“Fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck,” Andel exclaimed, looking at the guards extensively patrolling the deserted streets. The festival of Providence had been cut short, and the delegates were beginning to leave Sedayval. Checks were conducted at the teleportation platform in the Central Square.
“Where is the exact location of the Jewel?”
“Southwest of Sedayval, about a mile away from here. There is a small entrance going into the catacombs from there. Find the green marble statue of Queen Vahana II by the fountain near Fika’s Tavern. According to my charts, the entrance to the catacombs to the heart of Sedayval is at the foot of that statue.”
Despite their differences, Vahren gave Andel a pat on the shoulder and moved out of the room, leaving Shera with her former lover. Andel watched Vahren go and turned to Shera.
“He is very much suited for you,” Andel said quietly.
“Andel, for everyone that we have ever gone through, I do apologize. For all the arguments and heartbreak.”
“I thought I would be mad. At least, at first I realized that I was actually jealous of Vahren. But, I noticed that I was using you to fuel my indecent obsession. Nobody deserves to be treated in such a way. I should have respected your beliefs.”
Shera sighed. “What belief? The Priestesshood is a fallacy. Where you were right, I was quick to denounce you. Will you find it in you to forgive me?”
Andel embraced her as a friend would. “I will always love you, Shera. But, I do believe that in life, Vahren can make you happier than I ever could dare to try.”
When they parted, Shera let herself hold on to Andel’s rough fingers for a second longer. The perpetual smudge on his hands rubbed on to hers. It would be the last time that they would be together.
“Go,” he whispered.
And Shera went.
*
Just as Andel had predicted, there was a small, hidden trapdoor in front of Queen Vahana II’s fountain sculpture. Using her runes, Shera opened the dusty trapdoor at the foot of the sculpture. The water began to rush in, clearing the cobwebs decorating the entrance into the catacombs. They had managed to avoid the guards whose patrols were too diluted in their actual positions, too concentrated around her home.
They were about to enter the vertical tunnel when a sharp beam of light coursed out of nowhere.
“Watch out!” Vahren shouted, pushing Shera away from the marble statue. A loud bang of explosion was heard, followed by the breaking of stones. Shera and Vahren coughed at the thick, dense cloud of dust that billowed up.
When it cleared, Iktai was standing a few feet away from them, surrounded by ten guards and a few Priestesses. Her staff pointed directly at Shera’s chest. The manic expression had not left her face from the moment she murdered Hazpo. The tip of her staff glowed an iridescent whiteness, supplicated by the power of Maan coursing through the runes of her arms.
“You had my father kill my mother,” Shera snarled. The runes on her arms glowed, ready to form a barrier in case Iktai attacked again.
“Irinde was sneaking around in the labyrinth. She stole a fragment off the Jewel of Maan,” Iktai said, her staff still pointed directly at Shera. The sneer on her face was evident. “The punishment such a crime is death.”
“Irinde was only looking for something that belongs to the Shandorianians!”
“The Jewel belongs to us!” Iktai screamed. “It is the only thing that keeps this city alive!”
“You selfish snake,” Vahren growled. “You are willing to let people suffer just to fuel the existence of your city?”
High Priestess Iktai raised her voice, almost inhumanly echoing in the chamber. “Shut your mouth! Shut it!”
“Let people suffer? No one is suffering young man,” a Priestess said confusedly.
“Oh, of course that’s what they want to lead you to believe,” Vahren yelled. “For three hundred years, that was the lie the High Priestesses and Queens have built.”
“You nonbelievers, infidels, coming… coming into our City, and spilling lies,” Iktai panted, the grip on the staff tightening. The tip of the staff glowed an ominous green, holding very concentrated magic. “Spreading your poisonous lies.”
“Lies?” Vahren bellowed, his eyes bulging. He turned to the guards, Shera and the few Priestess who were standing, petrified. “Do you really want to know what the Jewel of Maan is?”
“No!” Iktai screamed and waved the staff. She could not have Vahren spilling the secret in front of everybody.
There was a whoosh in the air, and Shera felt her entire existence slowly being sucked into the white light from Iktai’s staff. The tiny hairs on her skin individually pulled at its roots, threatening to tear off her body. Her insides churned. She screamed out but no sound came. And as sudden as the Void Spell had appeared, its effects vanished.
Shera opened her eyes, shocked to see a great big dragon of a yellow carapace of a head and black wings standing in front of all of them. Half its wing was completely torn, now a mangled mess of scales, flesh and bones. Yet, it stood tall and proud, looking down on Iktai with a pair of angry, emerald eyes.
Iktai gave out a yell and held on to her staff, arms trembling. “Stay back!”
Vahren the dragon snarled. He let out a jet stream of fire towards Iktai, which she easily parried with her staff. The recoil of her parry created a pulse that lifted everyone off their feet. The dragon vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Vahren reappeared next to Shera, holding his bloodied arm.
“There is no time, Shera. You need to take me into the labyrinth,” he gasped.
The High Priestess swiped the air with the staff once more, and another pulling sensation ripped through the air. Even the guards and Priestesses were not spared. They were sucked into the vortex, their bodies ripped into a million tiny particles.
“But, my friends…” she said helplessly.
“Shera!” Vahren yelled, already at the mouth of the labyrinth.
Shera tried to hold back the tears. The one person she had thought was her best friend turned out to be her enemy. Her father was leaning against the world, too ashamed to move. He refused to look at anyone or anything, his hands at the sides of his head, as though overcome with madness.
Iktai howled, the runes on her arms glowing brightly. Vahren took a deep breath and spat out a multitude of fireballs which landed on the floor in front of Iktai, turning into spiraling tunnel of flame – focused, precise, deadly.
High Priestess Iktai moved with the agility that belied the true nature of her age. She sidestepped the fire, letting it hit the wall, piercing through the stones.
Shera screamed again, worried that she too would be consumed by the nearby flames. She felt her arms being pulled, and they were plunged into total darkness once more. The door into the labyrinth closed in a squelching creak. The battle from above and outside could still be heard, but it was blunted by the thick walls of the maze.
“Are you okay? Did you get burnt?” Vahren asked. His hands groped about in the darkness.
“I’m… I’m fine,” Shera said. She could not see anything. The air was cool in the maze, and she sat on the floor. Outside, a scream was heard, but she could not determine its direction. She might have imagined it. The ground rumbled occasionally. When the dragon howled and roared, it felt like it was miles away. The labyrinth’s wall muffled all sense from the world outside.
She sat on the cool stone and tried to collect her thoughts.
Her father, Damas, had murdered Irinde because the High Priestess and the Queen had ordered him to do so. There was no justice in this world. But, Irinde was also a spy who was sent by the Shandorianians to reclaim the Jewel of Maan.
The Jewel.
Everybody’s life revolved around the jewel. The Shandorianians claimed that it was stolen. The Sedayvalians, well, some Sedayvalians claimed that it belonged solely to the Goddess Maan, therefore it belonged to Sedayval.
“Shera, we have to go.”
His hands touched her exposed
calf where the fire had eaten away the cloth.
“Don’t touch me.”
Vahren did not remove his hand. It remained there.
“I said–” Shera pushed her hands into the darkness and found his body “—don’t touch me!”
“You’re angry. I don’t blame you. Damas killed your mother. I understand what it feels.”
“You don’t! You just fucking don’t! My whole life, this life I have lived has all been a lie!” Shera
screamed. She was unable to hold it back in anymore. “It is as if… everyone around me has been telling me untruths all my life. From Maan, to my mother, to my Priestesshood!”
“I’m sorry,” Vahren said.
There was a small snap of his finger. Nothing happened. Vahren tried it again. Still nothing.
“Don’t even bother trying,” Shera said, relaxing from her sobs. “The catacombs are put with a Barring magic. There is no way to guide us through this maze. It prevents any kind of magic.
“We have to try to find the Jewel of Maan.”
“This mess started because of me, Vahren. What makes you think I want to let you take the Jewel? I don’t want Sedayval to fall!”
“You just said that you were angry living a lie. How much more of a lie do you want to live? Iktai was afraid of something I was going to say about the Jewel. Why did you think she got that way?”
“She is scared! We all are! Sedayval is our home, and it is powered by the Jewel!”
*
They had been walking for hours. The labyrinth seemed to go on forever. Sometimes, they were methodical, other times, just relying on blind faith.
“Oh, Maan’s tits,” Shera cursed, feeling her hand against the wall on her right.
“What is it?” Vahren said, rubbing his nose. He had walked into Shera, unable to see that she had stopped walking.
“I have been trying to memorize the way the walls have certain bumps. The only thing I noticed that was quite interesting was that there were two small bumps on the wall, followed by a kind of jagged like texture on it five steps later. I felt the same thing just a while ago.”
“So, it is either a random scripture on the wall that is repeated.”
“Or we have been walking around in a loop,” Shera said, almost giving up.
It seemed like they were miles beneath the city, yet, so far away from the heart of Sedayval. The way the roads crossed was almost mind wrenching. At some parts, the paths tended to become smaller, giving them a sense of excitement that it might have been progress, but as it became smaller, they only walked into dead ends. Every time a path started to become smaller, the question playing their mind was – is this just another path leading to a dead end, or will this be the one that would finally lead to the Heart of Maan?
“I can’t go on anymore,” Vahren said. His arm felt like a dead branch attached to his body. The muscles were nonfunctional, and he could no longer feel any sensation in his fingers.
Shera turned back. The catacombs were slowly consuming her mind and soul. Its darkness was too overbearing, swallowing any feelings of hope. Feeling around in the darkness, she found Vahren’s body on the floor. He was panting, feeling the last dregs of life within him. He was dying.
In the darkness, she had not noticed it. It was not just the surrounding that was black, but also the annals of her mind. She did not know what to believe anymore. But as she knelt next to Vahren, she touched the sticky cake of drying blood on his arm. His fingers grazed against her face.
“What is the truth Vahren? What do I have to live for? Everything I have known is a lie.”
In the dark, cool catacombs, they embraced. Shera knew she would die here. The Fragment of the Jewel of Maan pulsed weakly, like a dying heart. It was reacting to its separated body, deep within the labyrinth somewhere. There was nothing more she could do.
‘There are multiple forms of the truth, and they are people’s words. Live your truth, and share them with others.’
Vahren remained there by her side, unwilling to leave. He leaned his body against hers, wincing in pain where the High Priestess’s magic had damaged his right arm. And then he did something he had been wanting to do since the moment he saw Shera.
He fused with her.
Shera flinched. Though his fingers were soft, they contained a latent power. It surged within her. She closed her eyes and felt something embrace her mind and soul. In her mind’s eye, she saw a great dragon circling her. There was nothing malicious about the beast. It was there to protect her. And then it landed in front of her, its great big lizard eyes looking down at her with a kindness she had not seen since Irinde’s passing. It let out a left hind paw, which she took.
The beast took the sky and took her with him. And then there was a flash.
*
They fused, not only body, but soul. There was a camaraderie now etched inside of them, and there were no two bodies. There were no two minds. This dragon was just one.
I… we… Its mind tried to grasp concept of identity. It felt odd, like assigning solidity to clouds. One just wasn’t too sure.
Move… the dragon said in its mind.
When it thought, it thought itself a singularity. It had both the essences of Shera and Vahren, but it was itself a new being, with its own thoughts. A sum of both its parts had given birth to something new altogether.
Fusing consciousness, it thought to itself. Still, it knew that this combined consciousness would only last for a small moment. Shera would not be able to take a prolonged conjoining. She would start to lose sense of the self if she was not too careful.
The dragon moved through the maze easily this time. Its tongue darted out to sniff at the air. The scales prickled more sensitively, able to pick up the tiniest vibrations from the Jewel of Maan. It knew where to go. It knew then, what to do. It felt sad.
Keep it together.It could feel the singular point of its consciousness slowly breaking. The more it thought of Sedayval, Irinde, and its family back in Shando, and Damas, and Andel, and, the more it underwent a splitting in the epicenter. A furrowing appeared, threatening to split its consciousness into two.
There was no time. It could smell the Jewel of Maan, taste it.
Even odder, it could hear the Jewel of Maan beckoning for it to come closer. It was like a language, a sad song of a few old people, in their deathbeds, wanting to be visited one last time, to have their deaths, their parting from this world witnessed by someone – by something.
The dragon had to hurry. It pushed all thoughts of Vahren and Shera out of its mind.
I seek not to destroy Sedayval. That is not my primary purpose. I need to save the Jewel of Maan. They have been in there.
They?
It. They. Him. Her. The Jewel.
What is the Jewel of Maan?
By this time, the conversation inside the dragon’s head had begun tearing into two separate voices. It was not talking to itself anymore. There were two distinct voices. It tore down the last lane, the one which its walls began growing bigger. There was a small, blunt light at the end of the tunnel. They were approaching the heart of Sedayval, where the Jewel of Maan awaited.
Just a bit more, the dragon urged itself.
And with one roar, it launched itself from the last brick of the labyrinth, and landed on the soft ground.
All was black.
*
When she finally came to, she opened her eyes to the sound of a rushing waterfall and Vahren looking down at her. He was smiling, though the fatigue showed in the darkened circles around his eyes. The fusion magic had taken a toll on him more; it was he who had to work harder to maintain their conjoined form.
“You were not lying,” Shera whispered in hushed tones. “You were not lying at all.”
She had felt his mind. There was no malice in his intentions. Vahren’s wish, his motivations had been pure. Though others had faulted him for being a cold-hearted bastard, he did nothing to alleviate their prejudices. He knew in his heart of hearts,
that he was in fact impeachable, honest, and good. And he had a purpose.
When they were fused, she also got to know how he felt about her. All those unspoken thoughts that had floated between them were still unspoken, but it transcended one mind to another’s during the period of overlap. He would know how she felt about him too.
The Truth in Lies: A TALE OF MANN Page 8