They’d made camp further north in the wasteland. A spot between the three dangers to the east, west and south. Mel knew they couldn’t stay here forever. This peaceful quiet would disappear when the sun hid behind the horizon once more and the shadows caught up with them. But for now, they were safe. For now, they could rest.
Around the small campfire, Luthel, Austin, Gabs and Melissa sat warming their frozen fingers in the morning light. They’d eaten what little they had in the form of berries and mushrooms they’d found in the swampy surroundings. It wasn’t enough to fill one's stomach, but enough to stop it from growling like a starving wolf at the sight of a prey.
“I know you want answers,” Luthel said, shifting in his seat on the log. “I don’t know if I should give them to you. The void may be many things, but I know loyalty means more than anything to the eternals.” He shook his head, lifting his gaze to the horizon. “How did it come to this? I never wanted to leave you.”
In the tent closest to the campfire, Hanon was sleeping, still badly wounded from last night. He was lucky to be alive after the harrowing events he’d been through. Mel cast a glance behind her shoulder at the closed tent flap, wondering if he’d eventually join them. But there wasn’t a sound except for the crackling fire in the morning.
What Hanon had done last night still haunted Melissa, and she didn’t know how he’d been able to use water magic like that. Without any imbued metal nearby. Had he swallowed a silver imbue or where had his powers come from?
Luthel had once said Hanon could stir the water. Now, in Mel’s mind, it had taken on an entirely different meaning. Initially, she’d thought this remark came from a father worried so sick he’d been talking like a madman. But now… she wasn’t so sure.
“I do want answers,” Mel said, directing her gaze at Luthel. “You owe us answers.”
He nodded, but his eyes were still fixed on something far away. “I can tell you about the plans. I can tell you about the army. It’s been happening for some time. Perhaps your leaders are aware of it. Something stirred in the west not long ago, something that turned the tide for us.”
“It gave the void strength,” Luthel said. “More than it’s had for a long time. The kind of strength needed to turn people in great numbers. Lenera brought us this message. It was meant as a blessing and in a way it has been. But it's also what brought doom upon me and Hanon. What made me turn my back on the void.”
“What do you mean?” Mel leaned in across the fire, trying to get closer.
Austin took a sip from the cup of hot tea between his hands, looking at Luthel with morbid fascination.
“The energy that had rested in a deep slumber in the earth for centuries awoke. The time was right and all previous decisions to not test certain members of the village for signs of a greater purpose were reexamined. Every stone needed to be turned and Hanon was one of those stones, eventually. I knew if they’d look into his stars, they’d see what he is. I just didn’t think they’d ever look again, not after I’d taken him to see the best seer in the land.”
“No one was supposed to look. Who wouldn’t believe the words of Denara herself? Only Denara never actually saw Hanon. I just made the trip there and back and went to the old seer myself. She looked at my stars and deemed me of little consequence and back we traveled with the news of Hanon’s faith to be spread around the village.”
“But then the earth moved and the ever-flowing river changed course. A new line was drawn in the sands and when I wasn’t looking Lenera took it upon her to check Hanon’s stars herself. She found out the truth. It was written as plain as any marking on the wall, and they took him to the ritual. They took my son.” Luthel’s voice broke at the last word and his head lowered into his hands.
Gabs looked away from him, a line growing between her brows. Mel didn’t know what she or Austin were thinking, but she needed to know more. Even if nudging Luthel in these trying times felt wrong.
“The villagers said the dragons have returned. What did they mean?”
Luthel kept his head lowered, but shook it between his hands. “I don’t know. I hope they were just reading the signs wrong. If the dragons return, you’re in deep trouble. You heard Lenera tell the tale of Terrimon. The dragons aren't known for anything good around here.”
Mel nodded, looking down at her own hands and feeling energy hum through her fingertips. She didn’t know what to make of it.
“What Hanon did… How did he do that?”
Luthel lifted his head and his eyes met Melissa’s. There were streaks of water running down his dirty face. “It’s who Hanon is. He’s a chosen one, just like you.”
Mel’s mouth suddenly felt dry, and she swallowed down the lump that had formed in her throat. “But I can’t do anything like that. I’m not like him.”
Luthel raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you sure about that?”
Mel leaned back in her seat, feeling like she wanted to take several steps away from Luthel and his implied words. Her gaze flickered around the campfire, at Austin and Gabriella, meeting their startled gazes. They looked confused, just like her.
“What do you mean, Melissa can’t do that, right?” Austin asked, his voice low.
Luthel turned to Austin. “Her destiny is to join the void. It’s what our belief tells us. Some people are born with certain abilities. They can hear the wind howl, feel the water change, the earth shake and the fire flicker. They can create the elements out of nothingness, from their own life energy. It’s their gift from the void. Our god gives with one hand and takes with the other. Its gift to the void worshipers are these abilities and in return, the void asks of them to return to its embrace when the time is right. Become one with darkness and roam the plains as a shadow.”
The frown spread over Gabs’ face, creating deep lines and a sour mouth. “Mel isn’t a void worshiper.”
“No, she’s not. But somehow it’s in her blood.” Luthel shook his head. “I don’t know why the void would choose someone outside of its flock. I can only guess Melissa is from the wastes in some way. Or perhaps an important pawn in the void’s war.”
Mel suddenly found the wet sand clinging to her shoes very interesting and focused on the pattern it created around the leather. She didn’t know how to handle this information. Sure, she knew she had ties to the wasteland. Her great grandfather Rowad Hellius came from here, from Bahlan. But that didn’t mean she was like Hanon. That she could snap her jaw open and breathe ice. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of her own mouth opening up like that. She didn’t want to ever experience it.
“As far as the dragons are concerned,” Luthel continued. “I only know one more story that is told among my people. I first heard it on that trip when I visited Denara and had my stars examined for Hanon’s sake. It’s one about the first dragons in the wasteland. It predates the tale of Terrimon by a hundred years, at least. No one really knows how old it is, but it’s from before, the great cities truly became corrupt. From before the dragons settled in the east and hid behind the walls of Krazaa.”
“Tell it to us,” Gabs said. “If there is something in these stories, we need to know. We need to get as much information as possible before we return to Aldrion to warn them about the army the void is amassing.”
Mel dared to glance up at Gabriella, seeing the earnestness in her open face. They hadn’t agreed to go back now. Perhaps she thought they would. Mel’s gaze slipped away to the horizon, watching the two mountains in the east, where Krazaa lay. She felt like they were calling for her, screaming her name. Like she needed to go there to find out who she truly was.
“At this time, Bahlan was a city that rose high into the sky,” Luthel said. “There were buildings there worth carving into stone. It wasn’t like it’s now, only ruins and piles of rubble. But the true superiority of Bahlan wasn’t what was hidden in the great towers surrounded by the wind. It’s what was hidden underneath the ground, surrounded by the earth. Down there, they mined rocks of value, rocks that could be turned into pure metal.”
Mel remembered the forge they’d found beneath the ruins of Bahlan and shivered at the thought of the markings down there. It hadn’t been buildings worth carving into the stones. It had been people. People with flames shooting out from their open mouths and jaws hanging down in unnatural angles. Despite the sun rising and spreading its dimmed glow and the fire crackling in front of her body, Mel shivered again.
“It’s said that there was a poor family living in the city,” Luthel continued. “When the father of the family got ill, his lungs had turned into stone and his coughs could be heard in the highest towers. The two children in the family took it upon themselves to provide food on the table. The daughter, Cassandra, looked up at the high towers, thinking that up there she could steal from the rich. Then use the valuables to buy whatever the family needed. But the son, Caspian, had other thoughts. He wanted to earn a clean living, one that could provide for the family for decades to come.”
“Caspian set off looking for jobs around the city, and everywhere he went, he heard tales of great wages being earned down in the depths under the streets. His father had been a miner down there before his health gave up, but Caspian knew a miner's wage wasn’t that valuable. Something else must be happening down there.”
“One day, he followed a dark figure with a black cloak and dark red trousers down below the city. The man looked wealthy, flashing a gold pocket watch, and Caspian thought that whatever this man did down there, he wanted to do it too. The man led him down stairs and through tunnels lit up by torchlights, an entire city hiding underneath the streets, one Caspian had never seen before.”
“The dark hooded man finally opened a solid rock wall with the touch of a glowing piece of metal in his hand and slipped inside. Caspian was small and fast and just barely made it in, but once on the other side of the wall, he found he couldn’t go back. The hooded man turned on Caspian, releasing the cloth shrouding his features and showing off a marred face. One with scars running up and down. One with hard eyes and an old mouth.”
“In fear, Caspian pulled away, brushing his back against the stone wall, now solid again and unmoving. The man lifted Caspian by the arm and pulled him further down the tunnel, and now Caspian heard the screams. The air was filled with agony in this place. An ancient darkness traveled between the rooms, putting fear into even the most hardened of men, and Caspian was only a small boy. He struggled against the man’s grip as they passed rows and rows of cell doors, Caspian not even daring to look inside the barred windows.”
Luthel paused, taking in a deep breath of the muggy air. He wrung his hands together as if this last part of the story was hard for him to tell. Mel felt like she didn’t want to know what Caspian’s faith had been down there in the depths of Bahlan.
“No one truly knows what happened to Caspian after that. But as the story was told to me, Caspian met the dragons in the belly of the great city. Fearsome creatures filled with hate and power. They took his sanity and filled him up with a rueful light. When Caspian returned to the world above, only his sister, Cassandra, saw him once more before he disappeared forever. She tells the tale of Caspian, the loving brother who turned into a monster. His soul alight with fire and brimstone.”
“Cassandra was standing with hands full of coins and said to him, ‘You need never work again, my brother.’ Something she thought Caspian would cheer for just as her parents had done.”
“But Caspian just shook his head. ‘What are riches when you have no power, sister? What is the sun without the horizon? I’m one with the earth now. The dragons have shown me the way of light. Fear no more, for I will remake this world. It is only fools who do not trust the power within.’”
“That was the very last time Cassandra ever saw her brother. The only thing she knew was that something below the city had changed him. The dragons had come.”
Austin was staring into the fire, his hand dragging across his features, but not able to brush away the frown on his forehead. Gabs was looking at Luthel, her face open and her mouth pondering the words. Melissa’s gaze flickered around the tent site and wondered why the dragons were so hard to pin down. What were they really, and why could no one give her a straight answer?
“It’s the last story I know that mentions the dragons in any real capacity,” Luthel said. “The rest of the stories only talk about them in vague concepts, like the monsters they were. I don’t think what Caspian found in the depths of Bahlan was anything resembling goodness. The light that you so love to worship beyond the walls isn’t what you think it is. If the void is evil, then what is the sun?”
They’d made camp further north in the wasteland. A spot between the three dangers to the east, west and south. Mel knew they couldn’t stay here forever. This peaceful quiet would disappear when the sun hid behind the horizon once more and the shadows caught up with them. But for now, they were safe. For now, they could rest.
Around the small campfire, Luthel, Austin, Gabs and Melissa sat warming their frozen fingers in the morning light. They’d eaten what little they had in the form of berries and mushrooms they’d found in the swampy surroundings. It wasn’t enough to fill one's stomach, but enough to stop it from growling like a starving wolf at the sight of a prey.
“I know you want answers,” Luthel said, shifting in his seat on the log. “I don’t know if I should give them to you. The void may be many things, but I know loyalty means more than anything to the eternals.” He shook his head, lifting his gaze to the horizon. “How did it come to this? I never wanted to leave you.”
In the tent closest to the campfire, Hanon was sleeping, still badly wounded from last night. He was lucky to be alive after the harrowing events he’d been through. Mel cast a glance behind her shoulder at the closed tent flap, wondering if he’d eventually join them. But there wasn’t a sound except for the crackling fire in the morning.
What Hanon had done last night still haunted Melissa, and she didn’t know how he’d been able to use water magic like that. Without any imbued metal nearby. Had he swallowed a silver imbue or where had his powers come from?
Luthel had once said Hanon could stir the water. Now, in Mel’s mind, it had taken on an entirely different meaning. Initially, she’d thought this remark came from a father worried so sick he’d been talking like a madman. But now… she wasn’t so sure.
“I do want answers,” Mel said, directing her gaze at Luthel. “You owe us answers.”
He nodded, but his eyes were still fixed on something far away. “I can tell you about the plans. I can tell you about the army. It’s been happening for some time. Perhaps your leaders are aware of it. Something stirred in the west not long ago, something that turned the tide for us.”
“It gave the void strength,” Luthel said. “More than it’s had for a long time. The kind of strength needed to turn people in great numbers. Lenera brought us this message. It was meant as a blessing and in a way it has been. But it's also what brought doom upon me and Hanon. What made me turn my back on the void.”
“What do you mean?” Mel leaned in across the fire, trying to get closer.
Austin took a sip from the cup of hot tea between his hands, looking at Luthel with morbid fascination.
“The energy that had rested in a deep slumber in the earth for centuries awoke. The time was right and all previous decisions to not test certain members of the village for signs of a greater purpose were reexamined. Every stone needed to be turned and Hanon was one of those stones, eventually. I knew if they’d look into his stars, they’d see what he is. I just didn’t think they’d ever look again, not after I’d taken him to see the best seer in the land.”
“No one was supposed to look. Who wouldn’t believe the words of Denara herself? Only Denara never actually saw Hanon. I just made the trip there and back and went to the old seer myself. She looked at my stars and deemed me of little consequence and back we traveled with the news of Hanon’s faith to be spread around the village.”
“But then the earth moved and the ever-flowing river changed course. A new line was drawn in the sands and when I wasn’t looking Lenera took it upon her to check Hanon’s stars herself. She found out the truth. It was written as plain as any marking on the wall, and they took him to the ritual. They took my son.” Luthel’s voice broke at the last word and his head lowered into his hands.
Gabs looked away from him, a line growing between her brows. Mel didn’t know what she or Austin were thinking, but she needed to know more. Even if nudging Luthel in these trying times felt wrong.
“The villagers said the dragons have returned. What did they mean?”
Luthel kept his head lowered, but shook it between his hands. “I don’t know. I hope they were just reading the signs wrong. If the dragons return, you’re in deep trouble. You heard Lenera tell the tale of Terrimon. The dragons aren't known for anything good around here.”
Mel nodded, looking down at her own hands and feeling energy hum through her fingertips. She didn’t know what to make of it.
“What Hanon did… How did he do that?”
Luthel lifted his head and his eyes met Melissa’s. There were streaks of water running down his dirty face. “It’s who Hanon is. He’s a chosen one, just like you.”
Mel’s mouth suddenly felt dry, and she swallowed down the lump that had formed in her throat. “But I can’t do anything like that. I’m not like him.”
Luthel raised an eyebrow at her. “Are you sure about that?”
Mel leaned back in her seat, feeling like she wanted to take several steps away from Luthel and his implied words. Her gaze flickered around the campfire, at Austin and Gabriella, meeting their startled gazes. They looked confused, just like her.
“What do you mean, Melissa can’t do that, right?” Austin asked, his voice low.
Luthel turned to Austin. “Her destiny is to join the void. It’s what our belief tells us. Some people are born with certain abilities. They can hear the wind howl, feel the water change, the earth shake and the fire flicker. They can create the elements out of nothingness, from their own life energy. It’s their gift from the void. Our god gives with one hand and takes with the other. Its gift to the void worshipers are these abilities and in return, the void asks of them to return to its embrace when the time is right. Become one with darkness and roam the plains as a shadow.”
The frown spread over Gabs’ face, creating deep lines and a sour mouth. “Mel isn’t a void worshiper.”
“No, she’s not. But somehow it’s in her blood.” Luthel shook his head. “I don’t know why the void would choose someone outside of its flock. I can only guess Melissa is from the wastes in some way. Or perhaps an important pawn in the void’s war.”
Mel suddenly found the wet sand clinging to her shoes very interesting and focused on the pattern it created around the leather. She didn’t know how to handle this information. Sure, she knew she had ties to the wasteland. Her great grandfather Rowad Hellius came from here, from Bahlan. But that didn’t mean she was like Hanon. That she could snap her jaw open and breathe ice. A shiver went down her spine at the thought of her own mouth opening up like that. She didn’t want to ever experience it.
“As far as the dragons are concerned,” Luthel continued. “I only know one more story that is told among my people. I first heard it on that trip when I visited Denara and had my stars examined for Hanon’s sake. It’s one about the first dragons in the wasteland. It predates the tale of Terrimon by a hundred years, at least. No one really knows how old it is, but it’s from before, the great cities truly became corrupt. From before the dragons settled in the east and hid behind the walls of Krazaa.”
“Tell it to us,” Gabs said. “If there is something in these stories, we need to know. We need to get as much information as possible before we return to Aldrion to warn them about the army the void is amassing.”
Mel dared to glance up at Gabriella, seeing the earnestness in her open face. They hadn’t agreed to go back now. Perhaps she thought they would. Mel’s gaze slipped away to the horizon, watching the two mountains in the east, where Krazaa lay. She felt like they were calling for her, screaming her name. Like she needed to go there to find out who she truly was.
“At this time, Bahlan was a city that rose high into the sky,” Luthel said. “There were buildings there worth carving into stone. It wasn’t like it’s now, only ruins and piles of rubble. But the true superiority of Bahlan wasn’t what was hidden in the great towers surrounded by the wind. It’s what was hidden underneath the ground, surrounded by the earth. Down there, they mined rocks of value, rocks that could be turned into pure metal.”
Mel remembered the forge they’d found beneath the ruins of Bahlan and shivered at the thought of the markings down there. It hadn’t been buildings worth carving into the stones. It had been people. People with flames shooting out from their open mouths and jaws hanging down in unnatural angles. Despite the sun rising and spreading its dimmed glow and the fire crackling in front of her body, Mel shivered again.
“It’s said that there was a poor family living in the city,” Luthel continued. “When the father of the family got ill, his lungs had turned into stone and his coughs could be heard in the highest towers. The two children in the family took it upon themselves to provide food on the table. The daughter, Cassandra, looked up at the high towers, thinking that up there she could steal from the rich. Then use the valuables to buy whatever the family needed. But the son, Caspian, had other thoughts. He wanted to earn a clean living, one that could provide for the family for decades to come.”
“Caspian set off looking for jobs around the city, and everywhere he went, he heard tales of great wages being earned down in the depths under the streets. His father had been a miner down there before his health gave up, but Caspian knew a miner's wage wasn’t that valuable. Something else must be happening down there.”
“One day, he followed a dark figure with a black cloak and dark red trousers down below the city. The man looked wealthy, flashing a gold pocket watch, and Caspian thought that whatever this man did down there, he wanted to do it too. The man led him down stairs and through tunnels lit up by torchlights, an entire city hiding underneath the streets, one Caspian had never seen before.”
“The dark hooded man finally opened a solid rock wall with the touch of a glowing piece of metal in his hand and slipped inside. Caspian was small and fast and just barely made it in, but once on the other side of the wall, he found he couldn’t go back. The hooded man turned on Caspian, releasing the cloth shrouding his features and showing off a marred face. One with scars running up and down. One with hard eyes and an old mouth.”
“In fear, Caspian pulled away, brushing his back against the stone wall, now solid again and unmoving. The man lifted Caspian by the arm and pulled him further down the tunnel, and now Caspian heard the screams. The air was filled with agony in this place. An ancient darkness traveled between the rooms, putting fear into even the most hardened of men, and Caspian was only a small boy. He struggled against the man’s grip as they passed rows and rows of cell doors, Caspian not even daring to look inside the barred windows.”
Luthel paused, taking in a deep breath of the muggy air. He wrung his hands together as if this last part of the story was hard for him to tell. Mel felt like she didn’t want to know what Caspian’s faith had been down there in the depths of Bahlan.
“No one truly knows what happened to Caspian after that. But as the story was told to me, Caspian met the dragons in the belly of the great city. Fearsome creatures filled with hate and power. They took his sanity and filled him up with a rueful light. When Caspian returned to the world above, only his sister, Cassandra, saw him once more before he disappeared forever. She tells the tale of Caspian, the loving brother who turned into a monster. His soul alight with fire and brimstone.”
“Cassandra was standing with hands full of coins and said to him, ‘You need never work again, my brother.’ Something she thought Caspian would cheer for just as her parents had done.”
“But Caspian just shook his head. ‘What are riches when you have no power, sister? What is the sun without the horizon? I’m one with the earth now. The dragons have shown me the way of light. Fear no more, for I will remake this world. It is only fools who do not trust the power within.’”
“That was the very last time Cassandra ever saw her brother. The only thing she knew was that something below the city had changed him. The dragons had come.”
Austin was staring into the fire, his hand dragging across his features, but not able to brush away the frown on his forehead. Gabs was looking at Luthel, her face open and her mouth pondering the words. Melissa’s gaze flickered around the tent site and wondered why the dragons were so hard to pin down. What were they really, and why could no one give her a straight answer?
“It’s the last story I know that mentions the dragons in any real capacity,” Luthel said. “The rest of the stories only talk about them in vague concepts, like the monsters they were. I don’t think what Caspian found in the depths of Bahlan was anything resembling goodness. The light that you so love to worship beyond the walls isn’t what you think it is. If the void is evil, then what is the sun?”
