“Noted. So I assume it's true Zeyed drove you back the first time you crossed from Zeiihbu into these lands. Did he also drive you into the moonlight as people say?”
Anissa laughed, the sound a cross between a throaty purr and a human giggle. “He drove us nowhere, least of all into the moon. We are creatures with special skills, but we are not able to become less solid than we are now.”
“Then who drove the razor beasts back into Zeiihbu?” Meaghan asked.
“I did. I am their leader. They do as they wish until I deem otherwise. When they crossed the first time, Zeyed commanded me to lead them back across the border. I obeyed.”
“What about the second time?” Faillen asked. “Who commanded you during the Zeiihbu War?”
She pursed her lips. A moment of silence elapsed before she finally answered. “I have been forbidden to say.”
“But I command you. Tell me.”
“You are not the only to command me. The other is not yet dead. His command overrules yours since he spoke the words first.”
“I see,” Faillen said, and a chill crept into his voice. “I just have one more question for you and then you can go.”
“What is that?”
“Our friend is injured. We need to find the closest village. Can you show us where it is?”
“I cannot,” she said. “It lies within the gorge and I cannot enter there. There is magic that protects it from creatures such as me.”
“Then how can we find it?” Cal asked.
“Your ancient beast knows,” Anissa answered. “He smells of the people there. He belongs to them. And as with all beasts of his type, he knows his way back.”
“What do you mean?” Meaghan asked. “What ancient beast are you talking about?”
“The moerith,” Faillen answered, turning to look at Meaghan. “Ancient beast is a term we use in Zeiihbu to refer to animals that have been around since Zeyed's time. If the moerith is from the village in the gorge, he can find his way back there.”
“He is,” Anissa insisted. “I am certain of it.”
“Then we'll follow him,” Faillen said. “You may take your leave now. Remove your beasts to Zeiihbu and do not forget your promise.”
She smiled. “It is impossible. You have commanded it and so it shall be.”
With those last words, the air shimmered around her. A moment later, a razor beast stood in her place.
CHAPTER TWENTY
THE RAZOR beast dashed from the tunnel. Faillen followed her, trailed closely behind by Meaghan and Cal. Meaghan shielded her eyes from the bright sun, squinting as she scanned the area. They had exited into the beginning of the gorge. Green space and forest yielded here to low bushes and rocky outcroppings that stretched into a winding route through the mountains.
The razor beast pack waited close by for Anissa's next command. They lay stretched out on the ground, relaxing in the warmth the day provided. Several of them rolled over to rub their backs in the dirt and Meaghan had to keep their danger in mind. Despite their size and spiked tails, she could not stop picturing them as house cats lapping up the sun. They even maintained the same oblivious attitude as her old pet tabby had, ignoring the threat the rest of Meaghan's search party represented.
Artair floated an electrical orb between his hands, ready for action. He scowled when a cat pawed the ground, digging into it with razor claws, then yawned and settled once more.
Another cat stood and Eudor wielded his sword. The animal simply circled in its spot, then lay down again, curling up before closing its eyes.
Malaki still clutched two splinter shale stones. A cat stretched back on its haunches and he threw one of the stones in warning. It hit the ground several yards from the creature and exploded, leaving a small crater in the dirt. The noise scattered the beasts closest to the impact, but they soon resumed their leisure.
Only Talea seemed ignorant of the potential danger. She crouched over her brother, applying pressure to his wound with one of their sleeping blankets. Blood saturated the tan material, turning it rust brown. As Meaghan knelt down beside Talea, she heard the sound of mews and low yowling and spun around, prepared to fight. Instead of advancing, the pack had retreated. They followed Anissa away from the entrance to the gorge, soon disappearing within the forest. Meaghan turned her attention back to Talea in time to see tears fill the woman's eyes.
“He's not doing well,” she whispered. “He was in a lot of pain. He passed out and…” her voice shook. “I'm afraid he…he's not going to…to make…”
She sobbed and Cal slipped an arm around her shoulders. “There's a village,” he told her. “It's in the gorge. There's still time for him if we can get him there.”
Talea opened her mouth to speak, but could not manage the words through her crying. She pressed her hands to her face.
“Breathe, Talea,” Cal said. “Take a deep breath. We're going to do everything we can. Have you tried tightening the tourniquet again?”
She nodded, then dropped her hands and took a deep breath. “The blood keeps coming.”
“I see.” Cal pressed his lips together. His eyes coursed over the area surrounding them, and then he stood and went to several bushes at the end of the gorge. “Meaghan,” he said. “Please bring me some water and my gloves. The ones Nick gave me. The moerith is carrying my things.”
Meaghan located one of the water bladders and Cal's amber cat gloves. She brought both items to him.
Cal turned to Faillen. “No one else's injuries look bad, but we still need to take care of them. Nick said there's red clay about a foot down—”
“Terravein,” Faillen interrupted. “I know it. I'll take care of everyone else. Focus on Talis.”
Cal nodded and faced the bushes again.
“What are you looking at?” Meaghan asked. “Those are ordinary bushes. I've been in the forest long enough to recognize them. The one with the broad leaves is a sour berry bush. The one next to it is just a basic five-leaf bush. They can't help.”
“No, they can't,” he agreed, and reached between the two bushes, pushing the five-bush leaf aside to reveal a smaller plant behind it. “But this one can.”
Meaghan gasped. Although the bush did not seem like much at first glance—no more than two or three leaves hung from flimsy, twig-like branches—she had never seen a plant so beautiful. Each flat leaf could cover one of her hands and looked as though someone had spattered bright orange and yellow paint along its dark green canvas.
“What type of bush is that?” she asked.
“A prickle poison bush. Don't touch it.”
Cal pulled on his gloves. After plucking half a dozen of the largest leaves, he returned to Talea's side.
“I need you to stay out of the way,” he told her.
“Okay,” she whispered, and moved so he could take her place. Meaghan knelt on the ground opposite him.
“This is worse than I realized,” Cal said as he examined Talis's wound. “He should have been screaming in pain.”
“Will he live?” Meaghan asked.
“If the leaves work and if we can get him to a Healer in time, yes. But that's a lot of 'ifs' to count on.” Cal picked up one of the leaves and held it flat between his gloved hands. “We need to wet this. Pour water over it until I tell you to stop.”
Meaghan opened the bladder and tipped it. A steady stream of water saturated Cal's gloves. The leaf turned translucent and Cal nodded at her to stop. He pasted the leaf over Talis's wound and smoothed it down. Picking up another leaf, he nodded at her again, and she bathed this one in the same way she had the first. He layered the second leaf over the wound, and then held up a third and they repeated the process. After he had applied all six leaves to the wound, he flattened his hands over them.
Blood oozed from under his gloves, mixing with water as it dripped onto the ground. Cal pressed down harder, keeping his eyes locked on Talis's ghostly white face as they waited.
A few feet away, Faillen spread blood-colored clay
over several cuts on Artair's arms. The same clay coated Malaki's chest.
No one spoke. Not even nature dared make a sound. Meaghan held her breath, forcing it out when she felt dizzy, and then drew it in and held it again. Artair moved to stand beside Talea and she slipped her hand into his. Finally, after what seemed like hours, though Meaghan knew it could not be more than ten minutes, Cal puffed out a breath and lifted his hands.
The leaves had hardened over Talis's skin, their colors translucent and overlapping. They reminded Meaghan of a papier-mâché art project from her childhood. Cal stripped off his gloves.
“Talis is still alive,” he said. “But we only have a few hours to keep him that way. We need to get to the village. Hopefully they'll have a Healer.”
“You don't know?” Artair asked. His voice shook. “I thought Elders were supposed to know where Guardians are stationed.”
“I can't memorize everyone's location,” Cal said. Meaghan detected irritation in his voice, but he controlled it in the face of Artair's worry. “This village shouldn't exist, so rightfully, there shouldn't be a Guardian there. But I didn't know about Malaki's village, so I'm hoping. It's the best option we have right now.”
“How can you be certain it exists?” Talea asked.
“We can't,” Faillen answered. “The razor beast told us about it. She might be lying, but she did make a valid point that will help us. The moerith came from somewhere. If we let him loose, we should be able to follow him to his owners.”
“And to his village,” Artair said.
Cal stood up. “Exactly. I'll put Talis back on Illius' saddle. Someone remove the lead from the moerith. It's time to find our Healer.”
§
AS ANISSA had told them, the moerith walked straight into the gorge. He poked along, at first uncertain, but with gentle prodding from a few threatening creatures born of Eudor's power, the animal moved more steadily along.
At Eudor's insistence, Cal gave them an abridged version of what had happened in the tunnel with Anissa. Once Cal had finished his report, silence lapsed over the gorge. Mountains rose to both sides of them, pulling away from the sky to the left and right so the sun shined through. Birds shot from the trees that dotted the mountainsides. Raptors screeched overhead as they spotted prey. But within the boundary of the gorge, they saw no signs of life.
“I thought Gormand's Gorge was supposed to be dangerous,” Malaki said after an hour had passed. “I haven't seen so much as a mouse.”
“Maybe that story isn't as true as the others,” Faillen told him. “Anissa said the razor beasts couldn't come into the gorge because it was protected by magic. Maybe they aren't the only ones.”
“Do you think she was telling the truth?” Eudor asked. “Could something be protecting this area?”
“You mean from dangerous animals?” Artair asked.
“Or magic in general,” Cal said. “The razor beasts are magical creatures. If an area muted their magic or shut it off entirely, they would avoid that area. They couldn't hear or smell as well, since those senses are enhanced by magic, and they couldn't hunt well without their ability to silence their movements.”
“My magic worked fine in the gorge,” Eudor pointed out. “I'm certain a spell to block magic in this area wouldn't be designed solely for animals.”
Cal shrugged. “It was just a theory.”
“It might still be a valid one,” Meaghan said. “Eudor used his power at the beginning of the gorge. Has anyone tried using their powers since?”
“I haven't,” Eudor admitted. “But that's an easy theory to test.” He focused on the moerith up ahead, who had stopped to nudge a rock with his nose. Nothing happened. No illusion manifested to drive the animal onward. The moerith remained entertained by his toy while Eudor stared at him, confusion and frustration wrinkling his forehead. A frown stretched over his lips. “You're right,” he said to Meaghan. “My power isn't working.”
Artair extend his hands in front of him. When his usual electric orb did not form, he closed his fists, and then opened them again. After a moment, he lowered his hands and shook his head.
Meaghan scanned the ground at her feet. When she spotted the brown tendrils of a wilted plant, she reached down to touch it. Searching within her for the warmth she knew to be her revival power, she found it, and then frowned when her efforts to move it toward the plant failed.
“My power doesn't work either,” she said. “It's still there. I can feel it, but it seems to be locked in place.”
“Same here,” Cal said. “The elements aren't talking to me.”
“Then we're blind,” Malaki said. “We're vulnerable here.”
“And even if we find the village,” Talea whispered. “We won't be able to save Talis. A Healer's powers aren't going to work any better than ours.”
“We don't know that,” Cal told her. “All we know is that someone human had to have cast the spell to block our powers, which means we're definitely on the right track. Once we find the village, if the villagers can't help Talis, they might know who can. It's the only chance we have.”
Talea nodded. The moerith began moving again and the group followed. Silence filled the canyon for a time, until Meaghan could no longer take the oppression of it.
“Is it true the people of Ærenden came from Zeiihbu?” she asked.
“It looks like it,” Cal said. “Zeyed's considered to be one of the first people of Ærenden. If Anissa was telling the truth and he came from there, then so did the rest of us.”
“She'd have no reason to lie,” Faillen pointed out.
Cal grunted. “True. I guess we'll never know for certain. That history seems to have been lost to us.”
“Not necessarily,” Faillen said. “I know a few stories. I'm not sure how many of them are true, but—”
“Ghouls exist,” Eudor interrupted. “Since parts of that tale turned out to be real, anything is possible. Tell us what you know.”
“All right. Let's see what I can remember.” Faillen narrowed his eyes at the terrain ahead of them as he concentrated. “Much like Ærenden's first years, the lands of Zeiihbu were volatile in the beginning. Quakes shook the grounds for hours at a time. Waters flooded the soil, and then inexplicably withdrew, leaving the land in drought for years. Strange animals seemed to approach in innocence, but stole lives with hidden skills. Huts were rough, comprised of dried mud and straw roofs that offered little resistance to the elements and the hazards of the land. Many of the first people did not survive. Those who did honed their abilities as hunters and fighters, or they were born different, with the same strange skills as the animals.”
“Powers,” Malaki interjected.
“We rarely call them that in Zeiihbu,” Faillen said. “But no matter how you consider them, those without special skills found them intimidating, even threatening, and the Zeiihbuans segregated themselves into two tribes—those with skills and those without. Despite the division, the people were too busy fighting for survival to fight each other. After a disastrous quake felled half the population, the divided tribes came back together. They elected the original Zeiihbu ruler and his first act was to send explorers into the lands north and south of Zeiihbu.”
“The Barren Lands and Ærenden,” Artair said. “Or were the boundary lines different then?”
“They weren't,” Faillen said. “Zeiihbu's borders are mostly natural. Mountains and cliffs separate our lands from what we now know as the Barren in the north. Although then, it didn't look much different than Zeiihbu. And a river divides the majority of our lands from Ærenden in the south. It's passable now, but in the beginning, our people couldn't see the opposite shore. Since they hadn't discovered boats yet, or the forest border in the southernmost part of Zeiihbu, the possibility of heading into Ærenden seemed remote.”
“So they headed north,” Cal said. “Into the Barren.”
Faillen nodded. “They never returned, but as you know, others headed south eventually. Those with skill manage
d to find a way.”
“And Ærenden was born,” Eudor declared.
“Maybe.” Faillen stopped when the moerith did. This time, the animal did not seem distracted, but turned his head slowly, as if looking for something.
“Do you think he's lost?” Talea asked.
“No. He's acting that way because he's using his power to locate his home.”
“So he's immune to whatever's affecting us,” Eudor said as the moerith plodded forward. “Does that worry anyone else?”
“Right now all that matters is the animal keeps moving,” Cal told him. “We can discuss the implications of it later.”
“True,” Eudor agreed, and then addressed Faillen. “What do you mean maybe? I thought we'd already established Ærenden's origin.”
“We established that Zeyed came from there,” Faillen corrected. “But I've heard stories about the people Zeyed and the others discovered when they crossed the river. The natives lived in the southern-most parts of Ærenden. There was a large body of water, in some tales referred to as a sea, which prevented those to the south from crossing into the middle areas of the kingdom. In fact, they had assumed nothing was there until Zeyed told them otherwise.”
“So we're both right,” Artair decided. “The people of Ærenden came from Zeiihbu and they didn't.”
“It looks that way,” Faillen responded and nodded toward the moerith. The animal had stopped again. This time he did not seek an invisible signal, but dropped to his knees instead in a gesture similar to a bow.
“Is he okay?” Meaghan asked.
“I don't know,” Faillen answered. “I've never seen one do that before.”
Meaghan barely heard the last of his sentence before a high-pitched squeal resonated across the gorge. A young girl no older than eight appeared from thin air. She ran toward the moerith, her arms outstretched, her black hair flowing behind her as excitement drew a broad smile across her face. The moerith waited in his position for the girl to wrap her arms around his neck, and then nuzzled her. The familiarity of the choreographed affection left no question. The animal had returned home.
Aerenden: The Zeiihbu Master (Ærenden) Page 19