Chapter 48
Thysl’s lifeless body lay bruised and broken where he gave himself to the windsong. Chayse quickly fashioned a makeshift stretcher, and after placing Thysl upon it, they cautiously made their way deeper into the valley.
Hastily, they built a funeral pyre for their friend, their brother, Thysl. In the end, it was he and the unique power of his song that saved the day. Glyf knew the release of his spirit was the last gift they could give.
Not wanting to spend the rest of the night in the vale, they soon talked of finding their way to the ridge above the cursed Elgenot, away from the temple of Ituryblis.
“There is something I need to get before I can leave,” Glyf looked back toward where the altar once stood.
“I would not have you linger in this place without a guard,” Jayf blustered, adamant in his passion.
“Stay with me then, Jayf. Your presence and guarding are welcome.”
Marley cleared his throat, picking up the last of his packs. “We shall all be happy to guard you while you complete your task. Although I can not be sure Zamphere got away, neither can I be sure he is not waiting in the wreckage.” He looked pointedly at Glyf and she saw in his face that he too heard whisperings in the wind.
She knew he would say nothing until she spoke of it first, and there would be time enough for that when they were safely away from the valley. Back through the rubble of the outer buildings, she hurried, barely holding herself from slipping onto the Paths to get to the altar’s cracked center stone.
The need to head back to the Bitterun Mountains and waiting Atheryl tugged at her mind and quickened her steps. The troupe soon gathered before the stone steps leading up to where the ruined altar stood. Glyf closed her eyes, trying to sense what beckoned her and where it lay.
“Can you tell us what we seek?” Jayf looked around as if the very ground should divulge the mystery.
“I would if I could, but I...,” she stopped mid-sentence with a small intake of breath and knelt. Before her, in the rubble, the glint of deep amber the same color as Ymarii’s eyes. She brushed the debris and crumbled stonework away from the half-buried gemstone. Her work revealed a jagged lump of dark amber sapphire with three streaks of burnished gold radiating out from the center.
“I think you have found what you look for.” Marley squatted beside her to get a better look.
“You speak truly, Marley Stonebender.” Glyf picked it up from the ground.
The stone was about the size of her fists clasped together. As she held it, she realized she held the pure essence of her mother, and she needed to take it to the elemental plane as soon as possible. With care, she slipped it into her pack, nestling it in her extra linen shirt.
She looked up to see the whole of the group except Marley watching her. Marley knelt where Glyf dug the stone out, his finger trying to pry something from the ground.
“What do you have there, runesmith?” Glyf asked, peering over his arm.
Marley used his dagger to pry the stone from the packed dirt. A jade colored circle of stone with veins of burnish gold running through it soon lay in the palm of his hand. He frowned, looking from the stone to Glyf.
“Is that what I think it is?” She reached out to stroke its smooth, polished surface.
“It is, but it has changed. The veins of amber were not there before.”
“What is it?” Chayse and Jayf asked at the same time.
Marley rubbed the scar on his forehead with his free hand. “It is my En’kur-mata, my stone eye.”
“What will you do with it? Can you reattach it?” Jayf came around to get a closer look.
“I don’t know how or if I want to. It is no longer what it was.” Marley ran his thumb across the smooth surface of the stone. Then slipped it into his rune pouch.
Glyf sighed. “I may have the ability to help you with it once my testing is complete and if I pass. But for now, let us be away from this accursed place. I cannot stand to feel the sorrow and suffering ooze from the trees and brush in this vale.”
The group shouldered their packs, but before they had walked a handful of paces, Chayse stopped. He turned to scan the area. “What about the essence from the corrupt dragon? Wouldn’t there be one?”
“Truly I do not know. This is the first dragon ever hatched this way and on this plane. The essence here is so muddled with taint, I do not know what to look for or if I would recognize it if I saw it.” Marley glanced at his friends, hoping Glyf or Jayf might have some idea. But both shook their heads, a worried look upon their faces. “There is nothing more we can do here. Let us head up to the ridge above to camp.”
By the time they reached the ridgeline, night was full upon them, and their camp a welcome thought. “We need to rest and take stock of what has happened and what happens next,” Marley shrugged off his pack.
They all agreed and soon fell easily into their camp routine. While Marley and Glyf talked together quietly, Chayse laid the fire and Jayf gathered twigs and branches to feed it.
“Who’s turn is it to cook?” Chayse placed a chunk of wood into the hungry new flames.
“I think it is Thys...,” Jayf said, stopping himself halfway through the name. “It is my turn, I believe.” The swirling blues of his eyes shone with his unspoken emotion. He sighed and shuffled through the food supplies for the bag of oats and two of the apples from the Isle of the Tear.
He inhaled deeply of the fruit. The smell of apple blossoms and kalayani rains and lazy tinandra afternoons, and crisp korjutia nights filled his senses. There was an orchard above Windy Cove, he remembered. Thysl always found the best apples there and he always shared. So much would never be the same. He looked up at his companions and found they also were saying goodbyes to those they left behind in Sorrow’s Heart.
The silence lasted until Jayf began dishing up a hearty oat porridge with chopped apples and cheese. As they relaxed over their food, he realized it had been sunrise two days ago since they ate. He was glad to see Glyf eat. She had kept to herself since leaving the valley floor, but now, as she looked up and met Jayf’s eyes, he knew she was ready to speak.
“I leave on the Paths for the Bitterun Mountains before dawn brightens the valley floor. Any of you, my dear friends, will always be welcome in my home, but for this journey, I may only have one with me.”
Jayf stood, bowing deeply from the waist. He tried to muster some of his old bravado as he finished the bow with a flourish of his cloak. “I offer my services, my lady.”
Marley glanced sideways at Jayf, his left brow raised in that particularly irritating, oh really, arch. But before he could say anything, Glyf spoke.
“There is a certain sense of rightness for Marley to be the one to stand guard, while I am being judged by the elements, just as I did for him in his time.”
Although Jayf knew she was right, he couldn’t help feeling crestfallen. But after a few moments to consider, he brightened. “Perhaps it is for the best. Drogan does not know Kestrel by hair or hide and she has never met him. She may be a little jumpy after all she has been through.”
Before he could say anything more, mist formed in the deep night shadows of the trees. Out of it stepped the water elemental Shel.
“It is good to see you survived, Marley Stonebender,” she said with a nod. “The waters carry your story even now.”
Shel bowed slightly to each in the party, including them in her words. “Soon all the water elementals will sing of Thysl and his brave song. And the courageous group that stood up to the Cult of Sangryl’s Light and the corruption they spread.”
“Well met, Lady Shel. I was wondering if we wouldn’t cross paths in this ruckus.”
“Indeed, Master Stonebender, would that the winds had been kinder and the waters less corrupt. We might have met while a friend of yours still accompanied me.”
Marley worked his fingers through his beard, his brow knitted as he considered the water elemental’s words. “And who might that be?”
“The essence has been muddy and covered, or at least somewhat masked,” Jayf said. “But I believe she means Kestrel.”
Marley said nothing, although Jayf knew from the look in his eyes that he looked at things beyond the visible. Something he had stopped doing since returning from the Isle of Alhwone’s Tear. “She and your daughter head north with Sirrsi?” Marley’s voice tinged with surprise.
“Just so, I’ve kept the hounds, this cult set after them, off of their trail. But when Ymarii and her seed perished, the hounds abruptly broke off the chase and headed east.”
“Where do you go now, Shel?” Marley rifled through his pack for his special water flask.
He passed the drink around, letting the enchanted water refresh his companions. Shel told of the battle she and her warriors still fought with the corruption the Cult released into the waters of Terijar and the threat to the surrounding kingdoms.
“Is there anything we can do for you?” Marley asked as he repacked his flask and settled up against a log he’d moved close to the fire.
Shel shook her head. “You need to recoup and regroup. We still know little about their long game plan. Their corruption forced my warriors to retreat to the larger tributaries of the Urias river. It was too much for us to contain from this close.”
“Hopefully what has happened in the vale will give you at least a small amount of relief,” he said.
“Indeed, and if you hear of anything important; I am as close as the nearest river or stream.” Shel said with a curt nod. Then, without another word, she disappeared back into the trees.
Jayf wondered if Marley would now have second thoughts about his agreement to go with Glyf to the Bitteruns.
But the runesmith, in his no-nonsense way, did not even look her way before he asked. “Chayse, when was the last time you and Mek mind-spoke?”
“When I told him we couldn’t wait for them.” Chayse said with a distracted look on his face. “I have seen one like your friend there, before when I lived in Hyrs-Lobo. She said she was a water elemental, right?”
“Aye, she did,” Marley said, fidgeting one more time with his packs.
“And she has a daughter? And not bound to the sea?” He asked.
Marley chuckled. “Aye, she has a daughter, and I will leave that story for Jayf to tell.”
Marley stared into the dying fire, deep in thought he stroked his beard. “Perhaps once you and Jayf meet up with Drogan and Mek, you would accompany them on their search for Kestrel. That is until you and Mek find your path lies elsewhere.”
“Aye, thinkin’ the same thing myself. In fact, if we could talk for a moment before we part. I would appreciate it.” Chayse came around the fire with a mug of kala in each hand.
Thankful Marley chatterwacked with Chayse, Jayf took a seat next to Glyf, glad to just sit and listen. His mind felt numb after everything that had happened, and he felt himself clinging to even the slightest distraction to keep from replaying the events over and over in his head. It was not yet the time to grieve, so he listened and held Glyf’s hand.
“Now, what did you want to talk about, my young friend?” The runesmith asked as Chayse sat next to him.
The young al’far, setting his cup down, reached inside his cloak. With a mumbled word, his enchanted pouch appeared in his hand. “I have waited for the right time to show you these things. And it looks like there will never be that right time, so it better be now. They are the real reason I sought you out, as I did. Not saying I would not have eventually, but the answers I pursue are wrapped up in the what and why questions these items pose.”
He dumped the contents of his enchanted pouch on the bedroll between them. Jayf and Glyf both strained their necks to see what the bag contained. “These were my mother’s things. I will not spend our precious time on the how and the why. I believe it sufficient to say my quest is to solve the mystery of who my mother was and what these things mean.”
Marley’s hand reached out, hovering above the scattered items. Jayf and Glyf moved to where they had a better view and none spoke as the runesmith picked up the palm sized chest. He studied the box for a few moments and Chayse’s face for a few more. “I don’t suppose you tried that key Drogan gave you when you gave him the swords?”
“I… ah, I…” Chayse’s face colored and he tried again. “Why would I think that key would fit this tiny chest?”
“I don’t know, mystical wards and mystical artifacts, mystical artifacts and mystical wards. What do you think?”
“I don’t see how that is possible.”
“Come on, Chayse, you’ve seen a lifetime of impossible over the time you’ve traveled with us. The Creator left his creative ability, the Tavir, flowing through the roots of the Wista into Hebryll and the Fates as checks and balances. Can you truly not see the possibilities? Sometimes you have to be creative, to get into the box. Dismiss nothing until you have tried it.”
Chayse shook his head. His incredulous look spoke louder than his voice. “I left it in Drogan and Mek’s safekeeping. I felt it too rare to chance losing after the stormy seas this quest has ridden.”
Marley reached over and patted Chayse’s shoulder. “No worries, youngster. If you erred, it was on the side of caution and preserving the unique and rare. Not a bad thing. I fear as it is, I can not give you any information about it, except to say it is old and the ward feels tied to something. A key or a person I can not tell.”
He set the chest down and picked up the journal. “May I?”
Chayse nodded.
Thumbing the wood beads through the loops, Marley let the journal flop open. Jayf’s curiosity bubbled through him until he finally popped up from where he sat to stand behind Marley, looking over his shoulder.
Chayse waved Glyf over. “I believe the more eyes, the better. You are older than all of us, Glyf. Perhaps you have seen writing like this.”
Marley flipped through a few more pages of script before he looked around. “Did you think to show this to Arubicon, the Wista Guardian?”
Chayse shook his head. “I tried to get an audience with him, but Beryl said he left the island soon after meeting with Glyf.”
“Have either of you dragonkin seen script like this? I am certain it is a form of Al’Farina, but I am not familiar with it. Jayf, what is your take on it and our friend here? You are the one with the ability to read the essence and intent of living things.”
“Even if you don’t know your heritage, your essence proclaims it for you. Chayse. And it declares you an Al’Far, pure but not so simple. Your bloodline differs from any Al’Far I have met, except one.” Jayf glanced from Chayse to Marley as he spoke.
Marley nodded and Jayf reached down, picking up the small crystal flute. “That same Al’Far also carried a small crystal flute around with them. A legacy of parents she did not know, she too an orphan.”
“I take it you are talking about the notorious Kestrel?”
Marley chuckled, and Jayf nodded. “Indeed, I am inclined to believe the Fates have touched the two of you.” Jayf said, replacing the flute.
“Kestrel headed to Legacy to mentor under Urilith, The Espraire High Council Chairman. She hoped to learn of her heritage as well.” Marley closed the journal and placed it with Chayse’s things.
“But didn’t Urilith, wasn’t he…” Chayse put the items on the bedroll back into his pouch.
“Yes, he died there at Sorrow’s Heart. But Urilith was not the only Al’far of knowledge and wisdom in Legacy. That is where Kestrel and Shel’s daughter, B’ryl, head. Legacy is the center of learning for the Espaire peoples. A good place for you to pick up your quest.”
The young al’far’s face looked somewhat disheartened, but he soon agreed. “I would say you are right. Is there anything I can do for you there?” he asked, picking up his cup of kala and sipping on the cooled liquid.
Marley sat back with a smile. “I thought you would never ask. Once you get to Legacy, seek Farseer. He is on the Espiare High Council. Tell him about... about what happened here and what we have learned of the Cult and their use of spirit stones.”
Jayf and Glyf moved to sit together on the other side of the fire and the four companions rested as the night raced toward the dawn. Although they relaxed, sleep would not come and before the sun touched the mountain ridge, they broke camp.
“Travel well, my friend, until our paths cross again,” Glyf said, hugging Jayf. “I know that will happen much sooner than you think.”
Jayf squeezed her gently back, reveling in her closeness. “Until then, let the air and light be yours each morning.”
“And earth and water be yours each day.” Glyf grinned at him and picking up her pack saying, “Let the fire burn brightly in your heart.”
“And your spirit never falter in fear of death.” Jayf’s eyes misted as he turned away from her and busied himself with packing.
The hatchling turned to Chayse, her fare-thee-well upon her lips when he knelt before her. “I knelt before you once and swore fealty to help bring those responsible for the atrocity worked in Windy Cove to justice. That task still lies before us. You have but to call, my dear friend.”
“You have become a loyal ally, Chayse of Hyrs-Lobo. That call shall come.” Glyf turned from Chayse, offering her hand to Marley, and they slipped onto the Dragon Paths heading south.
Jayf and Chayse soon had the fire out and buried and their things together ready to travel. As the dragonkin picked up his pack, he could not help the speculation that tinged his voice as he asked, “So do we walk or would you like to run the wind?”
Chayse snorted and shook his head. “It is a good day to walk, my friend. Soon enough I think the wind will find our feet.”