A Hollow Mountain (The Brightest Shadow Book 2), page 3
"Do not fear, child, do not fear. With any luck, the Deathspawn and the raiders will kill each other and you will be able to pass freely."
"Thank you, elder." Tani gave him a weak smile, surprised that he had mistaken her hatred for fear. The conversation slid to an awkward halt.
Instead of letting her emotions control her, Tani grasped the mental arts that Jaer had taught her and considered carefully. Even if the mansthein woman had been Celivia, that information was irrelevant. What mattered was that the Deathspawn were active in the region. All she needed to do was pass the information along to the others, though she decided not to mention the silver-haired mansthein woman. Slaten had somehow managed to forgive Celivia and the fact might cloud his judgment.
"I am sorry for asking about terrible things, elder, but I am merely worried for my journey." She managed to improve her smile a little as she faced Khenor again. "Let us speak of something lighter. I have heard such strange stories about a man calling himself a 'sage' of some kind..."
"Ah, poor Ranenal!" The old man shook his head, a smile on his lips but sorrow in his eyes. "He was always a strange one, but last year... he wandered into the mountains, and when he returned, he had changed. Once he was a cobbler like his father... but I suppose that does not matter to you."
"It is still interesting! You say that he only made these claims recently, after he returned?"
Khenor breathed in until his pipe must be empty, then released the smoke slowly before he spoke again. "It started just over a year ago, when he suddenly claimed that he could see the Legend. As if anyone could see the oldest story in the world! He said he was called into the mountains, but... I do not know if he found anything there, but he returned unhappy."
She had already been faking her positive mood, so Tani dropped her smile as soon as she had a reason. "I am truly sorry to hear that. I had hoped he was merely a local eccentric."
"No longer, I am afraid. There seems to be no sense to his ramblings, so he may simply be yet another of those driven mad by talk of the Legend. Usually the worst of those come up from the Expanse, but apparently such madness can be found in the mountains as well."
That, more than anything else the man had said, sent a chill through her body. Everywhere she had traveled, people spoke of the Legend, but it had gained new meaning with the arrival of the Hero... and that meaning was spreading. It had been more dire with the Heroes before Melal, but even with him, the process only seemed to be growing worse. All around her, the world grew brighter and brighter...
As soon as she could while being polite, Tani made her excuses and left the smokehouse. Once she was outside, she breathed deeply of the smoke-free air, but it wasn't enough to restore her mood. She could force herself to focus, but she couldn't banish all thoughts of the Legend or that betrayer.
Tani took in her surroundings to find Slaten - and immediately smelled mint. The sensation was a shock to her mind, warning her that immensely powerful sein flowed nearby. A year ago, she would have reacted automatically by letting her own sein flow and escaping.
Now, she automatically analyzed the source before acting. As her intuition had guessed, it wasn't exactly a threat, just a display of force. There was a Deathspawn Catai looming on the street nearby, sein coursing through his body like a river. He wasn't threatening anyone, just watching carefully to see who reacted to his display.
It had been a trap. Tani forced herself to breathe normally and walk away at a normal pace.
If he was searching for her specifically, he wouldn't have used such a technique. Either the Catai was looking for trouble, or he had a suspicion that a sein-trained warrior hid in the area. Several guards reacted with panic and one idiot actually raised a sword, but the enormous Deathspawn ignored them. Perhaps he had more dangerous searching arts.
As she walked, Tani let her sein flow through her as subtly as possible, wrapping herself in the air. Such arts came easily to her, as the smell of mint had been her first experience with sein, but her ability to use sein to mask herself had always been less developed than her other skills. She'd corrected a bit of that imbalance during their journey, but now she found herself wishing she'd done more.
Though she began with the smell of mint, that soon faded away. Instead she placed herself in the forests of her home, lying on the sunlight-dappled ground. She sank into the experience, becoming only one of the motes hanging in the light. Nothing worthy of notice, not resisting any foreign sein attempting to find her, simply existing in a pure state.
How well it worked, she couldn't be sure. But Tani heard the Catai stomp off in a different direction and continued walking. The smile on her face wasn't even triumphant, simply content as she emerged from the memories.
After the close encounter, she hastened back to the sage's house as quickly as she could without drawing attention. Thankfully, once she arrived she saw that Slaten had returned as well. He was talking with Veron in a low voice and both of them looked up when she arrived.
"There you are." Veron fixed her with a smirk. "You took the time to sleep with the local Rhen?"
"Have some faith in their stamina." Tani simply rolled her eyes at the jibe and gave Slaten a serious glance. "Did you see that they have a Catai? I was told the mansthein have other reasons for being in Kanalgan, but I think we have to be cautious."
"Both of you are so uptight about this! I'm sure we slipped them back at Hunalan."
"I'm not convinced." Tani looked past Veron to Slaten, who nodded slightly before speaking.
"I didn't learn anything else about them, but I did see the Catai. After that, I returned here so that we could depart as quickly as possible. Unfortunately..." He shifted to look back into the building and for a moment Tani feared that the sage would be dead.
Instead, she discovered the man sitting up and rubbing his grimy face with one hand. Laeri sat beside him, leaning on her staff. There was only one problem: Melal was nowhere to be seen.
Tani looked back to the others, not needing to ask her question. After a brief pause, Veron shrugged. "He got bored and left to get a drink. I'd have joined him, since it was a damn good idea, except for the Melal part. Anyway, I figure we should wait."
That didn't make any sense to Tani, so she stepped inside. Instead of focusing first on the stranger, she instead knelt down beside Laeri. "Did you succeed in healing him?"
"He's mostly healthy now." Laeri chewed on her lower lip nervously. "But I'm not skilled enough to undo the long term damage he's done to himself by abusing various substances. There's also... something odd, something I wasn't able to fix. But you can talk to him if you want."
"Not likely." The sage scowled at her with bloodshot eyes. "I've slept off worse, so I didn't need your healing. All of this is just a big interruption. You can talk to me if I want."
"I don't think you can stop me from talking," Tani said, "but I hope you'll listen as well. We've traveled a long way to meet you, so I hope you really are the sage you claim to be."
"Well, that depends on what you've heard." He rubbed his face vigorously again, then hunted for something in his teeth with his tongue. Eventually failing, he just stared at them sourly. "I'll admit you've got something of the spark around you, but you're no Hero. For all I know, you're working for the Deathspawn. Besides, I don't know anything."
Some naive part of Tani had been hoping that the sage would prove more grand once he awoke, but as he scratched beneath his robe, that dream evaporated. Still, she wasn't willing to give up. "If you don't know anything, why did you call yourself a sage?"
"I started saying that back when I thought I could see everything. Then when I changed my mind, it was too late. I don't have it in me."
"Are you saying that we've come all this way for nothing?"
"More or less. Go look for the Legend somewhere el..." He trailed off in the middle of a word, staring over her shoulder. Before Tani turned, she felt Melal's presence as he stepped into the room. Even in the shadowed chamber, his hair seemed to shine and his eyes glimmered so pale blue they were nearly white.
"You're the sage?" Melal folded his arms over his broad chest. "Start talking. Just who are you?"
A change visibly shuddered through the man, his slumped posture straightening and his eyes lighting up. It reminded Tani of all the seinshocked veterans, animated by frenzied passion for the Legend. Though he didn't rise, the sage seemed to swell as he spoke, his voice now more resonant.
"The Legend is not meant to be carried within one person. The Hero draws it forward, but others bear fragments." His eyes swept over Tani and the others as they entered the room. "You carry the potential to become the Hero's companions. Those who respond to the Legend not with strength, but with wisdom... we are called sages."
"Great." Melal leaned in and frowned down at the man. "You'd better have more to say than that. I was called here for another reason... as if... you can see the path I am meant to walk."
"Perhaps some can. But not this sage." All presence left the man and he dropped his gaze to the empty bowl at his side. "I cannot see far enough or clearly enough. You must seek out others who will cast their own lights upon your destiny."
"That sounds like it will take too much time. Which sage is strongest?"
The rumpled man stared at him with bleary eyes, then gave a nod of pure exhaustion. "I cannot say for sure, but when I attempted to find truth in the mountains, I met a man... I have never seen anyone who saw the path half so well. I have heard it said he moved to live atop Mount Tmil, guarded against the Deathspawn, but that is all I can tell you of him."
"Good enough." Melal turned around as if he'd already forgotten about the sage and shot everyone a bright grin. "Then we know where we're going next: Mount Tmil. Does anyone know where that is?"
"Oh, this is going to be cold." Veron rubbed her eyes, then looked over at Tani. "I don't suppose you bought anything to drink? I think I'm gonna need it."
Destiny accomplished, they gathered their supplies and headed out of the dingy shack. Tani found herself staring backward, trying to catch a glimpse of the sage. Had this moment been his purpose in the Legend? Now that it had passed, would a weight have fallen from his shoulders? The way he slumped on his bed, it looked more as if the words had been wrenched from within him, leaving a hollow shell.
Part of her wanted to go back and speak to him, though she had no idea what she would say. But at that moment Slaten put a hand on her shoulder. "Tani, it looks like the mansthein are moving. It might not be related, but they could have noticed us. We need to leave."
She nodded, pulling herself back together. Such things had happened many times before during the long days where they had searched for the sage. Now that they had found him, she felt certain that the peaceful part of their journey had ended.
Chapter 2
-
"Text: Even the rudest rube knows that north of the lands we know lies the Kingdom of Corah which is a land of bold warriors clad in clothes of metal who are quick to friendship but quicker to anger. They build with rough stone and yet they create great mounds of rock from which they do battle with one another.
Gloss: The text was written before Corah split into three nations, of course. Your humble annotator wishes to point out that the original text was mostly free of sentences, so punctuation has been added for the reader's benefit in this annotated edition."
- excerpt from The Annotated Travels of Telekrainas the Great
-
Slaten had never realized how much he took for granted the endless sky stretching over the plains. He had thought he knew hills from the south of the Chorhan Expanse, but those were mere rumples in fabric compared to the slopes they now crossed. The earth and stone encroached on the sky, as if they descended even though they walked uphill.
Ahead of them, the Sotunn Mountains loomed stationary in the distance. They were already climbing, but judging from the peaks ahead, they would climb much higher. Up to that point, they could follow the stars and head north, avoiding the main roads. Now cliffs and crevices tore apart the fields, making the going much more difficult. When they reached the actual mountains, he didn't think that traveling aimlessly would be possible, or at least survivable.
Yet onward they marched, Melal in the lead. Slaten had been guarding their rear, but now moved forward, nodding to Tani to keep a lookout. He passed Laeri, who was struggling with the rough terrain, and Veron, who was cursing under her breath as she tried to dislodge a rock from her boot. By the time he came alongside Melal, he had gathered his thoughts.
"It sounds as though we'll have a difficult journey to find the sage of Mount Tmil."
Melal grunted in acknowledgment without looking at him. "The path of the Legend would be too easy otherwise, wouldn't it? The first sage was but a signpost leading us to the true path."
"Just as you say, this will be a difficult path. Rushing the Legend is impossible." Slaten knew that he was not a subtle man, but experience with the Hero had painfully taught him that he needed to be indirect. "Just as we need to prepare by meeting the sage, should we not prepare for this journey?"
"Nah." With that grunt, Melal simply dismissed his argument. Slaten was taken aback, but he had been afraid of such an answer, so he managed not to splutter and tried a different tack.
"Everyone has told us that the Sotunn Mountains are cold and treacherous, especially without a local guide. Look at how much Laeri struggles - the rocks will tear apart her shoes if they grow much worse. And beyond the difficulty of the path itself, we will be threatened by raiders and Deathsp-"
"Just what do you want?"
"Let us travel east first, to Het-Inai. It is the greatest city before the mountains, more than large enough for us to buy all the supplies we need and learn the best path to Mount Tmil."
"Huh. That's an Oken city, isn't it?"
"Yes, but that isn't the reason I suggest it. Everything we've learned about Mount Tmil suggests it is to the northeast, so we wouldn't be going out of our way. Once there, we could learn which approach is best an-"
"We need to go north." Melal finally looked over at him, though he continued marching forward. "You might not be able to feel it, Slaten, but I'm following a glorious destiny. It is no accident that the path of the Legend leads us straight north. There is no need to stray from it."
Slaten swallowed, trying to decide if there was any chance of breaking through to him. Sometimes Melal could be so pliable, but when that light kindled in his eyes...
"M-Melal?" Slaten recognized Laeri's quiet voice from behind and turned to see her struggling to catch up to them. "I'm so tired... can we stop for a break? Would that be okay?"
Given how hastily they had left town, Slaten wanted to get further away, but he waited too long to object. Melal gave Laeri a broad smile and flicked her hood off her head, laughing as she yelped and pulled it back into place. "Alright, Laeri, we can give you some time to rest. We make camp just beyond that hill."
Camping beyond the hill would at least obscure their position slightly, so Slaten decided not to argue. He ran a quick circle around the location and discovered no threats. When he returned, he found that Melal had started a fire and Veron was cooking some of their perishable food. It struck him as a security risk, but he wasn't willing to stand between Veron and hot food.
Slaten wasn't hungry, but he did take the opportunity to get off his feet. He sat down beside Tani by the fire, only then realizing that her attention was withdrawn. She'd removed a wooden case from her pack and now pored over the inscribed hide within. The case was rougher than the one he'd seen with other Rhen tribes, and the hide was nothing like the ornate texts that he'd seen there. Still, Tani treated them as if they were sacred documents.
Eventually her attention rose from the text to look at him. "I can see you want to ask. Go ahead."
"I didn't want to disturb you."
"It's fine. I've finished reviewing what I wanted." Tani ran her fingers lightly over the surface, her gaze falling into the arcing lines of Rhen script. "My master gave this to me as the next step in my training, but it seems much more obscure than her past lessons. The purpose is obviously deepening my understanding of sein, but it doesn't speak about anything as simple as tasting or touching it. Instead, the warrior who wrote this seemed to believe the art was best taught by explaining around it."
When they had passed by Tani's village on their way north, Slaten had briefly met Master Yanumi. Given her lack of respect for tradition, he was surprised that her disciple had turned out like Tani. "I assume that she knows best. Did she leave you an entire plan of study?"
"She said that I needed to begin making some of my own decisions, but yes, she made copies of several texts. These should take me to the end of my current path, there's just so much yet to master..." Tani put away the hides with obvious affection. Since she would likely train next, Slaten bade her farewell and left her to her exercises.
Truthfully, it was more than that. Seeing how comfortable she was in her tradition, cared for by her master, left him with a pain he could not name. He could still train himself, and there were elements of Oken arts that he had yet to master, but he had no guiding light.
It was more than a matter of identity, it was a simple question of practical training. Slaten walked away from the fire to isolate himself so he could think more clearly. Though he'd grown stronger, he remembered clearly the strength of Celivia and other powerful mansthein, much less the Zeitai who stood entirely beyond his reach. Simply continuing his normal exercises in pursuit of strength could not possibly be enough.
He climbed the nearby hill, both to watch the surrounding region and to contemplate his sein. Finding a fallen tree trunk, he sat upon it and placed his hands on his knees. Though he kept his eyes open, his focus was less on the forested hills than the sein flowing within him.
Instead of drawing on it for strength, Slaten let himself fall into the flow. He brought himself back to the battle that had so devastated Bundlin, with all of its chaos and bloodshed. Instead of remembering thoughts or emotions, he tried to fully dwell in the pounding of his heart, the screams, the raw violent power...
