We are the balanced inevitability of forgetfulness. In our vaults memories go, and there they die.
Men called us demons, memory-stealers, apparitions. All unmerited names. They thought we are immortals, but we are men who just lived too long, longer than some of us wished. We are a nation of loners, a nation of lurkers and takers with a dark legacy. Only a handful of individuals in each race know what we really are.
***
The year 1 SC was the beginning of Talor’s recorded history. Before that, there was nothing… nothing recorded in the timeline of any race on the face of Talor. Even the early years, the first couple of decades, were an unclear memory of the First Born, the first generation of each race. Who gave birth to them, where their parents went, and what happened before that is found only in memory, encrypted beneath layers of babbling images and distorted dreams. I was a First Born of the Genn, one of the first to ‘wake up’ from the First Slumber and walk the face of Talor. We were the first to rise, and history was our memory.
During the first couple of decades, my brethren and I showed up in Verda, each in his time. Verda was my home, or at least it was before darkness knocked on our door. It was an underworld city built deep within the Goshean Bracelet.
The Genn know that we are partly human, but the other half of our ancestry belongs to a race even I do not know. Unlike the elves, we chose to live underground shortly after this birthing. Only earth and shadow touched us while the elves were steeped by elements of life and nature.
As we had an extremely long lifespan, mere men mistakenly labeled us as immortals. I have actually lived for hundreds upon hundreds of years, like the majority of my race, but as a First Born, I lived much longer than they did. Our texture and features are as precise as sculpted statues. Like the elves, our complexion and the hazy lining of our form vary in color according to our whims and moods. Our range, though, is darker and more earth-tuned, from a dark gray to a human brown. Our eyes and lining radiate faint silver vapors, but my human form is otherwise much like a forty-year-old man, a fraction of my true age.
Many Genn are treasure hunters, but the Order of Sever has a different perspective on the value of things. Our path is more mystifying and our powers are more potent and unpolluted than those of other Genn. We do not care for riches or power, at least not in their common sense.
This is why the ruling council of Verda asked for our aid. This is how I found myself leading a team of eleven Genn and Genntays deeper into the underworld than any had ventured before.
I am Nimtha, the Shadow Pilgrim.
And what we were after was something lost to time.
The Sky Below
Time is the best teacher, but we rarely listen. And this part of my story is the best example of my words. It started on a stage atop which time gave a solemn teaching to another empty hall.
The Date was 27 th of Forlor, 2122 SC, a few weeks before the battle in Henya. Several leagues below the Verdan lower borders, in a tunnel, our mission was taking place.
Our journey was perilous, and it would take several books to describe the perils we went through in the mazes of Kahf. It was a cave which opened several feet deep below the opening of the bottomless pit of Goresink at the far end of Verda. Among the greatest perils that we faced in our journey, were the sleeping Goshae giants that we tried not to disturb and the invisible Earth Pythons which, despite our precautions, managed to consume two of our companions.
Nothing can see us.
Nothing can hear us.
We are born of the shadows and we are one with the earth.
Those were the thoughts that resonated within us during our silent descent to the womb of Talor. In the faint flickering light seeping from around the corner in that subterranean tunnel, we stopped when we could go no further and gazed at it: a black arm with a fractured, rocky texture resembling half-burnt coal was dangling from an amorphous heap of the same material. The lump lay in the middle of the tunnel, nearly blocking our passage. I imagine it must have been at least twenty feet tall.
That was a Goshae, and it must have been down there in that inanimate shapeless pile form, for centuries upon centuries, undisturbed. The black stone giants were offspring of Gosh, an ancient deity with terrible powers who was rumored to have been imprisoned deep within the mountain. I had seen few Goshae before, but they had never been quite so close as this one.
In our dark brown and gray outfits, we stood motionless, trying not to breathe lest we awaken the abomination. We had only small pockets of viscous flammable fluids scattered across the tunnels to light our vision, but by then, our eyes had adjusted. Our leader, Sertas, was a middle-aged Genn with a narrow forehead and a Tamosian ponytail, from the Order Goremoth. He crept past first, and we watched in silence. Finally, he turned around and waved the Genn behind him on.
One at a time, we motioned each other past the being. Gazing steadily at the arm extending from the side of the mass of rocky flesh and muscles, I noticed another arm. Then I saw another one, then a leg, then another leg, all protruding from the amorphous body in random directions. We couldn’t even make out if it was kneeling on the floor or bending backward.
Patiently, and with nerve-straining watchfulness, we passed inches away from it. We squeezed through the narrow space between it and the walls of the tunnel.
Half of us had passed after a painstaking hour, but it was only when I had nearly let out my breath that there was a sudden movement and a sharp cracking sound.
Frozen in our spots, we gazed at the maddening mass. It had taken on a spider-like shape. The silver vapor swirling from our eyebrows and eyelashes made the only other movement. We fixed our gazes, trying to see between the morphing appendages, from which I felt as though I was being watched.
Nothing moved, not us nor the darkened stone heap in front of us. We were only fifty feet from the mouth of the cave. I concentrated on controlling the silver streak of my lining and eyes, and the others did the same. A few minutes passed and then I waved for the one in the front to move along.
Whisperers of the Silver Shadow… Keepers of the Tunnel…
I felt the words in my guts as if they reverberated from the very ground.
Drinkers of Iskath… I can feel you, followers of Lima.
My companions froze in place, exchanging astonished and terrified glances. Even the few Genntay in our party, who were only half Genn, looked alarmed; they had heard it too.
With a firm gesture, I pointed to Sertas to press on. He gestured the next Genn on, and reluctantly, they started moving again, one step at a time.
It took us nearly an hour more until the last one of us passed the ageless nightmare. We watched our last teammate and carefully guided his steps. Minutes passed like hours until he reached a safe distance from the hulking horror and we were nearly at the exit.
Then we heard the scream.
One of the Genntays had fallen on the floor. He held his ankle and contorted like the detached tail of a lizard. A brutal snapping trap engulfed his feet. I remembered, almost as an afterthought, that he was the last of his order. We had lost two companions, so no matter how much we needed to, we could not leave him behind. These were the rules of the Genn.
Sertas jumped at him, gagging his mouth. The Genntay whimpered behind his gag as silence fell again, and we froze yet again in our spots, listening.
“Did it hear us?” someone whispered. The injured Genntay could barely contain his tears as Sertas removed as much of the trap as possible.
I glanced at something in the opening of the cave behind us. The time for moving quietly and slowly was gone.
“Run!” I screamed.
Barely able to walk, the injured Genntay leaned on two of us, a Genn and a Genntay, and we started running as fast as possible across the vast labyrinthine cavern.
My shadow cat, Sherako, jumped out of my shadow and guided me across the cavern. The booming inner voice echoed once more within our beings as we ran across the lightless, hilly subterranea
n space.
Returrrrrn.
Louder, it sounded again…
No mortal passes to the Eternus City.
Quasi-real manifestations appeared on the hilly formations around us. At first, it looked like a face. Then, a hand seemed to float just below the surface of the rocky ground, as if it was swimming under a bed sheet.
No one gazes at the Sky Below. The stars are ours….
It was gaining on us. Closer and closer we saw those manifestations, and we were sure that some of us would fall into its unholy embrace. The injured Genntay was hindering our escape and preventing us from Shadow Stepping.
For faster movement, our leader was the first to Blear. He muttered Verdan somatic, allowing him to amalgamate with the soil; his lower half blurred with the fabric of the ground. Then I saw the dried canal.
“Go for the canal!” I yelled. We changed direction slightly, heading to the empty abandoned water channel, and at last jumped off its edge. We tumbled into the dry bed of the canal.
I saw Sherako lingering on the edge. I yelled for him to join us, but my shadow cat looked at me with his silent gaze and then looked into the distance at the other side of the canal. Behind him, an earthen, bulging contortion came grinding fast, and then it stopped. Only a couple of feet away from the edge of the dry canal, the ancient nightmare abandoned its pursuit and sank into the ground.
Barely catching our breaths, my team members exchanged confused looks.
“Did it stop?” asked one of us, out of breath.
“Yes,” answered Sertas. “But why?”
Then he turned to me for an answer, only to see me watching Sherako who was steadily, but slowly, climbing down the canal bank. He was still looking at the other side of the canal.
“What is he looking at?” asked Sertas, concerned. “What banished the Son of Gosh?”
I grabbed Sherako and put him on my shoulders, where he dissolved into my shadow. “We cannot linger here. We have reached the outer skirts of Mergal and it is forbidden to the Goshae. Let us press on.”
I turned to the injured Genntay. “It will need more than the usual care, this wound,” I said calmly as I examined my companion’s feet. The trap’s serrated blades had cut deeply.
The other Genn looked at me, silver fumes swirling heavily around their eyes and eyebrows, clear evidence of frustration. My evenness may have been taken as indifference, and it had been clear from the outset that I made them uncomfortable. They were absolutely right to feel that. I was intolerable. To them, I was the ancient Genn with the unique unnerving shadow cat companion who knew too much, much more than they did. I could have waited for their return after guiding them through the mazes. That was our agreement. Yet I decided to tag along, and that shrouded my presence in suspicion.
I did warn them, though. I warned them of the traps that were believed to be scattered everywhere along the path to the ruins of Mergal, the Eternus City. I had warned them that our mission was the greatest one they could ever be part of. If we succeeded, their names would shoot across Talor like a meteor shower, seen by fishermen on the Western Shore of Nelsia thousands of leagues afar. But they were careless and overconfident and we nearly paid for that with our lives.
Along the dry canal bank, we moved. Guided by the Eyes of Lima –dark glass goggles made of burnt iron that helped us see the unstable ground –we moved through the miles-wide, pitch-black cavern. Sertas ordered a Genn to support our wounded teammate as we walked. Across the labyrinthine hills and passages in those uncharted depths, we made our way, still shaken by the encounter with the Goshae. The mystical ponds which shone their dull gray light became rarer and rarer. Past that point, none went and returned. The air was thin, and only some of our footfalls echoed back as if the rest were stolen or imprisoned.
They were more alert for traps now that they’d seen what they could do. All the better. A few traps were disarmed, some were avoided, and many proved to be harmless either due to mere luck or the merciful nature of time. Every now and then, a low hissing sound echoed from somewhere behind a hill or deep in some chasm.
When Sertas felt we were safely well away from the Goshae, he turned to our wounded. He ordered the group to settle down beneath a shattered bridge, arching above the dried canal in the huge cavern, so that he could to tend the Genntay’s wound. The skillful Genn removed the blades and then hastily cleaned the wound. I sat by the canal bank, scanning the massive grotto.
I glanced at Sertas and found him eyeing me with vexation as he dressed the wound. He knew I could detect and disable the traps better than others. He knew that I hid much behind the indifferent and silent disposition I’d adopted since the time we’d met a few days before.
What he didn’t know was that I had two untold objectives in that mission, other than leading the Genn across Kahf. One belonged to my Order of Sever, and the other was an ancient family pursuit that I’d delayed for too long. That of my order was given to me by Makista, my mentor, and best friend, and it was to follow the girl. Taria, she was called, from Guild Furia, a Genn of great beauty and with a promising future. The quest of my house was to search the city of Mergal for something that all the Nertinets, the Genn of the Twin Blades, my family, dream of acquiring.
After a few peaceful minutes, Sertas gave the order to camp for a couple of hours below the bridge. I kept my distance as I had during the entire journey so far; my order was high enough to ensure that my place would be revered, even if I was disliked.
But we were behind schedule. We had only a small window of time to sneak into the city and out again. Yet it was no one’s business but my own, so I could hardly raise it as an objection to our camping. That was the deal with the Keepers of Verda, the Verda Luka, the initiators of this campaign—that my companions do not question.
I kept to myself, but I watched them, especially the girl, trying to guess what was so special about her. A few of the others had suggested I warmed for her. I didn’t dismiss that speculation, as it served me well; I would rather have this explanation than questions about my true motives. The girl herself started to react differently as hours and days went by, she was attracted to me. But I couldn’t care less; I had nothing in my chest for her.
To add to my indifference, my companions also dealt with my sudden alertness. They thought that it was the traps that were making me that vigilant. They thought maybe it was the girl or the importance of the mission. But they were wrong. What kept me on guard was something entirely beyond their capabilities to guess at that point, something that only I and Sherako knew about.
I climbed to the top of the bridge silently. Sherako followed me, irritated as well. Sertas, of Order Goremoth, nodded to me in understanding and turned his attention to the camping procedure. We didn’t light fires but used a portable oven, which was small in size but very handy.
I scanned both my team and the location. As soon as the Genn had arranged their resting spots, they gathered around the oven and started cooking dinner. Some warmth wasn’t a bad idea that deep below the surface.
I looked into the distance along the dried rocks of the canal. The gates of Mergal must have been close, but I couldn’t see it.
Taria approached me, standing just behind my shoulder. “If we weren’t thousands of leagues below the surface of Talor, I would have commented on the weather.” She grinned as she curled her black swirly hair around her ears and fixed her crystal cow-eyes on mine.
I forced a courteous smile but didn’t reply.
“It is strange, you know?” she asked.
I turned to her, fighting the urge to scold her for the interruption. When I said nothing, she kept talking.
“… Your persistence in coming along. I always thought that Sever was a supercilious order that didn’t mingle with us—the common young orders. You could have just led us through the maze of Kahf and waited for our return,” she said, smiling.
“Indeed I should have.” I finally responded bluntly, but as the sentence ended I realized that I’d
spoken the wrong words.
She angrily glared and, pausing for a moment, turned away, heading back below the bridge.
I bit my lips as I figured that I had to remedy what I had done. I preferred to complete what was left of our mission as the lover, or else I would draw unnecessary queries. I jumped from the bridge but Sherako stayed up on the ledge, staring into the dried bank.
She took a seat in front of the oven, and I followed her. “My lady,” I said, lowering myself beside her. Brows furrowed, she turned to me.
“I am not a lady, and I am certainly not yours.”
I smiled kindly and commented, “You look like a lady to me.”
She intensified her frown in childish anger. The oven cast a dim red light over us, and she tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile.
I scanned the team scattered around the oven, and one of them glanced at me then abruptly turned away with a smirk that I wished to peel off his face. My companions checked their gear, weapons, and gadgets before resting. Our dark skins and dark clothing were perfect camouflage. It was good enough to elude the eyes of men, but useless down here. It was not the eyes of men that I wanted to avoid.
I turned to her and whispered, “When we are near the city, try to stay close to me.” I stood up and turned to the bridge, ready to climb back, but she caught my hand and whispered, “Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you here, Nimtha?”
I paused for a moment then leaned down to her and whispered, “Listen carefully to me, Taria. This is not a mission you have undertaken before; it is… different. The ruins we are approaching are not like any you have delved in before. I can’t explain any further. Just please,” I contained her heart-shaped face in my palms. “Stay close to me.”
She smiled broadly and nodded.
What was I doing ? I felt nothing for the girl and yet I was encouraging her. But this lie might be the only thing that could save her from what lay ahead.
The Dark Season Saga- the Final Harvest Page 5