“How many times have you won?”
“Never, but it doesn’t matter,” she blurted, annoyed by his question. “I don’t play to win but to keep him from disconnecting you. Now stop fooling around, Gillabrian, and go take the Brocat of the orzacs.”
Not friendly at all, the little grah. She still calls me by my whole name, he thought. Of course, the semantics gave him an understanding of the wall between them. For the time being, she was his ally, but at some point in the future, he would have the “pleasure” of discovering her own goals regarding his tail. His only value came from Baila’s enormous interest in his spikes. Surely this little detail didn’t elude her, just as it wasn’t lost on any Antyran of the three inhabited worlds. Sooner or later, she’d have to betray him… and the wall would make it simple.
“Where are the orzacs? At the forest’s edge?”
“Yes. I’ll be the baitar of the grahs, on the left wing. We will meet in the meadow,” she said, pointing at the place. “You’ll bring the Brocats and hide in the forest.” Seeing him hesitate, she said, “Move on, we don’t have much time!”
She turned to enter the sphere.
“What’s the name?” he shouted after her.
“What name?” she asked, puzzled by his question.
“The name of the game.”
“Acanthia.” She then hurried to her portal.
Acanthia, one of the classic legends of antiquity! Right away, the countless versions of the twisted story whirled in his memory. It was said that at the beginning of the old world, before Zhan’s coming, Colhan proceeded to expand his opulent sky-palace to host all the gods and monsters conceived by Antyra’s fertile womb. Unwilling to mingle with the mortals until the building was ready, the gods took shelter in the inaccessible caves of the glaciers stretched on the Roch-Alixxors’ first plateau, which were extended for this occasion by the claws and fangs of Pixihe’s monsters. Even though they were transformed into underground cities worthy to be the abode of the gods, no one liked to live in caverns, hidden from starlight—except Pixihe. That’s why the others avoided her, and she often felt alone. And when she felt alone, everyone suffered—gods and Antyrans. Her glaciers slowly suffocated the world in their cruel grip. With every passing year, they took more and more until the goddess released Antyra from the frost cage.
Her only consolation, if one could call it that, was to gaze at the ice statue of the most beautiful female dreams could ever conceive, known by her short name as Dedris. It was uncertain who made the statue. Some versions of the legend suggested that it wasn’t a statue at all—it was the body of poor Oleia, the lover of the god Alixxor turned into ice by Colhan’s anger. Other legends alleged that she was carved by Pixihe, Antyra, or even by a mortal—the mythical aromary Azaric, from whose bloodline hailed the famous Laixan. The fact was that, fed up with the cold and darkness, the great Colhan himself ordered the vardannes to impregnate the head spikes of the statue with the scent of life. From Colhan, the new goddess received the gift of hidden aromas. From Pixihe, not surprisingly, she received her hearts of ice.
It was a happy time for Pixihe. Dedris overdelighted the goddess with her skillfully combined aromas, used to play all sorts of cruel jokes on the mortals or on the other gods.
Terrible wars raged in Gondarra’s swamps, the poor baitars being deceived by the hidden scents that clouded their kyis, and the goddesses laughed. Truly, Dedris’s cruelty couldn’t be matched by anyone, except perhaps by her mother, Pixihe.
Once, only once, Dedris allowed herself to be seduced—and by a mere mortal. Voran the Reckless, son of Mogran, had ignored the counsel of the wise and took off on the wings of Nilanog (his father’s legendary utril) to the plateau of the gods. He intended to collect the moisture of resurrection from Antyra’s temple and awaken his father to another life—because Mogran the baitar had fallen in battle. For that, he was ready to confront the wrath of the gods for defiling their nest.
On the shoreline of a glacial lake, Voran saw Dedris resting on a slab of stone, thinking of new pranks to play on the mortals. He approached slowly, without a word, enthralled by her beauty and the hidden aromas released by her head spikes. In a blink of an eye, he forgot why he had gone all the way up there—he even forgot his father’s death, so great was the female’s charm! He fearlessly caught her in his strong arms and, against tradition, he tilted her head and awoke her frozen spikes to life with his burning breath. Surprised by his boldness, the goddess didn’t fight but abandoned herself altogether to the handsome adventurer. The two coiled their tails, and Dedris didn’t return to Pixihe. To hide their tracks, the two ran to a secret continent named Acanthia-under-Star, camouflaged in a cloud, created by Dedris just for the two of them.
The cruel winter that suddenly fell in the middle of the summer left no doubts about Pixihe’s fury. She threatened to wipe out the seed of mortals if her child didn’t come back.
The last hope of the world remained Huxile—Voran’s brother—who became the new baitar after Mogran’s death. Gondarra’s heroes gathered under his sarpan and traveled to the realm of the gods, to find salvation or death.
Legend has it that Antyra made the licants and ordered them to fly to the four corners and find Dedris. Since the licants had no idea what she looked like, they were told to search for the most beautiful female. When they saw her, they were to rub their legs on her gills or spikes and bring back the scent so that the gods could be sure they had tracked the traitor. For eight months the desperate search continued, with the licants bringing the wrong flavors every time. They were about to give up the quest when a frozen licant found its way back from the camouflage cloud with the right scent. It had discovered the fugitives! Helped by Pixihe, Huxile’s soldiers built ice stairs to Acanthia’s cloud continent to bring back her wandering daughter.
Using her hidden aromas, Dedris lured countless monsters to defend their profane love. The fight for Acanthia-under-Star and Antyra-under-Ice was about to begin!
Gill realized that the glacier between the mountains, whose greatness he admired, was Ricopa, Dedris’s castle! It seemed, though, that the battle wasn’t supposed to happen on ice but here in the narrow valley between the hills. According to the legend, Voran had on his side nightmarish creatures whose name was enough to instill terror in any Antyran’s kyi. But the grahs and orzacs under Huxile’s brocat knew very well what they were fighting for: the return of the summer…
If Gill had entered under Huxile’s spikes, it meant that Sandara would join the game as his ally Nibala, the baitar of the grahs. The legends told that although they were of different species, the two became lovers, like Dedris and Voran. Acanthia-under-Star was in fact the destiny of two pairs, one fighting for the lives of the Antyrans, and the other fighting for theirs… However, Gill was pretty convinced that the “pair” thing would remain a legend. Although on a normal day he wouldn’t be indifferent to Sandara’s charm, in his current situation, the only thing he could expect of her would be to use him against the jure and then betray him… And he hadn’t forgotten that she was a grah—namely, the kind of female you couldn’t really be sure wasn’t dreaming to cut your throat while you slept, in Zagrada’s memory…
He walked hurriedly toward the place Sandara showed him, and indeed it wasn’t hard to find the soldiers. As soon as he passed a large clump of tekals, he found the army tents scattered along the outskirts of the forest, in the shadow of the majestic trees.
Near the hilltop, he saw several pairs of huge skin wings whipping the air, above the bushes. His hearts beating madly, he realized he was about to see utrils for the first time in his life—the very creatures incised by the grahs in the flesh of their shoulders! The fliers were just tying the hakles,76 under the general protest of the beasts, which were annoyed by the straps.