.” His voice was calm, without any strain of anxiety or dismay.
“It’s hopeless!” Yatol cried. “What can we mean to do?”
It was the first time I’d sensed that forsaken mood in him since the Brethren had come, and it shook me to the core.
His voice dropped. “What did Davhur think he could accomplish? Even if we find him, we will be half a world away from the army that threatens us! Are we even right to try to track him in K’hama? If Pyelthan does indeed have some purpose, and isn’t just a symbol of office, then shouldn’t it go to Zhabyr? I want to find Davhur, of course, but we cannot withstand a siege in Alcalon. Not forever.”
I caught my breath. It had never occurred to me that we might be defeating ourselves by taking Pyelthan into K’hama. But the idea of forsaking the search for my dad made me furious.
“Do you trust me?” Akhmar asked, and I wondered if he was speaking to me, reading my thoughts.
“Akhmar,” Yatol said, as though in disbelief. “Yes. Of course. How could you ask?”
“Then trust me when I say that you do not go into K’hama in vain.”
I forced my eyes open, just in time to see Yatol nod resignedly. I struggled up and limped over to them, then stayed standing because I was afraid to sit back down.
“Yatol, listen! I asked you once if Pyelthan was the way I could come to Arah Byen, and you said, if only it were that simple. But it isn’t, and thank God for that! Because whatever it is, and whatever it does, it will change the fate of this world. And somehow I think my father did what he did because he knew I would follow him. I may not know what I’m supposed to do, but I think he did. I have to trust him. And so should you.”
He gazed at me curiously, and I felt Akhmar’s approval. I held out my hand to Yatol. After a moment his face softened, and he took my hand and got to his feet.
I had forgotten how fast Akhmar could run. I was clinging to Yatol before Akhmar had taken a full stride, and didn’t dare open my eyes for a full minute. Finally I settled back into the swinging rhythm of his pace, but I still had no inclination to look arou
nd. I thought I would be able to hear branches cracking and undergrowth rustling around us, but I only heard the wind. Once I opened my eyes, saw the forest blurring past under the enduring gloom, and closed them quickly again.
At some point Akhmar stopped, and we slid off his back exhausted and numb. Vaguely I heard him tell us to rest, but I didn’t need anyone to tell me. It seemed even darker when I woke up, and it took me a moment to realize that it was because Akhmar had gone. Wide-awake, I scrambled to my feet and ran to Yatol, shaking him violently.
“Where is Akhmar?”
He woke slowly, shaking his head and staring around as if not entirely sure what I was asking him. That was weird. I couldn’t remember him ever being so deeply asleep that he couldn’t be alert and aware in a moment. He sat up drowsily. The weariness in his eyes was contagious, and my temporary burst of energy faded in the space of a moment. I dropped onto the ground beside him.
“Yatol? Why is it so hard?”
“Tyhlaur said this region was treacherous, but I didn’t know why.”
I knotted my fist and pounded it against the loamy ground. “Because it makes us tired?”
“It will only get harder, the closer we come to the Void.”
“It can’t be that bad,” I gritted. “He made it through, didn’t he?”
“Tyhlaur only went as far as the outer border of the Branhau to scout.”
“There’s no other way, then?”
“No.” He twirled a tough leafy stalk in his fingers, then snapped it into bits. “If we had more time, maybe. But this is the only way for us now.”
I grumbled.
“Just rest now.”
“Where is Akhmar?” He started to lie back down, so I punched him in the arm. “Don’t lay down. Where is Akhmar?”
“Somewhere…”
He waved dismissively and reclined on the ground.
“Akhmar!” I shouted, jumping to my feet. “Akhmar!”
That got him up. “Quiet!” he cried. “We don’t know if there are any Ungulion still near us here.”
“Yeah, well, don’t lay down.”
He glowered at me.
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