by A. Wrighton
Lanthar blinked. His lips frowned. “I’ll set up the patrols for the night. Wind with you, Alaister. Kaly.”
“And you,” Kalyna said.
Callon watched them rise and walk to the opening as quietly as they could. Only Alaister looked back and acknowledged Callon. Alaister waved the others on and once they were out of sight, he backtracked to Callon’s side.
“After all these cycles Cal, you’d think you’d learn that I know when you’re not actually asleep and when you’re spying.”
“It’s risky.”
“Yes,” Alaister said.
“On both accounts.”
Alaister raised an eyebrow.
“The Darkling makes you nervous too. I see it.”
“Commander Bendran is our ally.”
“So where were they when this first happened and every bretzing day since?”
“Unaware and unable to assist you,” Nylan said, his voice fast-approaching from behind Alaister.
Callon scolded himself for forgetting the lesson Tylus had imparted – that Lythgorian hearing was impeccable. Nylan’s stride was powerful. In the shadows of late night, he looked more like the blood-sucking, life-stealing Darkling of lore than ever.
“If we had known sooner we would have been there. Our Runics are sacred to us – something to be protected – a gift to preserve. We never would’ve just stood idly by.”
“We still know nothing of you.”
“Your skepticism is granted, but I can assure you we mean no harm. We only want to help your Cause. We are your allies… your brothers—”
“We haven’t shed blood together, Darkling. Don’t get too far ahead of yourself.”
Nylan nodded and then gestured to the opening. “The night waits for no man, Paine.”
Nylan’s eyes remained on Callon, who returned the stare. In the growing silence, Callon could hear Alaister’s scolding inside his head.
“A moment, Bendran,” Alaister said.
“Of course.”
Alaister waited until the tall Lythgorian Dragonic was out of sight before he spoke again. “My father taught me to not look a gift from the Watcher in the mouth. The Lythgorians are here now. We will accept their help. Graciously.”
“And if they turn?”
“I always have one hand on my sword, the other my sidearm. You know that.”
“Yeah well – controlled or not – with Kalyna around none of that would be necessary…”
Callon paused on his thoughts of his newest friend. It was funny how he thought of her like that. Callon had not made friends in cycles; a lesson imparted by befriending one too many young Rogue Riders who were quickly lost. The last friendship Callon had nurtured was a bond formed because he had to like his father’s best friend’s bratty son. His kinship with Kalyna was by choice. Callon sighed and shook his head. “Just make sure she doesn’t get sick, all right? I really don’t want to die in this Udlastian hole.”
“Understood.”
“Both hands, Al,” he said nodding towards his weapon belt. “Wind with you.”
SOLASTIAN PALACE RUINS
MOUNT LYNAE, SOLASTI
Drystan stopped mid-tread. He looked around the cobweb-covered walls and poked some web with his torch. It sizzled and floated down with a fizz. The smell of burnt moss and earth surrounded. Drystan usually did not mind the smells, but there was something else in the air. Another smell even the Swamp native failed to discern or like. Drystan caught Alaister’s amused gaze and jogged to catch up with the others. Alaister turned to hide his smile, happy until Drystan’s approaching footsteps stopped again.
Drystan cleared his throat loudly. “You know…”
Alaister stared at their finest medic. His stalling manner was so far from his normal fastidiousness that it merited a listen, even if Drystan was superstitious. Kalyna wiggled about in place a few strides ahead, eager to move forward. Alaister eyed her and she nodded. She would wait, despite her eagerness. Kalyna leaned against a broken, rotted out hutch and eyed Drystan impatiently.
“I’m sure t’ere be nothing to go on and be ‘fraid of… but… you know… just to be safe and such things, perhaps it be best that you don’t go touching none you shouldn’t need to—” Drystan stopped, his mouth hung open.
Alaister tracked his gaze and found him watching Kalyna as she traced her hand behind the wall the hutch decayed against. He squinted and stretched his neck out far enough to notice that it was covered in matte paint. A hidden mural.
Drystan looked pleadingly at Alaister and stammered as he pointed after her. “Like… like t’at.”
Kalyna shoved the hutch away from the wall with a brilliant wave of air. “It’s fine, Drystan. There’s nothing odd here except that smell,” she said with a short glance up at him. Her smile warmed, despite its lack of conviction. “I promise.”
She returned to the wall, tracing a pattern that they had to step closer to see. It was not of the grand scale of the Grand Hall murals, but it was indeed an intricate design, especially for an ordinary hallway to possess. From the worn map a monastery text provided, excluding the possibility of remodeling or collapsing floors, the hall was the main connection from the atrium to the library of the broken palace. Nothing special should have been there.
Waving Nylan over, Kalyna’s fingers traced figures. “Nylan, these people… are they… they don’t look—”
“They’re Lythgorians, yes. And these… these are Bandoreans – see their funny clothes?”
Alaister leaned in, squinting at the images to try and make out any other details. He smiled. “There’s an Isletan too. See?”
“Ah, yes. Almost missed him.” Nylan said.
Drystan scoffed, refusing to approach the dislodged hutch or the wall. “T’ey done look like plain people to me.”
Kalyna tapped on figures hunched over a book, where more figures nearby pointed to the air above the readers. “What are they doing – together?” she asked.
“T’ey be… t’ey be celebrating,” Drystan said.
Nylan pursed his lips and exhaled sharply. “I didn’t think our realms ever…”
Alaister shook his head. “With you on that one, Bendran.”
“There’s another…” Kalyna said wandering along the low mural towards the darkest corner of the hallway.
From afar, even nearby, the corner lent itself to being a dead end, but Kalyna traced the mural into a tiny room hidden by shadows of the supposed corner. Or, it could have been a room had it not been cut short by a wall covered with hand-formed bricks. It was barely large enough for two people to step inside and without any logical explanation. If it was meant to hide something from afar, the job was successful, but from up close, the brick wall commanded absolute attention.
Solastian artistry at its finest. They had been painstakingly patted and shaped until they all fit neatly into their little niches. They formed the most beautiful canvas any of them had ever seen. The clay bricks were whitewashed and then painted canopy blue. At the base of the painting were tiny figures, dwarfed only by the large Dragon, deep with purple and black that stood before a tall, lean blonde woman. Spewing from the Beast’s mouth was a wave of purple that drowned the blonde woman and surrounded her with a glowing lilac tint. Her eyes two shades lighter than lavender.
Alaister’s heart clenched. They all felt it – something unbelievable and undeniably real. This mural was not supposed to exist. There had been a rumor amongst courtesans that it was commissioned, but it was so well hidden in the Solasti Palace that none could definitively account for its existence, and so it became a thing of legend – a legend whose truth was lost the day the Sickness ended the Solastian crown.
Kalyna traced the woman’s hair along the purple waves back to the Dragon’s mouth. “This is the birth of the Runics,” she said, softly at first. “She’s the first one. It was a woman.”
“You seem surprised,” Nylan offered, his pale face lost in the darkness of the hall.
“And you’
re not?” Alaister asked.
“Usually Soul Dragons hate women, but they said the Dragon made an exception from Her ways the day She made Runics. Why else did you think only men fly Dragons?”
“Propriety,” Alaister said.
Nylan half-laughed at Alaister’s simplistic reasoning. “Solerans and their manners,” Nylan said.
Alaister cringed at his fresh blush. “I could say the same thing…”
Drystan swatted at the both of them. “Either way, it might be true. But you don’t have to go’on raving about it and disturbing the peace t’at exists here. It be fragile.” His eyes darted about betraying his panicked interior and worn nerves.
“Doc,” Alaister said smiling, “I know you’re Creipan, but I never painted you as overly superstitious.”
“I’m not…. much…”
The three men laughed, their voices echoing off the mural and the palace walls. It felt good to laugh. Wonderful, even. Alaister would have kept at it except the absence of the soft ring of femininity joining in to the joyous glee concerned him. Kalyna was not laughing. She remained motionless in the tiny cubby of a room. From her vapid look and her distant eyes, Kalyna did not even hear them.
She clung to the painting, following the purple swirls. They spilt onto to the next scene of the mural wall. Kalyna stared at the painted image of another Runic. Another woman. A powerful woman. Her fingers traced the swirls with a smile until her fingers traced the Quad stabbing a sleeping King… and baby… as a golden eagle watched and the massive purple Dragon roared from high in the sky.
“This is the start of the Sickness,” Kalyna said, breaking her silence. “But I thought everyone left…”
“Someone stayed long enough to paint this,” Alaister said. “Perhaps, it is a warning,”
Kalyna shook her head sadly. “It’s a memory.” Her fingers ran along the small crevices. “This is why they hate us. Why they hate me. Why you hate… me.”
“We don’t hate you t’ere, Kaly…”
She smiled at the wall. “You know what I meant.”
“Yes, Kal. It is.” Alaister offered a hand on Kalyna’s shoulder, but she did not react to his touch as always.
She was tragically transfixed. “All because of the actions of one woman. A sick woman.”
“The actions of one are sometimes all it takes,” Nylan said.
“They’ll never forgive us – forgive me for what she did.”
“She was the Solastian Queen, right?” Nylan asked, curiosity peaked.
Alaister looked at the Lythgorian Commander and found his interest genuine. “Your lessons didn’t cover this?”
“No… not like that,” Nylan said as he gestured to the wall. “Not like that at all.”
“She denied the Solasti Kingdom a crown, a unifying force. Without that crown, the Kingdoms fell to bickering. The Kingdoms broke apart, unable to unite and the masses went without guidance – without true leadership.” Alaister exhaled, holding fast to his somberness. “Without those things, people stray and will latch on to anyone that can provide some sense of direction. They believe anything and anyone….”
“Like the Chancellor,” Nylan finished.
Alaister nodded, his eyes diverting to Drystan. The fire-haired medic mouthed something with finely carved worry and trauma on his face and then gestured to Kalyna.
“Do you think she even knew what she was doing that night?” Kalyna asked.
“They told us that she was so out of it once she killed her husband and son that pleas from the soldiers and her attendants could not stop her from jumping to her death.” Nylan exhaled and scanned the mural, again. “That when she spoke to them, she spoke in a cruel sounding voice, deep and thick with hatred and craze. She spoke–”
“Drakanic,” Kalyna finished.
“Yes,” Nylan nodded.
“So they banned it and when that didn’t please them, they banned us. And then, when the sight of us grew too much to bear, they killed us too.”
Alaister exhaled. “Not all of us did that, Kal. We never did.”
She did not acknowledge him, and for that Alaister was grateful. It was a conversation he did not want to repeat. It had taken enough to convince her to come and help in the first place.
“What if they were right? This… this Sickness… it… these powers…” Kalyna’s hands fell to the five colors emanating from the first Runic. “What if they are too great a gift for a human to bear?”
“That’s nonsense,” Alaister said.
“You don’t feel it like I do. You only see it. It’s so much... Maybe too much. What if the Council is right?” Her voice broke as she again outlined the murderous rage of the Solastian Runic Queen.
Alaister went to Kalyna then, before Nylan could approach her with kind, soft words and before Drystan had a chance to insist she leave the innards of the ruins. It was unlike Kalyna to speak in dark riddles. It was unlike her to doubt anything. That was the reason she had endeared herself to the men. Conviction. Strength.
Alaister whispered into her ear, “They’re wrong. Everyone deserves to live. You deserve to live.”
“Because your father said I did and so he saved me or because—”
“Because you are you. Because you are kind. Because you have the ability to save us. You can and will save us – all of us.”
“That’s one Udlastian burden.” Kalyna pointed to the Queen. “Look what happened to her when they asked too much.”
Alaister squeezed her shoulders softly. “Yes, but this is not your burden to bear alone.”
Kalyna faced Alaister. Their eyes locked and for a moment, their eyes met in a heated dance of understanding. He had borne his burden, despite the efforts of his officers, by himself long enough to caused insanity, and she had borne hers alone too. Together they had, since the moment they accepted each other in the Creipan Swamps, squared their burdens between them both and been better for it. With Kalyna, the burden of the Cause was easier because Alaister was no longer the lone investor. With the Rogues, Kalyna had a level of freedom and respect that was unknown to her before. She had a name. An identity. A purpose. He had her to contend and deal with, and she had him. That was one thing Soleran Law could not deny them – reliance.
Nylan hated the tension. He looked to Drystan, who became paler by the heartbeat. The silence was obnoxiously loud. Nylan found the wall, happy for its painting’s company and traced the height to the bottom of the floor. They had missed something. He grinned. “Kaly, look!” Nylan pointed to a scene of the first Dragonic being dubbed worthy by the first Runic. “We all work together. We belong together. All free. All equals. It is in our past and Solerans have now forgotten that – so we must teach them.”
Kalyna smiled. “You really don’t know much about Solerans, do you? We’re pretty stubborn.”
“It’s something I have come to notice.”
Drystan nudged Alaister, failing to hide his growing panic. “Can we t’en move on, you know?”
Alaister nodded. “Daylight comes soon. We should move on.”
He motioned towards the next part of the hallway and waited for her annoyed agreeance. Kalyna exhaled, poised to follow Alaister, but she did not move. Drystan and Nylan walked by in hushed tones discussing some form of superstitious protection from tormented spirits. Frozen, Kalyna’s eyes were transfixed.
The draft without Runic fire chilled. Alaister turned around and saw Kalyna staring at the wall. She was squinting at segment of bricks, an unpainted segment of bricks. It was not painted blue and, just to the side of the mural’s second moon, it jutted out randomly. Kalyna tapped the crevice the mismatched fitting made.
Nylan turned to watch her investigation. He slowly took motion to join her as Drystan, face stricken with fear, made to intercept Kalyna. Before either made headway, Alaister barred both from interrupting with his arms. She was on to something and he would not let them deny her. They had come too far to turn back.
Kalyna tapped and tapped. She sto
od back and cocked her head to one side, perplexed.
Solid brick or not, whatever Kalyna stared at, the men failed to see. It was possible that the painters had been careless. That they had left a flagrant flaw in the mural because they were in the middle of deserting the palace. Confused abandonment and its resulting chaos was as good an explanation as any, and Alaister was fine with it.
Kalyna was not.
Before any could protest, Kalyna burst the brick with an Air Rune. The remnant dust sprinkled down the mural like dirty snow. Kalyna shoved her hand into the wall and felt around.
The men waited in abject silence. Uneasy, but fine – at first. But her flaxen waves started to rustle unnaturally. There was no wind in the tunnel – at least there had been none until Kalyna had broken the brick.
Alaister’s throat tightened. Maybe the wall as a memory – a warning. Maybe it blocked the path to the missing hallway to the famed Library of the Earth that they had been searching for all night. The hallway that led down to the Library that resided beside the Dragon dens of Mount Lynae. The hallway down to where the Sickness started. Frozen they watched, every muscle tightening and none willing to listen to the minds ordering to collect her.
Kalyna pulled out three rolled scrolls, and as she reached for more, was ambushed by a sticky, stale breeze. The air rustled through her hair and kicked up a visible swirl of dust. Kalyna clenched shut her eyes at the surprise of the sudden gust. She cringed as the air poured into her mouth, her jaw open in awe at the scrolls. When the muggy breeze grazed over the men, Alaister knew why Kalyna had grimaced. It was acidic and musty. It tasted like rotting lettuce and salt water. Alaister gagged and looked up at Kalyna. His stomach rolled. Her eyes were two shades lighter than lavender. “Kal…”
She choked down another breath and backed away, taking the scrolls with her.
“We should go…” Kalyna stammered, wobbling as she returned. “Leave…. Now.”
Nylan pressed forward. “No…Kaly, there’s still—”
The Dragons eerie bellows echoed about the empty palace. Their cries sent a chill down Nylan’s spine. He quickly stepped back. Nylan looked to Alaister, and though he hid his emotions well – Nylan knew that he was terrified. He knew Alaister was terrified because he had seen it too. The purple in Kalyna’s eyes seared his thoughts.