by Jeremy Dwyer
Daven didn’t feel any need to hold back the strangeness of the story. They needed to find Taesa, and hiding this story – and her powers – wouldn’t protect her as much as it would diminish their ability to help her.
“She sang Let Many Suns Shine Down, and they did. That’s when the yellow sun from the sky came down, and it was alive. The sky lit up, and the two (2) extra bright yellow suns helped us all to navigate. Then, later, the yellow sun that came down, also came out, and spoke to us,” Daven said.
“It spoke to you? So you drink Atrejan Ocean waters and hear the suns?” Rayner asked.
“No. I don’t mean like that. The yellow sun took the shape of a man and spoke with a regular voice, and it demanded we tell him where the girl is,” Daven said.
“The girl who sang the sun song? Taesa, right?” Rayner asked.
“Yes, her,” Daven said.
“And he’s the one who sent the fireballs,” Brant said.
“He actually did that back at the towers, first, and then again, at the shore. Lots of fireballs,” Zoe said.
“This is complete nonsense. What really happened?” Rayner said.
“It really happened,” Zoe said.
“There’s more. There was a woman on the island who could make illusions, and she lived in a house in the forest and tricked people into signing away their money. And then she got ugly. Very ugly,” Daven said.
“And then the trees showed up,” Brant said.
“Lots of trees,” Zoe said.
“Some of the trees weren’t really there, though,” Daven said.
“This is just making your story sound more insane, not more believable,” Rayner said.
“And the towers – the tall blue towers that suddenly appeared. And there were red ones and yellow ones, too,” Zoe said.
“Did you drink the wrong water or something? Your story is just junk followed by more junk. Is this a comedy act meant to make me laugh? It isn’t working,” Rayner said.
“I’m glad you’re not laughing. Because it’s very serious,” Daven said.
“We need to find Taesa, before he does,” Zoe said.
“You need to find a cure for the crix – you obviously drank the wrong waters,” Rayner said, referring to crixalethicis, the disease of madness and death caused by drinking two (2) or more of the great waters: the first water causes your waterbinding, every other water is then the wrong water and brings on the disease.
“Look at the sky. Tell me that’s not crazy,” Zoe said.
“Yeah. There’s a yellow sun missing,” Rayner said.
“And we just heard it talk,” Daven said.
“That’s where you lost me,” Rayner said.
“Let’s sail around this island, and I’ll show you the towers,” Zoe said.
“Towers?” Rayner asked.
“The Temple of the Sky’s Nine (9) Kings. It’s the temple of flames where the sun creature was, for a little while. Then, they chased him away,” Zoe said.
“Him being the sun creature, right? Who chased him away?” Rayner asked, playing along now.
“The guy in the armor with the sword,” Brant said.
“The ultimate warrior, I think you called him, earlier. Right?” Rayner asked.
“No. That’s somebody else,” Zoe said.
“Wait, this is too good,” Rayner said, starting to laugh at them now. He continued, asking: “The ultimate warrior is not the same as the guy with the sword who chased away the sun creature. What makes him so ultimate? And the guy with the sword isn’t ultimate?”
“Right. The guy with the sword just had a powerful sword,” Daven said.
“I want that sword,” Brant said.
“I think they know what they’re doing with that sword, Brant. Let them keep it,” Zoe said to him
“Great. There’s a super sword that chased away the sun creature. Who has this super sword? Or is it the ultimate sword?” Rayner asked.
“The Jenaldej Empire has it – somebody named General Joshua has the Spirit Sword, and used it to chase away Prince Kirdothet,” Daven said.
“Prince Kirdothet being the sun creature, right?” Rayner asked
“Right,” Zoe said.
“So he’s a Prince! Great! Sounds like a storybook you could use to put little kids to bed with…or give them bad dreams,” Rayner said.
“It’s not a dream. It’s real. All of it,” Daven said.
“We don’t have any kids,” Zoe said.
“Nope. No kids,” Brant said.
“Why should I believe any of this? Give me some evidence?” Rayner said.
Daven looked at Zoe and asked her: “Would you mind a little show? Nothing too scary, of course.”
“I drink the Lujladia waters, but the power isn’t the same in me: I can’t create the illusions. For me, it gives some long range vision, seeing around corners and seeing fast-moving objects. I’m not much good at generating light, either, but I can see a little bit better in the dark than average. Different people get different sets of light powers, some only get one, and they’re not even very good at it,” Zoe said.
Daven was planning on dispelling her illusions with a song, so as to demonstrate the credibility of his powers, and hers, but she didn’t have any powers to create illusions. He needed another idea. And then it occurred to him. He drank the waters of the Pirovalen Ocean from the vial he wore on a chain around his neck, and then he was energized. He called out with a musical voice, but without any lyrics, and the sound filled the air. It was a beautiful melody, and he held a small gem in his hand – a blue sapphire – and it shattered.
“Hey! You could have paid me with that, and I’d take you wherever you wanted, and listened to your crazy stories,” Rayner said, having caught a brief glimpse of the sapphire and thinking of pocketing it as profit.
Daven then handed Rayner the sapphire. “Here it is, then,” Daven said.
“You’ve got another sapphire! Rich you are! Tell me where you want to go,” Rayner said, delighted.
“It’s the same sapphire. It didn’t shatter. The air around it was dispersed by the musical vibrations, scattering the light. It’s a type of illusion. Sometimes, music can be seen, in some interesting and enjoyable ways, and entertain even the eyes,” Daven said, smiling. He was particularly adept at some tricks, and knew how to impress and delight. Over the years, many people liked that trick, but he didn’t like to overuse it.
“I’m impressed. Music can do more than I ever realized,” Zoe said.
“Scattering the light! Nice! Can you sing a song to make that hothead scatter out of here?” Brant asked.
“It works in small spaces. And it’s just appearances. We need something bigger…and real,” Daven said.
“Nice. Not sure I believe your whole story, but I’ve never seen that trick. Where do you want to go?” Rayner asked.
“Keep the sapphire. We want to go to the other side of the island. Look for the big blue towers,” Daven said.
Rayner steered the ship and they traveled around to the side of Udovedaj-Pren Island. Zoe drank anew of the waters of the Lujladia Ocean from the vial she wore. She was energized, and used her long range vision, as well as her ability to see around corners, to peer into the thick of the forest – although it was not as thick as when the illusions were present – and she could see the area where the bases of the towers were. She didn’t see the young girl from before, but she saw a pair of older women.
“I don’t see Taesa, but I see a couple of older women, standing near the tower,” Zoe said.
“Who?” Daven asked.
“A red-haired woman in her fifties, with red and purple robes. It’s the woman who sang the song to revive the troops, I think,” Zoe said.
“Lady Onora. She stayed behind,” Daven said, remembering hearing part of a conversation about her staying.
“There’s another, older woman. A little old blond-haired lady, in her sixties. I think it’s that spirit psychic woman,” Zoe said.
“And Taesa?” Daven asked.
“We can’t be sure she’s on this island,” Zoe said, sweeping her head back and forth, looking for any signs.
“She could be inside some building, maybe?” Daven asked, hoping against hope.
“Possibly, but we can’t scan the whole island. We need something to lead us in the right direction,” Zoe said.
“We could chop down every tree for a clearer look,” Brant said.
“That’s not one of your better suggestions. Let’s get some more information,” Zoe said.
“Could she be in those blue towers? Whatever they are – temple or fortress – they’re big enough to hide a lot of things,” Rayner asked.
“I don’t think so. Those towers are where the sun creature was – if she was there, he’d have her by now, and wouldn’t have left,” Zoe said.
“Then we need to get out of here. Time to navigate our way back, carefully. Unless you could scatter all the darkness with a song,” Rayner said, looking to Daven.
“I can try, but it’s a little shaky, and you need a pretty clear view to navigate correctly,” Daven said.
“Try it, see what happens,” Rayner said.
Daven began singing again, and the music scattered the air, and created a different appearance from the distorted appearance produced by the waters of the Ikkith Tar Ocean. The watery mist that made navigation difficult was now gone.
Rayner tried to sail by this, and was lost in a different way from what he would have been.
In truth, what Daven’s song had done was about as useful as shuffling a deck of cards over and over again, hoping for all the cards to line up in a specific order. Instead, it simply produced a different random shuffle.
After some time sailing around without finding their way, Rayner became annoyed. “Enough of this,” he said, and drank anew of the waters of the Atrejan Ocean that he kept in his vial. He listened for the sounds of the stars, focusing on the blue and red ones, which became clearer the further that he got away from Udovedaj-Pren Island. He heard the sounds of those suns, followed their paths, and made adjustments from the sounds he perceived to the sights he saw. The dark waters of the Ikkith Tar Ocean on which they sailed exerted their powers, distorting the light and making his adjustments error-prone. Rayner had to work carefully, and constantly correct for the mistakes, making navigation a slow process.
~~~
Captain Lyle, who had previously transported Daven and Taesa to Udovedaj-Pren Island, saw the flames in the sky as well as those among the treetops. He worried about the wellbeing of his recent passengers and he wasn’t sure just where they might come out, if at all. Lyle then sailed around the island so as to see if they might be at a different location, having fled from the flames to another of the island’s shores.
CHAPTER 6: Blood and Fire
Deep in the forest on Udovedaj-Pren Island, Fallavakara’s badly burned body still breathed and its heart still beat. She was now hideous, and suffered in terrible pain, even in her ears, which had previously been assaulted with a most dreadfully loud sound that she could not explain, but had mercifully ended shortly after it began.
For some reason, her heart now beat stronger than ever before.
The terrible fire that burned her was not an ordinary one, but of a greater sort. It charred her down to her blood, and boiled the blood, and made the blood such that it was more powerful than before. In fact, there was still a fire around her, and nothing further was happening to her.
Fallavakara felt a surge of fiery strength, and then confidence. She was alive and strong, and she knew it. She rejoiced inside, seeing that what would have been her demise was not powerful enough to end her. Her confidence, relief and strength led to clarity of thought, and then to recollection of memories. She remembered one thing most of all: her hatred for Lavakara. He put her in this terrible situation with the intent of humiliating and torturing her, or even killing her, and she was still missing her left arm, as he had severed it to teach her a lesson.
Her anger was now growing, and she saw that she had lost enough blood to have made a puddle of blood around her. This loss of blood was an outrage, given that she loved blood and pursued it. Her anger was so powerful that...the puddle of blood around her began to move, and take shape. She thought of a dagger with which to cut off Lavakara’s limbs as he did to her arm, and the puddle of blood took a dagger shape. She marveled at this, and then reached out to touch it and found it to be solid, rather than liquid. Fallavakara picked up the dagger of blood, surprised that it was not flowing the way that blood did. Certainly, she thought, it was weak. To test this, she stabbed a tree with it, and it pierced the trunk. Then she thought that the tree was so damaged by fire that it was weak, so she doubted the dagger’s true strength.
Fallavakara did wonder why it was that the burning forest around her did no additional harm, or caused no additional pain. She looked at herself to see how burned that she was, and realized she was horribly scarred, but the pain had suddenly and greatly subsided. She poked herself with a finger from her right hand, and realized that she could feel that, so she was not without feeling altogether. Something had happened and she liked it.
Fallavakara walked out onto the shore, and saw that there were some parts of the forest which were not on fire, and this was most likely due to gaps between the trees being too large. She tested the dagger of blood on one of the unburned trees and it pierced the trunk of this tree, as well. Then, she remembered that a dead tree could be tested by breaking its branches off with her one hand, and, sure enough, the branches broke easily, which made her hold on to her doubt of the blood dagger’s strength.
There was another way to test the dagger of blood, however – she took it to the edge of the water and stabbed a stone and chipped the stone. Now, she knew that the dagger of blood was strong.
~~~
Captain Lyle had sailed around Udovedaj-Pren Island completely and returned to his starting point when saw a single person standing on the shore. He was hoping to find both Daven and Taesa, and didn’t know why only one person was there, but he moved the ship in to investigate.
~~~
Fallavakara saw a ship approaching, and then thought of her appearance, and how she would almost certainly be a hideous sight to any person. She might have to conceal her appearance before approaching, so she drew the hood of her charred cloak over her head and let it hang down, hiding some of her disfigurement. The sleeves of the cloak were long enough to conceal the missing arm. She then walked toward the ship.
~~~
Captain Lyle saw the approach of a person dressed in a cloak with a hood and he could not make out whether the person was a man or a woman. Lyle called out: “Are you in need of assistance? Might I give you passage somewhere?”
~~~
Fallavakara was pleased at the opportunity to escape this island, as it was unlikely that she could accomplish her goals by remaining here. Lavakara didn’t stay in one place for long, based on her experiences with him, so the pursuit of him would have to lead her off of this island and in search of information and rumors as to her enemy’s whereabouts.
She called out in response, saying: “I do seek passage, captain.”
Captain Lyle lowered a boarding ramp in response.
Fallavakara walked up the ramp and Lyle saw her face and was aghast. He wasn’t too handsome, himself, from years at sea, but this woman was clearly burned. If she had been pretty, she lost it, and probably in that fire.
“You’re lucky to be alive, coming out of that forest fire. Looks like it even bit you, but you were too tough to stay down,” Lyle said.
Fallavakara was definitely a woman, and knew that her looks – if she had kept them – had some value in society. She didn’t consider them to be part of her self-worth, but she knew that they were looked upon that way by many men. Hence, the statement was a deep insult, and she was angry. This old sea traveler had gone too far, despite offering to help. Her blood boiled, and, with her new p
owers, his blood did too.
“Ahhh! My heart!!!” Lyle screamed, and held his chest, thinking it the end.
“No! My heart!” Fallavakara said with a seething anger: she was able to manipulate blood even in the body of another, much as she did the blood puddle on the ground.
Lyle continued holding his chest, frightened at the pain as much as physically suffering.
Fallavakara watched and then let her anger cool. She was satisfied that the old captain had suffered enough…for now.
Suddenly, the blood within Lyle calmed and cooled, as the witch eased her blood boiling magic against him, and he relaxed after several minutes.
“Who are you, old man?” Fallavakara asked.
“Lyle. I’m just a captain of the sea, giving people passage, here and there,” Lyle said.
Fallavakara planned to get that passage, and then give him passage…to the grave.
First, though, she thought of a plan that would be in several stages. She could be clever, as long as her bloodlust was satisfied, and for the moment, she felt content.
“Take me to Baradaxa,” Fallavakara said.
“On our way. You can pay me when you get there,” Lyle said.
“Indeed, I will pay you when we get there,” Fallavakara said, ever ready to repay insults.
Captain Lyle set his course and did some zigzagging due to the visual distortions that made navigating the dark sea so famously difficult. The ship slowly sailed in a direction that resulted in southeastward travel over the Ikkith Tar Ocean. As they arrived at a minor port on the northwestern coast of the continent of Baradaxa and the ship docked, Fallavakara drove her dagger of blood into the heart of Captain Lyle, and began drinking the blood that poured out. However, some of Lyle’s blood spilled on the deck of the ship, and it was the boiling blood from before. There was a fire within the spilt blood – ignited by her previous magic when she gave him a chest pain by boiling his blood using her hate – and this fire set the ship ablaze, which surprised her.
Fallavakara didn’t get to fully enjoy the blood feast because of this. Instead, she quickly lowered the boarding ramp for herself and ran down it onto the docks, to give the impression, to any onlookers, of a desperate escape. Appearances mattered, and she didn’t forget this, even in her present difficulties.