Áá Éé Íí Óó Úú = The 'sound out letter' long vowel; standard lettering does -not- mean it -isn't- the long vowel if it seems to naturally follow
Ââ = 'ah' as in 'father'
Êê = 'u' and particularly 'ur' as in 'after'
Îî = 'ee' as in 'police'
Ôô = 'uh' as in 'son'
Ûû = 'oo' as in 'flute'
Ȩȩ = normal 'eh' sound - used only at the end to omit 'silent' assumption
ý = pronounce between 'yee' and 'ee' (sound out/long e); essentially has a very soft y sound
The path of the canyon bottom took the party through increasingly sparse pockets of vegetation, the terrain dominated primarily by rock and sand. They wound around the occasional stagnant pond or sharp mound of limestone common to the area. Deros did not utilize his abilities at so early a stage of the journey, paying heed to Thalamon not to waste his energy, but he nonetheless fell to the rear and kept an eye out, alternating between a slower and faster pace.
After an hour or so, they met a sudden incline that spilled out into a wide deviation of the canyon known as Jagged Rise, full of many hills and mounds, particularly in its center. Azrom was blinding bright in the general direction of their route, though they continued to more so follow Mondamarus further to the east. Everyone with goggles dropped them down, while the two Hospitallers relied on their wide-brimmed hats. Deros did not bother with it, being focused on the rear and wanting his vision unobscured while they remained in the canyon.
It took them a quarter of an hour to skirt around the northern edge of the Rise and approach the canyon wall under Azrom once again. As they dropped down in elevation and the wall rose, Azrom dipped behind it directly where Heaven’s Pass lay. It was a feature much like the precise handiwork of the Old Residences — the rock had been seemingly carved by a god into a wide, smooth path of zigzagging brown stone. Two jagged post-like features could just be seen at the very top, of the same stone. One of them would have an elegantly-carved half of a foot at the base, presumed to have been a statue, but someone or something had destroyed it as well as the other. Rival gods, perhaps — or more likely, defiant peoples long ago. They’d been thorough, as the broken posts were common features in Miracle Springs.
As legend went, the Taldecca People were a wandering tribe of the north who were surprised to discover the miracle of a river where there had once been a dry, dead canyon with a declining watering hole at the bottom. A People had lived in the Old Residences long before at the prescription and preparation of the old gods, but some tribe had warred with and destroyed them.
The Taldecca resettled and eked out a similar, sedentary existence until war in the south brought refugees to the river community. Instead of fighting, the Taldecca welcomed them and their advanced knowledge of life around such plentiful waters. Purportedly, the initial friendship was struck by the gifting of a telescope. The Taldecca revered the stars from which they claimed to have descended — though the brightest were actually ‘godmoons,’ they rejoiced at the new details revealed. As the southerners believed themselves descended from gods, it was decided they were long lost brothers reunited.
The Ahbra had somewhat spoiled Deros’s image of his people with his dispassionate claim that it might’ve been the Taldecca that destroyed the original settlers, according to records in the south about sporadic ‘trading kin of kin in the north buildings’ that they’d had some dealings with and that the refugees might’ve been seeking. It wasn’t clear, but the southern Lake Peoples certainly seemed to believe their ancestors to have been the ones that shaped the stone. Old statues still stood in their lands: that of Explorer, Healer, and Founder. Whether the statues in Taldecca lands were once of them would also likely never be known.
Deros caught the telltale sign of makar’osa being used by Aerion as they arrived under the pass. It was far different than the vision or hearing amplification Deros was familiar with, instead being like a wide thinning net arcing across a wide space, drawing in toward his nose where a bewildering, complex intensification and blending occurred. Aerion called it ‘unraveling the puzzles of the air and earth’. More physically, he was sifting and gathering unusual scents that existed, carried in wind and dust in small amounts imperceptible to the rest of them.
Aerion soon after rode ahead to report to Thalamon, who listened intently with a small frown. He seemed slightly dismissive by the end of it and did not turn from his chosen path.
When Aerion dropped back, Deros caught up with him near the middle of the pack. “Caught a scent?” he asked.
“Mmn,” Aerion muttered, glancing back up the pass. “From the wind blowing down, the Bluehand’s blood and the hint of a corsinid pack. He didn’t come from the way we’re going, though he did up to here. Maybe the attack itself happened up there somewhere.”
“Thalamon still didn’t want to go up?”
“He said he’d send one of the scouts after we rendezvous with them. No point in troubling ourselves with a mission others can handle.”
Deros didn’t particularly care for that outlook, being curious. “Thalamon is cut from the same cautious hide as Lecto, I see. Ah well.”
Aerion grinned over at him. “You won’t be happy until we’re shooting at bandits, will you?”
“No need to go that far.” After a pause, he added, “Now lizardmen bandits, that’s a different story.”
As Aerion chuckled, Daexo had drawn up to them, and he bellowed, “Here’s you two, gossiping like farmer’s wives at market.”
“And you, to sate your fill of the same,” Aerion replied. “Now that you got away from the mistress, hmm?”
"Only by circumstance. Why would I ever want to be away from such a vision?"
Aerion just gave a mild shrug, then shook his head slightly. "Oh, to have such a devoted affection as that..."
"Well, see now, look what's right in front of you, fool. Deros here is still a waiting bachelor himself, almost as aged as you."
"Daexo," Deros said in admonishment, though he already knew that Aerion would run with it.
Aerion flashed an appreciative gaze Deros's way. "Who wouldn't want this prime cut, after all? Those brooding eyes, the pouting lips, and wit like an obsidian blade! What do you say, fair son of starlight? Shall we know one another so much more than mere brothers?"
Deros first sighed longsufferingly, then replied, "I should think it unwise, considering Aerion is so much one to love and leave broken hearts behind."
Aerion took on a wounded look, placing his hand to his heart. "Slain, truly, with truth. I fear you are too correct, and I must protect you from such agony. Alas, I will pine on and from afar, dreaming of what might've been."
As Daexo laughed, Deros just rolled his eyes and shook his head. Idiots.
"Still," Aerion continued relentlessly, "I think I will seek with great interest those moments you find alone with your chosen love, Deros, so I can pretend I am them."
Deros groaned. "I can think of no greater deterrent to public display the likes of Eursett would find offensive, than the idea of you lurking somewhere to leer at us."
Aerion joined Daexo in laughter at that, then shrugged as though helpless. "You'll have no choice, come the wedding. It is this next summer, isn't it?"
"It is. If I could, I would make it the very hour those final tattoos are dry."
There was a pause as his friends silently nodded their understanding, then Daexo said, "One of the privileged, to see the full length of those etchings."
Deros tried not to think about that, much as he certainly had before. Pretending to check something on his saddlebags, Deros glanced behind him to make sure Palamera wasn’t even close to within earshot, to overhear Azakan nonsense. Fortunately, she was well-engaged whistling and clicking her tongue at a few wandering aloga, to get them going the right direction.
Aerion made an exaggerated, pining sort of sigh. "If I get some runes tattooed on my ass, will you see them, Deros?"
"No, I will not, Aerion, damn you."
Once again, Daexo found Aerion's antics uproariously hilarious.
Unable to summon any verbal daggers in response, Deros began to slow his pace. “I’ll leave you two lecherous bastards to your own lurid imaginations. Do have fun — I have work to do.”
Aerion pretended offense. “Did you hear that, Daexo? He accused us as illegitimate of fathers! And lechers, but that is just honest, I think.”
Daexo grunted and said, “True enough on the last. Especially for you, who’d leer at anything on two legs. The other sounds like some silly northern tyrant insult…”
Deros fell out of range of hearing more as he returned to his place at the rear. Daexo probably wasn’t wrong in his estimation — he’d mostly picked the word up from caravanners, namely the guards who were often from distant lands. It meant very little in Miracle Springs, and the guards themselves seemed to throw it out to mock each other more than anything.
The party bypassed Heaven’s Pass, continuing due east following the path of the canyon walls. Despite the convenience and curiosity, the terrain up and beyond the pass was nothing desirable and was more the route to take if going southeast into Sylmex territory further down the Talqua River. The lowland remained the better route, especially as it continued to narrowly block the direct gaze of the Lightbringer. Being the winter, he was not going to rise much higher, instead crossing the southern sky on his path west, for a time not seeming to rise or fall.
Olarius and the two non-party scouts finally came down the path and fell in with Thalamon to report. It was quick and seemed routine, which made it obvious there was no special news from them. When finished, Olarius cantered back out ahead, while the other two scouts rode easy back the way they’d all come. Deros exchanged waves with them in recognition as they passed, but otherwise let them be.
The canyon took them continually east, occasionally winding this way or that and narrowing or widening randomly. The terrain got increasingly rockier and irregular, with steeper and steeper mountainous borders that began to tower above. Water and life got scarcer, though scraggly bushes persisted here and there with occasional clusters of more variety — green featherbrush, succulent arrowleaf, and milkfan plants primarily. On the heights, tall thornfingers were seen every so often, most flowering in purple at their tips, as they always did after rain. Trees were rare, gnarled things — even these were nonexistent in the wilds closer to Miracle Springs, as despite the utility of greatcane, any tree wood was valuable. Most of it was imported from downriver, and the best lumber came from the distant southwest region and the people of Konamanduras, who also made paper.
Mobile wildlife was seldom seen, mostly muckdivers, various cliff birds, and one carrion-seeking fachmore flying high overhead on feathered wings and legs, long neck and head out like a spear-point. He saw what might’ve been a lizard or serpent hiding a couple of times, and for sure caught sight briefly of a large, many-legged jotaworm crawl into a crack. Though disturbing to look upon and growing up to twice the size of a writher, they were generally left unmolested by Azakan.
Jotaworms were never known to attack anything bigger than them, but they ate other pests, including dartlurks which burrowed into sands near waters and would dart out to bite promising prey of any size with poisonous fangs. Even one bite was ruinous for aloga, and several would paralyze and kill it in short order. The same was true of unwary Hamaleen as well. It was not the rarest of deaths, but the phrase, ‘locking eyes with a lurk,’ was synonymous with ‘never happening’. They only struck when they felt they were unobserved.
The hours came and went on the journey, as the heat increased through the brightening of the day and the gradual descent of Azrom, though the steep wall continued to block the source of the worst. Deros kept a sharp watch out and magnified his hearing a few times, dropping far to the rear of the party, to make sure they weren’t being followed by man or beast. All he heard was the wind.
Finally, they came to what was essentially the last good pass out of the canyon before it became a hassle to traverse — a natural feature of sloping, sandy rock, like a small mountain growing into the cliff face, known as Fallingway. The route to it was one Deros had taken many times, in his general memorization of territory over the years. Further down the canyon was broken up, rougher terrain that eventually rose even with the rest of the land, filled with a veritable army of rock-hills known as the Tears of Jaekon. Jaekon was a northern god, supposedly a giant that once walked Hamellion, but Deros sadly knew no other details.
He trailed behind the pack aloga as they reluctantly made the climb under their burdens, encouraged by the whistles and yelps of Eursett in the lead and Palamera to the side. Enseres for his part seemed to love it, constantly wanting to increase the pace and beat the others, complaining when he was restrained. The glare of Azrom finally returned as they crested the top of the canyon and the sandy hills — more of such hills spilled out every direction, with rocky jutting features coating their tops and dips alike. The Lightbringer was well on its way to setting in the southwest, probably leaving only another hour of daylight.
The pace of the party was increased as Deros watched them trot through the hills and thread between rocky rises. He immediately knew this to mean Thalamon intended to ride the extra couple of hours needed in the twilight after Azrom’s fall, to reach the favorable camping spot of Shaded Pit. They’d have to be extra cautious then, particularly of corsinids that loved to hunt in those periods around just such ambush-favoring terrain as they were trekking through.
The landscape was not greatly favorable for travel, requiring constant ups and downs and maneuvering around steeper features or pitfalls. Scrub bushes were plentiful, particularly graybrush, flowering white and frequented by flying black rósa insects. It at least allowed Deros to climb heights and see across great distances, which he took advantage of in his vigil of the party’s rear.
Just as Azrom was setting while they traversed a wide sandy rise, Deros heard a hissing sound — quickly dying — off a ways from their route, likely only audible thanks to his enhanced hearing. He swiftly had Enseres curl around a cluster of boulders to see Ryza cantering off from the pack, recurved hornbow in hand. Before he could get any further alarmed, he caught sight of the source of the noise: a large yellow lizard, unmoving in the sand, an arrow piercing it through. A line in the sand trailed back from it, where it must’ve dragged the arrowhead a couple of meters before ceasing animation altogether.
Deros slowed, though he continued riding up. Ryza stowed her bow and swung down off her mount as she came upon her prey, leaning down briefly to take it up with a hand by the neck and inspect it. A bit of blood oozed from its wound, the copper arrowhead poking out of its upper torso.
“Look how fat he is,” Ryza exclaimed, glancing at Deros with a smirk on her face. “Glutting himself on flowers and bugs before spring has even arrived.”
“Doomed to be glutted upon in turn,” Deros replied. “If not by you, then surely a bird or serpent.”
She nodded as she walked back over to her aloga and carefully pulled the arrowhead out of the carcass. She wiped it with a rag, set it aside, and wrapped the rag around the lizard where the wound was, then proceeded to tie it to the saddlebags. “I have a jar of flavoring spices,” she said as she worked. “You are welcome to a portion tonight, little brother. If we can bag another, even better.”
“Thank you, sis. I will surely bring something or another worth cooking with.”
She shrugged dismissively. “Company over the substance gathered for, hmm?” She finished with the carcass and hopped back up into the saddle of her aloga. “My kin is forever desired to eat with me.”
“And likewise, Ryza.” They were not kin by blood and Ryza knew none of her own besides. Her husband and she had been friends of his family since the war — though she looked of an age to be his somewhat older sister she was actually almost his mother’s age. They’d always been around, ageless icons and heroes of his youth, who’d more or less adopted his siblings and him. But the plague had taken them as well as Ryza’s adopted mother and remaining brother, and so grief had forged tighter bonds between them. If he had learned to be a strong tower to Palamera, he’d learned it from her. There was none stronger than Ryza Rainfeather — not across the face of Hamellion from pole to pole. He knew this with the certainty of the moons and their orbits. She was as invincible as a mountain.
Ryza grinned in his direction, squinting. Her eyes shifted over his shoulder. “Look there — Azrom has finished with our sky barely kissing our faces all along.”
Deros had to turn Enseres to look with her. Indeed, Azrom was setting on the horizon, casting many colors just as with his rising, to bid farewell in splendor. “Yea, we’ve done well to avoid him this day. Now he goes to pester others.”
Ryza chuckled. “I had forgotten you were one to blaspheme the old gods so casually. Good that we don’t worship him, at least. Come to think, I’ve heard they do in the west, mm?”
Turning once more toward Ryza, Deros made a small shrug. “The very distant west. Beyond the Taboan and the Smoking Titan also, are tribes that do. Worship and make sacrifices. Sometimes slaves, it’s said. The peoples of the Taboan despise them fiercely and even Konamanduras will not make trade with their ilk.”
The humor faded from Ryza’s face. “If I had another life, I’d send it there to destroy them and all else, who make slaves.”
Deros was silent as he studied his adopted sister. His eyes strayed to her earring of pewter. It had been melted down and reforged, from a small chain that had been around her neck — she’d been taken as a slave of some kind herself, a child refugee of tribal wars in the distant south, beyond even the lakes. Such things were common there, and an unremovable chain was a symbol of lifelong debt and service. She’d escaped that life some time past adolescence and broke the choker off herself, keeping it as a reminder. Despite great hardships, she survived, learning to hunt and trade.
The ancient hunter and wanderer Gerasinon Bright Horizon found her, supposedly led by dreams to a successor of the ‘inner way’ of the strange multi-civilization Slowseers. The old man adopted her as well as taught her, bringing her back to his home in the canyon and his fourth wife, who took to her far quicker than vice versa. It was a story fit for a hero, and she’d certainly become one for her community.
And a ruthless one, at that. He was awed as a child, to hear tales of her exploits as a soldier. Much in contrast to his father’s teaching, he recalled well her crouching down, mussing his hair, asking him, ‘what do we do to our enemies, little Deros?’ The first time, he’d shook his head and asked what, to which she leaned in, eyes squinted like a secret, and whispered darkly, ‘we destroy them.’ He’d known just how to answer when she’d asked once again, and he had loved her delighted reactions as he emulated her throaty whisper as best a young boy could.
“And I would send mine to help you, sister,” Deros finally replied. “But I think it’s well you are here for us. No doubt we should get back to this life’s duties before it passes out of sight, hmm?” He nodded in the direction of the pack aloga ahead of them.
Ryza glanced in the same direction and nodded. “Right you are. See you at camp, brother, and may Explorer guide your bow.”
“Luck guide yours.” Deros watched her ride off, wondering about the Slowseers. Would Ryza have some sort of dream leading her to others like her as well? He didn’t particularly believe it. Ryza claimed her dreams were never anything special, nor did she care much about the order she was supposedly born into. Gerasinon died before Deros was born, and seemed like someone Ryza respected more than loved, compared to her mother. Two other Slowseers had come to visit her, and she claimed they were too strange for her liking. They wanted her to travel and learn of them, but she’d refused.
She saw her abilities as more a means to an end than anything spiritual. That made sense to Deros — mostly how she explained it was that she ‘experienced things slower’ when the inner way was used. It was something vaguely like daug’makar but as though inverted, focused inward instead of outward. Deros could not detect its use — nor even that she was Blessed at all — with his farsense. But she moved faster when in the trance, and barely seemed to aim her bow as she fired two or three times as fast as any other. In hand-to-hand, she was practically untouchable. She certainly did not need Explorer’s aid with the bow.
Esteron Horizoncarver did not use nor need a bow. In his diaries, he talked of ‘projection’, in which he lifted objects from a distance, killed ‘the murderbirds’ by breaking their necks or driving through their hearts, and made jumps up mountainous climbs. He cursed his own ineptitude with ‘levitation’ like it was common. The strangeness and the nonexistence of such abilities, coupled with his seeming limitations and mortality, made many reject the copied writings as heretical. But to the recordkeepers of the south, to the Observatorians, and the Order of Asylum in Alnaseria, it was the truth of history and ancestry almost forgotten.
A tribe came to what they called Hamellion from ‘the distant lands’, of which they never detailed as though taboo, and carved civilization out of desolation. The one called Explorer sought water and resources across vast distances and Founder-Builder made structures and cities as though with a great future vision. The greatest was Alnaseria, The Shining City On the Lake. Abilities such as theirs had inevitably died and they’d failed to keep what they built completely unbroken, but it had survived.
Not gods, Taldecca. Just people. Just us. Is that so blasphemous, after all?
Deros turned to gaze at fallen Azrom one last time, seeing only a glow where he’d been. It was said that Azrom left the world in the dark and the cold every day to keep the people humble and appreciative of his touch. But he recalled a quote of Esteron he’d read over and over, late in the works written, when the godman went south:
‘This place we call Hamellion seems like a drying graveyard of scant few worms. I’ve tried for a year toward the equator and there is no route just as there is no Way. Only sand and heat I fear becomes unbearable. This accursed star is too close. How long do we have here? Was it even worth it? Damn this rock and damn Azrom, if it was all for nothing. Damn Him, especially.’
If one of the ‘gods’ we worship is not grateful, why should I be? Deros did not quite damn the Lightbringer, though, as he turned to follow after the rest of the party, keeping his ear tuned to detect footfalls of danger and feeling a sudden pang of hunger for some lizard meat.
Áá Éé Íí Óó Úú = The 'sound out letter' long vowel; standard lettering does -not- mean it -isn't- the long vowel if it seems to naturally follow
Ââ = 'ah' as in 'father'
Êê = 'u' and particularly 'ur' as in 'after'
Îî = 'ee' as in 'police'
Ôô = 'uh' as in 'son'
Ûû = 'oo' as in 'flute'
Ȩȩ = normal 'eh' sound - used only at the end to omit 'silent' assumption
ý = pronounce between 'yee' and 'ee' (sound out/long e); essentially has a very soft y sound
The path of the canyon bottom took the party through increasingly sparse pockets of vegetation, the terrain dominated primarily by rock and sand. They wound around the occasional stagnant pond or sharp mound of limestone common to the area. Deros did not utilize his abilities at so early a stage of the journey, paying heed to Thalamon not to waste his energy, but he nonetheless fell to the rear and kept an eye out, alternating between a slower and faster pace.
After an hour or so, they met a sudden incline that spilled out into a wide deviation of the canyon known as Jagged Rise, full of many hills and mounds, particularly in its center. Azrom was blinding bright in the general direction of their route, though they continued to more so follow Mondamarus further to the east. Everyone with goggles dropped them down, while the two Hospitallers relied on their wide-brimmed hats. Deros did not bother with it, being focused on the rear and wanting his vision unobscured while they remained in the canyon.
It took them a quarter of an hour to skirt around the northern edge of the Rise and approach the canyon wall under Azrom once again. As they dropped down in elevation and the wall rose, Azrom dipped behind it directly where Heaven’s Pass lay. It was a feature much like the precise handiwork of the Old Residences — the rock had been seemingly carved by a god into a wide, smooth path of zigzagging brown stone. Two jagged post-like features could just be seen at the very top, of the same stone. One of them would have an elegantly-carved half of a foot at the base, presumed to have been a statue, but someone or something had destroyed it as well as the other. Rival gods, perhaps — or more likely, defiant peoples long ago. They’d been thorough, as the broken posts were common features in Miracle Springs.
As legend went, the Taldecca People were a wandering tribe of the north who were surprised to discover the miracle of a river where there had once been a dry, dead canyon with a declining watering hole at the bottom. A People had lived in the Old Residences long before at the prescription and preparation of the old gods, but some tribe had warred with and destroyed them.
The Taldecca resettled and eked out a similar, sedentary existence until war in the south brought refugees to the river community. Instead of fighting, the Taldecca welcomed them and their advanced knowledge of life around such plentiful waters. Purportedly, the initial friendship was struck by the gifting of a telescope. The Taldecca revered the stars from which they claimed to have descended — though the brightest were actually ‘godmoons,’ they rejoiced at the new details revealed. As the southerners believed themselves descended from gods, it was decided they were long lost brothers reunited.
The Ahbra had somewhat spoiled Deros’s image of his people with his dispassionate claim that it might’ve been the Taldecca that destroyed the original settlers, according to records in the south about sporadic ‘trading kin of kin in the north buildings’ that they’d had some dealings with and that the refugees might’ve been seeking. It wasn’t clear, but the southern Lake Peoples certainly seemed to believe their ancestors to have been the ones that shaped the stone. Old statues still stood in their lands: that of Explorer, Healer, and Founder. Whether the statues in Taldecca lands were once of them would also likely never be known.
Deros caught the telltale sign of makar’osa being used by Aerion as they arrived under the pass. It was far different than the vision or hearing amplification Deros was familiar with, instead being like a wide thinning net arcing across a wide space, drawing in toward his nose where a bewildering, complex intensification and blending occurred. Aerion called it ‘unraveling the puzzles of the air and earth’. More physically, he was sifting and gathering unusual scents that existed, carried in wind and dust in small amounts imperceptible to the rest of them.
Aerion soon after rode ahead to report to Thalamon, who listened intently with a small frown. He seemed slightly dismissive by the end of it and did not turn from his chosen path.
When Aerion dropped back, Deros caught up with him near the middle of the pack. “Caught a scent?” he asked.
“Mmn,” Aerion muttered, glancing back up the pass. “From the wind blowing down, the Bluehand’s blood and the hint of a corsinid pack. He didn’t come from the way we’re going, though he did up to here. Maybe the attack itself happened up there somewhere.”
“Thalamon still didn’t want to go up?”
“He said he’d send one of the scouts after we rendezvous with them. No point in troubling ourselves with a mission others can handle.”
Deros didn’t particularly care for that outlook, being curious. “Thalamon is cut from the same cautious hide as Lecto, I see. Ah well.”
Aerion grinned over at him. “You won’t be happy until we’re shooting at bandits, will you?”
“No need to go that far.” After a pause, he added, “Now lizardmen bandits, that’s a different story.”
As Aerion chuckled, Daexo had drawn up to them, and he bellowed, “Here’s you two, gossiping like farmer’s wives at market.”
“And you, to sate your fill of the same,” Aerion replied. “Now that you got away from the mistress, hmm?”
"Only by circumstance. Why would I ever want to be away from such a vision?"
Aerion just gave a mild shrug, then shook his head slightly. "Oh, to have such a devoted affection as that..."
"Well, see now, look what's right in front of you, fool. Deros here is still a waiting bachelor himself, almost as aged as you."
"Daexo," Deros said in admonishment, though he already knew that Aerion would run with it.
Aerion flashed an appreciative gaze Deros's way. "Who wouldn't want this prime cut, after all? Those brooding eyes, the pouting lips, and wit like an obsidian blade! What do you say, fair son of starlight? Shall we know one another so much more than mere brothers?"
Deros first sighed longsufferingly, then replied, "I should think it unwise, considering Aerion is so much one to love and leave broken hearts behind."
Aerion took on a wounded look, placing his hand to his heart. "Slain, truly, with truth. I fear you are too correct, and I must protect you from such agony. Alas, I will pine on and from afar, dreaming of what might've been."
As Daexo laughed, Deros just rolled his eyes and shook his head. Idiots.
"Still," Aerion continued relentlessly, "I think I will seek with great interest those moments you find alone with your chosen love, Deros, so I can pretend I am them."
Deros groaned. "I can think of no greater deterrent to public display the likes of Eursett would find offensive, than the idea of you lurking somewhere to leer at us."
Aerion joined Daexo in laughter at that, then shrugged as though helpless. "You'll have no choice, come the wedding. It is this next summer, isn't it?"
"It is. If I could, I would make it the very hour those final tattoos are dry."
There was a pause as his friends silently nodded their understanding, then Daexo said, "One of the privileged, to see the full length of those etchings."
Deros tried not to think about that, much as he certainly had before. Pretending to check something on his saddlebags, Deros glanced behind him to make sure Palamera wasn’t even close to within earshot, to overhear Azakan nonsense. Fortunately, she was well-engaged whistling and clicking her tongue at a few wandering aloga, to get them going the right direction.
Aerion made an exaggerated, pining sort of sigh. "If I get some runes tattooed on my ass, will you see them, Deros?"
"No, I will not, Aerion, damn you."
Once again, Daexo found Aerion's antics uproariously hilarious.
Unable to summon any verbal daggers in response, Deros began to slow his pace. “I’ll leave you two lecherous bastards to your own lurid imaginations. Do have fun — I have work to do.”
Aerion pretended offense. “Did you hear that, Daexo? He accused us as illegitimate of fathers! And lechers, but that is just honest, I think.”
Daexo grunted and said, “True enough on the last. Especially for you, who’d leer at anything on two legs. The other sounds like some silly northern tyrant insult…”
Deros fell out of range of hearing more as he returned to his place at the rear. Daexo probably wasn’t wrong in his estimation — he’d mostly picked the word up from caravanners, namely the guards who were often from distant lands. It meant very little in Miracle Springs, and the guards themselves seemed to throw it out to mock each other more than anything.
The party bypassed Heaven’s Pass, continuing due east following the path of the canyon walls. Despite the convenience and curiosity, the terrain up and beyond the pass was nothing desirable and was more the route to take if going southeast into Sylmex territory further down the Talqua River. The lowland remained the better route, especially as it continued to narrowly block the direct gaze of the Lightbringer. Being the winter, he was not going to rise much higher, instead crossing the southern sky on his path west, for a time not seeming to rise or fall.
Olarius and the two non-party scouts finally came down the path and fell in with Thalamon to report. It was quick and seemed routine, which made it obvious there was no special news from them. When finished, Olarius cantered back out ahead, while the other two scouts rode easy back the way they’d all come. Deros exchanged waves with them in recognition as they passed, but otherwise let them be.
The canyon took them continually east, occasionally winding this way or that and narrowing or widening randomly. The terrain got increasingly rockier and irregular, with steeper and steeper mountainous borders that began to tower above. Water and life got scarcer, though scraggly bushes persisted here and there with occasional clusters of more variety — green featherbrush, succulent arrowleaf, and milkfan plants primarily. On the heights, tall thornfingers were seen every so often, most flowering in purple at their tips, as they always did after rain. Trees were rare, gnarled things — even these were nonexistent in the wilds closer to Miracle Springs, as despite the utility of greatcane, any tree wood was valuable. Most of it was imported from downriver, and the best lumber came from the distant southwest region and the people of Konamanduras, who also made paper.
Mobile wildlife was seldom seen, mostly muckdivers, various cliff birds, and one carrion-seeking fachmore flying high overhead on feathered wings and legs, long neck and head out like a spear-point. He saw what might’ve been a lizard or serpent hiding a couple of times, and for sure caught sight briefly of a large, many-legged jotaworm crawl into a crack. Though disturbing to look upon and growing up to twice the size of a writher, they were generally left unmolested by Azakan.
Jotaworms were never known to attack anything bigger than them, but they ate other pests, including dartlurks which burrowed into sands near waters and would dart out to bite promising prey of any size with poisonous fangs. Even one bite was ruinous for aloga, and several would paralyze and kill it in short order. The same was true of unwary Hamaleen as well. It was not the rarest of deaths, but the phrase, ‘locking eyes with a lurk,’ was synonymous with ‘never happening’. They only struck when they felt they were unobserved.
The hours came and went on the journey, as the heat increased through the brightening of the day and the gradual descent of Azrom, though the steep wall continued to block the source of the worst. Deros kept a sharp watch out and magnified his hearing a few times, dropping far to the rear of the party, to make sure they weren’t being followed by man or beast. All he heard was the wind.
Finally, they came to what was essentially the last good pass out of the canyon before it became a hassle to traverse — a natural feature of sloping, sandy rock, like a small mountain growing into the cliff face, known as Fallingway. The route to it was one Deros had taken many times, in his general memorization of territory over the years. Further down the canyon was broken up, rougher terrain that eventually rose even with the rest of the land, filled with a veritable army of rock-hills known as the Tears of Jaekon. Jaekon was a northern god, supposedly a giant that once walked Hamellion, but Deros sadly knew no other details.
He trailed behind the pack aloga as they reluctantly made the climb under their burdens, encouraged by the whistles and yelps of Eursett in the lead and Palamera to the side. Enseres for his part seemed to love it, constantly wanting to increase the pace and beat the others, complaining when he was restrained. The glare of Azrom finally returned as they crested the top of the canyon and the sandy hills — more of such hills spilled out every direction, with rocky jutting features coating their tops and dips alike. The Lightbringer was well on its way to setting in the southwest, probably leaving only another hour of daylight.
The pace of the party was increased as Deros watched them trot through the hills and thread between rocky rises. He immediately knew this to mean Thalamon intended to ride the extra couple of hours needed in the twilight after Azrom’s fall, to reach the favorable camping spot of Shaded Pit. They’d have to be extra cautious then, particularly of corsinids that loved to hunt in those periods around just such ambush-favoring terrain as they were trekking through.
The landscape was not greatly favorable for travel, requiring constant ups and downs and maneuvering around steeper features or pitfalls. Scrub bushes were plentiful, particularly graybrush, flowering white and frequented by flying black rósa insects. It at least allowed Deros to climb heights and see across great distances, which he took advantage of in his vigil of the party’s rear.
Just as Azrom was setting while they traversed a wide sandy rise, Deros heard a hissing sound — quickly dying — off a ways from their route, likely only audible thanks to his enhanced hearing. He swiftly had Enseres curl around a cluster of boulders to see Ryza cantering off from the pack, recurved hornbow in hand. Before he could get any further alarmed, he caught sight of the source of the noise: a large yellow lizard, unmoving in the sand, an arrow piercing it through. A line in the sand trailed back from it, where it must’ve dragged the arrowhead a couple of meters before ceasing animation altogether.
Deros slowed, though he continued riding up. Ryza stowed her bow and swung down off her mount as she came upon her prey, leaning down briefly to take it up with a hand by the neck and inspect it. A bit of blood oozed from its wound, the copper arrowhead poking out of its upper torso.
“Look how fat he is,” Ryza exclaimed, glancing at Deros with a smirk on her face. “Glutting himself on flowers and bugs before spring has even arrived.”
“Doomed to be glutted upon in turn,” Deros replied. “If not by you, then surely a bird or serpent.”
She nodded as she walked back over to her aloga and carefully pulled the arrowhead out of the carcass. She wiped it with a rag, set it aside, and wrapped the rag around the lizard where the wound was, then proceeded to tie it to the saddlebags. “I have a jar of flavoring spices,” she said as she worked. “You are welcome to a portion tonight, little brother. If we can bag another, even better.”
“Thank you, sis. I will surely bring something or another worth cooking with.”
She shrugged dismissively. “Company over the substance gathered for, hmm?” She finished with the carcass and hopped back up into the saddle of her aloga. “My kin is forever desired to eat with me.”
“And likewise, Ryza.” They were not kin by blood and Ryza knew none of her own besides. Her husband and she had been friends of his family since the war — though she looked of an age to be his somewhat older sister she was actually almost his mother’s age. They’d always been around, ageless icons and heroes of his youth, who’d more or less adopted his siblings and him. But the plague had taken them as well as Ryza’s adopted mother and remaining brother, and so grief had forged tighter bonds between them. If he had learned to be a strong tower to Palamera, he’d learned it from her. There was none stronger than Ryza Rainfeather — not across the face of Hamellion from pole to pole. He knew this with the certainty of the moons and their orbits. She was as invincible as a mountain.
Ryza grinned in his direction, squinting. Her eyes shifted over his shoulder. “Look there — Azrom has finished with our sky barely kissing our faces all along.”
Deros had to turn Enseres to look with her. Indeed, Azrom was setting on the horizon, casting many colors just as with his rising, to bid farewell in splendor. “Yea, we’ve done well to avoid him this day. Now he goes to pester others.”
Ryza chuckled. “I had forgotten you were one to blaspheme the old gods so casually. Good that we don’t worship him, at least. Come to think, I’ve heard they do in the west, mm?”
Turning once more toward Ryza, Deros made a small shrug. “The very distant west. Beyond the Taboan and the Smoking Titan also, are tribes that do. Worship and make sacrifices. Sometimes slaves, it’s said. The peoples of the Taboan despise them fiercely and even Konamanduras will not make trade with their ilk.”
The humor faded from Ryza’s face. “If I had another life, I’d send it there to destroy them and all else, who make slaves.”
Deros was silent as he studied his adopted sister. His eyes strayed to her earring of pewter. It had been melted down and reforged, from a small chain that had been around her neck — she’d been taken as a slave of some kind herself, a child refugee of tribal wars in the distant south, beyond even the lakes. Such things were common there, and an unremovable chain was a symbol of lifelong debt and service. She’d escaped that life some time past adolescence and broke the choker off herself, keeping it as a reminder. Despite great hardships, she survived, learning to hunt and trade.
The ancient hunter and wanderer Gerasinon Bright Horizon found her, supposedly led by dreams to a successor of the ‘inner way’ of the strange multi-civilization Slowseers. The old man adopted her as well as taught her, bringing her back to his home in the canyon and his fourth wife, who took to her far quicker than vice versa. It was a story fit for a hero, and she’d certainly become one for her community.
And a ruthless one, at that. He was awed as a child, to hear tales of her exploits as a soldier. Much in contrast to his father’s teaching, he recalled well her crouching down, mussing his hair, asking him, ‘what do we do to our enemies, little Deros?’ The first time, he’d shook his head and asked what, to which she leaned in, eyes squinted like a secret, and whispered darkly, ‘we destroy them.’ He’d known just how to answer when she’d asked once again, and he had loved her delighted reactions as he emulated her throaty whisper as best a young boy could.
“And I would send mine to help you, sister,” Deros finally replied. “But I think it’s well you are here for us. No doubt we should get back to this life’s duties before it passes out of sight, hmm?” He nodded in the direction of the pack aloga ahead of them.
Ryza glanced in the same direction and nodded. “Right you are. See you at camp, brother, and may Explorer guide your bow.”
“Luck guide yours.” Deros watched her ride off, wondering about the Slowseers. Would Ryza have some sort of dream leading her to others like her as well? He didn’t particularly believe it. Ryza claimed her dreams were never anything special, nor did she care much about the order she was supposedly born into. Gerasinon died before Deros was born, and seemed like someone Ryza respected more than loved, compared to her mother. Two other Slowseers had come to visit her, and she claimed they were too strange for her liking. They wanted her to travel and learn of them, but she’d refused.
She saw her abilities as more a means to an end than anything spiritual. That made sense to Deros — mostly how she explained it was that she ‘experienced things slower’ when the inner way was used. It was something vaguely like daug’makar but as though inverted, focused inward instead of outward. Deros could not detect its use — nor even that she was Blessed at all — with his farsense. But she moved faster when in the trance, and barely seemed to aim her bow as she fired two or three times as fast as any other. In hand-to-hand, she was practically untouchable. She certainly did not need Explorer’s aid with the bow.
Esteron Horizoncarver did not use nor need a bow. In his diaries, he talked of ‘projection’, in which he lifted objects from a distance, killed ‘the murderbirds’ by breaking their necks or driving through their hearts, and made jumps up mountainous climbs. He cursed his own ineptitude with ‘levitation’ like it was common. The strangeness and the nonexistence of such abilities, coupled with his seeming limitations and mortality, made many reject the copied writings as heretical. But to the recordkeepers of the south, to the Observatorians, and the Order of Asylum in Alnaseria, it was the truth of history and ancestry almost forgotten.
A tribe came to what they called Hamellion from ‘the distant lands’, of which they never detailed as though taboo, and carved civilization out of desolation. The one called Explorer sought water and resources across vast distances and Founder-Builder made structures and cities as though with a great future vision. The greatest was Alnaseria, The Shining City On the Lake. Abilities such as theirs had inevitably died and they’d failed to keep what they built completely unbroken, but it had survived.
Not gods, Taldecca. Just people. Just us. Is that so blasphemous, after all?
Deros turned to gaze at fallen Azrom one last time, seeing only a glow where he’d been. It was said that Azrom left the world in the dark and the cold every day to keep the people humble and appreciative of his touch. But he recalled a quote of Esteron he’d read over and over, late in the works written, when the godman went south:
‘This place we call Hamellion seems like a drying graveyard of scant few worms. I’ve tried for a year toward the equator and there is no route just as there is no Way. Only sand and heat I fear becomes unbearable. This accursed star is too close. How long do we have here? Was it even worth it? Damn this rock and damn Azrom, if it was all for nothing. Damn Him, especially.’
If one of the ‘gods’ we worship is not grateful, why should I be? Deros did not quite damn the Lightbringer, though, as he turned to follow after the rest of the party, keeping his ear tuned to detect footfalls of danger and feeling a sudden pang of hunger for some lizard meat.
