Davir Her Arun | 21st day of Sprout season
As they traversed a cluster of pines thriving on sandy, dark terrains, Davir remained alert, hands firm on his reins. On his stallion, he trotted on a dimming path, temples brushing leaves perched on lanky twigs. Eyes adjusted to the thickening dark, their short-reach down bendy ways promised unexpected danger.
Davir inhaled in strenuous focus, forehead creased with skin folds around his brows. He grasped onto his vessel. Shadows leaked into his body like molten smoke, turning malleable to his will.
The aftermath of the unnatural expansion of his senses was exhaustion matching fighting a blackcircle battle. A minor inconvenience to ensure some control over the situation.
He refocused on the thin path ahead, energy leaking. Like tentacles flourishing, his awareness extended to reach a radius of fifty paces around them. Even the sounds of crawling insects and that of birds beating wings as the two-men patrol approached echoed neatly.
The more Davir grasped energy from the vessel, the more his natural dexterity with wielding the shadows seemed evident. Acting on his heartbeat allowed him to control the speed of energy extraction from the vessel. His breathing controlled the caliber of each thread. By thining the threads of energy enough- to enter the body from the pores- he could read into the flesh without direct touch, and with great precision.
Soon his awareness was onto the heir, indecently revealing him. Like watching him naked in his bath: alcohol run through his veins, giving him a slight stupor. The threads around his brain revealed anger most of all.
One inconvenient revelation about his past by the soothsayer, and Davir could find himself the subject of that anger.
The canopy thickened enough to prevent sunlight from reaching the ground. The heir's horse waned and slowed, now trotting just three gallops ahead of Davir. His lantern of white crystal dust ignited. Heron hooked the metal cage on the edge of his wooden saddle. The white light blew bright, countering the darkness, otherwise thick enough to conceal the details of the heir's shape, and casting a glare to a barrier of thick vines blocking the path.
The heir jumped down his horse. His steps should falter, given how much he had drunk, but his balance remained intact. At the height of his thigh, the heir reached for a curt, triangular vineknife lodged inside his pocket. And he cleaned the way cluttered with vines with rapid and precise arm swipes, then sheathing the small handknife where he'd extracted it.
On his horse, the first thing his swarthy fingers clasped- first even than the reins- was the liquorskin into the pouch hanging at the side of the stallion. Each swig appeared to erupt a soft gasp for air. A trail of the honey-colored liquor, painted golden by the lantern's brightness, overflowed his lips and slid down his neck to imprint black drop marks on the blue collar of his tunic.
The heir rubbed his lips dry and wordlessly ordered his horse into motion again. The whole moment Davir stayed at a distance, unacknowledged.
The heir's artificial regal stance remained unshakable, the horse accepting his command as if it were an extension of his body.
As the heir advanced, dangling twigs protruding from the wilderness overhead combed his fuel-dark strands of hair askew.
Suddenly, Davir's head spun with dizziness, an unseen stab puncturing his chest. His breathing sped up. Davir gripped the reins to avoid slumping on the ground and broke the link to the vessel immediately, as he battled to revert his erratic breathing. In his ears a distant buzzing echoed, such tame and foreign voices chanting to him, both with hatred and longing.
"You're alright?" the heir's voice echoed.
Davir's eyes remained shut to withstand the dizziness. "Marvelous," he forced the words out. "How far are we, still?"
A trot of hooves colliding with hard bark and splintering twigs sounded. Grew louder, closer. "You look far worse than you did after your trial combat with Soldier Bjon." The heir stood beside Davir. His breath both smelled rotten with alcohol and sweet of the liquor's flavor.
The intrusion left Davir with no choice but to ignore his physical sickness. When he opened his eyes, the forest tilted before his vision adjusted. "Completely," Davir affirmed. "Are you well?"
"If you insist," the heir said. In an agile hand swipe, his maps were unfolded, eyes scanning their surface. "There's a clearing after the barrier of trees ahead," his finger ran along the map to the circled location, "that's where the soothsayer should be." Just as rapidly as he had produced it, the map was rolled back into its previous form and finished lodged inside the lateral pouch hooked to his saddle.
A dozen trots ahead, they stood at the base of the announced barrier, tall pines looming in before them. The branches mingled in all directions, like static giants with arms tangled. Only the narrowest gaps in the shuffle of trees allowed for sunlight to traverse, as though the trees had been erected deliberately to form a barrier isolating the clearing from the rest of the forest.
They crossed the barrier from the largest gaps, in silence, burying boots on black sand. The horses stayed behind.
The terrain of the clearing was as gritty as that of the forest grounds, but only underbrush thrived in the round area spanning before them. In its center stood a hut of old blackened wood.
"Smells awfully like smoke," the heir commented. His strongest hand was tucked against the scabbard at his waist, shielding a dagger with a pommel finely carved of wood, rubber, and arrangements of gold.
Given his rage, Davir could find himself on the defensive against that dagger if things went awry. "Stay behind while I enter the hut," he attempted, immediately catching on arching brows on the heir's face. Davir didn't waver. "If there's danger ahead, it won't do us good to be both caught in one strike. I'll go for a quick safety scan, come back afterward," he continued tone even.
Heron scanned the hut without uttering objection.
Davir charged again, aiming where it was most sensitive. "We learned something in the city tavern, eh. Would be a shame for you to end like your mother before your political prominence." The heir turned to Davir with a murderous stare, but Davir continued. "You have the money? The soothsayer will trust me more easily if I prove I am capable to pay," Davir argued.
"If you insist, go ahead," the heir lashed out." But a quick scan inside the hut won't require any silver Ceric."
It was far from ideal, but Davir preferred to seize the opportunity before the heir further complicated things for him. "I won't be long." His boots sank into the sand as he walked dozens of strides to the hut.
If the soothsayer revealed information that made him a target of the forces of law, the heir would be the last to know. In that case, what to do of the soothsayer, Davir still ignored. Perhaps he could bargain for an expensive deal that was certain to ruin him financially but to protect him, too.
On the old, garish wood of the cabin's door hung a sign.
The truth of the past, the future, and the present at the price of twenty silver Ceric or fifty Binnar Royal Coins.
As he stood before the decaying door of the hut, a sharp and quick rattling sounded from the underbrush near the barrier of trees lining the clearing. With a quick spin on his heels, Davir eyed the foliage with a scowl— and the heir, in a defensive stance, his dagger at ready, scrutinizing the shrubs.
From the distance, expanding his awareness to scan for dangers was useless.
Davir considered: after all, perhaps he had more to gain by consulting the soothsayer with the heir than leaving him behind. Regardless of her verdict, if the heir didn't return to the royal domain, a hunt for Davir's head would be launched promptly by all the guards nationwide.
Soon enough the heir broke his static position, and the dagger was back into its scabbard. With a tense face, he said, "It's all safe here. Be quick."
Still, the heir's strongest hand remained plucked to the leather sheath of his blade, the other had traveled to his pocket, grasping his liquor skin, sticking out from the dark fabric of his trousers. His gaze still scanned the surroundings, in contradiction to his words.
Davir pushed past the threshold. Every bit of the floor he stepped onto as he advanced to the hole-dotted door at the end of the corridor seemed to shatter.
From the gaps in the door, smoke streamed furiously.
A gruff voice called from the interior. "Come and speak." Although collected, Davir knew the call was meant as an order.
He obeyed, advancing to stand in front of the commander. The woman- small among the emptiness of the room of dark walls- sat cross-legged on the floor. Voluminous ash-colored hair fell to her face as an uncombed mass hid her eyes, emphasizing a horrid smile of thin broken teeth. She kept her slim, stick-like arms static. Her hands rounded the edge of a blot drawn black on the floor, emanating the smoke that covered the room.
Only her hands were uncovered by the dark, crumpled garment in which she was clad, each bit of skin covered rigid mounds of muscle whose curves appeared to dip into the bone. Sparse veins layered the whole.
"Na Teryna," Davir said. He inspected the dark blot on the ground for signs of fire. Found none.
The woman's smile widened, sinisterly. "Come seat. I hear you," she urged, tone as dry as the wood that rattled underfoot at each step. "What brings you here, dear?"
"I have no memories beyond the two past weeks," he said, "I look for answers."
The woman acquiesced with a tight nod and a sound straight from her throat that was half a grunt, half a stifled cough. "Tell me more," she insisted.
"It's all I know, I'm afraid."
"We will look into it, dear. For thirty-one silver Ceric. To pay once the work is done." She smiled, managing warmth while resembling the haunting spirit of an assassin killed before taking down their target. She caressed his face. "Something tells me you are a handsome man," she said. "You have done your marital walk yet?" She proceeded before Davir managed a reply. "Poor lady your woman must be. Surely desperate you do not remember how you met her." Her voice was soothing, lazy in the way it dragged between each word before carrying to the next. "Lucky for her, I never once failed a job."
Her hands traveled to his hair, temples, and ears as if measuring him. And the further she explored, the more her smile tamed, her expression morphing into something tenser. "Strange." She shook her head. Her hands stilled around his neck, callous fingers cold against the skin, nail points brushing the nape. She didn't have the strength to strangle him, but Davir could not keep her from trying.
She took a deep breath, and what she did next left Davir unsettled: she reached for shadows inside her. She was like him.
Her shadows swirled out of her chest. Small bits at first- the whole barely noticeable among the smoke. Then she pulled so much, a breeze emanated from her, parting the veil of smoke among them. Her grip on his forehead grew tenser by the moment.
The shadows found a way inside Davir's head-painfully entering through his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes. They pressed onto his skull as if wanting to squeeze his brain. He felt his senses dwindling: vision partly dark, hearing varying in intensity like having his ears clogged.
"It's curious," she said, her grip tighter around his neck. "It's curious you understand what's happening. You can see the shadows. Can you not?" - she squinted, Davir could feel her fingers shaking. Her eyes suddenly widened, and she gasped."No," she said, incredulous. "Ancients Great, Darkness Grand. . .it's impossible. You are-you are Davir Herat Arun?" Her voice almost broke, and the flow of her shadows grew more intense, stirring the air into a wind's speed, beating audibly against the walls of the hut. Her unkempt cloak and hair billowed, exposing white damaged irises in eyes already morphing into a smoldering black. Black veins snaked her face.
Ruthless like hatred and cunning like treachery, the shadows smelled strongly of ashes and tasted foul on the tongue. One moment, they floated around the woman, thickening in a stream penetrating his ears and mouth.
"This is impossible," she exclaimed. "He sent you here- my brother sent you here, did he not?"
When Davir tried to move, he found his limbs constricted, heavy like blocks of rock. He was paralyzed, anchored where he sat. The dark threads bound him to the ground ever more strongly, his kneecaps pressing onto the cracking wood. As if willing to bury him alive there.
Completely exposed to what the women pleased to do with him, panic washed over him. His reflex was to attempt a bargain and deny his identity. Promise her money. No words came out of his mouth. He couldn't utter even part his lips to emit a syllable.
Like a shot of an arrow, memories surfaced in his mind involuntarily, images flashing before his eyes in such a chaotic rush that left him dizzy. The weight of the shadows above his head increased a hundredfold, squeezing all his memories to the surface. His vision blackened completely, and he only saw what ran through his mind.
When the woman finished her work, Davir slumped on the ground, disoriented, thoughts foggy, his eyes perceiving light again.
"You cannot be Davir," she stated, unsure. "Such blasphemy. How could Brother do this-" she lamented. "I already have given up my minuscule part of the Relic. I have nothing more of value."
On the ground, Davir was fighting with all his might to reach for his quarterstaff. But the more he could muster were choked squirms. Not even his fingers properly obeyed his will.
There's no use in fighting. The woman hadn't uttered the words. Yet he heard them. A cold chill prickled through his body. Ancients forbid, she was in his mind, seeing things from the interior, in full control of his body.
She turned to the door and called, "Olassi, Son. We are in danger and must leave."
• • •
Heron Her Lomeon | 21st day of Sprout season
Davir could be acting solely to cover himself, in case his past revealed his crimes. Heron weighed that possibility against the argument of safety he had put forward.
Soothsayers were merchants and never delivered anything free of charge. Keeping the money earned Heron some leverage. It was a fair compromise. He dreaded finding himself a palm away from a rebellious blade again. He preserved his life while keeping his objective in sight: the truth about the soldier. Still, a quick inspection inside the hut should have been over long ago.
Heron stood in front of the door of the cabin, hesitant to push it open, ruminating over the reason why a soothsayer in Ceres would allow payment in Binnar coins - money of much lower value from a small eastern nation across the Bacias Sea.
He steeled himself, and slowly pushed the door open. And the sight that was revealed terrified him into complete disorientation. He sprang backward immediately, hand fumbling to grasp his dagger as he faltered his way away from the man standing in front of him.
Clad completely in the dark, the man watched Heron with brown slanted eyes, a shade clearer than his dark brown skin. He eyed Heron as one would rubbish. Among his brows, a black line was drawn, mounting straight to his forehead, vanishing where a short length of hair began. The skin from the tip of each finger to the first knuckle was painted in dark ink -A Binnar assassin, Heron recognized in horror. Faithful to the traditions of the orient, the man carried no weapon. But Heron knew better than to rejoice in that.
Heron's attempt to force saliva down his dry throat was fruitless. At last, he pulled his dagger from its sheath with an agile motion. "Stay back," he warned, aiming at the man, hopeful to discourage him from an attack. But the Binnar scoffed, stepping towards Heron with frustrating serenity.
"Davir," Heron called. "You're well?" The absence of an answer offered a terrifying prospect, and enough rage to propel him forward in a lunge. Blade fully straight, he aimed for the Binnar's throat. But the Binnar's hands were tight around his wrist like cords before Heron had even walked a full stride.
Heron only realized he had been disarmed when the Binnar kicked his dagger out of sight, into mounds of underbrush. His free hand punched Heron square in the stomach, expelling the air out of his lungs. Heron dropped to his knees, lost in a mixture of pain and desperation to breathe. The Binnar punched again, exactly where his fist had first hit. For a moment blackness overcame Heron's vision. The man seized Heron by the back of his tunic, the fabric painfully tightening around his neck and limbs as he was forced to stand, then pushed past the door.
Heron stumbled his way through the thick veil of smoke inside the cabin, the Binnar supporting his weight. Until he wasn't. He slumped chest-first onto brittle wood and struggled vainly to scramble to his knees.
Davir lay on the ground, broken, beside the feet of an old woman.
----
Davir Her Arun | 21st day of Sprout season
The shadows around Davir relieved in weight. At last, his thoughts clarified, his body becoming his again. His vessel of shadows urged him to fight back. But Davir didn't let any of it spill yet. He wouldn't have the opportunity to strike twice. When he attacked, the woman wouldn't recover.
What little relief Davir had earned meant the opposite for the heir. The shadows of the woman gathered around him like mounds of black sand.
The woman's flow of shadows had incredible strength. The strands flew like a river post-monsoon rainfall. But she lacked precision. The caliber of each strand was thick, never parting into fine threads that could pass through the skin. To invade the mind, they entered the body through the orifices: mouth, ears, eyes - through the eyes, it felt like having a continuous flow of sand swarming the eyeballs.
As the woman pierced through him, the heir's initial grunts gave place to cries of pain.
"Curious they sent the heir to the throne of Ceres here, too."- Davir noted her uncertainty- She was desperate, as confused as Davir was, struggling to extract meaning from erratic clues. But she knew valuable information Davir would get after neutralizing her."How far is my brother willing to go for power?"
Her attention was still devoted to the heir. Her brother was her major preoccupation, not Davir- it was his window to attack- He reached all the energy he could grasp and released it explosively. All of it strengthing his body. He clutched his staff hastily with a slap, metal already wafting across empty air as the weapon came free. He spurted forward in arrow speed, hard iron shooting in an arc meant to break the woman's legs.
Metal never connected with bone. His body spun painfully, turning him off course against his will, articulations cracking from the suddenness of the movement. He felt the weight on his brain again, his senses starting to fail him, he caught a glance of the man standing in front of the door. Then his feet- moved with self-will- rushed straight to the wall. He crushed head-first onto the wood.
The impact propelled Davir stumbling backward, pain searing down his forehead. Without warning his body spun again sloppily, as if he were under the control of a puppeteer. He faced the soothsayer.
"Darkness Great," she exclaimed. "You're not just an imitation. You have Davir's dexterity and-" She scanned him. "How were they capable of bringing your soul from The Order of the Shadows? My brother's always been talentless when it came to extending shadows to the flesh. A human body, cluttered with stone and Davir's memories sealed away couldn't be his deed alone." Pronouncing the words seemed to shake her to the core."That work is the ultimate blasphemy. Anyone with power that dangerous should be put to death. And so, the work of their hands."
Through the pain, Davir managed, "You know me, right? You must know I abhor blasphemy too then. Take all the silver Ceric we brought. But spare the heir of the Monarchy. The Ancients intend the royal lineage to prevail. Kill them and you'll suffer the tortures of Purification for thousands of years."
"Davir dear, I have lived long enough to be guilty of worse atrocities," she said. "A thousand years more, a thousand years less mean nothing. My Purification promises to be long and painful, I know. I have accepted that." She turned to her companion. "Gather the money, Olassi. Tie them."
While Olassi executed the orders, the woman lit a candle. She retrieved oil lamps from a drawer carved on the wall and emptied the fuel on the wood of the cabin.
"Whoever is behind this has committed the greatest blasphemy," she muttered. "Greater than me killing the heir. I am only trying to survive, as always. I've always been the weak one, still, I have survived all this time. It's a pity you are not the real Davir," she said. "It's a pity his time had passed. I will extinguish you forever. With fire, for what fire consumes alive..."
Has no right to purification. Has no right of incarnation...The words materialized in Davir's mind. She was promising him eternal death.
She tilted a candle against the fuel-dampened wood, igniting it. "We leave now, Olassi."
A thought prickled in Davir's mind through the confusion: his time had passed. He had already been through Purification. He had been dead and brought back to life. When the fire caught on the wood of the hut, the shadows in his vessel stirred furiously. Now, he understood the meaning of the threat of fire.