Breaking the Suun

by J. A. Culican

  “Your elf is not well,” she said.

  What was with everyone calling him ‘my elf”? “What do you mean? It was just a bite.” All of us had suffered worse. Perhaps this priest, isolated as she was, had never seen battle wounds.

  She shook her head. “It appears that the bite infected him with some type of poison, perhaps.”

  “Not poison,” Savarah interjected. We turned to her, where she still stood beside Erik. “Did you say that one of your people was bitten by a cadaver?”

  “Yes, Arun Phina.”

  Strangely, the name brought no specific recognition to her face. She just nodded solemnly. “Not poison,” she repeated. “Infection. He’s been infected. I’m sorry to say that he will soon become a living cadaver.”

  I whipped around to Lunla, Savarah forgotten. “Can’t you do something?”

  Lunla, typically calm and composed, actually grimaced. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This is no infection I know how to treat.”

  I looked over her shoulder. Arun had grown deathly still where he’d fallen on the steps. “Can’t you, I don’t know … use the light?” I waved my hands around, encompassing the temple and the grounds around it.

  The priest visibly steeled herself, straightening her shoulders and wiping the fear from her face, before summoning several of her girls. The golden-haired priests-in-training were not so eager to help as they had been before. They approached slowly, as if expecting Arun to turn on them.

  “Take him to the infirmary,” Lunla ordered.

  “I’m coming with you.” I moved toward the girls to help lift him but drew up short when one waved her hand and Arun rose effortlessly into the air and floated up the steps.

  “She’s an air elemental,” Lunla explained.

  As a D’ahvol, I had no magic, even with my elven ancestry. It was easy to forget, sometimes, how much of it truly existed in the world.

  When Arun disappeared inside with the priests, I turned to the others, all of whom were checking each other over for bite marks. Only Savarah stood still and uninterested.

  I took two large steps toward her and jabbed a finger into her chest. “It’s time for you to tell us how you know that about the infection, and how you got here.”

  It was Erik who pushed me away from her. “You don’t have to answer anything until you’re ready.”

  I rolled my eyes so hard I worried they might get stuck in the back of my head.

  “I don’t mind.” Savarah looked up at him through her ridiculously long lashes. “But maybe something to eat while we talk?”

  Erik ushered her inside the temple and the rest of us followed, Estrid and me next, with Grissall and Xalph bringing up the rear. The two had been quiet with everything that happened after the attack, but both of them still clutched their knives.

  I dropped back and put an arm around Grissall. “Are you okay?”

  She wasn’t much younger than I but was considerably smaller. She looked up at me. “I kept thinking I would see Papa among the dead.”

  Her father had been one of the only people to show me and my siblings any kindness when we’d crash-landed a few years ago. After the ur’gels had attacked Barepost, Gerves had sent her away with us, supposedly so we could keep her safe and she could escape the dangers of Barepost. I didn’t think Gerves would be pleased with what had just happened here.

  “I wouldn’t worry about him,” I said, squeezing her narrow shoulders. “Your father can take care of himself.” In spite of my empty reassurances, I knew how she felt. I’d left my own father behind in Bor’sur years ago. I held my breath any time news came from the Western March. It was easy, once I got into the habit, to always expect the worst.

  We gathered around the dining table, which was still set from the forgotten dinner. The sliced roast pork was frigid, so I grabbed a plateful of fresh vegetables instead, crunching down on a carrot while I watched Savarah take a seat.

  I didn’t like her and never had. I’d tolerated her because I’d needed something from her, but now the only thing she had I needed was knowledge. And there were ways to get that out of someone which had nothing to do with being nice. There was no way Erik would let me touch her, though. He was filling her plate for her as she pointed to her selections. It was disgusting.

  “So,” I said when everyone sat down, “let’s start at the beginning. What happened to you at the cliff?”

  We’d left Barepost to help Arun and the miners escape and had run into some sort of tree monster climbing the cliff face. After fighting it off and taking refuge on a ledge, Savarah had just … disappeared. We’d thought her dead, but had apparently been wrong.

  “I was taken.” She looked down at her plate. “Snatched by a flying cliff monster while you all had your backs turned. It all happened so fast I couldn’t even scream.” She pressed a napkin to her mouth.

  Erik reached over and patted her back. “You don’t have to—”

  “No, it’s okay.” She lowered the napkin and looked up at me. “It took me to its nest and left me for dead, but I was able to escape that night. I was heading back to Barepost when I came across an ur’gel.”

  “How did you know what it was?” I asked.

  She smiled wryly. “I am not so foolish as to believe that legends are not based in fact. Surely, you’ve seen enough monsters on Bruhier to know better.”

  I nodded, conceding the point.

  “It came after me. I’m good with my knives but I’m not equipped to take on a monster alone. So, I played dead. I thought it would lose interest and leave me alone but instead, it carried me away to one of their camps in the jungle. It was below the veil, but I guess when you’re a monster, you don’t fear other monsters.”

  “What did they do to you?” My plate lay forgotten in front of me. I leaned forward, my elbows on the table. I didn’t like her, but anyone who had faced the ur’gels deserved at least some respect.

  “They were reviving the cadavers, creating their army of the dead with some sort of unfamiliar magic ritual. But I wasn’t dead, so the ritual didn’t work on me.”

  “How did you survive?”

  “By pretending to be one of them.”

  The experience she described next had us all riveted in our seats. She’d seen others turned by the ritual, so she’d given the best performance of her life, pretending to change into one of them. The walking corpses were kept in pens like animals, and she’d imitated them to avoid detection. The ur’gels had abused the corpses, beating them just to prove a point—that the creatures could feel no pain or anger. They did only what they were told, with no memory of who they were before the transformation. She’d been living in constant fear of discovery. But according to Savarah, she’d been able to stay out of the way, to hide behind others and create distractions. And the ur’gels were careless, because they assumed they were only dealing with the living dead.

  “I had no idea why they were keeping us there, but when I saw the corpses being taken away, I knew I had another decision to make. I could keep playing dead and possibly escape, or I could make a run for it at the camp and risk recapture and true death.”

  Erik covered one of her hands with his. “You made the right decision.”

  Savarah nodded, eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. “I’m so grateful to be back with you all, so grateful to be alive.”

  After the interrogation that passed for a dinner, we helped the priests clear the yard of the bodies. They were burned in a pyre on the edge of the cliff.

  “To avoid the spread of infection,” Lunla said. According to her, Arun was still alive, his condition had not improved, and he had not woken again.

  That night, I lay in one of the temple’s many sparse bedrooms, unable to sleep. Somewhere far below, Arun was fighting for his life. And in another of these rooms, Savarah slept soundly, unconcerned about him or the original quest.

  Several restless hours passed before I finally rose from bed and ventured into the dark residential hall.
Most of the doors were closed, but at the end of the hall, where there was a sitting room, a fire still burned, the room glowing orange. I tiptoed down the hall and peeked inside.

  Erik and Estrid were already there. Estrid sprawled in a high-backed chair, her hair loose. Erik stood before the fire in just his undershirt and loose trousers. It was strange to see them both without their leather armor or weapons.

  Estrid looked at me over her shoulder. “Took you long enough.”

  “You could have come for me.” I moved inside the room and took the chair across from Estrid. “Are you here because of Savarah?”

  “Yes,” Estrid said at the same time Erik said, “No.”

  “Then why are you here?” I asked Erik.

  He turned away from the fire to survey Estrid and me. “To defend her against you two.”

  Estrid scoffed and waved a hand dismissively in the air. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Come on,” I said. “You can’t possibly be sympathetic to her. Did you notice she hasn’t once mentioned getting back to Tsarra? Tsarra left her in Barepost as a ‘trusted advisor.’ Shouldn’t that be her first objective?”

  “You heard for yourself what she’s been through.”

  “I heard what she said,” I agreed, “but how do we know that any of it is even true?”

  Erik slapped a hand against the wall beside the hearth. “What reason does she have to lie? Why didn’t you just ask her about Arun and Tsarra?”

  I ran a hand through my short hair and sighed. “Because I didn’t want to give her the chance to lie her way out of it.” What I didn’t add was I wanted to catch her in whatever lie she was telling. I didn’t trust her, and I would find a way to prove it to Erik.

  But he didn't even entertain the idea. “When he recovers, I'm going to ask Arun to take her to wherever she needs to go.”

  Over my dead body. “He's not taking her anywhere. She is no one’s responsibility.”

  “You don't think she'll be good to have along?” Estrid chimed in. “She's obviously very resourceful.”

  My mouth dropped open. What could they possibly be thinking? My only instinct when it came to Savarah was to get as far away as possible. “Let her use her resources to get herself home, then. We don't owe her anything.”

  Estrid and Erik exchanged a glance that made my blood boil.

  I rose from the chair and stormed out, leaving them to talk about me in peace.

  Chapter 6

  Even in the dark hallways, I found my way to the temple where I knew there would be a priest at the altar. It seemed that someone was stationed there all day and night, tending the fire and wiping up any water spilled by worshipers. I wasn’t disappointed. A young girl was stoking the fire with an iron rod.

  She turned when I approached and lowered her head in a small bow of acknowledgment.

  I nodded back at her. “Do you know where I can find the infirmary?” I asked.

  The priest gave me directions and a stone I recognized as yooperlite. Arun and I had found a whole cave of it back in the mine on Barepost. As I held the rock in my hand, warming it, it began to glow, acting as a small light to guide me through the dark halls.

  Following her directions, I returned to the residential tower and descended into the lower levels until I reached a heavy wooden door with an iron ring. I used the ring to knock twice, and the door groaned open. Another priest, barely distinguishable from the girl in the temple, blinked at me.

  I held the yooperlite high. “I’d like to see Arun Phina,” I said. When she didn’t seem to understand, I added, “The elf.”

  “Of course.” She beckoned me inside and I followed her down a cool stone hallway.

  “It’s so cold down here,” I commented, rubbing my arms as we walked. I was still in my nightshirt, the cool air raising the hairs on my arms.

  She looked over her shoulder at me. “We find that heat breeds infection. That’s why the infirmary is down here, where the sun cannot reach and warm the sickrooms.”

  I followed her into one of the rooms on the right. It was sparsely furnished with just a small bed, a wooden chair beside it, and a dresser with a warped mirror and wash basin. Arun was on the bed, the light sheet pulled down and tucked around his waist. His top half was naked, except for a blood-soaked bandage on his left shoulder.

  There were dark stones placed in strange patterns on the hard planes of his chest and stomach. Lunla stood over him, her head bowed and her hands hovering over the stones. There was a strange vibration in the room that made me stop in the doorway. D’ahvol weren’t just without magic, we were immune to it. Even still, I could feel it flowing around Lunla and Arun. A strange external force filling the room.

  It stopped abruptly when Lunla looked up and saw us standing there. Her hands fell to her sides. Arun grunted, but didn’t move or open his eyes.

  “How is he?” I asked, still in the doorway.

  “He’s healing.” She looked down at him. “I think.”

  “I couldn’t sleep, so I just wanted to check on him.” I gestured to the chair. “I can sit with him if you need a break.”

  Lunla smiled at that, as if it were a ridiculous idea. “There’s no need for that, but I am glad you’re here. There’s something we should talk about.”

  My stomach dropped. I didn’t really feel much like talking, especially if it was going to go anything like my talk with Erik and Estrid. But I couldn’t very well say no, so when she beckoned me forward I followed, taking a seat in the chair by the bed. It was close enough to Arun I could reach up and take his hand where it lay on the edge of the bed without drawing any attention to the contact.

  Lunla and the other priest didn’t seem to notice. They were busy taking the stones off Arun and dropping them into a black bag. When they were done, Lunla cinched the bag closed and passed it to the girl, who took it with obvious reluctance.

  “Take these to the temple fire. We will burn the sickness out of him.”

  The girl spun on a heel and left, practically running down the hall.

  Then, Lunla turned to me. “Because of what you and your friends did for us—for me—I want to offer you guidance on your journey.”

  “That would be helpful,” I said carefully, not sure where this was going. Not sure I wanted her guidance.

  She perched herself on the edge of Arun’s bed. The elf didn’t stir. “If you want to find out more about the Suun heir, then you need to find the Sisters of Light.”

  The Sisters of Light? It sounded familiar. I remembered Beru telling Lunla their search for the Light Woman had been a dead end. I wondered if they were related, and if this would also lead nowhere. But I didn’t say anything, because it wasn’t like I had any other idea what to do or where to go. As much as I wanted to go home, I couldn’t lead all this trouble back to Bor’sur and my father. Proving I wasn’t the Suun heir was the only way I would be able to get clear of this mess and go home again.

  “Where can I find these sisters?” I asked.

  “Last I heard, they reside above the Valley of the Horses.”

  “Horses? On Bruhier?” Surely, she was mistaken. It was practically impossible to keep horses on Bruhier. Loyal though they were, they had almost zero survival instinct and were perfect monster fodder. And they certainly weren’t equipped to climb the cliffs to safety.

  “Yes.” She smiled a secretive smile. “There are some things on this island you just have to see for yourself.”

  I thought I’d seen quite enough already, but I guessed I would have to endure still more before this journey was over.

  From the bed, Arun stirred.

  I dropped his hand and wiped my palms on the bottom of my tunic, embarrassed I had forgotten I was even holding it.

  His eyes opened slowly, blinked once, and then he turned to me. He gave me a small, weak smile. “Am I dead?”

  “No.” I couldn’t help but smile back.

  Lunla stood and stared at him. “It worked,” she said, more to herself tha
n to either of us.

  Arun coughed and grimaced, as if it hurt. “Are you sure? I feel dead.”

  “I assure you, you’re not.” Lunla was circling him. She pulled down his lower eyelid and peered inside his eyes, then checked his pulse with two fingers on his neck, her eyes closed as she counted the beats. Then, to me, “Stay with him. I need to go to the temple.”

  I nodded, and she left at a trot, faster than I’d seen her move yet.

  When she’d left, Arun shifted in the bed so that he was angled toward me. “What happened?”

  “You were bitten.”

  “Bitten? By … a corpse?”

  “While saving Lunla’s life,” I confirmed. “Apparently, the bite could have turned you into one of them, but Lunla was able to stop the spread of infection.”

  “How?”

  I shrugged. “Magic?”

  He chuckled quietly but held a hand to his chest as if even that small movement hurt him. “You don’t sound so sure about that.”

  “I guess…,” I paused. It wasn’t every day I opened up to people, but I reminded myself this was Arun. He was easy to talk to and never judged. “I guess it’s hard to believe in magic when it has no effect on me or my people. It’s easy to label it some ridiculous idea until I see it performed before my eyes.”

  “Like flying ships?”

  “Like a man brought back from the edge of death.”

  He was quiet for a beat. “It was that bad?”

  “It was that bad.”

  Silence fell between us and Arun closed his eyes, his face gradually relaxing. As I watched him, I thought about what Lunla had said and wondered how long it would be before he was recovered enough to take us to find the Valley of the Horses. If we couldn’t fly there, it meant walking. Bruhier was not a small place. Walking aimlessly through the valleys with their monsters and other hidden dangers was a fool’s errand. Worst of all, Erik and Estrid would never agree to it.

  “I cannot sleep with you thinking so loud.” Arun spoke without opening his eyes or even turning his face toward me.

  “Sorry,” I said.