The Restless Shore tw-2

by James P. Davis

  By mid morning they had reached the steep edge of the Wash, and by noon the broken lowland was all she could see to the south, a stilled ocean of ridges and valleys. Where water had once flowed across the Mere-That-Was, now the waves were stone and rock, a tide of browns and greens moving so slowly that only mountains might still see them crash upon a shore. Bright flowers topped the frozen waves in light blues and whites, their scent heavy on the wind.

  The land was cracked and shattered into a labyrinth of forested valleys and towering spires. Its only water fell from large forest-motes. The forked streams gathered into rivers, flowing west into the Lesser Mere-all that remained of the vast inland sea.

  Spiked formations of stone stood like mockeries of the towns and villages that had once dotted the shores of the mere. Ghaelya’s gaze sought the heart of every shadow among the valleys and the high grasslands between, and she listened for the call of birds, but found none. The silence of such a vibrant place was deafening and unreal, further keeping her mind in the state of dreaming wakefulness which kept her stride slow and uneven.

  She fell back from the others though they didn’t seem to notice or care, still forging the path onward to the southwest. Uthalion kept the lead with the much-changed Vaasurri at his side. There was a predatory look in his deep black eyes where once she had seen curiosity and understanding, but at least he was on their side. The human remained a mystery to her, personable one moment and cold the next, though it seemed he was getting colder as time passed.

  Brindani, once constantly at her side, had grown distant since Uthalion had joined them, spending more time alone, lost in his own inscrutable thoughts. Ghaelya was curious about what had passed between him and the human and the secret they shared about Tohrepur, but she had not broached the subject with either of them just yet. She had hoped once they were closer to the place, one or the other might speak up, unburden himself of their past together. But the more she observed their silence, the more she suspected their secret would be tightly kept.

  Her steps slowed as a deep droning buzz echoed through the shadowed valleys on her right. When the sound came again, starting and stopping quickly, a chill ran down her spine, bringing to mind the spring-beetles from her dream. She imagined them swarming over the rocks, building little houses with the empty shells of their dead among long ropes of pulsing red flowers.

  When she finally caught up to the others it seemed the day had passed her by in a blur lengthening shadows and half-heard, furtive noises, leaving her to find yet another evening encroaching on the precious light. The winding path of the cliffs lay at her back and before her descended a long slope that led into what Uthalion called the wash. The sky was darkening, fading from red to purple in the west and casting the ravine below into rusty shadow. In the east, a second sunset seemed to mirror the true one, flashing red and splitting the sky into two identical halves.

  “Long twilight,” Vaasurri muttered, turning his dark gaze east and west. “The Glass Mesa in the east reflecting day’s end. A bad omen.”

  Ghaelya had heard tales of the Mesa, a massive plateau of translucent quartz left over from the days of Blue Fire. Though no one knew from where or why it had appeared on the Akana, it was a forbidden place, and those who dared approach it faced execution in Airspur.

  “I don’t think signs or omens are needed to doom this little journey,” Uthalion replied and gestured to the end of the slope. “We can use the extra light though, make some headway across the Wash before-”

  “We should cross at dawn,” Vaasurri interrupted, his black eyes flashing in the twin sunsets with little red flames that sparked Ghaelya’s memory-so much like the fire in Tessaeril’s eyes.

  “There’s no need,” Uthalion replied. “The Wash isn’t very wide at this point, we just-”

  “Listen to me, Uthalion,” Vaasurri said, his voice deeper, insistent, and soon drowned out by a thunderous wave of buzzing from the south that silenced all argument. Ghaelya wandered closer to the slope’s edge and stared into the shadows at the edge of the ravine below with ominous realization. The buzzing faded, and Vaasurri continued, “We should-”

  “Cross at dawn. Fine,” Uthalion said quickly, though an edge of anger had crept into his voice. “But we’ll need shelter. The dreamers will catch up, likely find us out in the open this time, even if we set a fool’s fire.”

  “It’s settled then,” Ghaelya said, surprising them both. She strode past them down the slope, the seemingly shapeless shadow at the edge of the ravine coming into focus as she neared. Each step felt like a forced march as the shape of a dilapidated old farmhouse came into view, a hollowed out and overgrown windmill, almost reclaimed by the tenacious grassland, standing at its side. She tried to hide her shaking hands as she stared down the dark, eyelike windows of the upper floor and spoke over her shoulder, “We’ll rest here.”

  “Careful,” Uthalion said and drew his sword. “We don’t know what might be holed up in there.”

  Vaasurri prowled closer, sniffing the air and crouching in the grass, his bone-sword half drawn from its sheath. Brindani simply stared, his dark-ringed eyes blearily taking in the house and mill as Ghaelya tentatively took the first step on the creaking porch.

  “Nobody’s home,” she said, not quite knowing how she knew, but trusting to the dream to prove her right. A single spring-beetle beat its wings mercilessly on the front windowsill, righting itself and rolling on its back over and over again as she turned to Uthalion. “Not yet,” she added.

  She climbed the stairs to the porch and looked into the deep shadows of the house. The front door had been torn from its hinges long ago. Motes of dust swirled in the crimson rays of sunset that illuminated the jagged edges of broken furniture and patches of dirty walls. She set her jaw and lifted her chin almost challengingly, daring the madness of the dream to be real, until a faint scent of wildflowers drew her gaze to a split floorboard, where tall spiky blooms of lavender had broken through.

  She crossed the porch with a whispered curse and entered the farmhouse, letting shadows and beetles and sweet lavender take her into the unfolding vision of her dream.

  Brindani let night fall upon him like a thin shroud, dark and cold. Only then could he hide the trembling anxiety that crawled beneath his skin. He sat on the floor of the farmhouse’s common room and waited for a quiet moment alone, staring out the window as the green grasses dulled to rusty reds and deep purples. Shiny brown beetles crawled over the walls and buzzed through the open door, bouncing in lazy arcs against the ceiling, looking for a way out.

  Uthalion had paced the house up and down cautiously, searching for any sign of habitation, but found nothing save insects and the occasional spider. Ghaelya had walked the house as well, but more slowly, her long footsteps measuring the creaking floorboards as though she were touring a gallery of fine art and not the crumbling remains of someone’s home. Neither of them had paid much attention to the half-elf, leaving him to sit and stare in silence. But the other one, the fey, had kept close watch upon him since sundown.

  The killoren was barely more than a crouched lump, wrapped in his cloak outside the house, refusing to come inside. But the black eyes, ever watchful, never strayed far from the window where the half-elf sat. Brindani avoided the ebony eyes and the humorless, tigerlike grin of Vaasurri, fearing that the fey hunter might somehow prowl into his mind and track down the secrets hidden in that dark, cloudy realm. Brindani scratched his arms absently, comforted by the sensation of flesh growing numb as his stomach slowly tightened into a tight knot of needling pain.

  “Can’t sleep?” Uthalion said as he strode into the room. His heavy footsteps on the old wood startled the half-elf. “You should get some rest while you can. You’re not looking as well as you did last night.”

  The human spoke casually enough, but Brindani detected the barest edge of accusation in Uthalion’s voice, and felt the passive air of suspicion that surrounded his old friend leaning close to the open door. Brindani cursed quietl
y, feeling two sets of eyes upon him, and thought frantically as to how he could escape their scrutiny. Laying his head back against the wall, he managed a brief grin, and made himself appear as comfortably casual as possible. The pins of pain in his stomach complained as his back straightened, but the ache subsided when he was still again.

  “I’m usually not an easy sleeper,” he said at length, sighing. “And out here …”

  Uthalion nodded as if in agreement, but his stare was out the window and lost somewhere else far beyond the Akana. Brindani pulled his pack close and raised his right knee nonchalantly, prepared to make good his escape to a more secluded spot when the time was right. The human seemed not to notice the motion at all.

  “It’s like she knew this house was here, just waiting for us,” Uthalion mused, his eyes narrowing as he turned to the farmhouse’s interior. He watched the ceiling and the walls as though they might come to life.

  “Maybe she did know,” Brindani replied. “But, at this point, does that really matter?”

  “Actually, I think it matters more now, the further we get into this,” Uthalion said, returning his endless stare to the empty view out the window. “The further it pulls us in …” he added in a hushed tone.

  Us? Brindani thought, a flash of covetous rage briefly tightening his hands into fists, but he let it go as quickly as it had come. He’d not heard the song the last two nights, not since Uthalion had decided to guide them across the Akana. Though he feared the missing song had been his own fault, Uthalion’s words left him wondering.

  “She’s dead, I imagine … Ghaelya’s sister,” Uthalion continued, his stone cold face split by moonlight and shadow.

  “I don’t recall you having the best imagination,” Brindani replied, easing himself up into a standing position against the wall, still measuring his actions carefully and attempting to seem casual. “But I do remember you as being more of an optimist.”

  “Well, live and learn,” Uthalion shrugged, grinning slightly. “The more you hope, the harder the fall. Better to just keep expectations low.”

  “You don’t think we’ll find Tessaeril,” Brindani said, more to himself than Uthalion. He was unsure of how the idea sat with him after so many nights traveling with Ghaelya, with little to go on but her mysterious dreams.

  “On the contrary, I’m certain we will find her,” the human replied. “And I’m sure we’ll do our best to deal with her remains respectfully, and then we’ll … be on our way.”

  Uthalion’s pause caught Brindani’s attention. He sounded unsure, as if the human hadn’t yet thought of much beyond finding Tohrepur. The half-elf edged closer to the door, his breath coming quick as he ignored the growing pain in his abdomen. Pale moonlight lit the cracked boards beneath his boots as he tasted the night air and let it cool the fine beads of sweat on his brow.

  “It’s a long way to walk just for a funeral isn’t it?”

  Ghaelya’s voice startled them both, but Uthalion did not turn to look at the genasi standing in the hallway. The energy lines of her skin flared in the dim light, and her arms were crossed. Brindani had known her long enough to judge the slow boil of anger that steamed in her blue-green eyes. Uthalion merely heaved a deep breath and grinned a bitter smile as Brindani quietly excused himself and stepped outside.

  His darting eyes could not find the stealthy Vaasurri, and he breathed a sigh of relief, swiftly hopping down off the edge of the porch. Waist-high grass and weeds surrounded him as he studied the weathered and overgrown exterior of the old stone windmill. Despite his pain, he crossed the distance to the darkened mill as silent as a ghost, leaning on the stone and listening for any sign of life within. At the sound of raised voices from inside the farmhouse he ducked inside the narrow tower, pushing through cobwebs and thick ivy, searching for enough dark to shelter his secrets.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  8 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

  (1479 DR)

  The Akana, Edge of the Wash, Akanul

  My sister is alive,” Ghaelya said.

  Uthalion watched Brindani walk across the old porch and noted the swift shadow of Vaasurri following the half-elf, before responding. He casually ran a thumb over the hilt of his long sword, not sure of what to expect from Ghaelya or the half-elf, but prepared for anything.

  “I don’t know that,” he replied coolly. “And more importantly, I don’t believe you know that.”

  He heard her sharp intake of breath, felt her eyes pierce his back from across the room, and sensed a strange familiarity in the experience. Though there was dust on the windowsill, and the curtains had rotted away, he half expected to blink and find the green flower print curtains he remembered from his old life, the sill clean and smooth beneath his hands as Maryna’s voice sang to him from somewhere else in the house … He blinked, and the farmhouse remained as it was, the genasi approaching him from behind.

  “I know it,” Ghaelya said, her voice rising as she strode into the room. “I’ve always known it, ever since-”

  “How could you possibly?”

  “I’ve seen her!” she yelled.

  “It’s not enough!” he answered in kind, turning to face her and shaking his head in disbelief. “Dreams? This is what you follow, Hells, what you ask us to follow to Tohrepur?”

  Even as he posed the question he felt some small part of himself want it to be true. Though he had little faith in or desire for his own dreams, his nightmares, he hoped that somehow Ghaelya’s dreams had some meaning or truth to them. Despite that faint hope, he was too familiar with the nature of reality to invest in her faith. And he had his own reasons to suspect the nature of her dreams. As she stood in the center of the room, glaring at him, he could almost hear the distant murmur of singing. But this time he could not determine if it was memory or something else.

  “I didn’t bring you here,” she said through clenched teeth. “Brindani didn’t bring you here, and my dreams didn’t bring you here … So why are you here, Uthalion?”

  The question slid into him like a boning knife, the kind his wife wielded so expertly on the fish he would bring home for dinner, fresh from the spring. His wife’s voice asked him the question again, echoing across the years, her thin shoulders slumped as she leaned back against the dining room table in the lamplight, their daughter fast asleep in the back bedroom. Uthalion blinked, and she was gone. He turned away from the angry genasi with a scowl as fresh pain erupted from old wounds.

  “Save your questions and your breath,” he answered gruffly. “I have no apologies or excuses for you … or anyone.”

  His hands balled into fists, Uthalion felt stretched between anger and exhaustion. The silver ring was heavy on his hand, and he feared sleep-true sleep-was not as far away as he had hoped. He relaxed somewhat as Ghaelya fell back a step, leaned against the east wall, and let the sudden weariness settle into his spent body even as old resentments boiled to the surface of his heart.

  “You know, I see someone running, it’s not where they’re going that makes me curious,” Ghaelya said, quieter, but he still felt the edge of anger in her words. “I’ve got to wonder: what are they running from?”

  Sighing, Uthalion looked at her over his shoulder with a sly, tired grin.

  “I think perhaps, on that point, we seem to understand one another,” he replied knowingly. He looked away, the answers still only half-formed in his own thoughts and muddled by memory and beguiling song, obligation and compulsion.

  The chirping of crickets and the buzzing of spring-beetles filled the quiet between them, though Uthalion knew she wouldn’t let things go. There was a youthful stubbornness in her that he envied; or rather, he envied the memory of feeling the same way when he’d been young, leaving his grandfather’s farm in far away Tethyr.

  “She is alive,” Ghaelya said at length, breaking the silence between them. “In the end, I will prove that to you.”

  “Keep your hope alive,” he said. “And I will consider that feat enough, no matter what
happens.”

  She turned away without another word, her footsteps diminishing down the short hallway and slowing cautiously on the stairs at the back of the house. He glanced out the window looking north and wondering how much farther he would have to run before he could turn back, find his family, and try again to be the husband he’d once been, to be the parent he’d never had.

  Returning his attention to the old porch and the maturing evening outside, he let the whistling breeze and the buzzing of insects soothe his darkening mood to a mere frown. Though he still did not fully trust Ghaelya’s tale, he felt confident that at least she believed in it. Only one voice in their small group did not yet ring fully true.

  He listened carefully for the sound of voices outside, but detected nothing of Brindani or Vaasurri in the dark. Tired as he was, he did not remove the silver ring and kept his sword loose in its sheath, trusting to the killoren’s instincts, but ready to respond should trouble erupt in the middle of the night.

  Ghaelya stood at the closed door for long moments, shaking and wanting to break something. She squeezed her eyes shut, taking easy, slow breaths, before sitting at the edge of the rotted bed frame against the northern wall. Over and over again she reminded herself that, despite the human’s uncanny ability to anger her, she needed a guide across the Akana, to find Tessaeril-but also, that she must watch him closely.

  No matter where she ran, no matter where Uthalion led her, the Choir had been quick on their heels, the dreamers’ howls as predictable as a rooster’s morning crow. Until Tessaeril was in sight, in her arms, and safely away from Tohrepur, Ghaelya would be vigilant and guard her trust well. She refused to imagine her sister as just a body waiting to be found.

  Furious at the thought, she kicked out, splintering the leg of a bedside chair. The satisfaction of feeling something snap and fall apart calmed her, and she exhaled softly. She flexed her knuckles as she opened her eyes and scanned the sparse bedroom. Two windows, west and south, their shutters fallen away, lay open to the evening air. The scent of lavender, heady on the cool, damp air, blew in the windows and stirred her to investigate the room. She stood and approached the west, hearing crickets outside as she looked up the long hill. The insects were one of the first night sounds she could recall hearing on the Akana. Turning back to the moonlit chamber, she saw nothing of importance, no sign of why she had been brought here, why the dream-Tessaeril-had shown her this place.