Embers at Galdrilene

by Audra Trosper

  Serena studied it for a moment. “It reminds me of a plate standing on its edge.”

  Emallya nodded. “An apt description. Here, it is nothing more than a pretty blue disk.”

  Kellinar croaked, “But it’s on its side.”

  “I told you last night, things are very different here,” Emallya said.

  Kirynn walked back to them in the same careful fashion, her eyes on the ground right in front of her feet.

  Mckale groaned and closed his eyes. “Why do things keep sliding around?”

  Emallya took hold of her horse and ran a soothing hand down its sweaty neck. “This is Maiadar, the realm of the dead, or rather the very threshold of it. It encompasses all worlds and none. Time and distance have no meaning here.”

  Mckale opened his eyes a fraction and looked at her. “Maiadar is a legend.”

  Emallya nodded. “As you can see it is a true one.”

  Maleena rubbed her head. Thousands of whisperings filled the mist around them. It reminded her of what she’d heard during the nights by the lake. An uneasy feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Her skin prickled. It felt like a thousand pairs of eyes watched them. She cleared her throat. “Am I the only one who can hear voices whispering?”

  “No,” Serena said. “I can hear them, too. They are all around us.”

  Kirynn gave the barest nod of her head. “I can hear them.”

  “We all can,” Emallya said. “It has been over five hundred years since the living have walked among the dead. They are curious.”

  “Will they harm us?” Vaddoc asked, his voice cracking. His expression didn’t show the deep dread Maleena felt rolling off of him.

  “No, they will not harm us. There have been a few driven mad by the whispering or by the shifting view. I am sure all of you are stronger than that.”

  “I can’t hear the Dragon Song,” Maleena whispered. The place in her mind where the spirit of the young dragon usually resided, felt strangely empty.

  Emallya checked the girth on her saddle. “You have left the world of the living, it cannot reach you here.”

  Inexplicable desolation enveloped Maleena. “Will the eggs grow dark? Do they think we are dead?”

  “Though you are not in the world of the living, you are not dead. The young dragons in their eggs will still hear an echo of you. When we leave this place, you will hear the song again.”

  “This is too flaming confusing.” Kellinar scowled at the mists around them. “Can we please get on with whatever it is we are supposed to do so we can get out of here?”

  Emallya nodded and swung into her saddle. “Yes, let us be done with it. It requires all of my powers to bind my spirit to me. We must be out of here before my strength wanes.”

  Maleena climbed to her feet, and moved to her horse. Everything around her slid. Even the mist shifted. Black trees, wavering as if distorted by heat waves, sometimes stood covered in silver leaves, yet when she looked again, the branches were bare.

  The trees and even clumps of grass a few feet away slid. Some moved farther away, others closer and still others from one side to another, all at the same time. Every time her eyes moved the world around her shifted. Her stomach heaved and she worked to keep it settled. Somewhere behind her someone retched.

  At first, Maleena had her hands so full with her mare’s balking and spooking, she had little time to dwell on the discomfort of the situation. In front of her, Vaddoc’s horse half reared and snorted, white froth flying from its muzzle. Serena struggled to control her mount, the small horse breaking into a gallop and then stopping so fast Serena nearly lost her seat. Eventually exhaustion overtook the animals and they plodded along, their heads hanging in defeat.

  As they rode, the clear space in the mist moved with them and once the horses settled it didn’t take long for the discomfort to creep back in. Pale, washed out light came from everywhere and nowhere. The landscape held only endless mists, black trees with their flickering silvery leaves, voices that whispered words just beyond understanding, and the disconcerting shifting.

  The only constant was the silver thread they followed. In her mind, Maleena clung to the silver thread like a drowning person clings to a lifeline. Somehow, the line connected them to the real world. Terror gripped her heart at the thought of losing sight of it.

  Occasionally the view was broken by another disk like the one they came through. They even saw one that floated several feet above the ground, but the thread didn’t go near them and they passed by each one. Time faded away. Maleena had no idea how long they traveled, how far they’d come, or even if it was morning or evening. No one suggested they stop to eat even when she was sure time for the mid-day meal had long passed. She doubted any of them could stomach the thought of food.

  Emallya equated the movement with the feeling of being on a small boat in high seas except the ground under their feet never actually moved, just everything around them. Maleena didn’t care what it was like, she was miserable. Her stomach churned and lurched with every step, her head pounded with the emotions of those around her, and she was exhausted from both.

  She tried to suppress the seed of fear growing inside her. She could feel all of her companions around her, except Emallya. To Maleena, the older woman seemed to fade in and out. One moment the woman faded the way color fades from the sky as the sun sets, becoming translucent and ghostly. Then something moved in the mist, something that felt familiar and when it came close, Emallya’s strength and form returned.

  Maleena rode up close to her. “Are you alright?”

  Emallya gave her a tight nod. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to hang on, but I am managing.”

  “Do we have much farther to go?”

  “Not much.”

  Maleena sighed. “It feels like we have been riding for hours.”

  Emallya nodded again. “We have.”

  Maleena glanced at the surrounding mist and promptly returned her eyes to the pommel of her saddle. “There is something in the mist that follows us.”

  “Yes. It is Rylin. Here, we are connected again. Here, I can feel her and she can lend me strength. She helps to maintain the thread that leads us to our destination and she helps to shield all of us from the pull of Maiadar. It is not something I thought possible. I did not think I would ever feel Rylin again until my own spirit joined hers here.” Emallya’s voice cracked at the last word with barely restrained sorrow.

  Sensing Emallya’s emotional struggle and the older woman’s need to be alone with her thoughts, Maleena didn’t attempt anymore conversation. She dropped back among the others. None of them even glanced at her. Kirynn stared at her saddle while she held the reins in one hand and her zarhi in a white knuckled grip in the other. Kellinar muttered darkly to himself, she could only understand the occasional curse. The others rode behind her and she felt too tired and sick to look around at them.

  Time wore on until it almost felt to Maleena that they had always rode through the ever shifting mists and landscape. What she remembered of the time before the lake was actually a dream and none of it ever happened. The mist, the whisperings, and the strange landscape were the only things that ever were or would be.

  She was jolted from her apathy when her horse ran into the back of Emallya’s and stopped. The older woman looked back at them. “We have arrived.” Another disk lay ahead. This one also rested on its edge, leaned at a forty-five degree angle. It was an impossibility, but then so was everything else in this place.

  Emallya climbed down from her horse and moved with an unsteady walk to the disk. This one was different. Although flat like the others and showing no depth, it looked more like water. It moved and rippled like the surface of a wind-blown lake. Emallya again traced symbols on the water.

  “You will not need to hold the minds of the horses this time, Maleena. In fact, I doubt you will be able to stop them from charging through. This way leads to life and they know it,” Emallya said. “All of you have to go before me.”
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br />   Kellinar rode toward the disk. As he neared it, his horse’s head came up, its ears flicked forward and it leaped into the disk. That seemed to release the other horses from their lethargy and they bolted for the disk-lake.

  Maleena held her horse back for a moment. She could read a reluctance to move toward the disk-lake in the older woman. “You think to stay here?” she asked in shock when she saw the thoughts in the other woman’s mind.

  Emallya looked at her through sorrow filled eyes. “Rylin is here and I can feel her”

  “Does she want you to stay?”

  Emallya shook her head. “No. She pushes me to leave.”

  Maleena studied the other woman’s face. “What will you do?”

  In answer she reached out and slapped Maleena’s horse hard on the hip. The little mare leaped toward the impossible disk.

  This time, when Maleena hit the water, there was noise. Water pressed against her ears and she felt the cold shock of it as it soaked her clothes. She held tightly to the horse, hoping desperately the mare knew in which direction the surface lay.

  Just as she felt her lungs were about to burst, they broke the surface. The horse immediately swam for the shallows, churning the water with powerful strokes of her legs. The full moon riding high in the sky revealed the shore and beyond it a towering ridge. Her mare thrashed to the beach and Maleena crawled out of the water on her hands and knees. Exhausted, she collapsed on the sand, shivering in the cold night air.

  Kirynn lay on her back on the shore of the lake and stared up at the star filled sky while she breathed in the cold air. Never in her life did she think it would feel good to be exposed to the cold when soaked to the skin, but right at that moment, it did.

  She climbed to her feet and looked around. Emallya broke the surface of the water and swam toward shore next to her horse. Mckale was helping Maleena up. Kellinar and Vaddoc stood near their horses with Loki, and Serena was getting to her feet.

  Kirynn ignored the icy water soaking her clothes and started toward her horse then stopped in her tracks. People ran out of the darkness toward them, shouting in surprise.

  A dark haired man with a twisted scar down the side of his face ran past Kirynn to help a sagging Emallya from the water. All around, people offered warm blankets and took horses. As Kirynn looked around in confusion she noticed the glow of flames from various areas in the ridge around them.

  Emallya argued with a heavy set woman whose gray hair was bound tightly in a short braid. “That can be taken care of later, Marda,” Kirynn heard Emallya say.

  The heavy set woman, Marda, replied, “No it can’t. I have heard the stories plain as anyone else around here. Once bonded, they won’t be thinking of themselves. There was a time when a full week passed between a Foundling’s arrival and the Hatching. It can wait a couple of more hours tonight.”

  “Marda,” Emallya’s voice came as a warning.

  Marda planted her fists on her ample hips. “I insist. There is plenty of time for the other.”

  The man with the scar down his face looked intently at Emallya for a moment and she sighed. “As you wish Bardeck.” She looked at the fuming woman in front of her, “Bardeck agrees with you, Marda, and I am too tired to argue further, so you get your way.”

  Marda’s broad face broke into a wide smile and she hugged Emallya. “I knew you would see it my way.”

  She turned and fixed Kirynn and her companions with a stern look. “You Foundlings come with me now. Emallya can have you after you have dry clothes, and warm food and drink in your stomachs.”

  When Kirynn looked around, none of the horses were anywhere to be seen though Marda didn’t seem to be concerned. She would have questioned Emallya, but the older woman shared an embrace with the man named Bardeck and they looked at each other in such a way that she didn’t want to interrupt. She turned her questions to Marda instead. “Where exactly are we and where do you intend us to go?”

  Marda looked surprised by the question. “You don’t know where you are? Emallya, you didn’t tell them?”

  Emallya stepped away from Bardeck and shook her head. “No, I was not entirely sure we would make it. I saw no sense in getting their hopes up for something that might never have come to pass.”

  “Well then,” Marda turned back to Kirynn and her companions, “welcome Foundlings, to Galdrilene.”

  Kirynn stared, dumfounded. She shook her head in disbelief. “You mean we’re here? Already?”

  “Indeed you are, now come along. Hot baths and food await you.” She turned and walked toward the ridge that rose high into the air around them in the shape of an immense horseshoe.

  Clearly she expected them to follow. For a moment they all stood as if rooted to the ground. Then Serena, practical as ever, said, “Not only does a hot bath and a full stomach sound wonderful, but I doubt this woman is going to lead us into anything even remotely like what we just followed Emallya through.” Her words loosened something inside Kirynn and she laughed in agreement. They fell into step behind Marda.

  The ridge loomed high over their heads blocking out everything else in their view. As they approached the toe of the horseshoe, the ground sloped gently upward and the grass gave way to stone that leveled out and created an expansive veranda. They passed a large cave opening, its light spilling out onto the smooth stone. On one side of the cave several rows of long, simple tables were arranged, while on the other large cooking hearths burned as a multitude of women stirred heavy pots and worked dough. Marda led them beyond and through a pair of massive double doors.

  They found themselves standing in an immense hall. The ceiling rose high above, well beyond the light offered by the lamps and torches set in the walls. The side walls were set over a hundred paces apart. Heavy, stone pillars lined the walls. Each so thick if all six of them stood with their arms stretched out they might reach around one. Ornately carved, twining roses and dragons climbed each pillar. They stood in sharp contrast against the plain stone walls behind them. The long hall ended in another set of massive doors.

  Marda led them through a small doorway just inside the entrance and down a long curving stairway. At the bottom they followed her down another hallway. This hall, however, was of average size, its smooth stone walls unadorned by either carvings or pillars. Marda stopped in front of a door. “You ladies will find all that you need to bathe behind this door. Take as much time as you like, when you are done one of the attendants will show you to where you will dine this evening. Tomorrow you may begin taking your meals in the Dining Hall.” She looked at the group of men. “Your door is farther down and then I will take the boy to where he can get a bath and a meal.”

  Loki glared up at her. “I’m staying with Kellinar.”

  “Your friends have much still ahead of them this evening. Your path goes a different way from theirs now.”

  Loki stuck his bottom lip out, his face set in a stubborn mask. “I ain’t going nowhere with you.”

  Marda loomed over the small boy. “Oh yes you are, young man. I will take these men to their baths and then you will come with me and just see if you don’t.”

  Kirynn, Maleena, and Serena stepped through the door, leaving Marda lecturing Loki in the hall. A large, low cavern spread out in front of them. Warm, moist air filled the cavern from the multitude of steaming pools in the stone floor against the far wall. Several little bridges spanned a narrow empty channel in front of the pools. A heavy piece of metal separated each pool from the channel. Chains ran from the metal pieces up through a pulley secured to the ceiling of the chamber. Next to four of the pools sat stacks of thick towels and square cakes of soap. Two women dressed in white robes approached them.

  “Please, just leave your soiled clothing, we will see it’s washed and returned to you,” one of the white clad women said. “Your bags will be brought in shortly.”

  Kirynn stripped out of her wet clothing, letting it fall to the floor in a soggy a pile. The warm air felt good against her clammy skin. She didn�
��t mind leaving the garments to be washed, but she carried her zahri with her. Laying it down within easy reach of her chosen pool, she paused to work her wet hair loose from its braid.

  She stepped onto the first of three steps leading down into the water and gasped. She’d bathed in warm water before, however, the last two years of her life had been spent on the battlefields between Boromar and Kanther where the only water available came in the form of cold streams. This water wasn’t warm. It was hot.

  Maleena looked up when Kirynn gasped. “Is there something wrong?”

  Kirynn took another deep breath. “This water must be hot enough to cook with!”

  Serena dabbled a foot in the water of the pool she’d chosen and sighed. “Oh that feels lovely.”

  “Lovely?” Kirynn thought the dark haired woman might be insane. “It’s practically boiling!”

  Serena laughed. “No, not boiling. We won’t cook in this, but it will sure feel good on sore muscles.”

  “How do you know?”

  “In the Dellar District, we had bath houses where large fires kept the water warm. It was almost as hot as this.”

  Kirynn watched Serena sink into the pool with sighs of pleasure. She waited a few moments to be sure the woman wasn’t cooking before venturing farther into her own pool. She’d made it only to the second step when Maleena waded into hers.

  “Oh!” Maleena said in surprise as she stepped into the steaming water. “This is hot.”

  “I warned you,” Kirynn said and worked her way down to the third step. It took her several moments to make it all the way into the pool. It was wide enough she could swim two strokes across it and deep enough in the middle that she could stand up straight with the surface of the water just below her breasts. She glanced over to see how the other women fared.

  Serena stood in the center of her pool with the water over her shoulders while Maleena chose to stay on the third step. Kirynn moved to the side of her pool and grabbed the cake of soap. After climbing out to sit on the top step, she set about washing away all of the travel grime not washed away by the water of the lake. After she’d soaped her entire body, one of the attendants offered her a dish filled with a thick white liquid. “What’s that for?” she asked.