| The horses refused to take another step outside of Delkenar. The animals Lyahr had acquired - he would not say how - had been sick, and slow; now they were dying. The party began to dismount. The Seer was conscious now, at least. Her green eyes were wide, glazed with shock. Dalnek gripped her elbow and pulled her from the back of the kneeling horse. "Move," he grumbled. Once again he and Felanya took the lead, pushing Dharin and the Seer in front of them. Lyahr positioned himself near Dalnek, occasionally throwing wary glances over his shoulder at Sylvae, who was busy debating amputation techniques with Corridan. Varesh kept a hand on Jenya's back, walking a tentative meter behind Sylvae. His charge kept muttering in the Magi tongue, words Varesh could not understand. Languages, particularly dead ones, had never been his strength. He could pick up enough to do some damage, and then lose interest in them. Varesh paid little attention to the words he could not understand, instead losing himself in daydreams - delusions of grandeur. Eventually he let the bonds around Jenya fall, reasoning to himself that other than the fact that holding on to Cair'leih too long gave him a headache, there were five other Magi and surely the Sun-Chylde could count. The wind whipped around the ears of the Cleansers as they marched; making it difficult to hear any conversation they were not immediately engaged in. Animals made their presence known in the cold night air as Dalnek and Felanya debated why the Acharya had asked for the Seer to be brought before him. Clouds blanketed the sky, making it difficult to see the stars twinkling in their heavens. It was close to peaceful, when the wind paused and the clouds thinned, allowing the mottled light of the moon strike the unnatural forms of the Cleansers. Yet the peace was tentative, the calls of the nocturnal creatures were anxious and none of the Cleansers seemed to notice. The Seer was lost in thoughts of the time she had spent in Trinlayra, the Magi training tower and graveyard. Glimpses into other worlds, where pain was a dream and the reality was paradise; those were the visions which played before her eyes as she knelt on a cold stone floor, chained to a wall to protect her from herself. Now she remembered a world she had seen, a world that might have been - which should have been - a world in which there was no war and orphans were few. She remembered seeing a world in which love was enough and it had made her feel helpless; she would never see that world. She wondered to herself what she had done wrong, why she had been Silenced, why her brother was still alive, so many whys and whats and she had the answers to none of them. Her eyes moved pleadingly to her stars, seeking solace or an explanation but the heavens seemed empty. She had only dared to turn and look at Jenya once, before Dalnek struck her and warned her to keep moving, to keep her eyes straight ahead. Jenya's lips had been moving, but she could not catch any of the words. She looked to Dharin, who moved mechanically. There was no brightness in his eyes anymore; he seemed... ragged. She didn't want to look at Felanya, the girl they had gone through so much trouble to take out of the Lariian Fields. So many people had died for that wretch, and... Shouts behind her broke into her thoughts, and she realized Dalnek had stopped pushing her forward. She turned to face the noise. Varesh laid on the ground with his back to the group, but his eyes... it barely registered to the Seer that she should not have been able to see his still, frightened eyes. Jenya was racing away to her right, surrounded by a golden light. As the wind picked up it carried his voice to the ears of the Cleansers, and he was singing. The words "Ahless maurae" rang in the Seer's ears, and she smiled to herself as the Magi around her began shouting in frustration. None of the Rites they directed at Jenya were affecting him. Dalnek had called several Eiral Sho'or into existence; massive pillars of flame with the capacity to think and follow orders. He sent them racing towards the fleeing Sun-Chylde, but they shrank away from the light surrounding Jenya. The black, hissing liquid Sylvae sent to rain over Jenya flowed around him; not a single drop touched the golden-haired Tracker. Corridan was using Cair'leih to hurl large clumps of earth at Jenya. Felanya tried to slow the Tracker, but no bonds would take hold of him. Lyahr was shouting to the rest of them that they were making fools of themselves. A small opal tear fell from her bloodshot eyes as she recalled the nights she spent teaching Jenya that Mage Song, the Rite of Ahless Maurae - oily light. Dharin looked to Mal'aran, and let his lips quirk in slight satisfaction. The thought of following Jenya passed through his mind, and then he realized he knew better. Dharin would have no way to escape the living, breathing fire Beasts that Dalnek had sent after Jenya. His best friend would live, and the amethyst-haired piece of refuse that had dragged them into this lay on the ground, waiting for the carrion eaters. Dharin winced in sadness as he thought about how this might end; there was no reason the Acharya would need him alive anymore. There was no reason the Acharya had needed him alive in the first place. Seer had been important, powerful and gullible; he was neither of those. His ego and arrogance finally crumbled as he realized that these were the last moments he would be spending with Mal'aran, before he probably died. She would live; of this he was certain; the Acharya would still need her. He could "fix" her - he had "fixed" Sylvae, giving him new skin, training him to be a Tracker - and right the wrongs. Mal'aran could still travel to Varikelle, to seek her answers... Dharin lost himself in thought, and failed to notice the hopeless look in Mal'aran's eyes - the look that would have called him a fool. "Stop!" Lyahr shouted to his companions. "It's pointless, he's heading for the Taer'shal camps." He knew this area well, and understood that if the Taer'shal camped somewhere between the city of Delkenar and the Kaerfahl Mountains happened to see the group of Magi, they would be riddled with arrows and lances before they could make up their minds which shield Rite to use. Corridan and Sylvae shook their heads, moving to Dharin and the Seer, just in case they decided to follow the Sun-Chylde. Dalnek let out a shout of frustration, standing next to the fallen body of Varesh. "Serayen," he spoke the word of release, and his Eiral Sho'or dissipated, hissing and screaming as they left this plane. He began swearing in the Magi tongue, delivering a few swift kicks to the corpse of the amethyst-haired Mage. "Quit that," Felanya rolled her eyes. "You should have done that while he was alive. As it is, you're wasting your energy. We still have the Seer and the Then'kael, and that is all we were asked to bring. Lyahr can send a pack of voral'calev after the running idiot, and he will die in the wilds." The Beasts to which she referred were ferocious hunters, covered in thick fur black as pitch. Most of the voral'calev - which anyone but a Mage would mistake for wolves - had taken a liking to Lyahr, and those that had not either had never seen him, or cowed in respect as he passed. "No good," Lyahr shook his head. "They know better than to skulk around the mountains." Darker things lurked near the Kaerfahl crags, things which, oddly enough, answered to Corridan. "For now, we take these two to Trinlayra, then see what other orders Acharya gives us." He waited for Dalnek to nod in approval. "For now, we move." Dalnek kicked the body of Varesh once more, then gripped one of the Seer's arms. Lyahr took the other, Corridan and Felanya each took one of Dharin's arms and Sylvae walked close behind those six. The pull home grew steadily stronger as they moved, pacing themselves and marching as the sun rose and well into midday without any more incidents. The tower of Shanra loomed in the distance when Lyahr commented that they might possibly make it to Trinlayra before the sun rose again. When Seer began passing in and out of consciousness, Dharin was ordered to carry her; Felanya was glad to put the Tracker on a leash in case he thought he might imitate his friend. The weak, lazy sun had fallen beneath the horizon hours ago by the time the looming stone gates of Trinlayra were visible. What seemed to be statues of young women, crafted out of gemstones, guarded the entrance in long rows. Seer refused to open her eyes, not wanting to look at any of the faces she might recognize. Felanya, and the rest of the Magi smiled as they crossed the thick wooden bridge into the Tower of Trinlayra. Finally, home. |