Vedientir

by Ivan Hladni

  "Perhaps, but probably not. There's ash beneath this Tree. It seems that it has opened for the first time now, at the same time when the raven opened the Great Oak at the lake."

  Kerkio looked behind him and saw a patch of fine pale gray dust covering the grass beneath the tree.

  "If by some chance we are in Syevnor we should be able to confirm that as soon we start going downhill. We'll either meet someone on the way or see the Sweet Sea near the horizon."

  The dragon finished pushing the large statue back to its original place and Dion turned to Kerkio to check if he too saw what the dragon was able to do.

  "I see," was what Kerkio's slight nod meant. "He is quite strong," he said. "And he's done. We can go now and get this business of yours finished."

  "Wait! I need to pick at least one acorn from this Tree. I took two from the lake Tree, but I almost forgot them as well, and that would not have been good for our return."

  "Zmai!" Dion called the dragon.

  "Popnem prek ti an Putodrvo? Ya zhyr skinut hotiem." He carefully explained to the dragon that he wanted to climb onto his back so he could reach the acorns on the lowest but still very high branch.

  The dragon moved into position and Dion's shaky legs somehow kept him upright on the dragon's shoulders long enough for him to swing three or four times with the standard toward the branch but to no avail. He tried for the fifth time by stretching as much as he could and luck smiled at him. The acorn detached from the branch and fell to the ground, but it was not the only thing to reach the ground unwillingly. Carried forward by the force of his own swing, Dion flew off the dragon's shoulders and with a thud and a sigh landed onto the grass.

  "Don't you think the ravens would have been a better choice for gathering acorns?" asked Kerkio.

  "Let's go. Let's go," answered Dion, unable to stop laughing at himself.

  He picked himself up and dusted off the earth from his knees and avoided Kerkio's and the dragon's eyes for some time, hoping that would make them forget his fall quicker.

  They found a frequented dirt path that went down from the hilltop through the forest. There was even a low wood fence a few steps away from the path on both sides.

  "This looks nice," commented Kerkio. They could already see the first houses of a hamlet at the bottom of the hill. The houses were large with small windows and steep roofs that were covered with a thick layer of hay.

  "Very orderly," Dion confirmed.

  "Grak!"

  "Sto?" asked Dion.

  "Grak!" replied the black raven. "Kaos!"

  "Grak!" croaked the white raven. "Vedientir!"

  "Kam? Otkam?" asked Dion. "Where? From where?"

  There was no answer to his nervous questions as he was trying to figure out what the birds were saying.

  "What in the name of salt and rock are your ravens doing?" asked Kerkio when the ravens began arguing fiercely among themselves.

  "They sound mad."

  "I cannot say but it looks like something might be really wrong this time."

  "Think we've been found by the boars?" asked Kerkio in a serious voice, ready for the worst once again.

  "Perhaps the Great Oak has transported us somewhere nearer to Tialoch or somewhere even closer to those cursed boars..."

  "I understand that we should go probably go back..." said Dion. "But let us just reach that first house over there. We are so close. I just need the name of the hamlet. Let me just have that and we are going straight back to the Tree."

  Kerkio nodded in agreement. They reached the outermost house of the hamlet when a sound of a bell ringing stopped them. A young boy ran out of the house, ringing a roughly made bell that looked like half of a large melon, meant to be used around a cow's neck.

  "Run! Chaos is upon us!" shouted the villagers when they heard the boy. Dion and Kerkio succumbed to the collective panic and grabbed their weapons.

  "Idriram! Get back here!" a young woman shouted after the boy with the bell and he stopped running when he heard her voice.

  "Sto lyudov strah?" the dragon asked Dion, not seeing anything dangerous around them.

  "I don't know what they are afraid of," Dion answered truthfully, quite bewildered himself. "They say Chaos is attacking, but I see nothing similar to what had attacked us in Echa Rei, or anything else for that matter. Kerkio? Do you see anyone?"

  He saw nothing and nodded accordingly but continued looking into the forest attentively.

  "Damn you, me, your temple and this village. I care not for its name," said Kerkio angrily. "Let's go back."

  "Where are they?" shouted Dion toward the boy and the boy screamed, threw away his bell and ran away down the road that led him and a small group of villagers out of the village.

  "Chaos must be behind us," said Dion. "The villagers are running north."

  "There is no one there," squeezed Kerkio through his teeth.

  "They are here! They are there! On the road!" came shouts from the village.

  "What are they talking about? There's nobody on the road!"

  Kerkio was furious.

  "Unless they mean us," he added.

  "Eya!" they heard the villagers shout and saw a young woman heading towards them. She was speeding up with every step she took and it was soon obvious that this was an attack. It took them a while to notice the sword she carried in her right hand.

  "Lyud?"

  "Miran, Zmai. Miran," Dion tried to calm both the dragon and himself. "Stay calm, dragon. Stay calm."

  He placed the battle standard in front of himself to protect all three of them as much as he could.

  "Don't hurt her," he said to Kerkio and then focused on the girl and her sword.

  "It hadn't crossed my mind," answered Kerkio who still stood without a weapon in his hands. He assumed a wrestling pose, ready to grab their amazingly fast attacker.

  "I'll distract her with the standard," said Dion when she was only a few steps away from them and he moved left to do just that. The woman moved instantly to counter his action but the ravens disrupted both of their attacks in the last moment, flying into their faces and croaking menacingly.

  "Grak! Vedientir!" they cried and she stopped her attack at once.

  "A good thing the ravens appeared," went through Dion's mind as he became aware where Eya had stopped her sword. He was sure that what he was planning to do with the battle standard would not completely stop her blade and that he would have acquired new wounds.

  "Grak!" the black raven croaked into her face once more to make sure she has stopped and then both of the ravens flew back and landed on Dion's shoulders.

  The woman's eyes widened in disbelief. They were rich blue - the color of the summer sea on a windless day, and they were surrounded by thick black eyelashes. Her hair, as black as the feathers of the black raven and long enough to reach her shoulders was bound at the back of her head. She had a pale complexion and her bright pink lips only added to that impression. She wore a long, soft-looking, white tunic that was neither tight nor airy, unlike her almost feather-like white cloak that looked as if it was floating in the air behind her.

  "Who are you?" she asked in a lively voice that was presently tarnished with anger. Her eyes made it clear that the question was meant for Dion.

  "Dion," he replied and extended a hand in a greeting that was left unanswered so he pulled it back and instead pointed to his companions. "This is Kerkio, and this is Zmai, a dragon."

  Neither Kerkio nor the dragon moved or said anything. They were as friendly as Eya was.

  "Why do you attack us?"

  Dion became visibly confused.

  "I was on the hill earlier when the world began shaking and the fire devoured our sacred tree. I ran away to warn the village before Chaos was upon them and from the distance I saw a man and a beast storm out of the tree and demolish Vedientir's statue. It could have been you and the dragon but I did not see this older man on the hill."

  "Older man!" gasped Kerkio in a momentary surprise but then i
mmediately burst into loud laughter.

  "Why do you keep mentioning Chaos?" asked Dion, trying to be louder than Kerkio's laugh.

  "I could hear you using the language of Chaos," she explained and Dion nodded in response.

  "Yes, I was speaking with the dragon and with the ravens," replied Dion but it took a while for him to get confused by her words.

  "What do you mean you heard the language of Chaos?" he asked.

  "Well, I heard: bar bar gr rr br. The language of Chaos," she explained and shrugged.

  Dion laughed inside because of the way she described it, but kept a serious face.

  "Ya to bit. Pritchah sah Zmai," said Dion in the old language. "It was me. I spoke with the dragon," he translated to his native language that she also used in their conversation.

  "Does that sound like similar to what you heard?"

  "So that was you at the tree..." she accepted.

  "Yes, and it's a shame you didn't see the dragon restore the statue to its place almost immediately after he felled it. Also, I did not feel the ground shake and I think I am not responsible for it."

  "Thank you," she said to the dragon, but he ignored her completely.

  "I have a question about it," continued Dion. "Did you call it Vedientir's statue earlier in our conversation?"

  "Yes."

  "You have heard about Vedientir?"

  "What do you mean?" she asked him back, quite surprised at the question. "Who doesn't know of Vedientir?"

  "All right, so everyone knows about him," he replied. "Except the Syevnoreans, of course," he added and looked at Kerkio who once again displayed his lack of interest for Aelan's gods and wholeheartedly agreed.

  "Tell me truthfully - are you from Chaos?" she asked them once more.

  "I do not know what land you call Chaos, but I think we are not from Chaos. We are from the kingdom of Aelan, south of the Inner Sea. I heard about Chaos again a few days ago after not hearing about it for years, ever since my grandfather stopped telling me children's stories. Does that assure you?"

  "No," she replied. "I am not familiar with the Far Heavens, but in the Outer Heavens there are no islands called Aelan. Do you call islands kingdoms on your island of Aelan?"

  Dion gazed at her in silence, more surprised than he could remember being.

  "Outer Heavens? Far Heavens? Islands?" Kerkio jumped into their conversation, vocalizing the exact set of questions that were on Dion's mind.

  "Where are we now?" asked Dion after Eya replied nothing to Kerkio.

  "On the island of Arvinia."

  "We have come here in the hopes of finding a temple that we could use to seek help from the gods. Can you take us to one if it is near or at least show us a map and tell us where we are now and where that temple might be?" continued Dion but her body language already told him that she had no answers to give.

  "The tree you burned was our temple. Except for the Vedientir's statue next to it, we have nothing else related to gods in any way."

  "The tree is not destroyed," Dion started but was stopped by Kerkio.

  "None of that is important now," he said and then looked at Eya.

  "Tell us which kingdom we are standing in right now and that will suffice. We are in a hurry to get back home."

  "This village and this island are both known as Arvinia," replied Eya while Dion was busy getting the map out of his bag. "The Far Heavens begin there, behind the island of Triboria," she added and pointed into the distance over the treetops to their left. She then turned and pointed in the other direction.

  "And there's the edge of the world and the Eternal Storm underneath it."

  Chapter 15 - Edge of the World

  Feathers tickled both of his cheeks when the ravens flew off his shoulders.

  "Gafranihi! Kam letyt?" he asked where they were flying off to but the ravens carried on and soon disappeared above the treetops without providing an answer.

  "I hope they return soon. We cannot go back without them," he said to Kerkio as they followed Eya down the village road.

  "We will have to if they do not hurry back," replied Kerkio. "Can you not leave them an acorn of the lake Tree next to the one on the hilltop? They seem to know how to use the Great Oaks better than you and certainly better than me so let them open their own Path. They know the language of the Trees and they can obviously find you wherever you are."

  "I'll have that in mind, even though we don't know if they can find me once I go through a Path and it closes behind me," answered Dion and walked beside Kerkio in silence, trying to remember if he had read something about that in Daedar's book.

  "How far away is that place you call the edge of the world?" he asked Eya once he was sure that there was nothing useful regarding ravens in his head at the moment.

  "The edge is behind the village. Not far from here."

  "I promise that's the last thing I want to see while we are here," Dion explained himself to Kerkio who sighed audibly.

  "It's not far?" Kerkio then repeated Dion's earlier question to Eya and she repeated the same answer to him.

  "How did you acquire your ravens?" Eya asked them when they entered the empty village. Only livestock remained, and the animals too moved away from them when they saw the dragon behind the two men. A braver dog barked at the dragon once but darted into cover as soon as the dragon turned his head toward the sound.

  "They were a gift from my father," Dion answered. He had no intention of mentioning the acorns from which the ravens were brought into the world. He noticed she was studying him, but she neither said nor asked anything more, and he had no intention of giving away more than was absolutely needed.

  They quickly left the village behind but were still not out of the forest when two fast moving shadows appeared on the dirt road ahead of them. Something large flew above their heads so quickly that Dion tensed just from seeing the shadow. He ducked his head as if expecting something to hit him and then he heard the whoosh of Kerkio's sword breathing air as it left the sheath.

  "Watch out!" Kerkio shouted and prepared for a fight. He started turning back to see if there was someone else coming from behind at the same time when another shadow flew over their heads. He forced his muscles to stop turning him backward and to go the opposite way, but he knew that something that has not happened in a long time had just happened - someone or something was faster than him.

  "Burans!" shouted Eya and waved toward the sky. There was both excitement and fear in her voice, but it was not the burans who she was afraid of.

  The dragon spread his wings trying to look more intimidating and breathed half of a forest's worth of air into his lungs, ready to loose all the fire from his blood at the apparent assailant who hovered a few feet above the road in front of them. The stranger looked like a young man but was as tall as a young tree. He wore silver-colored metal armor and held in his hands a sword so large that no man would have the strength to wield it. His wings, much larger than Zmai's, were the color of white sunlight and looked as if they were woven from the core of the densest fog that had ever formed in the world. The edges of the wings, which made no sound as they moved through the air, were permeated by thin lines of light blue magic that shaped the fog into large feathers.

  "Eya, do not go any farther," the buran spoke to her first, his voice as soothing to the ears as cool water is to a parched throat, and then he turned his attention to the group that she was with. His golden eyes that were even brighter than his hair were focused on the dragon the longest and Dion could see in them that the buran had never seen a live dragon before.

  "This also isn't the dragon's home," Dion understood.

  "Eya?" Dion called her and she noticed his worry immediately.

  "It is all right," she assured them so Dion calmed the dragon down and himself relaxed slightly though sweat had already broken out on his forehead. Kerkio lowered his sword but kept his guard up.

  "Why?" she asked the buran. "Why shouldn't I go forward?"

  "Chaos is co
ming."

  "Where?" she demanded and seemed more angry than afraid.

  "Here! Everywhere. Rumors are that Chaos has broken the Eternal Storm."

  "Impossible!" a surprised whisper of disbelief burst out of Eya.

  "Lyud! Strah! Strah!" shouted the dragon suddenly and clawed the earth beneath him. Dion turned and saw the dragon staring wide-eyed at the ground.

  "Zemlatres," cried the dragon.

  "Earthquake!" shouted Dion when the feverish world began trembling beneath their feet.

  "It's stronger now than it was when you came out of the tree," said Eya when the shaking stopped and the noise of the world's pain died down.

  "Do not go any farther!" the buran repeated the warning once more and then joined three more burans who flew over their heads on their way north.

  "Who was that?" asked Dion.

  "Those were burans. The guardians of the Heavens and of the Eternal Storm," she answered and started running after the burans who were already far out of their sight. The dragon and the men from Aelan followed her.

  The forest opened up on their left and there they could see the road lead to a stone bridge over some narrow canyon. Both the road and the bridge were packed with people from Eya's village fleeing across the canyon into the forest on the other side.

  Across the bridge, on the island of Triboria, the dirt road from Arvinia became a proper wide road that led into the hills that looked like two giant hands with intertwined fingers pressed onto the ground. The hills were covered in a rich green forest that let the gray stone of the hills see sunshine only in a few places where it was too steep even for pines to conquer and enrich the rough terrain.

  Daylight was behind them but still high enough above the Great Oak's hilltop for its rays to reach the ground in front of them. Eya led them south now, away from the road, and toward her edge of the world. Kerkio and the dragon still weren't eager followers but Dion was.

  As soon as they stepped off the dirt road Dion noticed that the land was wilder here than it was near the village. Stubborn grasses grew, rough and tall wildflowers, and dry-looking shrubs. At the edge of that small patch of wilderness that was not much larger than the city park of Echa Rei stood a knee-high wall of tiled white rocks covered with patches of moss.