Her cut wasn't bad so they moved on until they reached a giant shoal. Arden remembered it from his vision. "We climb here." His heart beat in exaltation. "Then we will be at the edge of the city."
They made the ascent without incident and gathered at the top, looking around in wonder. Around them were concrete walls, broken metal doors and a silence so deep, it was as if nothing had ever disturbed it.
After months of the same vision, he and Liana were finally here.
CHAPTER 6
They had searched this part of the city for four days now and had found nothing. Nothing!
No sign of anyone or anything, and more importantly, no sign of the artifact.
Arden pounded his fist against the wall, some of the ancient concrete breaking off and crumbling on the ground at his feet. "Curse it all. When we get too far away from here, I no longer feel like we’re going the right way.” He scanned the entrances to the empty rooms that stretched off into the distance. “It has to be here."
By now, he had said variations of the same thing more than a dozen times, and the others were probably getting sick of hearing it.
Liana struggled to hold back her tears. "I'm sorry, Father. I thought it might have been over here."
Trying to bury his anger, he hugged her. "It's not your fault. It's mine. Maybe I was foolish in bringing us out here, especially when the bone people-"
"We did the right thing," Liana said, peering up at him. "It is here somewhere."
It had to be. Visiondreams had been known to be wrong on occasion, but never ones that came as vividly or as regularly as those he and Liana had been having. "Wait here,” he told her. “I'll go get the others, and we’ll set up camp in one of these rooms and rest for half a day."
She nodded eagerly. "My foot could do with a little less weight on it, and some sleep will do me good."
Making camp in an empty room with a rusted metal door, they spoke among one another, sharing stories, making jokes, and generally doing their best to relax. Eventually sleep took them one by one, until only Arden and Etrian were still awake. "You get some rest," Arden said to his brother scion.
The man nodded and leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. A trained warrior, used to long marches and hard fighting, he was asleep in moments.
Arden stared out into the darkness, listening to his companion’s breathing, and Erinie's light snore. He loved all of them and it broke his heart he hadn’t found the artifact. What if it isn't here? What if I was wrong? Will they still trust in my leadership? Will they think me a fraud? He grimaced. Of course they would still trust in him. They loved him. Why did he always have to doubt himself?
They followed him because he was the best leader in the Covenant. They would forgive him, no matter what. After all, he had broken the Covenant’s laws already and they still trusted him.
He shoved aside those dark thoughts and waited out his watch. Once it was time, Arden woke Wrynric, then sat in the corner and let himself drift off to sleep.
When he woke, Arden felt strangely calm and refreshed, almost like he had not been on a long and dangerous journey but had been lazing around back home. Meridia hated him when he was relaxed. She said if he sat around too much, he would end up an old drunkard like her father. She drove him on, like a teamster driving an ox. If it was not for his power and the respect of the Covenant, he would have meant nothing to her and she’d have cast him aside without a second’s thought. Or so it seemed.
Yet another reason he detested her.
Kristia didn’t know or even care about his role in the Covenant. She had loved him for who he was. He gently made his hand into a fist, remembering the times he had run her soft hair between his fingers. Oh, Kristia, I wish you were still here with me.
But she was gone, her light forever dimmed.
When he had heard of Kristia’s untimely passing, several months after he’d last seen her, he had wanted to murder Meridia. She had killed his beloved by making him go to Stelemia and break Kristia’s dear heart.
But he was the leader of Sunholm. The people expected him to be the solid foundation of their community. He could not murder his wife. Already he’d broken their trust and to do so again would shake his people to the core. There was no one else to lead them, no one as trusted as he.
So Meridia still lived, her vile heart still beating, while beautiful, sweet Kristia, rotted away in the darkness beneath the capital and their daughter soiled her soul working the dingy tavern floor. And there is nothing I can do to help her. She doesn’t even know my name.
As they ate breakfast, Arden said, "Today, we try a new direction. I have a good feeling we’ll find it."
They all seemed a little happier and rekindled. Perhaps the extra rest had done them good. Even Liana's foot didn't seem as swollen.
When they set out, they moved to a section of the city they had yet to search. They stuck together, scouring every room, inside every door and down every corridor. Some of the doors would not open; other doors had rusted away and were easily breached and others still had been torn from the wall or had huge chunks blown out of them.
As they walked down a particularly damaged corridor, Erinie stopped. “Unless I’m mistaken, some of this damage was caused by explosives.”
Arden glanced about, and noticed his hand had already moved to his sword. “Is it recent?”
Erinie kicked a broken piece of concrete into one of the craters. “No, I think this happened a long time ago. Maybe a war was fought here, and that is why whoever built this city left it.”
A strange feeling came over Arden all of a sudden, and he saw Liana stiffen. She looked at him, her eyes wide. "Do you feel that?"
"I do." Arden closed his eyes, letting the feeling of having been here before wash over him. His subconscious mind might be remembering something from his visiondreams his conscious mind had forgotten.
Then he had it. Leading the rest of the group, he and Liana almost ran toward a door further up the corridor. It appeared to be like hundreds of others they'd seen, a twisted, rusted ruin—but it was different in another way. The artifact was behind it.
When they made it to the door, Arden burst into the room and found it full of rusted boxes and broken equipment. "It’s in here somewhere, I can feel it.”
He entered, Liana a step behind. They began moving the boxes around, some of them falling apart in their hands and leaving them covered in powdered rust. Wrynric came in to help them, but Arden motioned him back out the door. "Leave it to Liana and I. If we’re all in here, we might accidently step on the artifact and break it."
The other three stood in the doorway and watched them work.
Arden caught his breath. Near the corner of the room was what looked like human bones, the first they’d seen since arriving at the Dead City. He called Liana and they went over.
"They look they're made of metal," Liana said, kneeling next to them. “But they don’t show any signs of rust.”
He picked one up and was surprised by how heavy it felt. "It’s definitely some form of metal, and it looks like it's molded after a human leg bone, if I’m not mistaken."
Liana ran her fingers along it. “Why would it be made of metal?” She glanced at the refuse scattered across the floor. “Who lived here?”
Erinie came into the room uninvited and almost snatched the bone from Arden so she could study it. “You’re right; it’s replica of a human bone. It is heavier than any metal I know of, even Stelemian steel.”
Under a jagged chunk of broken concrete that had fallen from the wall, Arden caught sight of a skeletal hand, its fingers clasped around something. Carefully lifting the concrete away, he was relieved to find he could pry open the fingers with little effort. When the item was revealed, he felt like cheering.
The artifact. It was right in front of him. After all this time they had found it.
He picked it up carefully and held it to the torchlight. The artifact hung off a silver chain and almost looked like a playing ca
rd the Stelemians used in their tavern games. But this was no playing card. It was covered in strange writing and had a small red light bulb sticking out of one end.
"This is it," he said. “The artifact from our visiondreams.”
The two men came into the room and gathered around Arden and the young women. All five of them stared at the artifact for a long time. Then Erinie said, "Is that it?"
Liana scowled. “What were you expecting? A giant sword?”
“I suppose I never really thought about what we were searching for. I just expected it would be something grander than a dusty card with a dead light bulb on it.”
Arden couldn’t help himself and chuckled. "Once we learn what it does, we’ll know if our journey and the loss of Kalashi were worth it."
He hoped it was. Prayed to the Lost Sun it was. For if he had brought them out here for nothing... what would they think of him? Everything he had ever done would be brought into question. His position as leader—
No. They loved him. If he was wrong, they would accept it. The niggling doubt stayed at the back of his mind, and he made sure it remained there.
"Well, now what?" Liana asked.
Arden placed the artifact in the protective metal box he had brought for it. "We head home."
CHAPTER 7
As they were gathering to leave the Dead City, Etrian held up his hand. "Wait, I thought I heard someone speaking."
They silently drew their weapons, as Erinie reached into one of her bags to prepare one of her alchemical concoctions. The companions listened for several minutes. Arden was about to put his sword away when he heard a distant sound.
It had indeed sounded like a voice. But who could it be? Was there someone still living here?
Using hand signals, he ushered the two warriors to flank him and Liana and Erinie to get behind them. He cautiously led them toward the voice, sword ready, nerves on edge.
Several minutes later, he called a stop, for they hadn’t heard anything for some time. They waited for nearly ten minutes in silence, before hearing the voice again. "We go left," Wryrnic mouthed, leading them down another passage. Arden was certain they’d walked it a few days earlier, but they defiantly hadn't heard a voice.
Some of the doors couldn’t be opened so they’d passed them by and tried others. Could someone have been living behind one and not heard them outside hammering on their door? Why had they not spoken up or warned them to go away? Who was the voice speaking to now?
They arrived at where they thought the voice had spoken from and listened. They didn’t have to wait long. The stranger began speaking in a deep monotone voice in a language Arden hadn't heard before. He glanced at the others, but they seemed as perplexed as he did. Even Erinie seemed without words.
The voice said something again.
"How about we try knocking?" The librarian whispered.
"I don't like that idea," Liana said. “Who knows what’s in there.”
They all looked to Arden to make the final decision. Taking a deep breath, he said, "I never saw or felt anything like this in my visiondream." He raised his eyebrows to Liana.
She shook her head. “Me either.”
"But I see no reason not knock and see if they answer. If this is one of the inhabitants who calls this place home, perhaps they can tell us what the artifact is and how we can use it."
Etrian studied the door. "Or they could try to kill us."
Arden tightened his grip on his sword. "We are all seasoned warriors in our own way. If they try to attack us, we come at them from three sides and finish them quickly.” He inclined his head toward Erinie. “Prepare something just in case."
She nodded and brought forth a vial of brown liquid. When they were ready, Wrynric went over and knocked on the door with his mailed hand. "Hello, who are you?" The old warrior asked, leaning close to listen.
There came no reply.
He knocked again and repeated the same question but still no one answered. "What do we do now?" Liana asked.
Arden picked up a piece of broken concrete and bashed on the door with it. "Open up, we need to speak to you."
Nothing. Frowning, he put his ear to it. He thought he heard a faint tapping sound coming from within, but couldn’t be certain.
Wrynric knocked again and they waited. Still no answer.
Arden sighed. “We wait here for a few hours and see if anything happens. If they start speaking again, we’ll start knocking.”
They sat against the wall and rested, their weapons never leaving their hands. After more than an hour of silence, the voice started up again. They rose from the floor and listened. The voice had a distinct cadence, like the person was listing off something or reciting numbers.
Arden knocked on the door, and called out in greeting. The voice fell silent and nothing more happened.
"Should we try to break in?" Wrynric asked.
Arden rubbed his chin. Should they? Or should they leave? His and Liana's visiondreams never showed anything about this door, nor a voice nor anything else. Perhaps they should return home. They had a community to save and an enemy to drive away.
"No, I think we return to Sunholm. We’ll leave this place and never come back."
Everyone but Erinie seemed relieved. She glowered at the door, no doubt lamenting she’d never get to meet whoever was in there and ask them a million questions. But she would respect his decision and return home with no answers.
Perhaps this was for the best. The monotone voice had an eerie, off-putting sound to it, like it was something better left undisturbed.
IT TOOK THEM SIX DAYS to return to the edges of their scouting zone. They had gotten lost a few times and had to hide from a pack of jamalganas that were moving through the tunnels. But they had made it without having to engage in combat. Besides that one encounter with the jamalganas, the only other eventful thing had been their exploration of the highway. They had walked its full length and found it had ended at a vast chasm. Once there might have been a bridge spanning it, but if Erinie were correct, it had been destroyed with explosives. They would never find out where the road led, nor learn who had built it.
Arden’s sword had been a loss, as by the time they’d returned to the carcass of the dead creature they’d fought, it had been picked clean by scavenges, and they could find no sign of his weapon. The others paid their respects to Kalisha, who had sadly also been fed on, leaving behind nothing but scattered bones and chunks of hair.
But they had expected that. For such was the way of things in the Nether.
One night out from Sunholm, someone shook Arden awake during the night. He sat up and reached for his weapon, expecting they were about to be attacked. The torch remained unlit and he could still hear the others’ breathing. “Father,” a small voice said.
It was Liana.
He put his sword away. “What’s wrong? Who’s on watch?”
“I am,” Etrian whispered.
Arden felt a hand touch his mailed arm. Taking it, he encircled it in his. Liana’s hand felt cold. “What happened? Did you have another vision?”
“Yes, but this one was new.”
He leaned close to her. “Was it about the artifact?”
She didn’t speak for a long moment. “No, not the artifact.” She put her lips to his ear. “I think it was about Semira, but I can’t be sure.”
Arden frowned. “Semira. What did it show you?”
“I saw her dressed in white armor standing on a precipice with a lake of liquid fire behind her. On her shoulder was a metal bird, and before her were metal beasts with eight legs, and giant fangs tearing people apart.” He felt her shudder. “It was horrible, Father. What do you think it means?”
He had no idea. Did it show the future? Or was this another one of the dreams where its meaning was impossible to discern? “Are you sure it was Semira?”
“It looked like her, but it also didn’t. I’m not sure.”
Liana was freighted and in need of comfort. Her dream
might mean nothing, or it could mean everything. But right then, they both needed some sleep. “You can stay here beside me,” he told her. “We both need rest, for we have a lot of work ahead of us.”
“What if I have the vision again?”
“Then wake me, and we’ll push on with little sleep until we get back home.”
“You think...”
Arden sighed. “I don’t know what I think. If the dream comes to you more than once in a night, it must be important. If it doesn’t, then you need not worry about it.”
She curled up next to him, and rested her face on his armored chest. “I love you, Father.”
He kissed her head. “I love you too.”
When they woke, Liana told him she’d not had another vision and that it must have been nothing. He hugged her. “Then put it aside, and let us focus on getting back to Sunholm and learning how to use the artifact.”
As they made their way through a passages close to home, they saw recent signs of the passing of groups of bone people. The signs were hard to make out, but for Arden and the other two men who scouted through there regularly, they were blindingly obvious. He even thought he could smell them.
Tired though he was, Arden increased his pace. His people needed him. The others hurried after him, Liana limping still, but keeping pace, as she too was eager to get home.
Soon they saw torchlight ahead in the tunnel and a figure silhouetted against it. As he got closer he recognized the shape of the figure. Semira.
Walking toward his daughter, Arden handed Liana his torch then took the artifact out of its metal case and held it up for his first born to see. Semira gazed at it with a strange gleam in her eye. Thoughts of the dream he'd had where she killed him, came unbidden to his mind.
Arden discounted them immediately. Semira could be a strange one at times, and the older she got, the more detached she became. But she loved him, and he loved her. Later, he would find time to spend with her. Arden smiled to himself. When the war with the bone-people was over, he would take her with him on a trip to Stelemia and let her see the wonders of Radashan Crevice and stand before the Iron Tower of Jharman. She’d love that.
Fall of a Lost Sun_The Prequel novella to the Lost Sun World Page 5