by D. H. Dunn
“I cannot remember when I have had this much enjoyment!” Val said, walking between them and putting his arms around both of them. “Wait until I tell Zelquan that I stared down a grun and then led it on a chase through the wood.”
“Do not forget to tell him about falling into the stream!” Tanira added with a laugh. “I have been muddied before, but never was it this enjoyable!”
“You need to get a brother then,” Nima said with a smile. “I couldn’t count the times Pasang and I would be scolded by our mother for coming home so dirty!”
“And what would your mother say to that injury?” Val nodded towards Nima’s upper left arm as he brushed more debris off his shirt. “That looks like a scrape from the Grun.”
Nima looked down at the red line running across her upper arm. It only itched a little now, that irritation hardly noticeable.
“She would say, ‘Again, Nima?’ And then she would frown at me. My mother got used to me coming home with bruises and scrapes, and I got used to her frowning.”
“My father has a saying,” Tanira said. “Each wound and injury is a stone on the path towards your goal. Never lose sight of the horizon, or stray from your path.”
“And what is your path, Tanira?” Val removed his arms from their shoulders but continued to walk between them, their pace slow and relaxed. “You came here from far away for a reason. What is it you seek?”
Concern crept into Nima’s mood, but Tanira’s smile at Val pushed her worries away like a soothing wind.
“Nima calls it a ‘quest’,” she said with a laugh. “I seek an artifact that is kept on an island off these shores.”
“Maybe that is something your people know about?” Nima asked, pulling a large, blue leaf off a bush that partially encroached onto their path. “Have you heard of an island near your people?”
“Yes, several. I am not a fisher though, so I do not know the waters well. My friend Zelquan, perhaps he can help or even guide you.”
“That would be a great boon,” Tanira said. “It would be one more step in my long journey to help save my people.”
“And you, Nima?” Val turned towards her, his green eyes reflecting the emerald beauty of the tall grasses and trees around them. “What is your goal?”
“To help you both, I guess.” Nima shrugged her shoulders, favoring Val with a grin. “I hope I can help Tanira with her quest, and help you talk with your people, and see whatever amazing things this world has to offer. My goal is always over the next hill.”
“I think Nima is always climbing,” Tanira laughed. “Even on the ground, she looks to reach what she has not touched before.”
Around them, the dense, green trees had given way to rolling fields of golden grass, their path running lazily to the crest of a large hill. The yellow grass was broken up by thin, white trees, planted in straight lines on either side of the path, the branches sporting matching white leaves and crisp, blue flowers.
The scent of the flowers was like perfume, strong but pleasing. Nima could smell the ocean in the breeze as well, though the hill they approached obstructed any view of the sea.
“What is this place, Val?” Nima asked. “It is beautiful.”
“This is the Field of Calm,” Val said. “Once the Tempest is over and the wave has receded, the Calm begins. My people will use this road to return from the caves and resettle in the harbor until the next Tempest. So, we pass through these fields many times in our lives, it is a good reminder of the sequence of life.”
As they walked along, Nima noticed the trees bordering the road getting taller. Tanira had slowed and walked a bit behind them, one hand tracing the symbol on her head as she chanted softly.
“Why are the trees taller as we go on?” Nima asked, dropping her voice a bit softer. She did not want to disturb Tanira during her ritual.
“We plant a new tree on the path after each Calm. The ones here are closer to the harbor, they were planted longer ago.”
Nima took a look behind her, gazing past Tanira and seeing the rows of trees leading back to the forest.
“There must be hundreds of them! Your people have been doing this a long time.”
“Why do you not stay in the caves?” Tanira asked, her hands now back at her sides. She had been silent for so long, she startled Nima with her speech.
“The Elders say we are people of the sea, that we must return to it to remain Caenolan.” Val ran his hand through his hair. “Though the Elders also say to hide from the grun. They say to obey the Thartark when they demand their oil. They say . . .”
Val stopped speaking suddenly, staring off ahead of them at the crest of the hill. The sun had set, but there was still bright light coming from the distance, a light that pulsed from red to yellow. Nima inhaled, and smelled smoke on the air.
“Caenola!” Val cried, his voice filled with panic. He began to run, Nima and Tanira quickly following. “My people are being attacked!”
Chapter 7
Somewhere water was dripping. The source seemed to be somewhere in the small room she sat in, but Upala had been unable to locate it as of yet. She supposed it may have been in the walls. These chambers and hallways had been carved out of the mountain centuries ago by Orami Feram, the very Hero she had spent centuries studying.
The tiny room was barren save for a small fireplace in one corner, two stone chairs, and a cot made of stacked blankets. The doorway open to the hall brought in the cold, damp air of the mountain’s interior, Upala pulling her wool cloak a bit tighter.
Drew lay upon the cot, his eyes closed. She watched his chest rise and fall underneath the layers of thin blankets Trillip had been able to locate from the Library’s myriad of storerooms.
She had seen Drew’s chest ripped open just a few days before, Sinar’s massive hand inserted inside. All her life, neither she nor her brother had ever seen another Manad Vhan, now one had been here right in the place she most considered home, his shield easily repelling her attempts to reach Drew as he had searched inside him.
The path to Earth not forthcoming, Sinar had withdrawn his hand from Drew with disdain, letting the body drop to the floor as if it were just refuse.
In that moment, Upala had been sure Drew was dead, her own heart barely beating as she watched the blood pool upon the floor. Rushing to him, she had paid little attention to Sinar as he stormed out of the room in frustration.
She watched Drew’s eyes blink, fluttering open. She opened her mouth, then closed it, unsure of what to say.
His hands went to his chest, fingers running over the subtle scar upon his skin where there had once been a gaping hole from Sinar’s attack. Likely the last thing he remembered, she supposed.
He raised his head by a small amount off the rolled-up blankets they had been using as a pillow, just enough for him to peer through the low light and allow his eyes to connect with hers.
The corner of his mouth turned up, a movement so tiny she nearly missed it. He then lowered his head back down, his eyes blinking as he stared at the ceiling.
“So, I’m alive.” His voice was a rasp, a thin sound that was devoid of the strength she was used to hearing. “How?”
The water dripped again, somewhere off in the darkness to her left. The depth of his question staggered her, it was one of the many mysteries she had spent the past days studying.
“A lot of that is complicated… hard to say.” She wanted to go to him, she felt a pull towards him if as if she were falling, and found she had to will herself into staying on her chair. Another mystery.
“Start with the easy parts, then.” There were so many tones in his voice, and she was still unused to worrying about what people felt. Was that irritation? Exhaustion?
“Your body has healed your wounds from Sinar’s attack.” Her voice sounded small to her, to tiny for the immensity of what she was saying. “It should have killed you, Drew. Near as I can tell, you are healing just as I do, though I cannot explain it. Yet the evidence is obvious.”
&n
bsp; Upala paused for a moment, her heart pounding. “And I am glad for it,” she added.
“Me too,” Drew said, a bit of the humor she was used to woven into his words. She felt the tightness inside her loosen a little. “I guess understanding it will come later.”
“I will continue to research it. It may be temporary, perhaps caused by your portal journey to Aroha Darad.”
“And the big guy?” Drew coughed, the sound echoing through the darkened room. “The one who wanted to use me as a map to get to Earth?”
“Sinar,” Upala said. “He left, and I was unable to stop him, though I suppose I did not really try. My focus was on you. Fortunately, he did not accost anyone else as he departed. Merin, Trillip and the children are all safe.”
Drew ran both of his hands through his brown hair, releasing a large sigh.
“Well, that’s a relief. He’s headed off to Earth now, then?”
“No,” Upala shook her head. “He did not find what he wanted, and he was quite frustrated with you. He said something about your ‘essence’ needed to be willing, that it was a wasted opportunity. He was most upset.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” Drew chuckled. He propped himself up onto his elbows, peering through the shadowed darkness between them in the room.
“You told me neither you or your brother had ever seen any of your kind, in all your.. what, thousands of years? Now you meet another Manad Vhan and he’s pretty horrible. That must be hard for you.”
She stood from the chair, walking across the stone floor towards him. She crossed the distance in only a few paces, yet it felt like an eternity.
She felt the call to fall into his arms and ignored it. There was a pressure building up inside her that had nothing to do with Drew or her oddly insistent physical yearning for him.
It was his heart she needed right now, and his understanding.
“It is not my people’s history I am focused on at the moment, Drew, but my own.”
He nodded, looking up at her. She recalled the harsh words of Merin in Drew’s presence, anger levied against her from one of the people who risked their lives to save her. The person who had lost the most.
Anger that was completely justified.
“It seems there is a lot about your past I am discovering,” Drew said.
“Yes, it is not how I wanted you to learn about me.” She stood, hearing another drop of water land upon the stone in the hallway. “I did not want to hide anything from you, Drew. But I hope you would get more time to know … who I am trying to be.”
“Let’s start there, then.” His voice was calm, even. “Who are you trying to be?”
She focused on his voice, listening for judgement, the same judgement she had been giving herself. She did not hear it, but there was so much he still didn’t know.
“I want to be someone who cares.” She looked out into the hall, where in other rooms Trillip tirelessly gathered more research together for her. Where Merin comforted children who would never see their father again. Where dead faces had names she didn’t know. “Someone worthy of these people.”
“Hmm,” Drew said, turning to lean his back against the wall. “It sounds to me like you care quite a bit. But it also sounds like a big shift from the person Merin knows you to be. What caused that change? If you were like this for thousands of years?”
She walked over to the small wooden chair she had been sitting in earlier and pulled it close to the cot. Placing the chair, she sat across from him, their knees nearly touching. She looked into his eyes, which seemed to gleam inside the shadows of the room.
“It was a feeling that had been growing inside me, almost without me being aware of it. But it was going to your world that truly changed me, Drew. To Earth. That, and meeting you.”
“I can say it changed me too,” Drew said. “But why did you go? What was it you were looking for?”
“Earth is one of two legendary worlds among the Manad Vhan, as Sinar said. The other is Sirapothi, where our great Hero finally defeated Sessgrenimath, father of the Dragons. Sirapothi is a world where it is said a Manad Vhan cannot be hurt, even by the Fears.”
“And Earth?” Drew leaned forward, his hands resting on his knees.
“Earth is the opposite. On Earth, a Manad Vhan has no powers. Yet the ancient texts also say Sessgrenimath is barred from travelling there, as are his dragons. Both worlds represented what I have been searching for all my life. Somewhere safe, somewhere to hide.”
She knew he had been a solider in his world’s military. In that way, he had more in common with her brother than her. He had run to the fight, rather than seek shelter from it.
“I’m not proud of this, Drew. As children Kater and I saw our parents, supposedly immortal Manad Vhan, ripped apart in front of our eyes. It became… that moment became the only moment, for both of us. A year or a thousand, it was what I saw each time I closed my eyes. Their terrified faces, their helplessness.”
“So, you and Kater were essentially orphaned here in this valley, far away from your own people? And you turned to the Rakhum, to help research an answer?”
“I used them,” Upala said. “We both did. We knew the ruins of Orami Feram were here, buried in the mountains with the dragons. We saw the Rakhum as a resource. Kater was more brutal, where he controlled I managed. I traded protection from him with the Rakhum, in exchange for their help. Beyond that, I left them to fend for themselves.”
“So, if that went on for so long, why did it end?”
“It started with Merin’s husband, Kaditula.” Upala stopped, looking out into the hallway. There was pain in that darkness, pain she had allowed. “I do know his name, Drew. He was a scout, going through portals for me, exploring their worlds. He was the best, by far.”
“He was at that,” Drew smiled at her mention of Kaditula. “He seemed to know the whole of the Under inside and out. He was so curious, so full of enjoyment in the act of exploring.”
“He had a natural gift, and an enthusiasm for seeing those other worlds. It was engaging, and I found I liked him. Through that, I began to see him. Really see him as a person, and then I began to reconsider my view of his people.”
She thought back to those last few translations Kaditula had done for her, each time jumping into portals where he had no idea of the destination, with a huge grin on his face.
His lifespan was an eyeblink to her, yet he seemed to find more joy in those few heartbeats than she had found in a millennia.
She began to look forward to his returns, just so she could share in his excitement over each new discovery.
Until it had all gone wrong.
“Then he changed. I suppose it was all the portals, all the translations. One jump too many. On his return his mind was different, confused. Merin was furious, and for the first time in my life I felt guilt. Like ripples in the water that slowly become calm, I started to see myself differently. I was horrified.”
Drew sat silently as he listened. She looked for a reaction, a condemnation. But she saw no change in his expression, no hardening of his visage.
“I told him he would scout for me no more. Despite the damage that had been done to his mind, he seemed disappointed. I sent him to Merin to rest, and that night I resolved to test the most recently discovered portal myself. The one that brought me to you.”
“That’s quite a coincidence,” Drew said.
“Perhaps.” Upala paused, folding her fingers together. “Or perhaps whoever placed the portals in our worlds had a design in mind. Be it fate or fortune, that night I travelled to your world and the opening of my eyes was completed.”
Drew looked back at her, shaking his head.
“I don’t … I mean, Upala. That night meant a lot to me, too. Everything really. But we barely spoke. It was only a few hours, one night. If there was a change, give yourself the credit.”
She reached out, taking his hands in her own. They were warm, but she could feel the pulse of his heart underneath them. His skin was
rough and calloused, but as his fingers enfolded around hers, they felt like a comforting blanket.
“All it took one was look from Kaditula’s eyes to open the door. Drew, that night with you made sure it never closed again. You shared your pain with me, this awful burden of blame you had been carrying. It was a pain I understood, could connect with. Yet despite it you were good, a decent caring person. It gave me hope. Hope for myself.”
His eyes were damp as he looked back at her, his voice now trembling as he leaned closer.
“You did the same for me, though I never understood how until now. It was like I had a light in front of me. One I could follow.”
As a pair, they moved closer, their faces turning as her eyes closed. She put her hands upon his chest at the last moment, preventing the kiss, the touch she wanted so badly.
Yet now she suspected it could be too dangerous.
Her studies into Drew’s healing had uncovered another possible problem, one she dreaded to discuss but could not avoid. The very urges which now ran through her could be their undoing.
He opened his eyes as she pushed away from him slightly, his gaze filled with questions.
“Upala, if I’ve done something wrong, or if I have misread things, I am truly sorry.”
“Drew,” she sighed as she sat up straight, adding more distance between them. “It’s not that. Not that at all. It is just my research these past few days has pointed me to a possible… complication. It seems relations between Manad Vhan and Rakhum are not, uh. They are not advised. There could be unexpected reactions, to both of us. That is what my research has told me.”
“It’s a bit late for that,” Drew said with a chuckle. “Besides, I’m not a Rakhum. But I will admit, I’ve felt a little … out of control when I’m around you. I didn’t notice it in the Under but I do here. At times, when I look at you I can’t seem to think straight.”
“Like right now,” Upala said. There was renewed color in his cheeks, a subtle shift in his demeanor. He was in control, but he likely felt the same heat inside that she was wrestling with.