back into the safety of the forest, away from the blazing torch in Ghaelya’s hand until the forked end of its lashing wormlike body disappeared from the edge of the torch’s burning glow.
Uthalion exhaled slowly, rising carefully to his feet with Ghaelya’s assistance. Her eyes never left the gap in the trees where the kaia had fled, her face a mask of defiance though her hands shook with an unstoppable tremor.
“It’s gone,” he said. She blinked, her jaw unclenching for a moment as she turned, a fluid quality in the movement that slowly faded as she focused on him.
“It’ll be back,” she said shortly.
“No,” he replied, gesturing to the eastern end of the stream where the dim glow of dawn graced the sky. “It won’t.”
Hesitantly, she nodded as her breathing slowed, and they turned toward Brindani and Vaasurri on the opposite bank. Before the sun even crested the horizon, they had cleared the edge of the Spur and found a suitable place to rest. Uthalion sat listening to the forest for a long time as the others fell into slumber. The howls of the dreamers left them in peace, the haunting voices of their masters never sought him out. But, like an unreachable itch, he came back to the unknown song in the cave again and again, turning his attention to the south as though he might catch it across the wide expanse of the Mere-That-Was.
Gray fog surrounded Brindani as the slow process of waking up brought him to the forefront of a half- remembered dream. He could feel the cool grass of the Akana on his cheek, but could not open his eyes, still trying to grasp the edges of consciousness that would release him from the border between dreams and reality. The familiar, quiet fog was a comfort, though it had grown thinner, billowing slightly to reveal the silhouetted images of the dream beyond. He recoiled from the figures that shambled through the mist, tried to shut out the barking orders that echoed from the ghostly little town that was usually hidden in the dream.
He found a sword in his hand, and blood covered his dusty armor.
A deep breath filled his lungs as he awoke with a start and cracked his tired eyes open in the bright light of the noonday sun.
He pressed his hands against the grass of the Akana, inhaling its refreshing earthy scent, and sat up to survey the land of the Mere-That-Was. Wide fields stretched as far as he could see, rising and falling in a tide of deep green. Long grasses flowed in the light wind, rolling like the waves that had once lapped these shores. Spiraling whorls of crystal dotted the landscape, the sculptures of a mad god, turning sunlight into blinding rainbows that dappled the fields with color. Small birds flew among the prismatic reflections, with translucent feathers and long trailing tails, almost invisible as they hunted flies and beetles.
Shivering despite the day’s warmth* Brindani turned away from sight of the Akana, only half-remembering the last time he’d crossed the Mere-That-Was. He was not particularly ready to recall the other half A soft moan drew his attention to Ghaelya, turning in her sleep, her eyes twitching beneath their lids. She seemed lost in dreams of her own. He leaned close, wondering if he might somehow hear the things she heard in her dreams, but her lids fluttered open, and her hand immediately slapped to the hilt of her sword.
He leaned back nonchalantly as she sat up, shielding her eyes from the sun and peering out across the Akana. The whirling energy lines on her skin flared until she calmed somewhat and rolled back to her side with a sigh of relief.
“Where are the others?” she asked.
“Scouting the area, I suppose,” he replied, squinting east and west for Uthalion and Vaasurri, even though their trail would be hard to pick up. “They’ll be back soon.”
“Any sign of the dreamers?”
“No, but I heard them howling, just before I drifted off to sleep,” he answered, shuddering at the memory. Like wolves howling at a rising moon, the dreamers had heralded the sunrise with their own song from deep within the Spur before falling silent. “I think we’re safe from them for now, until nightfall at least.”
“Not surprising,” she said and stood, stretching in the sunlight. “Their eyes never close. I don’t think daylight agrees with them much. What about the Choir?”
“Nothing of them either, though I’m not sure I’d know them if I saw them.” Brindani looked back to the edge of the forest, wondering if they were watching from the shadows, waiting for the dark. Looking askance at her, he asked, “Why do you think they chase you?”
She looked back at the distant line of trees and shook her head, shrugging slightly.
“I killed one of them, when they took Tess,” she said hesitantly. “Vengeance, perhaps?”
“Why not kill you then?” he asked in turn, certain that she was hiding something, that maybe she had dreamed more answers than she was willing to part with. “Why would they leave with your sister and then come back for you?”
“I don’t know,” she answered shortly, fixing him with a hard stare before striding away, pointing at the Spur. “Go and ask them if you wish.”
Letting the matter drop, he collected his pack and held it close to his chest. As he squeezed it, water leaked out, soaking his hands and spilling onto the grass. Reaching in, he found the silkroot pouch and placed his hand on little more than a mushy clump. Squeezing his eyes shut, he let it drop and struggled to collect his racing thoughts.
“Ruined,” he muttered. Tremors tried to reclaim his clenched fists.
He had stumbled crossing the wide stream last night, too slow to react when the kaia came. Worse he had dropped his torch in the water. He paused as a cold bead of sweat ran down his brow, chilling himthe first herald of the gut-wrenching pain to come. Carefully he opened his eyes, scanning the grassland and the various flowers that grew nearby.
“Useless,” he whispered, seeing nothing that might help him. He closed his eyes again, the familiar ache already beginning to grow behind them. He tried to clear his mind, hoping he might hear the song again, drifting as it did from the south, soothing him with wordless promises. But it was silent, and he cursed it for hiding from him.
Catching sight of movement from the west, he squinted through the sunlight and saw Uthalion speaking with Vaasurri.
“He will get us to Tohrepur… He has to,” he said under his breath. The first needles of pain pricked at his stomach as his hands shook and absently fidgeted with blades of grass. Ghaelya paced at the edge of the narrow field, the land dropping off steeply beyond her, and he relaxed somewhat. He nodded, knowing the song that hadlured him to her outside Airspur would come again, that he would find it wherever she went, and that it would fulfill its promise. Looking back to Uthalion, he whispered, “Of all those we fought at Caidris, of all the graves we left behind… There is one grave left to dig…”
§ § §?
“Do you trust them?” Vaasurri asked.
Uthalion studied the waking pair that had disturbed his mostly quiet life in the Spur. The half-elf sat silently in the distance as Ghaelya paced the edge of the rise, staring Out at the southern lands. Uthalion had tried to ignore the spectacle of the Akana himself, unmoved by its savage beauty.
“Not sure it matters now, but I’d be lying if I said yes,” he answered at length. “One’s got too many secrets, and the other one… Well, the other one is due for a reckoning.”
Vaasurri tilted his head curiously.
“Which is which?” he asked.
“Take your pick,” Uthalion answered and eyed the edge of the Spur, still able to feel the moment of death that had loomed over him before dawn. It had been many years since things had been so clear for him, a clarity it seemed only death was capable of summoning. He shifted the heavy waterskins he carried from one shoulder to the other and looked to the killoren. “I suppose we should help them… So far as they deserve our help at least.”
Uthalion tasted the lie on his tongue as soon as he’d spoken it. At dawn, while the others slept, he’d stared into the sketchbook of plants and animals he’d kept up for years. He’d knelt down-by new specimens he’d never seen bloom before on the Akana, and he had ignored both, his thoughts traveling deep into the shadows of the Mere-That-Was.
He’d considered leaving them all as the sun had crested the horizon, setting out for Tohrepur alone. He’d told himself it was finally time to go back and face the ruins, had convinced himself he needed to see that nothing had
