“I see. Well…so before Ayeshune formed the world, he created ministering spirts to serve the new world and its people. But the greatest of their number saw the power of God, mistook humility for weakness and sought his own way.” As Coren spoke, the stiffness of his words eased into the same swaying cadence Rendar had used in his storytelling. “But outside of God, what is there? Only himself, and that was a small and frightful thing. So he took that emptiness, that rebellious solitude and formed it in shadows of Ayeshune’s creations—introducing the same separation and eternal death for the children of God.”
“So,” Kelm said nervously, “then he succeeded…gaining power to challenge Ayeshune?”
“Brights, no!” Coren scoffed. “Anything useful he has is borrowed, didn’t you hear? Ayeshune has only to take it back with a flick of his finger and the Darkness with be left with just that, only less.”
“Then what’s Ayeshune waiting for?”
“Us, of course! Removing the stain of that dark devil entirely would leave many as an empty husk, spinning into the void as well. Rather hard for a lot of folk. Rather hard on Errance, steeped in shadows as he is. Rather hard, I daresay, on you if you come to the end of life with only a basic knowing of God and no friendship, no faith for salvation. End will come, Kelm lad, but Ayeshune’s mercy is very patient, and I’m glad of that, aren’t you?”
Kelm didn’t answer, only scrunched his face as if thinking very hard.
So Tellie spoke, swallowing a thick gulp. “How come the evil seems to have so much more power than us?” It wasn’t an entirely fair question considering her celestial visitor of late, but was it too much to ask for a miracle while assuredly awake?
“Why? Why? Because the Darkness is a cheater, a trickster, a fraud, desperately taking shortcuts to win the game. But the game’s done, and he’s lost. Ayeshune is the past, the future, the now, and if he doesn’t want you to be at your destination it might be because he has something in the journey. He’s out for your care, dear child, not your convenience.”
He sprang to his feet and gave a jolly laugh. “Come on then! Somehow I don’t think your Errance would approve if we’re late!”
But Coren need not have worried about Errance tapping his toe for them by the Flying Crane shop, because he and his harem were not there by the time Coren and the children arrived. And as minutes passed, he still did not come.
So they sat on the porch under the shop’s sign and waited beside the bustling docks. The constant screech of the crane’s metal wings on the sign rang in Tellie’s ear and she glowered as the wind spun the wings round and round. The crane’s steel eyes gleamed in the sunlight with something like malice, and the screech of the circling gulls seemed to come from its parted beak. Huffing, she tried to ignore it swinging above her and leaned back against the wooden support of the trade shop.
The funk of fish and sweat coated the air she breathed, and beyond the shrill squeak of the crane’s wings, the ships in the harbor groaned under the tramp of men hurrying up and down the gangplank.
She glanced over at Kelm, whose sparkling eyes adored the surroundings, and then at Coren, who picked at his sleeve. “Don’t you think they should be here by now?” she asked, crossing her arms.
The words hadn’t even finished leaving her lips when Kelm cried, “There they are!”
Pushing through the crowd came Tryss and Zizain, and even from that distance, the anxiety on their faces could be clearly seen. Tellie’s stomach plummeted as she looked for Errance and saw no sight of him or anything remotely purple. She froze where she stood, watching Coren run out to meet them and speak in tense conference. Tryss broke away from Coren and Zizain’s exchange and approached the children with a pale face.
“Where is he…?” The question fell in a quaver from Tellie’s lips.
“He disappeared.” Tryss pressed a hand to her brow as if she held off a headache. “It looks like he left on purpose.”
“What on Orim for?” Kelm exploded. He stormed up to Coren, little caring how he interrupted the discussion. “How do we find him, Captain?”
The words swirled in Tellie’s mind but the moment they made sense, she raced to join her friend. “He can’t do that to us, he just can’t! We have to find him before they do. How could he have gone, the ocean is right there!” She jabbed a finger at the frothing harbor. “Aselvia is somewhere across it, he can’t just leave!”
“Calm down,” Coren said. “Zizain, stay with them. I’ll go find him.”
“But—” Kelm protested.
“Stay here,” the captain ordered, glaring with the sort of force that stops a landslide. He turned on his heel and stalked back into the crowd.
With a terse smile, Zizain ushered the three of them back under the shadow of the trade shop. Scowling, Tellie leaned against the wooden wall, twisting her fingers together. The crane sign screeched above, mocking the tick of a clock with each swing in the wind. She counted each second in the minute so that each minute passed by achingly slow. Determined not to go insane, she cast aside the creak of the sign and counted each heartbeat instead. Here within her heart she could think a little clearer than in her muddled mind.
Errance had seemed so afraid—yes, afraid, she could see past his hard exterior—in this city, so how could he just set out alone? With his pursuers nearby, no less! Her eyes scanned the passing crowds, but her mind was so far separated from her sight that she very nearly overlooked the figure draped in shining purple that appeared in the milling throng.
“Errance!” she yelped, pushing away from the shop wall.
The figure startled at her call, turning on heel towards them. The head wrap concealed anything his face might have shown, but his rigid posture told enough—he’d happened upon them by pure accident. And without a pause, he turned and ducked back into the crowd.
“No!” she shouted, leaping forward. “Come back!”
She was darting after him without bothering if the rest followed her. She would not lose him, not again, she swore to herself as she squeezed through the sailors, danced between the market stalls and scampered beneath two burly men carrying a large crate. Everything around was too tall, too much so she sprang for a pile of crates and stood on tiptoe to peer over the bustle. Just on the other side of the shipyard, she glimpsed the purple swish of a cape vanishing down an alley. She leapt down and squirmed through the crowd, jostled and squished in the effort till she reached the other side. The alley was empty, but she sped down it, hoping to catch another trail before it was too late. The alley took a sharp turn, and when she rounded it, the waiting sight ground her pursuit to a halt.
There he stood at the dead end of the street, cornered in by three walls too tall to climb, and his only escape blocked by her. His head rested against the wall and his hands hung limp at his sides. She stared, stung by the defeated slump of his shoulders. He could have just as well been waiting for someone to thrash him.
“Tellie…Tellie!” The voices of her friends chimed softly in the distance, coming closer by the moment. She felt, rather than saw or heard, them arrive.
Errance turned to face them, folding his arms across his chest, shoulders braced on the wall at his back. The wrap around his face had come undone and hung down his chest. The light in his eyes glinted like shattered glass.
“I’m not sailing,” he said.
They stood in stunned silence, untouched by the rest of the world bustling behind them. The shouts of sailors and the groan of timbers faded. Even the unreasonable statement did not matter. Only the hardness of his voice mattered.
“Golly,” Kelm gulped. “You could have just said so.”
A crease bent Tryss’s brow, carved in by Errance’s declaration. “…what?” She blinked, the crease clearing briefly, only to reshape into a glower. “What? It’s the quickest and safest way, are you telling us you are going by land? Do you have any idea how long that will take?” Her words jumped out between each frustrated breath. “I…I don’t even know if I could gui
de us safely!”
“I don’t recall,” Errance said, every word cold and chipped, “asking any of you to come.” He whisked hand back the way they’d come, towards the sea. “You may go by ship.”
“NO!” The word broke like a thunderclap from Tellie, so strong and so desperate that even she jumped at the force of it. She staggered a helpless step towards him, flinching at how he withdrew harder into the wall. “No, we aren’t leaving you!” She turned for the affirmation of the others, and though she found it in Kelm’s vigorous nod, she was dismayed to see the hesitation on Tryss’s face.
“Tellie,” Tryss began, “I promised to keep you children safe, and the ship is the safest way. If he insists on going alone—”
“Then I shall insist on going with him!” Tellie exclaimed angrily. She turned again to Errance, eyes widening. “Please, Errance. I promised your father I’d bring you back!”
It was perhaps the best thing she could have said, although she didn’t realize it until pain flashed across his face.
“You should go with Coren and Zizain,” he said in a low voice.
“Well,” Kelm replied, casting a glance about, “that won’t work at the moment, because neither of them are here.”
“See,” Tellie pleaded. “We need you now. If you want to leave this city without them, fine, but you can’t leave us behind. Friends have to stick together.”
He did not move anything but his eyes and those slid so subtly one could barely tell how keen he looked at each figure before him. Two country youths and an uprooted young woman. They would be easy to shake, he surely knew that. Easy to leave behind.
But he took a deep breath and said, “Do not slow me down.” Then he turned, not quite meeting Tryss’s eyes, and stiffly asked, “Do you know where the North Gate is?”
Tryss glanced at the sun with a wince, but it was a little too centered in the sky for any clear direction, so she shrugged and said, “The docks are on the west, if we follow these streets up, we should encounter the north wall and find the gate.”
With a nod, he brushed between them, pace swift but steady, and so they fell into step behind him, glancing over their shoulders with not a little bit of guilt for leaving the good smugglers who had been so kind.
Of course, they never thought to look up, because people so rarely did. Coren sat atop the round roof of a lookout tower above the North Gate, gazing upon the small figures vanishing into the hills outside Oolum. Every trace of joviality had vanished from his face, leaving behind an elf very weary with the world. His eyes shone wet, defying the dry dust in the air.
“I’m sorry he did not wish to say good-bye.” Zizain sprawled down beside him and handed him another ice drink. “But his mind seemed quite made up.”
“I know,” Coren said. “I was there above them the entire time and heard everything. I only wish I could have taken the children oversea, but they would not be parted from him, and they might well follow him to their doom.”
“Eh, he seems like the type who could take them safely to your pretty elf-land.”
The lines in his face deepened. Taking the last swig from his cup, he said, “Errance isn’t going to Aselvia.”
His matter-of-fact tone drove Zizain up to a sitting position. She gaped at him. “You think the hunters are going to get after them that fast?”
“I’m not speaking of interference from those pursuing them. They won’t get there because Errance is terrified of returning,” he said flatly.
Slowly, Zizain blinked, then stared out into the rolling hills as stunned as if she’d gotten smacked. “Why do you think that? It is his home.”
“That was his home. He’s spent almost three-fourths of his life in Tertorem. Now that he finally has the chance to return to the love and life he knew, he’s afraid it won’t be the same. He’s right. It won’t. He’s afraid that when he goes there, he’ll be more out of place then the lowliest urchin of human-kind. He wasn’t afraid of the ship, he was afraid of reaching Aselvia too soon. And unless something dramatic happens, he won’t go in when he gets there. He’s only saying that he will, but he won’t. I can see it in his eyes, even if he doesn’t realize it yet.”
“But what about Tryss and Kelm and Tellie?” Zizain sputtered, starting to sound indignant. “He just can’t wander around with them forever!”
“No. He’ll find them places they can stay once they get back over to West Orim. After he finally shakes them…I don’t know what he’ll do.”
Bemused, Zizain leaned back on her elbows and chewed her lip. The blue sky beyond was hazy with sand and was beginning to blur from her concentrated stare. Then a knowing smile spread over her face and she said, “So Captain Coren…what are you going to do about it?”
Coren never broke his gaze off the horizon, but an answering smile curled his lips. “I’m going to Aselvia, and I’m telling them their prince is dawdling on their doorstep and they need to go and drag him in.”
Zizain grinned. “I’ll tell the lads to prepare your ship.”
“Thanks. I should be there before they are even halfway to their destination. I need to be quick. Errance is running out of time.”
22
oOo
I ran. I was chased. I was cornered.
And yet the anger in their faces was not hatred. The young girl had tears in her eyes. I can’t remember the last time I made someone cry. I should have run for it anyway. I’m sure I could have lost them, and it would have been better for everyone. Don’t they know that danger haunts my footsteps, a danger that doesn’t need to concern them? I wasn’t prepared for them to pursue me so desperately. Not because they wanted my harm, but…they wanted to remain by my side. It is a strange, unfamiliar feeling. I could not deny them. And so we’re stuck together, headed to…somewhere.
In all the great stories…the epics told in books…the tales remembered by grandfathers…in every one of these inspiring legends of heroes traveling vast journeys….no one ever mentioned how badly one’s legs and feet started to hurt.
Tellie did not consider herself to be a weak girl. But after the last few days of travel and especially the recent chase, the muscles in her legs were very sore indeed, and the gentle, rolling hills were not so gentle as she walked up and down and then up again, the entire while clenching her teeth against the pain.
To their west side a road ran along the coast, but of course, Errance did not want to take the road, he wanted to head along the sea in his own private path which meant every single hill.
As they ventured deeper into the hills and valleys, they paused to take the time to discard disguises and don the other outfits Coren had given them in the packs. Errance exchanged his purple nightmare for a set of dark clothes, Tellie shuddered out of the boy attire into a rosy, country girl frock, and Tryss all too gladly took back her own chema clothes, a little worn and torn, and left the pink gown as a puddle in the grass. Kelm remained in the sailor boy attire, looking more confident for wearing it.
At every peak of a hill, she could see the ocean glittering to their left. Terrifying as a voyage would have been, she was still frustrated with Errance for refusing it. Who knew how long this route would take and what dangers they’d encounter along the way.
Strangely, Tryss seemed as tired as her. At first, she thought she was staying behind to keep her company, but as she took pause after pause, breathing heavily, Tellie began to get worried. “Are you all right?” she asked at last.
Tryss held a hand to her shoulder and winced. “The wound I got from the shard. It…it aches.”
“Should we have a look at it?”
Tryss cast a glance ahead at the boys but they were just going out of sight into a dell. “All right.” She sat down in the tall grass and carefully peeled the cloth back from her shoulder.
Tellie gasped. “It’s grey!”
The red scratches were edged in grey, only intensifying their nasty appearance. Remaining color drained from Tryss’s face as she looked upon it. “It wasn’t that
bad a few hours ago,” she said faintly. “I thought the color was a little odd, but…”
“Is it infected?” Alarm rattled in Tellie’s head. “Do we need to go back?”
“Don’t…don’t be silly. I just need to treat it. The sun is beginning to go down anyway. We might as well make camp.”
Tellie called for the others. When they saw how far they’d gone ahead, they grudgingly came back rather than make the girls go all the way to them. At first Errance did not agree to the idea of stopping while so much light was left in the day, but Tryss’s pale face and the children’s chorused complaints about their aching bodies soon decided the argument without him. There were no trees to make an ideal camp, but they sat down in the shaded side of a dell and loosed the packs from their shoulders. Several streams ran through the hills to the ocean so Errance and Kelm took their kegs and fetched more water while Tellie helped Tryss inspect the wound more carefully.
A small hiss slipped from Tryss’s lips as she sponged her torn shoulder with a wet cloth, but there was little to clean for no fresh blood came from the ghastly scratches. She took a small pouch from the pack prepared by her people and ground the little leaves within to a fine powder between her fingers.
Tellie bent forward on her knees for a better look. “Wounds don’t look like that usually, do they?”
“No.”
“Why is it doing that then? Errance, have you seen anything like it?”
Startled that the elf had arrived so silently while Kelm was still trooping down the hill, Tryss tugged her shirt back onto her shoulder, wincing at the haste.
“I have not,” Errance said. His brows were knit in quiet intensity. He sat in a crouch, stirring the beginning embers of a small fire. “Have you considered the curse?” he asked.
Tryss froze.
“Curse?” Tellie echoed.
“Chemas can turn into shards,” Errance said.
“Tryss is turning into a monster?” Tellie practically shrieked.
“Who’s turning into a monster?” Kelm demanded, reaching the camp.
Moonscript (Kings of Aselvia Book 1) Page 27