“What!?” Naomi threw her hands up, no longer able to keep her voice lowered. “Leave? The sun’s baked that balding head of yours, Adibe. No one leaves Ka’veshi!”
“At once?” Serenthel switched his attention back to Adibe. “But, what of my box?”
“I cannot open it.” Adibe held out the cloth wrapped, brick shaped object. A corner of the cloth fell away and sunlight glittered across luminescent silver.
“But, I thought...” Serenthel looked absolutely crestfallen, while next to him Naomi couldn’t wrap her head around the display of absurdity this afternoon had become.
“By Ishkar’s quill, of course he can’t open it! He not a silversmith!”
“But he was,” Serenthel argued, as from the streets the cacophonous sounds of shouting had become more of a unified drone, swelling like waves kept in time by the stamping of feet.
“I was once guild master of the Silversmiths,” Adibe confirmed to Naomi’s slackened jaw. The hollow clangs of wooden washing paddles bagging against copper pots joined the uproar from the street. Adibe cursed under his breath and pushed the box back into Serenthel’s reluctant grasp. “I’d hoped to have more time, but you came later than expected.”
“Expected?” Serenthel asked, his shock now matching Naomi’s.
“More time for what?” Naomi’s eyes darted from Adibe to the passing crowds and back again. “What is going on?”
Adibe took Naomi’s hands into his and gave them a gentle, heartfelt squeeze. “There is so much I wished to tell you, but...” He inhaled and shook away the emotions clouding his eyes. “You must go with Serenthel. Ah, ah,” he stopped her argument before it began. “You must leave the city. You must help him finish what she started.”
“She who?” Serenthel asked.
“I can’t leave the city,” Naomi argued over the elf, more concerned with the where than the who. “Where am I supposed to go?”
“Northeast,” Adibe replied, as the crowd’s unified voice exploded into thunderous pandemonium. “To D’nas Glas.”
Serenthel gasped. “D’nas Glas?”
“It is the only place your box can be opened, and you must-” Adibe said before his voice became lost among the thunderous sounds rebounding down the alleyway.
Horns joined the metal chorus. Naomi startled, fear replacing confusion. She couldn’t leave the city, and she certainly had no desire to go traipse around some Elvan ruin that Adibe had told her too many ghost stories about to count!
“Adibe!” A large woman with thick arms from countless years spent at a washtub appeared in the doorway, her hands wringing with worry. “The sands of Earth have changed direction, and Water now moves to extinguish the Fire!”
“Those fools! It’s too soon.” Adibe cursed then huffed out a breath. “Gather the bundle from beneath my bed, Esfir. We are out of time.”
Esfir looked from Adibe to Serenthel to Naomi, let out a nervous cry, then threw up her hands and disappeared back into the house. The crowd walking past the alleyway had become a throng, thousands strong, chanting the same words over and over. ‘Futrar’ish Sultina! Futrar’ish Sultina!’
Death to the Sultinate.
“Everyone’s gone mad,” Naomi muttered, retreating a step back into the safe shadows of the alleyway.
“On that we can agree,” Serenthel said, clutching the box to his chest.
“Here!” Esfir reappeared in the doorway and plunked a cloth-wrapped bundle into the old man’s lap. Without warning, she grabbed Naomi by the cheeks and kissed her forehead. “Ishkar’s wisdom go with you, child.”
Before Naomi could react at being suddenly blessed by a woman she barely knew, Adibe handed Esfir the dark green cloth that had been wrapped around the bundle. Esfir, in turn, wrapped the cloth, a cloak, around Naomi’s shoulders and pulled the hood up to shroud Naomi’s face. Naomi fingered the luxurious cloth, holding up the front hem to the sunlight and illuminating silver thread that had an eerie resemblance to the cloak Serenthel wore.
“Quickly now,” Adibe urged, standing on wobbly knees and pushing a full pack into Naomi’s arms. “Up on Forfolyn.”
“Wait, please,” Serenthel implored with a hand on Adibe’s shoulder. “What is this all about? Why am I to take this boy to D’nas Glas, and where did you get that Elvan cloak?”
“Y-yeah!” Naomi sputtered as Adibe urged her closer to the enormous elk. “W-what he said!”
“No time,” Adibe argued.
A woman’s scream echoed over the crowd marching past the alleyway. A horn bellowed. An explosion shook the city, sending dust falling from the sky like rain.
“Demroth have mercy!” Esfir cried.
“Damn the Water and her impatience!” Adibe spat then grasped Serenthel’s shoulder. “I ask you to do this because you must! Ka’veshi is about to be torn from its roots, the false Fire will be extinguished, and I will not have Naomi killed in the chaos that will follow. Above all else, she must live.”
“She?!” Serenthel glanced wide-eyed at Naomi who stood unspeaking with her mouth agape. “I... I beg your pardon, my lady.”
“Beg later,” Adibe pressed Serenthel to focus. “Now, you must run!”
“I...” Serenthel looked around, perhaps for a way out, then gave in to the chaos he’d found himself in. “All right, but I still do not understand why.”
Adibe’s bony fingers gripped the elf’s shoulder as their eyes met. “Because, my friend, Ishkar did not just write the fates of man, and wherever this path leads, you have already promised to follow it to its end.”
Serenthel fell silent, as if the words had struck something inside his heart. Without further argument, he tucked the box into Forfolyn’s saddlebag and gracefully mounted the elk’s back without the aid of a stirrup. He held a hand down to Naomi.
“Come, my lady, we must go.”
Naomi stared at the hand as tears blurred her vision. Terror took hold and she could not will herself to move. Adibe gently pulled her into a hug, the very first hug she
