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 survived the Keepers’ assault. But in the end he feared it was the memory of the song that had driven him to such an impulse.
“Then we’ll need to move soon.” Vaasurri’s voice stirred Uthalion from his darker thoughts.
“Yes,” Uthalion replied. “We should get as close as we can to the Wash before dark.”
“I suspect dark will bring those hounds, the dreamers,” Vaasurri said and caught Uthalion’s eye. “They’re after Ghaelya. I don’t know why, but there’s more prey in the Spur than just one genasi girl… Their pursuit has nothing to do with mere hunger.”
Uthalion nodded slowly, eyeing the shadows of the Spur casually, but seeing far beyond the trees and the foothills of the mountains, looking instead toward Airspur and Maryna.
“I agree,” he said distractedly, adding under his breath, “Beyond mere hunger.”
“Perhaps we’ll find out more when she’s ready,” Vaasurri said and headed toward the waiting pair. But Uthalion barely heard his old friend, torn between two directions: north and south.
When he considered south, he saw only the end of the journey: an unremarkable collection of ruins called Tohrepur, once a small city on the edge of vast inland waters. It had been standing six years before and would stand for many more, crumbling slowly to dust until only the memory of a city remained, not enough to disturb a soul.
As he stared north, another ruin caught his mind’s eye, though that one had been constructed of love. Unlike Tohrepur, the ruins of his marriage might yet be saved, though he did not know how to repair the rifts opened between the two of them. Unlike Tohrepur, he knew Maryna would not grow old waiting for himand he knew he couldn’t go back yet, couldn’t make the same mistakes twice.
Uthalion needed to see Caidris and Tohrepur, to kick the dust, to see the dead, and bury his nightmare once and for all. He turned south and truly looked upon the southern lands of the Akana.
He recalled a particular flower in the Spur that lured flies into a sticky, foul-smelling trap, drowning them in its green gullet. Such was the northern shore of the Akana, sparkling and pretty, lulling the unwary into a world touched by the throes of a dying goddess. The morning sun never shone on the waiting teeth or the hidden poison, never dulled its shine enough for one to see the razor’s edge of a graceful crystal. The swift little birds never sang of the terrors beyond the north shores, their tiny beaks too full of a bounty of carrion to bother. with warnings. The Akana was a perfect illusion, but, he supposed, no more than many other places in the world.
He thought of Vaasurri and recalled one of the sayings of the killoren as he stared through the shine and the glitter of the Akana.
“It is all a road to death,” he whispered and strode toward the others, his mind a bit clearer, his purpose more determined. “And it is all a road to life. It is the blood, and it is the bloom.”
– @-
Giant crystals rose from the tall grass, twisted and shining. Motes drifted over the grassland like storm clouds made of glass and greenery, filled with noisome birds and dragging shadows beneath them. Ghaelya had heard the crystals called Mystra’s Tears, and had dreamed of them most recently, like a landmark she was to search for and that she was afraid to look upon. Afraid because if she confirmed where she stood, the dream would evolve, change, and begin to show her other places. It was not the places she feared so much as the things she could only half remember when awake.
The beast in the Spur, the teeth and the eyes, the twisted tail, and the wheezing hunger rumbling in its hot breaththat had been real, not some figment in a dream. She imagined Tessaeril being taken through the forest, running from the kaia, standing where she stood. A sudden cold dread raised the hairs on the back of her neck as she turned toward the Spur.
The grassland rose higher and higher until it met the edge of the distant forest. Its leaves seemed on fire in full sunlight, and beyond them, towering above the tree tops was the Spur itself. The central stone of the forest was farther west than her journey had taken her, its curling top hazy through the clouds that gathered around it. Dots rose and fell on the wind, birds that had taken up residence on its sides. It was an exact image from her dream, and she had little doubt that Tessaeril had stood in the same spot and looked back before moving on.
She started at the approach of Vaasurri and Uthalion, collected herself and checked her meager pack.’ Uthalion wordlessly handed her a waterskin as he passed and moved toward the long sloping path into the broken grassland beyond. Seeing him in the light for the first time’, she couldn’t say he was particularly handsome, but nor was he ugly, for a human. His face was rough and lined, his eyes piercing, confident, and strong. Curiously, despite his previous objections to helping her, he did not seem inclined to wait for anyone else, pressing on in the lead with nary a gesture or even a harsh word.
Before she could take a first step to follow, Brindani passed her as well, his head down and his cloak pulled tight around his shoulders. Neither of the men acknowledged her or each other.
“Worry not,” Vaasurri said and stood at her side. “I’m sure in a few days you’ll be hard pressed to shut them up for all their chatter.”
She smiled briefly despite herself and fell into step beside the killoren.
“Tell me more about this Choir,” he said at length as they — descended. The land revealed its soaring cliffs and perilous drops, a massive field of shattered green and sparkling crystals.
“Little to tell really,” she sighed. “Though I expect they are less the men they present themselves as and more… well, something else. They appeared in the city streets one day, only in the lower districts, with bandages around their hands and dirty robes. Their every movement, their smell, and the places they would frequent, made them seem little more than beggars. But their voices…
“I was sober the first time I heard them singing, and the sound chilled my soul. It was like messengers from the gods pronouncing some judgment upon all who listened.” She shuddered at the memory. “After that, I avoided them at all costs, wishing they would move on as quickly as they’d arrived. But then, as they enthralled groups of those that found some kind of hope in their songs, Tessaeril began to listen as well.”
“Did she go with them willingly?” he asked.
“What are you implying?” she returned sharply, but she calmed herself, seeing genuine curiosity in the killoren’s eyes, “I’m sorry. No, I don’t believe so. Their songs are strange, very… persuasive. They escaped the city with a dozen other citizens without alerting even the sharpest-eyed guard.”
Vassurri nodded and seemed to consider the tale as they journeyed deeper into the Mere-That-Was. Occasionally she glanced over her shoulder, expecting at any moment to find the dreamersor even the Choir themselves bearing down on them, calling her name. She’d expected the killoren to press her on the subject and was relieved that he did not. She was still trying to work out for herself why the Choir would come back for her. As the day wore on, and the sun neared the western horizon, she feared the evening’s dream would be stronger. She found herself both dreading and looking forward to the strange nightmare and the bewitching song.