“After me, count to three,” Uthalion said, looking up at! the pair. “Then follow.”
| With that he jumped, falling into the black. Ghaelya I held her breath, waiting for the sound of an impact, though ‘ Hone came. Brindani looked to her and nodded as if it were perfectly normal.
“You cannot be serious!” she whispered. He placed a hand on her shoulder even as howls erupted close by. Placing a finger to his lips, he secured his sword and dagger and jumped into the dark.
Ghaelya had never been afraid of heights. Airspur was a city of towering structures, some of them suspended freely: in the air. Many a thrill-seeking genasi knew how to leap from one district to the next, arresting one’s fall by a window ledge here, a banner-pole there. She had imagined herself as a single drop of rain, flowing and changing, as she had navigated the soaring heights of the city. As graceful and as brave as she might have seemed at home, she always knew where and how to land.
She stepped closer to the cliff s edge, one foot hovering over the bottomless gulf and her neck stretched, finding her center of balance. She closed her eyes and shook her arms out, loosely hanging her fingers like rolling drops of rain collecting on the petal of a flower. The weight of the inevitable fall flooded her senses and rushed chillingly through her arms. Muffled growls drew nearer; claws scratched at bark and dirt.
Somewhere in the dark below her she felt the singing again, though she could not hear it. It tugged at her, pleaded with her, and for a moment she swooned in its power. Bending her knees slightly, she cursed. “I’m coming for you, Tess,” she said.
Brindani hit the dirt hard, rolling over the thick roots of a tree and tucking into a crouch. He turned to stand across from Uthalion, watching for the descending form of Ghaelya. He tried not to look at the human, still dazed by the indistinct memories racing through his mind. He kept his eyes skyward, the moonlit dark little more than thin shadows to the sharp eyes his elf mother had given him. The hands he held at the readyperhaps, he had often mused, the hands of his unknown human fatherbore the scars of too many battles.
Born in the battlefield, Brindani thought. Why bother fighting it? You’ll die there too.
Ghaelya appeared falling gracefully through the darkness, her arms outstretched, the pale swirls of energy on her skin burning. He and Uthalion caught her arms. She broke free of Uthalion’s grasp and they rolled across the ground in a tangle of limbs and curses. The roots he had missed before were lodged in the small of his back, the genasi’s weight on top of him. For the briefest of moments he welcomed the pain, until her eyes flashed in anger, and she stood.
The forestmote they had landed upon floated peacefully between the high cliffs of a deep valley in the Spur, drifting eastward so slowly the movement could barely be seen. Brindani looked to Uthalion, surprised and realizing just how long the human had lived in the forest. The skills Uthalion had gathered would be useful.
“Was that really necessary?” Ghaelya asked, leaning against a tree and rubbing her leg. “I won’t be able to run on this now.”
Uthalion glanced at her, annoyed, before turning back to his perusal of the cliffs above, watching for signs of pursuit. Brindani held up the gore-splattered blade of his dagger, the smell of the dreamer’s blood overpowering.
“Smells like an abandoned fish market at high noon,” he said, turning his nose away. “If we’d gone around the cliffs, we might as well have carried torches and sang tavern songs at the top of our lungs. Uthalion just broke the trail.”
Ghaelya raised an eyebrow and nodded in understanding, but was unsatisfied by the answer. “How do we know they won’t follow?”
“We don’t know,” Uthalion answered, turning to face them with his arms crossed. “If they show up again, you can tell them I made a mistake and share a joke at my expense. Until then, I don’t see them making that jump, and the trail is broken.”
“You could have broken my leg,” Ghaelya responded hotly.
“Better than breaking mine,” the human replied as Brindani stood to get between the two. “Besides, people I don’t know break legs every day. Why should I make an exception and care about yours?”
“Uth,” Brindani said, holding up his hands and gesturing to the genasi. “This is Ghaelya. We didn’t come here for a fight, but the last few days we’ve just been… a little on edge. Thank you for helping us.”
“You’re welcome,” Uthalion replied, eyeing the genasi for a moment before facing the half-elf. “Why are you out here Brin? It’s been three years since I told you not to come back.”
Brindani sighed and lowered his hands, having dreaded the moment since entering the deep woods.
“Yes, that you did,” he answered, trying to think of how to continue, how to put into words the insanity he’d been dealing with for the last tendaynot to mention the last three years. A cold sweat had broken out on his forehead, and he quickly brushed it away as a familiar headache returned with a dull throb behind his eyes. Taking a deep breath he forced his trembling hands to his sides, balling them into fists. “Ino, we, came here looking for you. We need your help. There is”
Howls rang from the forest, increasing in frequency as the dreamers closed the wide circle of their hunt. Uthalion turned back to the edge of the forestmote, and Ghaelya ceased cleaning the blood from her sword to listen. Following the eerie howls was the soft chanting of a powerful voice, its song drifting from sweet and ethereal to the harsh scream of metal scraping on glass. Old pain stabbed at Brindani’s stomach, and his headache grew stronger, but he fought to conceal his discomfort.
“Quick,” Uthalion said, facing him with a look of urgency. “Long story short.”
“We need a guide,” Brindani replied, studying Uthalion’s eyes and ignoring the dim screams trying to escape the recesses of his mind. “A guide… to Tohrepur.”
Uthalion blinked, a flash of something like confusion crossing his stern features, though otherwise he appeared unmoved by the statement.
“Oh,” he said at length, lowering his head as if in thought, then uncrossing his arms and walking to the southern edge of the forestmote.
“No,” Uthalion continued. “Not ever. Let’s keep moving.”
“Uth, wait…” Brindani began. He stopped as Ghaelya stood and flashed him a look of anger.
“Leave it,” she said as Uthalion took hold of a low branch and climbed up to reach a second limb bridging a deep gap between the forestmote and the other side of the valley. “We don’t need him. We’ll rest, reassess, and be on our way.”
‘ She followed after the human, climbing in silence up the edge of the cliff towards the forest above. Brindani wanted to agree with her, but he had traveled the length of Akanul once before, though much of the journey had been a blur. He shook his head at the recollection. Even saying the name of the place had taken effort. At one point in his life, months before, he’d almost forgotten that Tohrepur and the little town of Caidris had existed. But, as he was growing tired of discovering, he could not escape them forever.
He fumbled at his pack as they pressed on into the southern Spur, unable to find the bottle of spirits he’d stowed away or the wine he’d purchased in Airspur. His lips were dry, his throat ached, and the pain in his stomach was escalating with each step.
The forest changed as they pressed deeper into the plaguechanged landscape, its leaves turning from a dappled, ethereal green to intermittent waves of dark, glowing orange. Twisting roots came to life as yellow winged beetles crawled out from their lairs to buzz in clouds around the tree trunks, their wings and the light both bright as flames. The brightness of the display hurt Brindani’s eyes, and he squinted, nodding to Ghaelya when she turned with a look of concern on her face. He waved her on, concealing his near blind search through the pack.