Azra of the Burning Sands (Genesis Project) (15 page)

‘Your song is gentle and mild, the sea is tumult and peace, the sky is darkness and storm... new dawn yet to be born...’

-An inscription left on a Zharin ruin, after the Great Cataclysm, five thousand yehvs before the Battle of Jarridon

T
he sound of water droplets splashing into a pond drew Azra’s awareness back from the blackness he had been lost in. He felt hazy. His thoughts were slippery and fast, flitting away as soon as he tried to concentrate on one. He found one, and clung to it. Something about a ship. He remembered a ship. There was a face. The face of someone familiar. She had golden blond hair, sharp green eyes, and a large black snake around her shoulders.

A snake. He remembered the
snake.
He remembered a snake-like Sorcerer. A city in the desert. A demand made, information in exchange for a life.

Azra remembered what he was supposed to be doing.

He opened his eyes and sat up. It was dark wherever he was. He blinked his eyes, but still didn’t see anything. For a brief moment he feared he was blind.

He opened his hand and tried to summon a flame. Nothing happened. He could still feel his Mahgic, but it was muted and subdued. 

He reached out with his hands and felt around next to him. There was nothing on either side of him. He felt around and found the edges to whatever he was laying on. It seemed to be a stone slab or a table of some kind. He reached over the edge and tried to feel the legs, but couldn’t find them.

Cautiously, he repositioned himself and slowly lowered himself over the edge. Being careful that he’d be able to pull himself back up if he needed to. His feet hit water. He paused for a moment before continuing to lower himself down. The water went up to his knees before he felt something solid. He let go of the table and stood up.

He moved through the water feeling for a wall. The water was, thankfully, warm. Azra felt a wall edge, it was soft to the touch and he could push against it gently. He followed the wall around. It was curved without any distinct corners. He felt a part of the wall that was hard and unyielding. He traced its edge with his hands. It had a sharp border with the soft wall. It was taller than him so he couldn’t feel the top; the bottom of it was under the surface of the water. Azra knelt down in the water and felt the floor of the room. It felt solid too.

Azra stood up and began to feel around the hard part of the wall. As he pushed against the soft part next to the hard part, he noticed that he could see again. He looked around the room. The wall itself seemed to be slowly starting to glow. It was a soft green light. It was getting brighter steadily.

Azra saw the table he had woken up on. There was little else in the room. The room was dome shaped. The walls themselves seemed to shimmer with internal motion. There were moving, swirling, patterns inside the wall. He looked at the hard bit of the wall, he could see that it tapered off near the top, it looked like stone and didn’t have swirling patterns within it.

Looking more closely at the hard spot, Azra noticed inlaid patterns. They were hard to make out. He traced the patterns with his finger, and, as he did, he noticed a trail of blue light where his finger had been. He traced some of the patterns he'd noticed, and watched them glow softly for a moment before fading.

He stood back and looked at the hard spot. A line began to glow on it, tracing a circle on the slab. Inside the circle, a second circle lit up. With a rumbling noise, the slab began to slide upwards. Azra moved backwards quickly, the water sloshing as he hurried behind the table.

Two of the lanky creatures stood in the opening, each holding a long staff with long webbed fingers. They were pointing their staves at him. They were hunched over slightly. The two creatures stepped into the room and stepped to either side of the opening, looking at him with large, unblinking, black eyes. A third creature, standing erect and wearing a shroud over its face, walked into the room. Azra’s head came up to about the centre of its chest.

The creature looked at Azra, though Azra could not see its face through the shroud. The creature raised a hand to a pouch around its mid-section and pulled out a small, black, stone. It raised it in front of its shroud and held it in both hands. Azra noticed the long fingers on its hand had no webbing like the ones by the door, and were covered in scars. It held the stone between its index fingers and thumbs, the rest of its fingers curled up in a fist.

Azra heard a gurgling noise come from the creature. The stone began to glow, with an internal white light.

‘Forgive us our inhospitable welcome. We were distracted with other visions,’ said a clear, but toneless, voice.

Azra looked at the stone and the creature was holding it. ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

‘Safe.’

‘What about the ship I was on?’ Azra asked.

‘Your island was claimed by the sea,’ replied the creature. ‘My name was Gentle Current; though it is no longer my name, you may call me that.’

Azra looked at the other two creatures. They were still looking at him and pointing at him with their staves. He had to assume they were weapons of some kind.

‘Why am I here, and not claimed by the sea?’ Azra asked.

‘You are important. The key to the heart is within us all, but more strongly within you than within us,’ said Gentle Current.

‘What about my friends who were on the island with me before it was claimed by the sea?’ Azra said, trying to match Gentle Currents strange word choices.

‘A mystery. Many escaped the sea, but now they are beyond seeing. Come. We must go.’

Azra felt some hope at hearing that some of them had gotten away from the ship, but he needed to find them again. He saw the two creatures on either side of the door start circling around the wall towards him.

‘Go where?’ Azra asked.

‘To see the heart. Please come without pain. Come as the current,’ Gentle Current said, as he turned and walked out of the room.

Seeing that he was flanked, and still having no idea where he was, Azra felt he had little choice but to follow Gentle Current. He slogged through the water after him. He pushed hard to keep up with the long, mild, strides of his guide.

They walked down a long passageway made of the same stuff as his room before coming to a larger dome shaped room. Another two creatures waited there. They had no staves, and one of them was holding some kind of pale glob in its hand. Gentle Current walked to the centre of the room and turned to face them. Azra heard a gurgling noise. One of the creatures let out a moan, and then they both started to walk towards Azra slowly, raising the pale glob.

Azra looked at it and then looked at Gentle Current. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Beyond this place is the sea, you were born to the sky. These ones will help you live in the sea.

‘I don’t understand.’ Azra said.

‘Words won’t enlighten. Do not cause pain. Accept essence of sky.’

The two creatures stopped in front of him. The one with the glob held it out.

‘What do I do?’

‘Eat of the essence of sky,’ Gentle Current said.

Azra reached out to the glob and grabbed. It stuck to his hand. The creatures stepped back. Azra regarded the glob carefully. He raised it to his mouth and prepared to take a bite when it surged outward and stuck to his face. Frantic, he reached up with his other hand and tried to pull it off. It held fast. It spread over his nose, and along the side of his face. He couldn’t breathe, and began to panic in earnest.

The two creatures moved quickly towards him and grabbed his arms. He tried to struggle, but they pushed him down. His face underwater, he tried to pull back up, but couldn’t. He was still struggling when he noticed that he could breathe. Somehow, the glob on his face was allowing him to breathe through the water.

He grew still, and felt the water rising up over his back. Slowly, the creatures brought him to his feet, and he saw that the whole room was filling with water. The glowing walls offered light.

‘Please wait. The sea awaits,’ Gentle Current said.

‘Our home is a bright and glorious place, our God a peaceful and loving Lord... our time will come again, and we will see the gates of our Kingdom... we believe it, because our Mothers knew it...’

-A Nehhom known as Sky of Waves, to his kin, many thousands of yehvs ago

NAMA OCEAN – WEST OF MILLA

A
fter he had finished struggling, and came to terms with the fact that he could breathe, Azra waited while the room finished filling with water. Now calmer, he was able to appreciate the beauty of the softly glowing walls of the room he was in.

‘We will go and see the Heart now,’ Gentle Current said through his speaking stone.

Azra noticed that his voice was just as clear in the water as it had been in the air. The stone’s Mahgic was impressive.

As soon as the room stopped filling with water, something started to happen. Starting from the top, the shimmering walls seemed to begin dissolving. From the top, all the way to the base of the round walls, the shimmering material broke apart and floated away, before dissolving even further into a murky cloud of glittering points of light.

The two creatures with the staves swam up and began to circle around. Azra felt the other two creatures grab his arms and begin to pull him up away from the ground. He didn’t fight, and let them pull him through the water.

Gentle Current lead the way, he seemed to be leading them towards a light in the distance. Azra found it difficult to see in the water. He could only see a few feet in front of him, but he could see the light. It was like seeing a full moon through the mist. He moved toward it, a ghostly light shimmering through murky darkness.

They got closer to it, and Azra gasped as a pillar of stone loomed out of the dark to his right. His guides went onward unerringly, obviously capable of seeing the course ahead much better than he could. They angled down, and turned upright, setting down on what appeared to be smooth stone. His guides let go of his arms.

He was very close to the light now. He could see silhouettes through the gloom standing between him and the source of the light. He could feel a tingling in his body. It was the same sensation as when his power began to surge uncontrollably, except it was not growing out of control, it was a mild sensation. Nevertheless, it made him uneasy.

Gentle Current stepped out of the gloom, flanked by two tall creatures wearing chain chest pieces with blue gems inlaid in a holder on the centre. The gems glimmered softly.

Standing between him and the source of the light, Gentle Current brought the stone he was holding up to his shrouded face. The stone began to glow again, and Gentle Current lowered his arm again.

‘Child born to the sky, we stand before the Heart. We seek your assistance. These are the keepers of the Heart. They saw your essence as you sat upon your island with your companions. We sensed you were in danger, threatened by a great beast. We had to rescue you. We felt you had the key to the heart within you,’ Gentle Current said.

'The beast wasn't under your control?'

'No child of the sky. We follow the beast, and watch it, but we do not control it. It leaves us in peace.'

‘Are you the Nehhom?’ Azra asked through the glob on his face.

‘We are the children of Nehhom. Our mothers came from the seas of Nehhom. We desire to return,’ he said.

The two creatures with the gems on their chests made some noises. It sounded like low distant wails. It was like nothing Azra had ever heard before. It was haunting and beautiful, and he had nothing at all in his life to compare it too.

‘The keepers desire you to step forward,’ Gentle Current said, standing to the side and beckoning towards the light.

Azra took a step forward. It was hard to move, the water dragging on his body and pulling at him as he tried to walk through it. He wished he knew how to swim. In all his yehvs, he had never thought it important. A Baron of province that was mostly desert, and an accomplished Mahgic user, it had never seemed important.

Now, though, there was some regret as he pushed through the water.

There was another of the haunting wails. Gentle Current raised the hand holding up the stone.

‘Follow the keepers to the Heart, child of the sky.’

The two creatures turn around and started to walk towards the light source. Azra slowly moved toward them. As they walked, he noticed another stone pillar in front of him. He could see the shadows of more pillars in the noticeably lighter water.

As he drew closer to the source of light, he noticed the water was less murky in this area. He walked past the pillar and stopped, the water was now crystal clear. He could see a ring of pillars around a central area. There was a domed roof of stone being held up by the pillars.

There was a ring of other creatures like the two with the gems on their chest. There was one standing between each of the spaces between the pillars. They all looked towards the middle of the clear area in the water.

In the centre sat a large blue crystal. It was on a raised dais, and shimmered with an internal light. Azra felt the familiar tingle in his body intensifying; he had noticed it as soon as he stepped past the pillars.

The crystal was sharp and jagged. It was generally round, with jutting shards sticking out from around its centre. It didn’t seem to be actually touching the dais, it was being held aloft by an unseen force. Azra tried to look for Mahgical cues, but his powers weren’t responding to his will as they normally did. The tingling was overpowering, but seemed to have stabilized. It was hard to concentrate on much of anything with the oppressive feeling racking him unceasingly.

Azra noticed Gentle Current walk up next to him. One of the keepers turned and looked at them, opening its mouth and letting out more of the haunting wail like song that Azra suspected was their language.

‘The keepers have seen the turmoil inside you.’

Azra looked at Gentle Current. ‘Turmoil inside?’

More song from the keeper, Gentle Current translated through his stone, ‘Turmoil. Like a storm over the sea. Like the mixing of the river and the ocean. Aspects of the Sun and the Sea are within you. As one gains strength, the other must flow in strength or risk being destroyed.’

Azra looked back at the crystal. ‘Why do I feel strange near this thing? Is this the Heart?’

Gentle Current nodded, his shroud rippling with the motion, ‘This is the Heart of the Sea. You feel the power of its aspect. It is one of the aspects within you.’

Azra’s Mahgic was primarily based around fire. Every Mahgic user had a chosen element or school, and some of them contrasted sharply with others. Fire and water would be two such contrasting schools.

Normally when one picked a school and started training, the contrasting elements would be impossible, or at least very difficult, to use. A fire user wouldn’t be able to manipulate water. A water user wouldn’t be able to manipulate fire.

‘I’m a Wyzard of Fire. How can I have the aspect of the sea within me?’ Azra asked.

‘The aspect of the sun was what you chose. The aspect of the sea was what you were born into.’

‘So what do you want from me?’ Azra asked cautiously.

‘We are the keepers of the Heart. We followed it here long ago, leaving the seas of our Mothers. It was drawn here by the calling of an unknown stranger. We seek to return to the seas of our Mothers. The heart can take us, but it does not wish to leave. It is kept here by a great tide of strength. You can help us free it from its trap.’

‘How long has it been here?’ Azra asked, a dark feeling falling over him.

‘Three thousand of your yehvs. Many generations of our kin have joined the eternal sea without tasting of our ancestral waters. The sorrow of our ancient ones affects us all. We feel the pull to leave like the pull of the tide. Will you help us Child of the Sky?’

Azra was quiet for a moment. ‘Will you help me? My... kin is in danger. The daughter of my sister has been trapped by a Sorcerer from another world. He uses her danger to get me to help him. He told me to find the Nehhom.’

‘Someone seeks us from a different world?’ Gentle Current asked, as the two keepers that had led them in turned and faced the crystal. Each of the other keepers lining the chamber took a step forward.

‘Yes, he called himself Shakla. He looks like a snake.’

‘Please picture him in your mind, Child of the Sky,’ Gentle Current instructed.

‘Very well,’ Azra said, unsure as to what they were doing. He closed his eyes and clasped his hands together. In his mind he thought about Shakla. It was hard to concentrate with the tingling all throughout his body.

He recalled the picture of Shakla ridding atop his black lizard into the courtyard of Jarridon. The same day this whole chain of events had started. As he did, he was aware that the keepers were speaking. He paid them no heed, as Gentle Current didn’t seem to be translating for them.

His mind’s eye locked onto the image of Shakla. Then, the tingling in his body flared up, and was suddenly gone. He found himself watching Shakla, not a memory of him, but the living breathing being.

Shakla had one of the desert Raiders held against a pillar of their desert fortress, and had his powerful jaws wrapped around the man’s neck and part of his shoulder. The man was struggling and groaning in pain. Corpses were scattered around Shakla, their blood staining the sandy floor around him.

With a sickening crack of breaking bone and the sound of tearing meat, Shakla tore his prey apart with his jaws. The Raider’s body fell down onto the ground face first, letting out a gurgle as he fell. The body writhed for a moment before falling still. Shakla swallowed his mouth full of flesh, before turning around.

Two Raiders looked at him warily from a distance, swords drawn.

‘Mongrelsss! I gave you purpossse! Thisss isss how you thank me?’ Shakla spat, flecks of blood flying from his mouth.

More Raiders were filing into the room, weapons drawn. ‘We did not throw off the shackles of servitude just to hand them to another,’ said one of the Zharin Raiders.

‘I could dessstroy you all,’ Shakla hissed darkly.

Azra willed himself close to the ground, to get a better view.

Shakla looked at where Azra’s perception was and his eye’s narrowed. ‘Ssso... You’ve found them... Very good, Asssra. Now come home.’

The Raiders looked around at each other warily, some of them drew bows, pointing them at Shakla. One of them pointed his sword at Shakla threateningly.

‘No more tricks! Be gone from this place and never return.’

Azra recoiled as Shakla looked at him and smiled a toothy grin.

The Raiders were getting more uneasy.

One of the bow wielding men let an arrow fly.

With a ripple of motion, the sand on the floor was kicked up by an unseen wind, and the arrow was thrown off course. The other Raiders let fly their arrows, and room became a flurry of wind, blowing them off course. Shakla began to walk toward Azra. Azra backed away slowly, trying to will himself back to his body, back to the sea.

‘Come home, Wyzard. Come home while you ssstill have a home to come back to,’ Shakla said, hissing softly.

Two of the sword wielding Raiders rushed Shakla, but as they got close, the Sorcerer outstretched his hands towards them, and they were thrown off their feet by two blasts of furious air. The other Raiders wavered, and started to flee the room.

Shakla walked to where Azra stood and put his hands up, palms towards Azra. The air became hazy, and Azra felt a piercing pain in his head. His vision went dark. He could hear Shakla hissing.

The hissing was slowly replaced by the mournful wails of the Nehhom, and he felt many clammy hands feeling his body and face. He felt something wet and unpleasant on his face and in his nose. He began to struggle, pushing the hands away and reaching at the thing on his face, as his vision came back to him.

He was lying on his back, surrounded by Nehhom. Gentle Current was standing upright, his shrouded face looking down towards Azra. Azra realized that he had started to pull away the glob that was letting him breath underwater. He stopped struggling and lowered his hands.

‘What happened?’ he managed to say.

‘The Children of Nehhom now know who seeks us. He who seeks is known as Shakla. He is known to you. He knows the Children of Nehhom, though we do not know him,’ Gentle Current said, holding his stone over the circle of Nehhom faces surrounding Azra.

‘He is why I need help,’ Azra said, pleading. ‘He’s cursed my Niece with a powerful Mahgic unlike anything I’ve seen before.’

‘If you swear to help us move the Heart, we will help you save your kin,’ Gentle Current said.

Azra closed his eyes for a moment. He saw Shakla in his mind, but this time his jaws were biting into Kia. He shuddered involuntarily. He took a deep breath, calming himself, and then said, ‘I swear it.’