Traveling through the Empire was much easier than our mad dash to the Empire, though I did miss having Silden and Larina with us. We traveled slowly even though we were on horseback, and there was a wagon for us to take turns in as well. I didn’t even mind listening to Raella drone too much, especially if I could get her on the subject of the gods. I did have a personal interest in that now, after all.
From what she said, I learned that the old pantheon included anywhere from five to fifteen gods. “We’re not sure if we are misunderstanding and perhaps counting some of them multiple times, or even missing some entirely. After all, it would be possible for one god to have several domains that they oversee.”
“Domains?”
“Yes… aspects of nature or powers that a god represents. Lucas’s manipulation of plant life and his animal companion suggests he is the favorite of the god of nature.”
“I’ve used a lot of lightning in my magic,” I mentioned.
Raella nodded thoughtfully. “There is a god whose domain is storms. Perhaps that one favors you.”
T’Keran, I thought to myself. I didn’t speak her name out loud, but still felt something like the stirring of a current in the air.
We had left the borders that ran along the canyon and the great desert, and followed a road that ran easterly along a southern sea. From my understanding of the maps I had seen, near the southeast corner of the Empire was a land bridge that connected the elven lands with the dwarven lands. The journey there was going to take a little over two weeks, maybe even three – we had a lot of ground to cover, traveling from the western border of the Empire all the way to the eastern corner of it. “Dwarves,” I had mused out loud when Raella mentioned them for the first time. “Do they live underground?”
Asterollan nearly choked on a laugh, and Raella gave me a very sharp look. “Every single one of you has asked that!”
“Really?” I said, eyeing Asterollan, who was very careful not to look at me. “It’s kind of a common…” I paused, not sure how to translate the word trope. “…idea. In our world.” Raella sighed in frustration.
There were cities along the southern coast, but fewer than I would have expected along the ocean. “During the Fracture, elves were so busy fighting amongst themselves that humans and dwarves managed to domineer the seas. Many small coastal towns were not able to survive in the south, where trade flourished between countries that had become hostile to us. We have managed to maintain some degree of naval dominance in the east and the north, at least,” Raella had explained.
During our travels, I tried teaching the others my healing spell. It was slightly awkward at first – the only way to heal was to cause an injury. Raella and Greyjon had both volunteered and took turns slicing small cuts across their arms so Asterollan and I could demonstrate the spell and so the others could practice. Only Lucas could manage it – in fact, I suspected he was more powerful than I was with it. Peyton’s version was not as effective, only as strong as Asterollan’s healing magic – she could close the wounds, but if it was a particularly deep cut it still left a faint scar. Lexie couldn’t manage it at all. “This is a completely unfair Uno reverse,” she grumbled at Lucas as she tried and tried again with no result.
Greyjon began to teach me some of the more martial lessons the others were learning too – I had taken archery classes before, so I had a grasp of the basics there. But Greyjon quickly decided that I had no business holding a sword, and I was given lessons with Lexie and Lucas with staves instead.
They were a little less sure on what to do with Lyre. He didn’t need to be trained in magic, and didn’t seem interested in learning to handle a weapon at all. They had lost the rapier in the spider’s den, and he didn’t miss it. They did decide to test his power when we were far from any towns or cities by suggesting that he cast the largest flame spell he could manage out towards the ocean. The breadth of it surprised even me – I had seen him lob balls of fire at things with ease, but the scorching inferno he summoned practically filled the horizon, and the heat radiating from it was intense. I don’t think I was the only one that took a step back in surprise. Guiding with his voice and a few gestures of his hand, he pulled the flames back into a central mote that glowed white hot, still radiating the same amount of heat. And then he snuffed the ball out of existence. Greyjon gave a long, low whistle into the silence as the heat disappeared. “You’re skilled. Nearly as adept as some of our more fearsome warlocks,” he said, his voice full of awe.
Lyre was gasping with the effort of the spell and rode in the wagon the rest of the day. He had seemed embarrassed by the compliment. “It’s almost annoying to think that Wrasker actually made me useful,” he said later, poking at his food.
“Wrasker didn’t make you useful,” I snapped, feeling somewhat angry at the idea. “Wrasker didn’t make you anything. You would have already been powerful and he just used that.” Lyre had stared thoughtfully into the middle distance as I spoke, neither arguing or acquiescing.
Zolambi spent a lot of time teaching Lyre about the Empire, perhaps giving him the same information that was being provided to Larina and Silden by other people. Lucas and Lyre also seemed to be on friendly terms.
Whenever there was a chance to stay in a town, Raella took it and, much as Lucas and Lexie had described, an entire inn was cleared for us each time. Sometimes the inns were quite small, and many of us shared rooms. Probably thanks to the close quarters, the leisurely nights sharing chores and watch duty in camps, and the lengthy travel, we were all getting to know each other quite well. I found that my fellow outworlders were all companionably nerdy and fun to talk to. Even Peyton, who had been intimidating at first when I considered her fame. And although Raella was aloof, both Greyjon and Chase were easy going and friendly.
Asterollan mostly kept to himself, and was very careful to avoid Lyre and Zolambi. He spent a lot of time with Raella. I had the feeling he was using her ability to chase the others away with her lessons and simply tuned her out most of the time. But if that was the case, he had mastered the ability to appear impressively attentive.
It was one of the nights that we had stayed at an inn that I first had the dream.
I recognized it was a dream as I was having it. Everything about it seemed instantly familiar, as though I was remembering it, and realized it was from a previous dream. But also, in the same instance, I realized it wasn’t from a previous dream of mine. This dream, I sensed, this recognition… it belonged to someone else entirely.
I was somewhere dark, deep underground, but still lit with blue arcane light that trailed down the passage I stood in. I turned at the sound of something cracking, crackling, like the sound of bones breaking. There stood a figure of shadow with bright white eyes, like beams of narrow light cutting through the dark to focus on me. I could hear a voice that I instantly recognized, softly murmuring something I couldn’t understand. The voice I had heard on the ship so long ago, that I had completely forgotten. The voice that said the seal was weakening. The deep, dark laugh.
That same laugh echoed again in my head as I woke. Still sleep fogged, my brain tried to recall the meaning of the words the shadow figure had spoken, but it was all frustratingly just beyond my grasp. The only thing I could remember with any clarity was that it wasn’t my dream. But whose dream was I sharing? I looked out across the darkened room, at Peyton and Chase’s forms in the other bed, and Lexie sleeping next to me.
I spent the next few days surreptitiously studying my companions a little more closely, but nothing anyone said or did suggested they were having dreams where they were talking to our supposed enemy. I was wondering if perhaps it was just a normal dream when it happened again a few nights later. It was the same place, the same strange arcane glow, the same deep laughter. The same sense that I was somehow observing someone else’s dream from their perspective. When I woke, I sat up in my bedroll and stared across the camp. Everyone appeared to be sleeping peacefully, aside from Asterollan and Raella who were on watch. I walked away from the campfire, up to the rise of a hill that sloped down into a pebbly beach. We weren’t very far from the sea, and the smell of the brine was heavy in the air.
Within sight of the water, I could see a glowing figure wading in the shallows. I squinted, frowning – it looked like a child, wearing a short robe or toga, with long flowing hair that grew translucent and disappeared into the air. I couldn’t tell if it was a little boy or a little girl, but I could hear the giggling, clear as a bell as it carried across the night air. I could see the bioluminescence of some creature – jellyfish, perhaps – moving through the water around it.
The figure stepped out of the water, moving up the beach, and strands of kelp and algae seemed to bloom at its feet. It stopped and stared up at me, smiling, and then disappeared.
“Was that T’Keran?” Asterollan asked, practically right at my shoulder.
I nearly jumped out of my skin, I hadn’t heard him approach at all. I turned to look at him, saw that he was standing right next to me and staring out at the water. “You could see her?” I asked, surprised. He nodded. I paused as I considered. “No, I don’t think that was her.”
He stared out at the beach, a frown on his face. “They’re getting stronger,” he said.
I knew he meant the gods of this world. “Yes,” I said. “Have you seen yours?”
“Briefly, on occasion. A figure of light, out of the corner of my eyes, usually in bright daylight. I think a few of the others have spotted him too, but thought they were imagining it.”
“Hmm. I haven’t seen him yet.” I wondered what his name was. I wondered what it meant if we were seeing gods besides the ones that favored us. I wondered what it meant that I was sharing someone’s dreams. I yawned and stretched and turned away from the beach, suddenly exhausted by it all. I wished Asterollan a mumbled good night, and walked back to my bedroll.
The next night we stopped at the largest city I had seen yet – Ylfsport. This one had a docks district, but it looked like it mostly homed fishing vessels that stayed close to the bay the city was built in. We had pushed on along the road even as darkness fell intending to reach it since we were close, and because of the fading light we could see that far on the horizon, there was a foreboding orange glow out at sea. “Has something caught fire?” Raella asked the gate guards while they argued about the presence of Peter the spider.
The guards glanced at each other nervously. “There’s an island south of here that has the remains of an old temple,” one of them said.
“I am aware of it,” Raella said tersely. “Did something happen to it?”
“The entire island’s been burning for days now,” the other guard said.
“I see.” Raella seemed distracted through the rest of the evening. Although normally she preferred to stay at an inn close to the outskirts of the towns we stopped at, we wound our way through the roads of Ylfsport until we found an inn closer to the docks. It was interesting to be walking through an Elven city for the first time. Many of the stores had been closed earlier, and it was late enough that there weren’t many people out and about, beyond a few skulking shadows that seemed to decide a group of our size wasn’t worth messing with. Some of the taverns we passed were bright and boisterous though, and I could hear brief snatches of music and drunken laughter as we passed. The homes were well lit and I could smell various dinners being cooked. But as we got closer to the ocean, the smell of smoke became more overwhelming.
Once we were settled in at our destination and had our own fill of supper, Raella excused herself. She beelined for the door and left the inn. We all stared after her for a moment, before glancing around at each other, a little puzzled. “Maybe she’s trying to see if she can spot the fire?” Chase suggested.
The next morning, Raella called for our attention as we finished eating breakfast. “We may not be leaving immediately,” she said, looking mildly agitated. “To the south of Ylfsport is a small island that houses a temple. The entire island is on fire. There have been attempts to quell the flames, but nothing seems to work.” She sighed and looked up at each of us. “I would not normally want to detour, but the temple belonged to a fire god and there are rumors that the fire is divine in nature. Given my position at the University… and since it could be argued this is tangentially related to our mission… I plan to take a boat to the island today to see this divine flame for myself.”
“Are we going with you?” Peyton asked.
Raella hesitated. It seemed that she had planned to say no, but she paused on the word and seemed to consider the offer. “If you would like to,” she acquiesced with a brief nod.
I glanced around the table. “I would like to,” I said. A part of me was curious to visit another temple after having seen the last one. But I also wondered at how active the gods were becoming now.
“Oh, me too,” Lexie volunteered nearly on my heels. One by one, the others also mentioned wanting to go.
Raella sighed again and nodded. “I hope passage can be arranged for all of us,” she said. She voiced it like a complaint, but I thought she looked relieved to not be going alone. We kept the entire inn reserved for ourselves for that day and the entire next, and left the horses and the cart and much of our supplies in their care. At the docks, Raella made a deal for us to take a boat across to the island.
It was clear where the island was located because of the smudge of smoke that darkened the sky. It felt like the entire oceanside was hazy with it, but it thickened and concentrated in one area. The fisherman that owned the boat was reluctant to steer directly into it. “It’s dangerous. There’s zero visibility once you get close to the island, and it was never easy to land on with all its steep edges. I can get you to the side, but I don’t think I can navigate to any of the safer spots to berth.”
“That’s okay. We’ll manage it ourselves once we get there,” Raella said.
“But I’ll be risking damage to my vessel if I slam into the side of the island,” the fisherman complained.
“Then I will compensate you for any damages you take,” Raella responded, annoyed. “I think I am offering a more than fair deal. Will you do it or not?”
Within the next hour we were all loaded onto a large fishing boat with the fisherman and his oldest daughter. We sailed across the waters, approaching a bank of smoke so thick that it looked like a dense cloud. “That’s going to wreak havoc on our lungs,” Lucas said, looking concerned as we approached.
Raella began to glow. She held her hands aloft, and a soft light expanded out from her in a wave, large enough to encompass the entirety of the boat. As we sailed into the smoke, it shifted along the edges of the light.
“Oh, okay then,” Lucas said, and Peter happily chittered, waving its front legs along the edge of the barrier.
mehryment 