Pillars Of Grace - The God Pillars Trilogy - Book 1

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Despite the heat, these parts of the Southern Lands had more vegetation than Miraveh had expected, untouched by the Shade of Xirasir's corruption. The rocky landscape had given way to a vast plain, filled with tall grasses, small groves of trees that appeared to lean in towards each other, protecting themselves from the harsh Sun's glare. Lazy, wide rivers snaked their way north-west, trailing down from mountains that hugged the coastline to the east.

Miraveh had not mentioned the lost stronghold of the Velaurian Order. Not to Brothimir. Not to anyone. Her dreams had changed, though, incorporating a large stone edifice, the wall of a vast castle, populated by the skulls of those that had died in her past. Those she had not managed to save. Those that she had killed. Those that had tried to kill her. More than once, she had awoken to find Brothimir staring at her, as though he watched her dreams as she slept.

They had decided to travel, as much as they could, outside of the prickling heat of the days. Avoiding the middle part of each day, travelling until it became too dark to see and then setting off once more as dawn approached. Miraveh had sunk into a brooding silence that not even Daras' never-ending joy could break. Turotara had stopped trying to get her to spar with her.

Now, looking down upon a wide, flat valley, Miraveh could see several directions that they could travel, yet knew nothing of the land in which to make an informed choice. She knew the candidate for the Pillars lay to the west. How far away, she could not tell, but that mystical urge to head that way had started to become stronger. She cursed the fact that she was a 'Seeker' and considered the south and the east, though they too had their problems.

"Daitmar's Cauldron? It sounds ghastly!" Shading her eyes with a hand, Sialira lifted herself up in the saddle, gazing towards the low mountain range to the south. "And you say there's no way around it?"

"No, I said going around it would take time and effort. The Reaching Mountains to the east of it are treacherous. More rocks fall there than rain in the north. Unstable mountains are not easy to pass." Daras moved a pointing finger from the east, towards the western side of the Cauldron. "To the west is a body of water we call the Lake of the Dead, though it's more like a sea. So salty that nothing lives within those waters. The Cauldron itself? Well, you can try to pass through, but it's not called a 'cauldron' for fun."

Miraveh could imagine. Even from here, she could see the bright, shining white sprawl of those low mountains, that looked like hills compared to the larger mountain range to the east, whose thin spires appeared to stretch upwards like thin, clawed fingers grasping toward the sky. Those low, white mountains of the Cauldron would reflect all heat down into the vast valley within. Deathly hot during the day, frigid cold during the night.

That left two options. The land moved away to the east, where a thin corridor of land hugged the eastern coast and the Reaching Mountains loomed above on the other side. From outdated maps she had seen years ago, that corridor of land led all the way past the most harsh parts of the Southern Lands, to parts of the world the Northern Lands knew little about. Those areas where the Spice Road led. Lands of untold riches and strange cultures. Yet the Spice Road did not pass down that thin corridor of land

The western option seemed the easiest. The Spice Road veered off that way before hooking southwards once again hundreds of miles to the west. The same direction in which her Seeker's urge wanted her to go. The direction that Yusuvur would counsel. In that direction lay civilisation, of a sort. A string of villages, towns and cities, all clinging to the coastline. There were few settlements on the hot plains.

"How goes travelling further into the plains? Is there water? Shelter?" From here, Miraveh could see little of that, save for the sluggish rivers that she doubted had clean water, or the groves that could hide any number of dangers. "Are there crossings for the rivers?"