Legend of Alm -The Valor Saga Pt 1 - Falling Star

by Graham M. Irwin

  “I think we will,” said Mills. “Thank you!”

  “And you are Root? Or Baley?” Trev asked.

  “I am Root,” said Mills. “I guess.”

  Anaxis subtly punched him in the arm.

  “Good to meet you, Baley. And you, Root!” Trev said. “You’ll have to excuse me now, I have to check the oven!”

  “Do what you must,” said Mills. “Don’t mind us.”

  “Everyone seems pretty happy here,” Anaxis said to Helea.

  “Indeed, we are,” Helea said. “Life is good in Exile. For we are living the life we want! Which is more than those captives in Gnirean can say.”

  “Captives?” Anaxis repeated. “Are the people of Gnirean being held captive?”

  “None of them would tell you so,” Helea answered. “They love their structure and routine. They bow down to their customs. But we are those who cannot! For we love to hear the wind play its varied melody across the plain! We, who are as happy when the fish do not run as we are on a year like this when there is plenty! For we are enshrouded in the bosom of nature, living as we were intended to.”

  “By whom?” Anaxis asked.

  “Excuse me?” Helea asked.

  “Intended to by whom?” Anaxis asked.

  Helea’s smile twisted a bit, and she looked almost angry for a moment, but this faded as she stuck the fish she was carrying in Anaxis’s face. “Give us a kiss!” she said with a laugh.

  “Baley is pretty serious,” Mills said, stepping in before Anaxis swatted the fish away. “You’ll have to forgive him.”

  “He can be however he wants,” Helea said. “But I now understand why you talk so little!”

  Anaxis gave a sarcastic smile to Helea and turned to Mills as the owner of the shop carried one of the baskets of fish into the back.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Mills whispered.

  “With me? What, because I won’t kiss a fish?” Anaxis growled back.

  “Don’t forget we’re kind of undercover here,” said Mills. “We’re only here for a short while. Just relax, okay?”

  Anaxis rolled his eyes and sat down hard on a bench along the front window of the shop.

  “Here, here!” Helea said, carrying a tray out from the swinging doors from the back of the shop. She set the tray on a table between Mills and Anaxis. “Eat, eat!”

  “What is it?” Mills asked, eyeing the tray with suspicion.

  “The fish I just caught!” Helea said proudly.

  “Is it…” Mills asked, poking at the pink blob on a cracker he took from the tray, “…raw?”

  “It sure is,” Helea said. “That way you can really taste the river. Taste the real fish, without any cooking oil or seasoning!”

  “Won’t it make me sick?” Mills asked.

  “Of course not, we eat it raw all the time,” Helea said. “It’s only just out of the stream, it hasn’t had any time to go bad.”

  Mills closed his eyes and popped a fish cracker into his mouth. He chewed as a wincing expression came over his face, struggled to swallow, and tried to smile.

  “Mmm,” he said. “That’s… really something.”

  “Care for one, Baley?” Helea asked Anaxis.

  “No, thank you,” Anaxis answered. “I like my fish cooked and seasoned.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Helea asked condescendingly. “Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of that later.”

  “Can we help out at all?” Mills asked Helea.

  “No need. Why don’t the two of you explore town for a bit?” Helea asked. “It’s your first visit! I recommend a stop at the candle-makers. Ren makes the most interesting candles!”

  “Sounds good,” said Mills. “When should we be back?”

  “When word gets around about the catch, the whole village will meet in the square. It’ll be a celebration! We’ll see you there,” said Helea.

  “Sounds good,” said Mills, running his tongue around the inside of his mouth to chase away the taste of the raw fish. “See you in a bit.”

  “Okay then!” Helea said. She smiled broadly at Mills, politely at Anaxis, and then headed back into the rear of the shop.

  Anaxis and Mills made their way down the broad main street of Exile, observing the villagers working happily in their shops. There was a blacksmith singing along with the rhythm of his hammer, a woodworker whistling as he whittled, a clockmaker and his apprentices smiling away the hours as they ground their gears to perfection. The candle maker seemed gleeful, too, though both Anaxis and Mills decided there was no need to go inside his shop, as his incredible wax creations were all on display in his window. Everyone in Exile seemed thrilled to be doing whatever it was they were doing, and eager to smile and wave at the strangers to their town.

  “What a place,” Mills said. “You sure we have to keep going to Gnirean right away? I could spend a few days here.”

  “It’s the only reason we crawled through those caves, and the reason we nearly died fighting that Jaela. I’d say yes, we have to keep going,” Anaxis answered.

  “But it seems so perfect here,” Mills said, stopping to smell the brightly colored flowers in one of the dozens of planters that decorated the town.

  “Life can’t be perfect all the time, Mills. I’m sure they get sick of it sometimes, too.”

  “Probably. But it seems a lot nicer here than in the desert, Anaxis.”

  Anaxis sighed. “You’re not wrong about that, Mills.”

  The two came to the village square, where candles were already being hung for the evening’s feast.

  “Hello!” one of the villagers called to Anaxis and Mills across the square.

  “Hello!” Anaxis called back.

  “Are you two busy?” the villager asked. “Care to help me set up?”

  Anaxis looks to Mills, who was trying to communicate that he had no desire to help without words.

  “Of course we’ll help,” Anaxis said to the villager.

  Mills scowled.

  “Oh, quit your scowling. What else are we going to do?” Anaxis asked. “Stop being such a stick in the mud.”

  “And now I’m the stick in the mud,” Mills said with a sigh.

  He followed after Anaxis, over to where the villager was untangling a bundle of tiny candles. The three worked until the sun went down, criss-crossing the strings of lights over the square as others set up tables and a bandstand. When the lights were up and lit, the rest of the village started to arrive with food and games to share. A band took the stage just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Immediately the villagers began to dance and sing along with the music, and the party was on.

  “I’m glad the two of you stayed!” Helea said to Mills and Anaxis, who were sitting alongside the dance floor, eating and watching the Exiles celebrate.

  “How could we miss this?” Mills asked.

  “Care to dance?” Helea asked Mills.

  “Of course I do!” Mills answered.

  He swept up into the mass of gyrating bodies with Helea and made a fool of himself shaking and twisting along to the beat. Anaxis had to laugh at his friend, who he had never seen dance in his life.

  “Freedom, life, and rivers free!” the crowd sang along to a well-known tune. “Passion, arts, and liberty!”

  As Anaxis looked on and became increasingly intoxicated from the fruity brew in the massive punchbowl, he wondered if perhaps their carefree happiness wasn’t what nature had in fact intended for humanity. He watched one of the dancing couples kiss each other deeply, and listened to a group of children scream with glee, and was moved to get up and join the revelry.

  Just as he had made his way into the crowd, a murmur started through it. Bodies stopped moving, voices became quiet, and the band stopped playing.

  “Tonight?” he heard one of the villagers ask. “But they just came last week.”

  Anaxis searched about for what the cause of the interruption was, and caught Mills doing the same.

  The crowd started to part. Th
rough the middle of it walked a group of a dozen or so men and women, all clad in black. They wore shields on their backs, weapons at their sides, and fierce looks of reprove on their joyless faces.

  “What is the cause of this celebration?” the leader of the troop demanded after taking the stage which the band had fled.

  “Only a bountiful catch,” one of the villagers answered nervously.

  “We weren’t notified that there would be such a celebration,” the troop leader said grimly.

  “It only just happened today,” the villager said. “We didn’t have any forewarning. Fish aren’t good about that sort of thing.”

  “I see,” the leader said, passing a look of disdain over the villagers.

  “We are allowed to celebrate as we choose,” another villager said. “There is nothing untoward happening here.”

  “No?” the troop leader asked. “Search him,” he ordered the other troops.

  Anaxis and Mills nodded to each other across the crowd, then ducked low and made their way out of the village square.

  “What’s going on?” Mills whispered as they ran to get their bags from where they were stowed in the roots of a nearby tree.

  “I don’t know,” Anaxis answered. “But I knew things were too good here to be true.”

  “Where are we going to go?” Mills asked as he slipped his pack on and watched the troopers start to overturn baskets and tables in their search.

  “Anywhere else,” Anaxis answered. “Just keep close. Let’s go!”

  Anaxis and Mills raced fleetly through the night from the village of Exile, under the light of the twin moons. They found refuge in a tight stand of trees, and stopped there to catch their breaths.

  “What… was… that?” Mills asked, panting.

  Anaxis shook his head and tried to calm his beating heart. “No idea,” he answered.

  When Mills could stand up from where he had been leaning against a tree trunk, he squinted out from the darkness at the lights of the village.

  “What right did those troops have to interrupt their party?” he asked.

  “I think the people of Exile delude themselves with the idea of freedom,” Anaxis said from where he sat in the dirt. “Gnirean lets them leave, but they aren’t free from their watch if they go.”

  “Why? Why do they spy with their drones and conduct searches of tiny villages? Just what are they so scared of?”

  “It must all go back to the war with Allovast. They just don’t trust anyone outside their city walls.”

  “Forever? What sort of life or culture is that, to live in such suspicion and fear?”

  “We’re going to find out.”

  “What do you think they’ll do if they catch us?” Mills asked after thinking for some time. “Do you think they’ll kill us?”

  “I don’t know,” Anaxis answered. “But we shouldn’t get caught. I don’t think Haven would have sent us if that were a real concern. We’ve got the suits to wear to enter.”

  “If they search simple celebrations, don’t you think they’re going to search someone entering the city even more intensely?”

  “I don’t think so. Or, I really hope not.”

  “Ugh. Can’t we just turn around?”

  “You can, if you really want to. Or you can wait here for me. I wouldn’t blame you. But I have to go. At this point, I have to see what it’s like there. And I have to deliver the amulet. I could never return home otherwise.”

  Mills snapped a twig off a stick he was holding. “Great. They’re going to catch us, Anaxis. I know it.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Anaxis countered. “And if they do, remember to run.”

  “Run until I’m blown up by a Silver?”

  Anaxis ignored this. “You think we should try to make it the rest of the way tonight? Perhaps we’ll have a better chance getting through the gates in the dark.”

  “Are we that close?”

  “It shouldn’t be very far.”

  “Sure, fine. I wouldn’t be able to sleep or rest, anyways. Let’s head straight for disaster, rather than wait for it to find us.”

  “I’m still kind of drunk from the punch,” Anaxis said.

  “Me too. If I weren’t, I think I’d be running for the hills right now. We should probably go before it wears off.”

  The two walked for some time, keeping to the shadows where they could find them, neither voicing the worries they knew each other were having. After a dip down into a deep valley, they headed over a series of low dunes before finally reached the shore. Across the water, glistening with its many lights, was Gnirean, a strange beacon in the darkness.

  “Look at that,” Mills said. “Glowing like a third moon. I can’t deny it’s impressive.”

  “It’s beautiful,” Anaxis agreed.

  “Now, how do we get there?”

  “There’s a bridge, to the north. We should get our suits back on. I’ve no idea where the check-point is.”

  The two stepped into their one-piece suits that would supposedly allow them to travel into the forbidden city without detection.

  “What are we going to tell them?” Mills asked, struggling with the zipper on the side of his suit.

  “The guide says we shouldn’t have to say anything,” Anaxis answered, helping with the zipper. “They will assume we are returning from mining.”

  “But what if we do have to speak? What should we say?” Mills asked. “You’ll do all the talking, right?”

  Anaxis sighed. “So all the responsibility’s on me.”

  “No, I… I just don’t think I’d do very well. I’d mess it up.”

  “You can do it, Mills. You’re great at conversation.”

  “Murp.”

  “See? Murp. Ready to go?” Anaxis asked.

  “Sure. Let’s get this over with.”

  The bridge came into sight as the two walked along the shoreline, its entrance flanked by guard towers. One of them sat dark, while the other had the flickering glow of candlelight illuminating the windows on the second story. As Anaxis and Mills approached, they saw three figures standing in the shadow beneath the light of the guard tower. They bit down hard on their anticipation and marched up to the guards.

  “Who’s that?” one of the guards asked as the two approached.

  “Just coming back from mining,” said Anaxis. He stepped in front of Mills and moved to brush past the guards without further inquiry.

  “Wait a second,” the guard said. The other two seemed somewhat disinterested.

  “Yeah?” Anaxis responded.

  “What’re doing coming back in the middle of the night?” the guard asked.

  “We got held up,” Anaxis answered.

  The guard reached into his belt and took out a rusted device, with which he scanned the shoulders of Mills and Anaxis. The device beeped, and then the guard stepped back.

  “Okay, you’re clear. Gotta be careful out here gentlemen,” he said. “Never know when an angry Exile might want to get some revenge.”

  “Right,” Mills said, continuing on his way across the bridge. “Have a good night, everyone.”

  Anaxis nodded and continued after Mills. The condensation on the inside of his helmet’s visor was thick from nervous breathing, so thick that he could barely see out of it.

  “You alright there, buddy?” the guard asked after Anaxis when he tripped over the stones of the bridge.

  Anaxis gave a thumbs-up without turning around, and increased his pace to keep up with Mills.

  When the two were far enough away from the guards, he whispered, “I can’t believe we made it!”

  “Have we?” Mills asked back. “I won’t feel safe until we’re through the gates.”

  “Almost there,” said Anaxis. “I told you you’d do great!”

  The choppy water lapped at the bridge supports, resounding in loud slaps every so often. Barking goils leapt and played about in the light of the moons, calling to one another across the wide bay.

  There were
lampposts every so often along the side of the bridge, but the gaps between them were huge and dark, and the lamplight flickered in and out, making for a strange strobe effect that only added to the surrealism of the situation. Anaxis and Mills walked quickly along through the pools of flickering light toward the looming walls of Gnirean ahead.

  Much to their relief, when they reached the massive gates, which must have been ten times their height, there were no more guards; the sliding doors of the gates opened automatically, revealing the blocky architecture of the city inside. Anaxis and Mills paused for a second in front of the yawning gate, turned to each other for affirmation, shrugged, and passed inside.

  It was late now, well after midnight, but the city was still busy with activity. Push and pull carts rolled this way and that, stacked high with boxes and goods. Contrary to the worries of the newcomers, the citizens of Gnirean didn’t look that much different than anyone else on Valor, which made them feel safe taking off their helmets.

  “Oh, that feels so good,” Anaxis said as he removed his. “I could hardly breathe in there.”

  Mills popped his helmet off and shook his long hair. “I don’t know… It’s scary how easy that was.”

  “What do you think would have happened if the machine the guard had didn’t recognize our suits?” Anaxis wondered.

  “Oh, they’d probably have locked us up or thrown us into the ocean or something,” said Mills. “Let’s not think about it. So what do we do now?”

  “We have to find Maleira.”

  “You think he’ll be awake?”

  “How should I know? Do people sleep here?”

  “Why wouldn’t they sleep?”

  “I don’t know. I always heard such wild things about Gnirean. They have to be a just a little bit strange, don’t they?”

  “I imagine a little, if only to our sensibilities. Just due to the way they live their lives.”

  “Out of the way!” a man driving a huge, hairy vooboo shouted.

  Anaxis and Mills jumped back just in time to avoid the plodding beast as it lumbered past. If it saw them it didn’t acknowledge as much.

  “What’re you doing, standing in the street?” the driver asked with an angry sneer from where he sat in front of the carriage.