Tewsdee, the 22nd of Frost, 768 A.E.
For the rest of the previous Dee and much of the next morning Anthea and the others had been pulling a crude sled with Bedros on it up the mountain stairs. Eight long Arc-lances, twenty or so white cloaks from the Guardians, and a lot of rope had been all they could really work with, but it had been enough.
It had taken all five of them to lift one side of Bedros at a time to slide the sled underneath him. That was the easy part. Dragging him up the steps was harder than it seemed it would be. He was over four hundred Kees, and even on a sled it was tiring to get him up a few steps, let alone drag him for Ouers. They took frequent breaks, but even then, they had to adjust the Arc-lances under him or the cloaks that they’d used for bedding and cushioning.
By the time the previous night had ended, all of their hands had been blistered, and their legs were about ready to give out. Their muscles had nothing more they could give. Anthea had kept waiting for one of them to suggest leaving him behind, as she knew she wouldn’t have been able to come up with a good reason for not doing it, but they had not.
He was so far gone and hurt that nothing she could do without flowers could restore him, let alone without since they and much of their baggage had been burned with him. Even as they slept, he was able to do little more than toss and turn in his fitful state, caught somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, yet so delirious from the agony that he could never become fully awake.
Despite all their weariness and misgivings, they had all gotten up without complain the next morning and taken up the ropes to Bedros’ sled once more. And if they moved slower and more stiffly than the Dee before, what could she say? Rolf’s left arm was in a sling, and the others had numerous cuts and bruises that would not heal when their bodies were still being abused for Ouers on end each Dee.
With each agonizing step up those stairs that had been hewn into the mountains, Anthea debated her course thus far, trying to figure out where everything had begun to fall apart. They were nearly out of rations and her flowers were gone. Even robbing the dead had provided little of worth. Their Aurean attackers had not been prepared for a long stay out in the elements; that much was clear. That meant that they had either come from the city or they had a camp somewhere out there. Whichever was the case, Anthea knew Bedros wouldn’t last much longer. They needed to find the city or the camp, and if it would save his life, she’d already decided she was willing to throw herself on the mercies of the Grand Helion.
So, when Rolf announced wearily during that Dee, “There’s someone up ahead,” she had very mixed feelings. On one hand she might have to fight yet again if this was another enemy, or this might be her chance to surrender and save her friends. Neither was a particularly appealing future.
They halted there on one of the steps, the thousandth or more for all she knew, and waited for the lone man in Guardian’s Golden armor and a flowing cloak of a rich bronze tone to approach. Each of them waited with weapons drawn, not willing to leave anything to chance.
“I have not drawn my weapon because I come not in hostility.” The man called down to them in High Elegian, stopping a dozen steps away, or about thirty-five Mayters, which was quite easily within Rolf’s gun range.
“What do you want?” Anthea asked.
“Anthea, you must flee before the Grand Helion seizes you. He is sending men now. He knows of your nature and that Corydon wants you. That makes you worth having since Corydon has been branded a heretic.” The man warned.
Anthea frowned, trying to absorb all that he had just said. “Who are you that we should believe you and how do you know me?”
“Vitalis. Lady, you spared me once in Cenalium, and I would do the same for you now.” The man replied.
“What’s he saying?” Makan asked.
“He says he wants to help us.” Anthea whispered to her companions in Low Elegian, the common language of their group. “Let me find out more.”
Makan nodded. “Just make sure he’s not delaying or distracting us.”
“Please, lady. There is little time left.” Vitalis shouted down to her.
“Why should I believe you if you’ve already broken you word to me?” Anthea asked, switching back to High Elegian to speak to the Aurean man. “Supposing it truly is you, you said you would never be a Guardian again and you would never carry a weapon. You plainly have an arc-sword on your hip.”
“Lady… Anthea, you know not what it costs me to carry this weapon in the service of a man who will not allow me to seek vengeance for the deaths of my wife and child.”
“They were killed?” Anthea asked in surprise.
“As near to it as could happen without someone sticking a blade in their bellies. We were sent into the lowlands without light because I let you escape. Corydon is not kind to those who fail in their duties. They died of dark poisoning within half a Wayke, but I was not so lucky.”
“How is it you live?”
“I was sick and delirious, wanting to die, but a man found me and helped me. I left Maethlin with his aid and came here, hoping that the Grand Helion would have me since I had news of Cenalium. He did, but he pressed me back into the service, saying he’d have to kill me as a deserter if I didn’t rejoin the Guardians here.”
Anthea shook her head in disgust at what she’d heard. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I don’t know that we can trust you.”
“Anthea, please believe me.” Vitalis pleaded.
Then, in a gesture of trust, he reached to his hip, unstrapped his sword and cast it aside, though he nearly took a bullet in the gut for doing so. Rolf saw the movement and would have shot him had Anthea not held out a staying hand.
“That’s a start. What else can you do for us? My friend is dying, and I must get him to a healer as soon as possible.” Anthea admitted, surprised at the man’s actions and willing to see if he could take it one step further.
“There is a Guardian Flier nearby, left by Corydon’s loyalists who attacked you. I take it from your presence here that you killed them and likely destroyed the other Flier? There were landing marks for two, not just the one that remains in their camp.”
“They are gone and dead.” Anthea answered simply. “How is it that this last Guardian Flier is ours for the taking? Surely there are guards.”
“I disposed of them already. I came upon them this morning and surprised them. Both of them are dead.” Vitalis replied, pointing to his arc-sword where it lay.
“Anthea, this is dangerous standing here. We need to keep moving.” Sagira urged her. “He might even be delaying us until his allies get her.”
Anthea nodded, turning to speak in Low Elegian to her companions once more. “Don’t I know that better than any? This man says we must not go to Aetheline, but he says there’s another Guardian Flier.”
“So, we leave from here in a Guardian Flier?” Rolf asked.
Anthea shook her head and shrugged. “I’m not sure. We came too far only to leave now, but if we truly are not wanted in Aetheline, fleeing is better than certain death or imprisonment.”
“Where would we go?” Makan asked.
“I know of a place.” Nishan said. “It will be safe for some time. It will give us time to heal and rethink our course.”
“Can we trust this man though?” Sagira worried aloud. “How is it you even know him?”
“He owes me his life already. Bedros and I spared him as we fled Cenalium. In the present circumstances, I feel that we must trust him. The enchantment does not tell me to do otherwise.” Anthea replied, but in her heart, she wondered what a desperate man whose family had already died indirectly because of her might do.
She waited for some protest from her friends, but there was none. “You give me your word?” Anthea called back up to Vitalis, switching back once more to High Elegian.
Vitalis knelt where he stood and bowed his head, touching his middle and forefingers from his right hand to his forehead. “I swear it on the names of Maletos and Haestos. I will aid you in your escape, even if it means my death now or later because of it.”
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“Then take us, Aurean, but first, come give us a hand with Bedros.” Anthea commanded.
Vitalis did as she asked, and it lightened her heart to see that he didn’t even cast a glance at his sword as he rose and moved to come take a place beside them pulling the ropes.
“It isn’t far.” He promised her as they struggled alongside each other, and his eyes told her he was not lying.
With Vitalis’ help, they pulled Bedros up another length of stairs, but when they reached the next landing, they did not continue on. Instead, they turned down a side path that was not obvious even when you knew what to look for. The snow was packed and had hardened nearly to the point of being iced over, so there were no real tracks to show that anyone had walked that way recently.
Getting Bedros’ sled up off the stairs and onto the icy path was no small task, and the jostling around it took caused him to groan in pain more than once, but he didn’t or could not respond more than that. He had not spoken or done anything intelligible since he’d destroyed the Flier. They’d not even been able to force any fluid past what remained of his blistered and burnt lips.
It took them twenty Mynettes on the icy path before they came upon the Flier. Rolf stiffened visibly when he saw the two bodies of Guardians lying beside the large Flier.
“What’s this?” Rolf demanded.
Nishan obliged by putting a kerambit blade to Vitalis’ neck, but the man did not flinch or try to get away.
“He can’t understand you.” Anthea said angrily.
“Did you know about this?” Rolf asked.
“He said he killed the only two guarding it.” Anthea answered.
“Let me double check his math.” Sagira suggested, drawing her two curved yataghan knives out of her belt sash.
Anthea nodded. “Do it.” And then to Vitalis she said in High Elegian, “They want to be sure of your honesty.”
Vitalis merely nodded and waited while Sagira circled the Flier and then went in through the side ramp. She returned less than a Mynette later to report.
“It’s clear.” Sagira announced. “If anyone else survived, they are not here now.”
Nishan eased away from Vitalis, offering him a wink as he twirled the black kerambit in his hand and made it disappear up into his sleeve.
“Let’s get Bedros aboard.” Anthea ordered, nodding her head toward the ramp of the Flier.
Makan held up a hand to object. “Even if we do that, we cannot fly it. That thought has been bothering me since we decided to come this way, but I guess if I do not voice it now, I will never get another chance.”
“Can you show us how to fly this?” Anthea asked Vitalis in their common tongue, feeling foolish for not having thought of that. “Our coming here was pointless if you cannot.”
Again, he nodded. “Quickly, but I cannot come with you to help you. You will need someone with deft hands and a mind for machinery to operate it. Two people are better than one.”
Anthea looked around at her expectant companions, he eyes lingering longest on Nishan. “Nishan, he will show you how to work it and I will translate for you if needed. You can explain to Sagira and Makan when we’re in the air. Rolf, your left arm is useless, so you won’t be able to use it I don’t think.”
“Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure.” Makan said with a nod, pulling the rope for Bedros’ sled up over his shoulder to make ready to pull once more.
“Let’s go then, time is not our friend now, and Thuraish waits for no one. His clocks never stop, so we cannot either.” Anthea said, trying to inspire one last flurry of activity out of herself and her companions, though her words came out more darkly than she’d have liked. Referring to the God of Time and the clocks he supposedly wound for each living person in the world was hardly a light-hearted topic.
It seemed to do the trick though. Eager to finally be finished with the arduous task of climbing the mountain stairs and then dragging Bedros for a Dee, they all pulled with the last bit of energy they had.
Five Mynettes later, they had Bedros up the ramp and strapped in between the troop benches in the main compartment of the Flier. Twenty Mynettes later, Anthea was finished translating Vitalis’ directions to Nishan, and he looked to be rather comfortable with the surprising number of knobs and levers surrounding the pilot’s chair. The others were busy searching the Flier for food and medical supplies, as well as stripping the dead Guardians outside of anything worthwhile.
“Anthea, you must leave now.” Vitalis pleaded, grasping her arm lightly as she stood over Bedros.
“We will, but only if you are certain we cannot go to Aetheline.”
“I’m positive you cannot. Corydon has spread heresy that stirred up trouble in all corners of our way of life. The Grand Helion is desperate to find the reasons for this, and he knows that you are at the core of it somehow. His spies have heard as much. You must not let yourself fall into his hands. I cannot say what would happen to you were you to let that occur.”
“Then we truly leave must.” Anthea said regretfully. A large part of her had hoped that her journey would have ended here, even if she were not optimistic enough to expect that to happen.
Vitalis regarded her nervously, like a man might a queen he was about to ask for a favor. “Promise me two things before you go.”
“Two?”
“First, that if you aim to challenge Corydon you will send word to me. I would be there when you face him to help you once more if I can, for the sake of my wife and child. I fear their memories will not rest otherwise, and they will be unhappy in Nelius’ house.”
Anthea nodded, understanding his wish completely. “I will do as you ask in this matter. And the second?”
“Have one of your friends club me into unconsciousness outside so that I am not once more branded a traitor. Then throw an arc-lance or arc-sword on the ground near me to make it look like I gave a good fight.”
Anthea laughed softly. “I will do as you ask, though I think I will ask Makan. He will likely be kinder to your skull than Rolf would.”
“The Kerathi?” Vitalis asked. He grimaced and said, “His eyes are filled with hatred for me. There is darkness in him. Beware of his darker side, Anthea.”
“I know him and I will watch him, but we must part ways now, Vitalis. For what it’s worth, I mourn your loss.”
Vitalis smiled ruefully. “As do I, every waking Ouer of every Dee, as well as most of my resting Ouers.”
Before anything else could be said, he walked down the ramp and stood eight paces away from the Flier, his back turned to it and his helmet at his feet. Anthea asked Makan to do what Vitalis had asked of her, and he reluctantly agreed. Yet he knew the seriousness of the matter, so he did not shirk in his task even if it was an unsavory deed to perform.
Makan walked down the ramp, and Anthea saw Vitalis’ shoulders flinch as Makan’s booted feet crunched across the few Mayters of snow between them. A single strike of the butt of his fish spear to the back of Vitalis’ skull was all it took. The Aurean slumped over onto the ground, and Makan cast the arc-sword a pace away from Vitalis’ outstretched hand.
“It is finished.” Makan announced quietly as he stepped back up the ramp and into the main compartment of the Flier. It was clear he had not enjoyed the task.
“The lets go.” Anthea said, touching Makan’s shoulder to let him know how much she appreciated what he had done. Then she flicked the lever that Vitalis had showed her would raise the ramp.
When the ramp was closed, she went into the cockpit of the Flier and nodded to Nishan to start. He grinned widely and began deftly maneuvering the many levers and knobs, going through a series of motions he’d memorized and run through for the last twenty Mynettes of more since Vitalis had shown him what to do.
Practice is no substitute for the real thing though, so it was not surprising when Nishan’s takeoff was rather shaky. The craft shivered as it rose up initially, but then a slip of the wrong lever made them drop. They bounced off the ground once, dropping half a Mayter before lifting once more at a rate that made Anthea’s stomach feel like it had fallen through the floor. After that his flying was smoother, if a bit wobbly at times.
Anthea sat down and looked out one of the frosted windows, watching the grey and indigo mountains covered with snow sweep past her. Makan sat down next to her, putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. He knew that she was giving up a chance to be with her people again, and in doing so she was admitting to herself that her father was dead and not waiting for her.
Together they watched as the line of stairs that snaked through the mountains below them came into view. They had spent Dees on them and now they rolled by the window so easily, like water shedding off a roof. They headed toward a set of crystal towers at the peak of the mountain, seemingly only a couple Ouers from where they had last been. The delicate towers refracted light into rainbows like a prism splitting light. Egg-like domes sat at the base of each tower, one for each of the Grancittas, or so Anthea had heard said once. Dozens of other buildings were arranged outside a translucent wall that wrapped around the complex of towers and domes, likely the dwellings and businesses of lesser citizens who could not live in the inner city of the Grand Helion.
“It’s beautiful.” Anthea said quietly.
“Yes, it is.” Makan admitted, his face taking on a stoic look.
Anthea sighed. “Yet for all its beauty, it could not cause us anything but pain.”
“Maybe the only reason you came here was to escape from it. Maybe it was just another step in your path, another stumbling block?”
“No, if I came here for anything, it was to meet Genero and Vitalis.”
“Genero?” Makan asked, repeating the unfamiliar name.
“The captain of the men who attacked us. He spoke of my mother and secrets that are too strange to have been lies, yet I don’t see how they could be true either. And with what Vitalis told me, all of Aurean society is up in arms. Things are getting bad, Makan, and confusing as well.”
“Things have been bad, Anthea.” Makan said with a sigh, not pursuing the topic of Anthea’s mother because of the sorrow in her voice when she mentioned her.
The Flier shook as winds buffeted them along. Anthea closed her eyes, not wanting to watch if they would plummet to their deaths. Nishan was untrained as a pilot, but she wanted to trust him. It just wasn’t easy.
Sagira came out of the rear of the Flier a few Saycunds later, saying, “Juria bless me, can he shake this thing anymore?” With mention of the favored Goddess of her people, she kissed her fingertips and touched them to her temples.
Anthea opened her eyes to look at her. Sagira held an armload of papers and charts. “What’s all that?”
“Genero’s notes and maps, but I cannot read them. They are in High Elegian, and while I understand some of it, I cannot make out the Aurean dialect and writing script.”
“Perhaps in studying them I can learn more of our enemies that still live.” Anthea remarked. “Yet I would trade it all for one flower so that I could heal Bedros.”
“We all would, Anthea.” Makan replied, turning to look at the Ox-Man where he lay. He was not a pretty sight even with his whole body, except for his burnt face, covered in white Guardian cloaks. “For now, we can only hope that his spirit stays strong. He has only you to live for, and I do not think he will let go of his life easily. Nelius will have to pry it from his hands.”
“I will make this better. I must.” Anthea whispered to herself.
Then she closed her eyes and let her weariness take her into sleep. The hum of the Flier’s rotor engines lulled her into sleep quickly. She woke only briefly a few Mynettes later and found the sole surviving crystal pod sitting in her lap and glowing brightly. She smiled and drifted off once more.
In the front of the vessel, Nishan took them toward the place he had spoke of. The others could only trust him as Anthea had. Weariness made trust a bit easier, as none of them had the energy to argue.
