Souls of Aredyrah 3 - The Taking of the Dawn (36 page)

Chapter 28: Into the
Black

I
t had been two
weeks since the refugees had left the familiarity of their homeland
to follow Reiv into the unknown. At first they had headed
northeast, following the coastline until they met a branch of the
river that took them due north. Keeping close to the river, they
had managed to bypass most areas recently ravaged by the mountain.
For a time, all went smoothly. The river provided enough fresh
water and fish to sustain them, and it guided them through meadows
and forests abundant with edible vegetation and wildlife. Many felt
the gods had surely spared these regions for a reason; why not
simply choose a place and stay? To this, Reiv reminded them that
while the unblemished land did indeed hold many wondrous things,
the gods had not spared it for them; it still belonged to Tearia.
Best to keep going, he insisted, for they would never find peace in
a place that claimed Whyn as its master.

By rights they were still in Tearian
territory, but little of the landscape the refugees had traveled
thus far resembled the Tearia of their births. For the Shell
Seekers, there were no palm trees, no smell of the sea, no sparkle
of sand or shell. For the Jecta, accustomed to mud-brick cities and
dusty encampments, the land was greener and more alive than any
place they had ever seen. But it did not take long for the
geography to take a sudden and disturbing turn. They had reached
the border of a region known as The Black.

The Black was an area of Tearia which had
been utterly destroyed during the ancient Purge of Aredyrah. At one
time, the capitol city had been located there, but liquid fire had
consumed it, and the surrounding area was now nothing more than
craggy ravines, macabre rock formations, and endless desolation.
Reiv had no intention of taking the refugees too far into it;
nothing could be gained by leading them through a land that
symbolized death. But he knew that in order to reach the mountain
pass they would have to at least step into it. He could only pray
they would live long enough to step out of it.

The sun was ablaze in the sky, and the cool
green forests that had previously shaded them were growing distant
at their backs. Since late morning, they had been winding through
an area dominated by red-rock formations and a labyrinth of striped
canyon walls. The air was dry and hot, and the sun seemed to have
grown three sizes since sunrise. As they worked their way through
the canyon, Reiv feared he was leading them to a dead end. He
honestly didn’t know whether or not he was, but there was little
choice in the matter. Time was too precious for them to turn
back.

He led the caravan onward, but he soon came
to feel as if the canyon walls were closing in on them. If the
Guard were to follow them, he knew there would be nowhere to run.
He gazed up at the cliffs that towered on either side of them. The
walls were jagged and patterned in shades of rust and pink and
white. So strange, he thought, yet so beautiful. But he quickly
redirected his attention when a loud gasp sounded from Jensa who
was walking at his side.

“What is it?” Reiv asked anxiously.

Jensa was staring into the distance, her eyes
wide and transfixed. “Shells,” she said, pointing her finger. “Oh
look, Reiv—shells!”

Reiv turned his gaze to where she was
pointing, and saw that not far ahead of them the ravine opened onto
a vast and arid plateau. Beyond it a massive cluster of pink and
white formations outlined the distant horizon.

Reiv smiled, realizing the scallop-shaped
hills did indeed resemble giant shells. “I would like to see you
put one of those in your basket,” he said with a laugh.

“Perhaps we could stay there tonight?” Jensa
asked, not taking her eyes off of them.

Reiv squinted up at the sun, then estimated
the time and distance it would take for them to reach the
formations. The shells were probably not as far as they appeared;
more than likely the caravan would reach them well before dark. “We
cannot slow our pace,” he said. “We have to keep moving.”

“Oh please, Reiv,” she begged. “We are all so
tired.”

“He’s right, girl,” Gair said at her back.
“We’ll waste daylight if we linger there.”

The blacksmith shifted his grip on the
handles of the cart he was pulling, then rolled his neck and
shoulders to work the tension from them.

“Don’t you think it would do Torin good to
rest for a while?” Jensa suggested. “He’s been jostled about for
days now.”

Reiv looked past Gair’s cart and toward the
horse-drawn transport that carried Torin. Torin, he was pleased to
note, was fast asleep, and Kerrik, in a similar state of
unconsciousness, was curled up at his side. Cora walked
protectively alongside them; she had not let Torin out of her sight
since she’d first tended him at the Jecta encampment. “He’s doing
well,” she said in response to Reiv’s non-verbal inquiry. “Much
better today I think.”

Reiv turned his attention back to Jensa. “You
see?” he said. “Your brother is fine. No need to worry.”

“How can you be sure?” she said. “You know
he’s not one to complain.”

“No, he is not, but…” Reiv lifted an
eyebrow.

“Oh,” she said in challenge. “But I am?”

Reiv chuckled. “I did not say that.”

“Hmmph! You may as well have.”

“I promise,” Reiv said, “there will be plenty
of time to rest when we get to the valley.”

Jensa nodded, but Reiv knew she was not happy
about it. For the past several days now it seemed she’d been told
“no” more often than not. When she’d offered to tend Torin’s
bandages, Torin had said, “No, Cora will do it.” When she’d offered
to help Gair pull the cart, he’d dismissed her with a wave of his
hand. And when she’d asked if she could join the scouts that kept a
lookout for approaching Guards, Reiv had replied “absolutely not.”
In this, Reiv could not help but feel conflicted. Though he knew
Jensa was perfectly capable of climbing trees and high ridges to
help keep watch at their backs, for some reason he did not want her
amongst the scouts. They were all male. And she was all female.

Now here she was being told “no” again. Was
her request really so unreasonable? Perhaps his response had been
hasty. The heat and terrain were taking their toll. Why, if a man
like Gair was showing signs of wear and tear, what must the others
be feeling? But what else could Reiv do? He hated the thought of
stopping at all, even at night, but in that he had no choice. The
journey had been difficult; there were still many sick and injured
amongst them. Dozens had died along the trail, but even in that
Reiv had never risked a moment of daylight. He’d insisted the dead
be buried at night, and had instructed the mourners not to place
markers on the graves. If Whyn followed, as Reiv expected he would,
it would be foolish to leave additional evidence along the way;
their trail was nearly impossible to disguise as it was. No, he
reasoned, they would not stop until dark. And that was his final
decision.

With little fanfare, Reiv had become the
leader of the caravan since the moment it departed Meirla. Even
Yustes had warned the people against thinking otherwise. “There can
be no conflict in the line of command,” he’d told them. “Reiv is
leading us to Oonayei; our duty is to follow.” Reiv had to admit,
he rather liked being in charge. He’d had so little power over
anything this past year, it felt good to finally have power over
something
again. As for those he considered family, Brina
had not forgotten he was a royal, and Torin was still too weak to
argue with him, or anyone else for that matter. Cora held Reiv in
high regard for what he had done for them, and the children
respected him as a child should any adult. But when it came to
Jensa…

He glanced at her, wondering whether or not
he should prepare himself for another dose of her temper. Over the
past several days, they’d had frequent arguments over his “acting
like a fool of a prince,” as she put it. But this time she seemed
barely aware of his presence at all; she was staring off at the
hills, her eyes moist with emotion. She sighed sadly, and Reiv’s
fortitude went a little soft. Perhaps he could offer her a
compromise, or at least let her think he was. “Very well,” he said.
“When we get there, we shall see how much daylight is left. Will
that make you happy?”

Jensa smiled her beautiful smile, and Reiv
could not help but smile in return. But then he detected a glint of
satisfaction in her eye, and his smile all but evaporated. Had she
actually tricked him? Even Kerrik was no longer able to do that,
and he was the master of manipulation.

“Well, do not count on staying there,” Reiv
added gruffly. “If there is even a half hour left of daylight, we
keep moving.”

“Of course,” Jensa said, and she kissed him
on the cheek.

Reiv felt a flutter in his belly, but he
clenched his muscles to tame it back. He refused to be sidetracked
by emotions. There were more important destinations to reach.

The plateau proved to be a vast wasteland of
black sand and rocky debris. Fist-sized rocks, dark as midnight and
pocked with tiny craters, slowed the caravan’s pace to nearly
nothing. And the sand, unlike anything they had ever seen, crunched
and shifted beneath their feet. There was little doubt as to how
The Black had come by its name. Carts jerked precariously as the
caravan slowly crossed the jagged terrain. The rocks that littered
the ground further radiated the afternoon heat, sending many weary
travelers to their knees.

Reiv left his position at the front of the
line and worked his way back. “This will be the worst of it,” he
told the people encouragingly as he passed, though he had no idea
if it really would be. He knew less about how to get to the valley
than he dared let on; he’d only seen snippets of it during his
Transcension, and rarely allowed any of the visions to enter his
waking mind. He had done well to bury the now, the then, and the
maybe. To allow even a hint of them to seep into his consciousness
risked a flood of images he did not care to see. For now, he was
determined to focus only on that which he knew, that which he had
told Dayn and Alicine before they left Meirla: “…follow the river
toward the first peak beyond the tallest one…there is a pass
between them that will take you into a valley.”

As Reiv thought about Dayn and Alicine now,
he realized how very much he missed them. Before they had entered
his life, he’d had few friends, except for his brother who was now
his enemy, and Cinnia who had betrayed his heart. Brina had been
his one true constant, though she was more like a mother to him
than a friend, but his relationship with Dayn and Alicine had been
special, and altogether different. In Dayn, Reiv had found a
kindred spirit. He trusted him and could confide his more personal
fears and desires. But there were some things he could not tell
even Dayn. Some were memories long hidden, memories of things that
had happened to him well before he Transcended. One in particular
had been buried for so long, he could not be certain it had
happened at all. Perhaps it was just a remnant of a childhood
dream, or of a childhood nightmare. Recently, it had threatened to
seep to the surface, but he had quickly shoved a stopper in it.
Over the years, he had become skilled at that. The memory, if that
was what it was, had something to do with Crymm, and Crymm was not
someone Reiv wished to think of ever again.

He turned his thoughts to Alicine and
realized his feelings in her regard were somewhat mixed. He could
not deny that he found her attractive; the fact that he had
practically taken her on Nannaven’s floor was proof enough of that.
But he could not shake the realization that she had rebuked him and
then had simply left him. Though he understood her concerns for her
family, he somehow felt that if she truly loved him, she would have
stayed. The moment she had told him she was leaving, he knew: there
would not likely be anything more than friendship between them. For
a while, the realization had deeply bothered him, but he had
finally been able to put things in perspective: Alicine would never
share his bed; there was no sense dwelling on it. Best to set his
sights elsewhere, like the challenges of the path before him.

He turned his thoughts from his empty heart
and toward the shell hills now towering before him. To his
surprise, the caravan was nearly there. He glanced up at the sun.
It was at least two hours from setting.

He returned to the head of the line, resuming
his place at Jensa’s side. “You see,” he said, feeling victorious.
“Much too early to stop.”

Jensa didn’t say a word, just continued to
gaze at the huge formations that looked as much like shells up
close as they had from a distance.

Reiv led the caravan around the base of the
scalloped hills. The Shell-Seekers stared up at them in awe. Kerrik
and the other children laughed and climbed up and down the rocky
slopes, sending little avalanches of dirt and gravel bouncing
downward. As they rounded the last of the formations, Reiv realized
they would soon be at the base of the mountain range itself. He
knew where the pass to the valley should be, and gauging from where
they were in relation to it, he estimated one more day of travel
and they would reach it. If they could just make it through the
pass, they would be safe from Whyn. He could not imagine his
brother or the Guard going into the mountains. That was where the
gods dwelt, or so they believed, and it was not likely they would
dare tread into such a sacred place.

As for the refugees, Reiv felt certain many
of them would become apprehensive once they reached the mountains.
Hopefully with Yustes there to encourage and inspire them, there
would be no demands to turn back. Everyone knew that in order to
reach the valley they would have to enter places previously
forbidden. But now, looking up at the monstrous rise of
white-capped granite looming in the distance, Reiv could not help
but wonder if even he would be tempted to turn back. Though he had
recently learned many truths that disputed the beliefs he had been
raised on, including the fact that the gods did not dwell in the
mountains after all, he had come to realize that some fears were
hard to erase.
Doubt is a temptation of evil
, he had been
warned as a child.
To doubt the gods is to invite eternal
suffering
. As he thought on it now, it seemed to him that those
who taught that message had caused more suffering than all the gods
put together. But still, if doubt
was
a temptation of
evil…