And anything that could shake that girl, scares the tar out of me!
Rotating in a circle, he looked for anything out of the ordinary. With a shake of the head, he lurched into a jog to catch Elith up. Once he drew even with her, they walked on without speaking. Uncertain of what to ask that would not end up with her putting a knife to his throat, he chose to hold his tongue.
Around the bend, Alant, Klain and Charver stood waiting on them. His brother took a few steps toward them. “Where did you go? We almost came back to look for you.”
Looking at Elith from the corner of his eyes, Arderi shrugged. “We were just—sightseeing.”
His words did not make his brother happy. On the contrary, his frown deepened. “This is not the place, Arderi. I have no idea how far ahead Rohann is. We should not separate, even in the daylight.” With a glance at Elith, Alant turned and started off once more.
It was at least two aurns of steady walking before they caught the merchant up, and although several aurns still lay till sundown, the shadows had lengthened and the land lay covered in a perpetual cloak of dusk. Topping a small rise, they found Rohann in the center of what Arderi could only describe as a plaza.
Though, why someone would build a plaza in a big depression—like a giant bowl in the ground—is beyond me.
Rohann sat cross-legged in front of a small, black-barked tree with red leaves. The tree stood in the center of the depression. It was no taller than a man, and a fine red sand covered the ground around it. Swirls and patterns covered every inch of the sand. Buildings of different sizes and shapes surrounded the plaza in various states of collapse.
As the group approached, Arderi nodded to Rohann. “You have been busy.” He pointed to the patterns in the sand. “What do any of them mean?”
The merchant shifted his position so he could look up at Arderi. “I did not make those. This is how I found them.”
“What do you mean? You must have created the swirls in the—” Arderi stopped talking when his brother grabbed his arm.
“This is a miniature version of the one in Hath’oolan. Same burnt flesh-like bark. Same blood-red leaves. Same twisted and tormented appearance.” He rubbed his hands up and down his arms as if chilled. “And same unholiness emanating from it.” Walking to the edge of the red sand, he bent down. “I even think I recognize some of these patterns. I, too, assumed that someone tended the sand. Made the patterns. Now that I think on it, I do not remember anyone ever entering into the sand itself.” Standing, he faced the others. “And I recommend that we keep to that practice—no one step on the red sand. I have no idea what it will do, yet I do not think it is wise.”
“What are you going on about?” The Kith stepped forward. “It is just sand.”
Alant shook his head and stepped away from the tree. “Nix, Master Klain. This is a Chandril’chi tree. And by the looks of it, a very young one.”
Letting go of Klain’s hand, Charver moved a bit closer. “How do you know it is young?”
Reaching behind him, Alant snagged the boy’s shirt and pulled him back next to Klain. “Because the one that stands in front of the Chandril’elian in Hath’oolan has stood there for so long, none of the Elmorians can even remember a time when it was not there. It is said that it has always been there. And it is not the largest tree I have ever seen. Still, it is ten times larger than this one.” Frowning, he shrugged. “Besides. This one seems less…”
“Less what?” The Kith reached out and put a firm hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Just less. That is all I can say.”
“Well, it is short for a tree.” Arderi laughed. “What now?”
At this, Rohann stood. “Alant knows. I was told he could find her from here!” Something had changed about the merchant. He stood rubbing his hands together, eyes darting to and fro. His previous manic zeal had been pushed to its breaking point. Klain seemed to sense it also, for the large lion-man stepped in between Rohann and his son.
“What am I supposed to know?” Alant sounded frustrated. “This is what I have been feeling. Or, at least, this area.” He waved a hand indicating the entire plaza. “There is a massive pull. Like something is using up the Essence at an alarming rate.”
“Yet, there is nothing here!” Arderi felt his brother’s frustration take hold of him as well. Though he fought to maintain an exterior of calm, inside he had been on edge since the day they left Mocley. Now, after over a moon of hard traveling, not knowing what lay ahead, he had expected something more. Finding this—a tree—was simply not enough. “We are in the middle of a massive city that even the birds will not enter and night is falling! What do we do now? Was this not supposed to be the end of our journey? Were we not to meet someone, find something? Not just a tree!”
“Hold on, Arderi.” Alant reached out and grabbed his arm. “I think I may have an idea.” Turning, he pointed at Rohann. “What is it you said about me knowing where to go?”
“Just that if I led you to this tree, you would know how to find her.”
“Find her?” Alant’s tone dropped and he swallowed hard. “Find who?”
A wicked grin split Rohann’s face. “I think you know who. She called you here in much the same way she called me.”
“So it was not a dream.” Awe now filled Alant’s voice. “She really did speak to me.”
Arderi knew Rohann had lost his mind. He had known it for some time now. Listening to his brother speak so gave him pause, however. “Alant? What are you talking about?”
His brother turned, a look of disbelief in his eyes. “The Goddess Saphanthia.”
Elith gasped and Arderi laughed. “What do you mean, the Goddess Saphanthia?”
“The Goddess Saphanthia.” Alant threw up his hands. “THE Goddess Saphanthia. It was her, that eve in the woods. She came to me.”
Elith moved up beside Arderi. Hand covering her mouth, she stared wide eyed at Alant.
Arderi shook his head. “Alant? Saphanthia? As in, from the Book of the Twelve, Saphanthia? Goddess of Wisdom, Saphanthia?” Arderi believed in the gods, or at least thought he did. They laid out the rules of life, prompted you to do good deeds. Waited for you in the Aftermore to help you start that new journey. Still, to say you had actually met one. Talked to one. That seemed—“Impossible.”
“Nix, Arderi. Not impossible. It was her. Or, a vision of her, mayhaps. She said Saphanthia waited for me. That she would answer all my questions. It is why I came here.” The conviction in Alant’s words were strong and all Arderi could do was nod.
Or call him out for being a sheep following fool!
Rohann pushed between them. “Aye. And she said if I brought you here, you could find her.”
At the merchant’s words, Alant turned and pointed at the tree. “If these trees follow a pattern, then what we seek is directly below that tree.” Glancing around, he motioned to a wide building that at one time might have been called grand. A few marble columns still stood to one side of the stairway leading up to its front door. “There.” Not pausing, he walked around the red sandy area and headed for the building, Rohann hot on his heels like an excited dog.
“Wait!” With a glance at Elith, Arderi jogged to catch his brother up. “Why that building?”
Shrugging, Alant continued to walk. “I do not know. It just looks—official. Much like both Chandril’elians I have attended.”
Arderi waved a hand at the building and grimaced. “Official? It does not even have a roof!”
Everyone made their way up the embankment from the Chandril’chi tree and then climbed the marble stairway after Alant. Vines and muck covered most of the structure, and Arderi thought if he put his back into it, he could topple the remaining pillars lining the stairway. The building’s interior held an eerie dark, dank feeling, with a heavy odor of decay. If there had been doors on the gaping entranceway—which Arderi was certain t
here had been at one point—they had long rotted away.
Alant stood in the center of the large entrance hall, looking up. Coming up even with him, Arderi strained his neck and peered into the shadows some ten paces overhead. “Do you see something?”
“Aye.” His brother’s word was a mere whisper, yet it echoed through the chamber. “There once was a grand…” He waved his hand in a circle, pointing up. “…portrait is all I can call it. It was not painted. It was made from the Essence, somehow. Mayhaps a Silrith’tar, only without a canvas.”
“How do you know this?” It was then that Arderi caught the red glow emanating from Alant’s eyes.
“I can see the residual traces of the Essence floating about.” Turning his burning red eyes to Arderi, Alant smiled. “Whoever lived here held more power and control over the Essence than anyone living now. That is for certain.” Slowly, the red faded from his brother’s eyes.
Arderi suppressed a shudder—he did not want to make his brother feel uncomfortable. Alant’s red eyes were the one thing he did not think he would ever get used to. “So, what are we looking for?”
Facing the others as they joined them, Alant bobbed his head. “All right. If that tree out there follows the same pattern as the one in Hath’oolan, what we are looking for is beneath it. This means we need to find some type of stairway or tunnel that leads down.”
“This place is scary enough!” Charver’s tiny voice reverberated loud enough to send dust motes falling from the ceiling. “I do not want to go down into some cave!”
“It will be all right, son.” Making a move to reach out and pat the boy on the shoulder, Rohann stopped at a low growl from Klain. Instead, he squatted down next to Charver and looked him in the eye. “The Goddess of Wisdom, Saphanthia, is near. You do not really think she would bring us all this way just to let some old cave hurt us, do you?”
Charver glanced from his father to Klain. “I…I guess not. I am still scared, though.” Stepping away from Rohann, he reached out and took the Kith’s paw. “Yet, if Master Klain is brave enough to go down, then so am I.”
The weak smile on Rohann’s face turned into a scowl when he looked up at the Kith. “Aye, Master Klain is brave enough, are you not?” The sudden change in the man’s attitude startled Arderi.
Klain appeared to notice it as well, for he pulled the boy behind him and faced Rohann. “You are not the man I met in Mocley. This expedition has tainted you.”
A fervor filled the merchant’s eyes as it never had before. “What do you know, beast? We are in the presence of a goddess! All that I desire is within my grasp. I have done her will and she will reward me as no man has ever been rewarded!”
With lightning sparking between his fingertips, Alant faced Rohann. “What do you mean, you have done her will? What have you done?”
Backpedaling, as if he had been burned by Alant’s lightning, Rohann’s manner filled with fear. “Nothing! She called and I came. She showed me the way, that is all. The only thing I failed to do for her was to employ—” His mouth clamped shut and he spun about like a wild animal that found itself cornered. “We must hurry! They are coming!”
As if on queue, loud hisses and the crunch of breaking branches echoed through the jungle outside. Fear ripped through Arderi and he started for the doorway. Rohann reached out, snagging his arm. “Nix! There are too many! If you are seen, we will be overrun. We must find the stairway down. It is our only hope!”
Arderi heard them. Hissing and clacking. Moving about, searching the courtyard outside.
It sounds like there are hundreds out there!
“The merchant is correct.” Alant turned and headed for the back of the building. “If this is the building I hope it is, there should be something out back.”
The party followed Alant, taking any hallway that ran toward the back of the building. Within moments, they exited out into a large walled courtyard. The wall in several places had collapsed, and only a few broken statues remained on the pedestals that littered the area, yet Arderi could see that at one time this had been a large garden.
“There!” Without pause, Alant raced across the courtyard to a pile of rubble that may have been a small building once. A massive jungle tree dominated one side of the pile, stretching high into the air, its branches adding to the canopy.
Glancing up, Arderi noticed how late it had become. Dusk fell in earnest now, and darkness would soon cover the land. Following his brother, the rest of the party made their way over the rubble to the far side. There, between two fallen slabs of marble, each larger than the Kith, stood an opening. The beginnings of a stairway, just visible in the waning light, disappeared into the bowels of the ground.
Grabbing his brother’s shoulder, Arderi drew Dorochi and stepped inside. The stairs, from what little he could see, curved gently to his right. “These stairs lead away from the tree, brother!”
A bright flash came from behind him, spilling from Alant’s hands and illuminating the stairway further down. His brother stepped up next to him. “Well, we will just have to make our way around underground then. There must be passageways and such.”
Loud clacks and hisses filled the courtyard behind them. Shifting his eyes to Alant, he held his brother’s gaze. “The good news is, it seems we are getting near the end of our journey and mayhaps you will find those answers you seek.” Arderi then flicked his chin in the direction of the noises. “The bad news is, I am not sure we will live long enough to enjoy the good news.” With a bark of a laugh, he turned and held his sword out in front of him. The light from Alant’s glowing hands stretched down into the darkness. Reaching over, he drew his long dagger from its scabbard and took a few more steps down. The sounds of the others following echoed off the wet walls, and he saw that the stairway continued to curve well out of his line of sight. With a last glance over his shoulder, he started his descent.
This is insanity! Yet, if there is anything down here that can help my brother, it had best be ready to deal with me.
Shaking his head, Alant Cor followed his brother down the dark stairwell. The sounds of the jungle and the horde of lizard creatures with their hisses and clacks, were soon swallowed by the silence of the tunnel. A distant plip-plop of water dripping onto stone resonated from somewhere ahead. Klain’s low, throaty growl, like a sudden avalanche of noise, reverberated past him, and Alant turned with the intent to hush the big Kith. The look of outright bestial rage in Klain’s eyes forced him to swallow his reprimand.
One paw on young Charver’s shoulder, Klain waved his other toward the darkness beyond. “This is no place for the living.” His nostrils flexed as if he smelled something putrid, though to Alant, the air simply carried an old and stale odor. “It smells…wrong. We should not go down there.”
With a grunt, Rohann Vimith pushed past Klain and took his son by the arm, pulling him away from the Kith before anyone could stop the man. “Stay outside if you wish, Master Klain, and deal with all those monsters. We, however, are heading down. I will not have my son miss meeting a goddess.” As the merchant pulled Charver past Alant, the Kith reached down and gripped the odd-shaped, claw-looking hilt of his sword. If not for the fur covering his paw, Alant knew the beast’s hand would be white-knuckled. Pausing, he looked back toward the opening at the top of the stairs as if contemplating going out and actually fighting all those creatures alone. Without another sound, however, Klain whipped around and strode after the merchant, knocking Alant flat against the wall. The large lion-man descended the stairs like a man on his way to meet the headsman’s axe.
Elith glided down and stood next to Alant. “Do not fear, Mah’Sukai.” She raked her lithe, gray fingers through his short dark hair before giving him one of her feral smiles. “When the time comes, she shall take care of the Kithian.” Releasing him, she glided down into the darkness below.
Alant shook his head and sighed.
Arderi
is correct! Even if I find my answers, I am not sure I will survive gaining the knowledge!
Pulling in more energy, Alant increased the light generated between his glowing hands. He did not fully understand how he had done this. The light generated shined with an even, pulsating life of its own. Letting out a long, shuddered breath, he followed the others down into the darkness.
The group had not gone far. Just to the edge of where Alant’s light reached.
Well, everyone except Elith. She must have gone on ahead.
As soon as Alant caught up, the rest started walking again. For the most part, the stairs were surprisingly intact. A few spots had crumbled away, leaving a slippery, pebble-strewn ramp for several paces. And for a time, a small stream of water poured from a hole in one wall and meandered down the center of the stairway until it disappeared through a second hole in the opposite wall. Moss grew thick in spots, especially around the water. They descended without incident, and soon Alant stepped out into a large open room resembling a grand hallway. It was enormous, large enough to hold a two-story building. Beyond the ring of light, it seemed as if the room stretched off both right and left without end. Tall, arched pillars ran down the middle. They rose high into the air, their tops lost in the blackness beyond the reach of his light. Moss grew up the walls and roots penetrated the ceiling, dangling down toward them. Large boulders, smaller rubble and other debris littered the broken tiled floor. On the far side, about two-thirds the way across, a trench ran the length of the room. Alant had no guess what the area had been used for in the past.
Arderi was bent over some rubble, fumbling with something. He stood as Alant approached, a long pipe with a globe at the top held in his hand. “This looks like a torch. Yet, I cannot figure out how it burns.” Turning, he pointed to a spot on the wall about three paces from the floor that had a large gouge in it. “I think it was attached up there. We may find more further along, if you can somehow make them work.”
Still holding the Sight, Alant saw the residual influence of the Essence in the strange, glass-like ball at the end of the pole. How the glass had remained unbroken after such a fall was beyond him. Still, he recognized the pattern. It was close to what he did to produce the glow between his hands. Concentrating on that, he shifted the Spectals inside the globe and was rewarded with a blinding flash. Slamming his eyes shut, he whipped his head away from the light.
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