Chapter 15:
Grasping for Miracles
It was a short trip by boat from the Many Sands docks to a landing on the opposite, south side of the river, where all the rekasí were waiting for their masters and mistresses, either left there overnight or transported by ferry, as the Many Sands greater domain had no bridges. Semõìn casually mentioned they might’ve simply gone by river to their destination if not for the fact that the boats would be needed for the heaviest gear they’d transported. So the party would continue by land, cutting across and skipping river contact until arriving at their destination.
Apparently, the rekasí could alternate their already quick gait with jogging the entire way — thanks to the suits — and it was much faster than the river travel if they weren’t overburdened. There were multiple groups, though, with extra beasts between them.
Briefly, Deros caught sight of Many Sands proper, its buildings along the river’s edge and up a gentle curve of the slope. The city didn’t impress him much, all clumped together seemingly haphazardly, though with some larger, more impressive estates positioned on the heights. The stronghold seemed laughably tiny to Deros, compared to the Fortress of Miracle Springs. It was no wonder one was discounted and the other feared, to siege. The fact that it appeared undamaged didn’t say much for its effectiveness. He wondered if they’d just surrendered before it was attacked.
He saw little of the lake, only the split of land on either side of the river’s tributary into it, and the hint of buildings scattered on its shore. He saw eeling boats here and there in every direction, but the Bluehands in general seemed depleted in addition to subdued. It didn’t at all fit the image of ‘bustling’ that he had in his mind of the city that others had described. Trade had likely been oppressed by the invaders, which was definitely part of it. Not all.
Some have been taken captive, just as we. Bound for Cajhor, by all indications.
It was a sight to see all the Ironbloods spill out of the boat and greet their quite thrilled and relieved mounts once more, Deros and Palamera towed along with, caught in the midst of the excitable show as it happened. One of them even — in an insane, ridiculous spectacle — had his rekas raise up onto its hind legs and perform a crude sort of dance with him, to cheers and rhythmic clapping from the others. Deros didn’t find himself much in the mood for the entertainment, so he ignored it, steering as clear as he could. Being accidentally ‘nuzzled’ by bladed tusks held no appeal to him.
Laden extras of the great beasts were clustered just beyond, waiting along with a few handlers, and still beyond them, a sizable party already seemed to be headed out across immediately rocky terrain. Deros didn’t see enough to make out the numbers.
Kerrick did not join in with the merriment and only tolerated so much of it before he shouted for them all to mount up and depart. In short order, Deros found himself unceremoniously deposited back onto Semõìn’s rekas and the party’s travel underway. From the sleep and the food, Deros felt better, though a grogginess persisted. He steeled himself for a nightmarish ride and aimed to get himself into a proper rocking motion to match the bizarre gait of the creature…
To that end, as they swept out across the shrub-strewn hills, Deros summoned daug’makar and spun out a short radius of the farsense, to feel the beast’s movement. Closing his eyes in order to focus, he was aware of the powerful muscles within the carapace moving, and he had plenty to compare to, in the memorization of aloga. The rekas was… not like an aloga, and walked with far more sway and flexing. When they moved at a ‘trot,’ it had a faster, crawling, or prancing-like effect than the dug-in steady rhythm of aloga on sand. Though massive and wide, they were less long, relatively. If they were the size of aloga, Deros doubted two people could sit comfortably on top.
Unsure of how to deliberately adjust, it was more copying Semõìn’s instinctive subtle sways, under the study of his farsense, that gave him the trick. Gradually, he reduced the flows down and acquainted himself with continuing the rocking without fully farsensing, alternating with flaring it back out, to readjust. Then he dropped it entirely before spinning flows out, all of it over and over until he did not need daug’makar to do it correctly. And so he figured it out… at least enough to mitigate the wear and tear.
Toward the end of his self-training, he felt a flare-up of other daug’makar use nearby and turned to see Palamera trying to do the same thing, perhaps learning by his example. Deros flashed a little smile her way, and — wonder of joys — she returned it. It was a bit strained, forced perhaps, but it warmed his heart just the same.
Hells. She must’ve used her makar’osa by now as well, on Paetas. They’ve been in close proximity often. I wonder what insights she has? I need to conspire for us to be alone, damn it. For reasons that continue to stack.
The terrain stayed hilly, with the rocky outcrops and jutts becoming more and more sparse, then disappearing. Ubiquitous graybrush and scattered twists of crawlervine were accentuated with a plethora of familiar and alien weeds, particularly in the lowlands, some of which were still damp-looking though water was not in evidence. On occasion, Deros could see down a high point to the larger group ahead of them, perhaps less than a quarter-hour in the lead.
Briefly, a valley made a window in the distance, to show what Deros assumed was a high, far-side cliff of the canyon that housed the Talqua. Somewhere along the length of the river was their destination — if Deros had to guess, it would be Twisted Bend, but in overhearing the location talked about on the boat, he couldn’t be sure. They kept saying, ‘Aedon One’ or ‘Aed One,’ which sounded like some sort of codename because he certainly had never heard of it, and a number in the name of a place was odd.
The travel remained grueling over the hours despite Deros’s adjustments, as nothing would make it truly comfortable, especially with his arms still bound and his body aching. He thought to strike up some more information-gathering conversations, but his keeper forestalled him, citing the vaetor’s ‘bad mood’ and want for discipline. In truth, Kerrick indeed seemed agitated, and routinely dropped back to bark this or that petty command or complaint to his inferiors. Semõìn’s disorderly saddlebags. Paetas’s lagging behind. Chatter between two others. While Deros knew most of the names, it was hard to tell them apart, aside from Elek due to her small size and distinctive gear. And Enna, the only other who had a noticeably smaller frame, if just. The other woman of the group — Seirna, he believed — was not smaller at all.
Once, while Kerrick was very far ahead, Elek spoke some rapid-fire curse in range of hearing and further said, “That prick needs to get with a woman or something, nokieu. My last nerve is ready to burst with him.”
There was some subdued laughter. Someone — ‘Oertice’ or ‘Aloseau,’ perhaps — answered, “He’s been with one woman forever, Elek.”
She snorted. “Well, that explains it, then. He’s whipped and he gets none, he takes his frustrations out on the rest of us.”
More scattered chuckles. Ahead, Kerrick began dropping back, and everyone quieted and dispersed anew.
Some hours later they came to a recess in the landscape and a sizable watering hole. The group that had been ahead of them was still there, and so Deros finally spied the other Taldecs of the expedition that had been captured. It was something of a shock, though he probably should’ve known. Thalamon, Olarius, and Urchon.
Deros resisted the urge to call out to them, but as his group approached and drew near, the Taldecs naturally noticed. Thalamon and Olarius had been sitting in the sand near their anchorage of respective rekasí, but they stood upon seeing Deros and Palamera, complex emotions playing across their faces. When Urchon did, she did not rise — instead, she barked something angrily, likely a curse, then dropped her head. They all looked haggard and beat up, but Urchon was by far the worst, one eye swollen shut from some sort of vicious impact.
Upon seeing it, Deros felt a cold rage pour into him, heating quickly. She was an ambassador and a legend of Miracle Springs, treated like trash, with her clothes dirty and torn. She'd been beaten and bloodied. Her cloak was gone, and so too was her golden amulet — the seal of the Taldecca. A trinket, a spoil, a piece of loot for some ignorant, alien soldier.
Give me the means. Give me the power to wipe them off the face of Hamellion! If there are any gods, please, give it to me… I’ll swear any oath, I’ll do anything, just let me punish them for this!
Naturally, he summoned daug’makar — naturally, he tried to do something. Cause the wind and the sand to spin, form a storm, make it scour their carapaces and skin from their bones where they stood — where they laughed and mocked. Make them all into nothing more than momentarily-formed phantasms screaming as they were banished, and let all the Taldecca Atateri escape their clutches forever. So he pushed out the farsense as far as it could possibly go, stretched it with all his strength and focus until it might make his brain explode — and he wouldn’t care. He tried to make a new makar’osa, as he had tried a thousand times in his youth testing possibility, to which he’d failed a thousand times.
Answer me! Give it to me, here, now! If ever! Take my life, just take them with me — free us!
As Deros strained and shook with effort, sputtering maybe-somethings danced all around the watering hole, like threads and fingers of what he knew to do — vision amplifications — trying and failing to become something more, shimmering and blurring out like distorted mirages of light. But that was only to Deros’s interpreting senses. Not a one lifted their head in alarm, not a one by the water noticed. The wind did not stir, and they all felt and were affected by nothing at all.
Palamera cried out repeatedly, to which all eyes turned, and a scream of ‘Stop!’ was the final resonance of hesitation within Deros that seemed to trigger makar’osa and daug’makar to simply cut off in an instant. He wanted to scream — tried to — not from pain or the heaviest hammer of exhaustion he’d ever felt, but from the offense and the disappointment of failing again, utterly forsaken by the gods he’d been taught to call on. They had not answered.
His next conscious moment was laying down in the sand, cool water being splashed on his face from a big bowl, which shocked him awake. His hands were unbound, but he was unable to rise somehow, so he turned on his side, spitting water out of his mouth. And lamenting internally, in a strange burst of clarity out of the fog, with his eyes completely shut to the world. He wasn’t sure if he’d disabled himself permanently or not — all he could feel inside of his head was a tightness, like a twisted-up knot. The strain was much like a torn muscle, to where he knew he could not budge it, only leave it limp, even a twitch or thought threatening nausea.
I knew what would happen. Nothing. It’s always nothing. I make myself a hypocrite believing otherwise. Even a fantasy of a chance is better than the reality of none.
“Please, let me get to him. I beg you! Please!”
Deros shifted his head and squinted his eyes open to see Palamera staring at him with a panic-stricken face, even as she looked to the others pleadingly.
Many Ironbloods had gathered around, he saw vaguely. One of them — unknown to Deros — said, “Shut her up, or I’ll do it for you with the back of my hand. Wouldn’t be the first primitive in this lot I’ve had to teach the lesson.”
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“Zeko zeki, vaetor,” Paetas said, and interjected herself between Deros and Palamera, wrangling the latter back to her rekas.
With great effort, Deros summoned the air in his chest enough to say, “It’s alright, Pala-... I’m alright, I just-” He tried to rise and ended up flat despite his desires, his body feeling suddenly as heavy as a boulder, muscles unable to lift it. His head swam too, like he’d jarred the insides and it just kept spinning around, trying to drag him back under the senselessness he’d fled to before, like a warm, waking sleep. He resisted it, but he was quickly confused why, brain fogged over.
“I-... I’m getting up…” He couldn’t. Frustrating. Palamera wanted him up, needed him. “One second…” No. His body wouldn’t cooperate.
“Semõìn, did he hit his pontin head?” Someone asked. “Seems like a bad braining.”
“Nok no! I stopped when the girl screamed like murdering nokieu. Boy was trembling or something, made a strangled sound, then he fainted, just like that. I didn’t let him fall.”
All the words just rolled over Deros. He heard them, even understood them, but he just blinked up at the bright sky through it all, unable to maintain full focus on any of it. Movement didn’t feel good, nor did thinking.
“I mean, he is a-”
“He has a medical condition,” Palamera interjected. Did he? “He needs water, salt, and more food. Otherwise, he-he’ll faint — or go into seizures, even.”
“You have got to be kidding me…”
“You’re medically trained? Nokieu. What is the condition, then?” Someone else’s voice.
“I’m a Hospitaller. The condition is called terrias minor or epilepsy, and his is triggered by stress and diet. Sometimes he just faints and gets confused.”
Lies.
“Mm, anyone that knows those kinds of words is probably a medic. I’ve heard of epilepsy. And these hospitals.”
“Kerrick, we’re heading out. Good luck with… all this pont.”
“Right…” A sigh. “Look, Semõìn, just do it. More water, salt, food. He can’t nokieun die on us. We cannot have another nok up. And the rest of you, get a sickpad out and anchored onto a rekas. Triple-check that it’s secure. We’ll strap him down and carry him the rest of the way. Zeko?”
“Zeko zeki, vaetor,” came a slew of voices.
“May I please check him over?” Palamera called. “I am a medicinian, I know him, I know the condition. I can ensure that he is alright and ready for handling.”
Another — almost pained-sounding — sigh from Kerrick. “Do it. But Elek, Semõìn: you two watch her closely.”
Excellent job, Pal Pal. Don’t just beg — show your authority, domain, expertise, power. Father would be proud. My father, that is.
After some shuffling around and muttering, and some low talk he didn’t follow, Deros found himself staring up at Palamera. She put her hand to his forehead as if checking his temperature and he… very vaguely felt her spin out her makar’osa through him, like ripples up and down and through the very fibers of his substance. Finally, it all retracted and Palamera seemed to drain of a little tension. Then she began some very unneeded physical examinations — checking his eyes, moving her finger across his vision and instructing him to follow it, taking his pulse, and so on. He was aware that her hand kept shaking, as if from nerves, but her face seemed relatively calm.
“So,” Deros said, “Did I ruin myself, Pal Pal?”
Her lips curled inward in a faint frown. “No, Deros. You’re… alright. Still disoriented, however.” It sounded like she stopped herself from saying more. Her gaze was very insistent, perhaps with an additional air of admonishment.
“Pal Pal,” Elek repeated, from above. “That’s cute.”
Deros squinted up at the speaker. His vision was a bit fuzzy. “It’s from when we were younger.”
Palamera put her shaking hand on his chest and leaned down over him, the tips of her hair ends tickling his neck. “You shouldn’t talk. Okay?” A very insistent look, despite calm words.
Deros nodded. “Sleep?”
“No. Staying awake is okay. Better. But relax. You can relax. Alright?”
He nodded again.
She gave him a supportive smile — though her hand kept shaking — then rose. He was sad to see her go. He blinked up at the sky and stayed awake.
“Seems like a concussion to me,” Elek muttered, “but what do I know…”
He was given water, and fed some sort of dry, salted crackers, though he couldn’t eat much. At some point, Semõìn picked him up off the ground and carried him over to a rekas, where he and another cooperated to place him in a rather stiff, but not completely hard sort of bedding on top of it. They strapped him down to it thoroughly, with a light sheet over the top of him. Blessedly, his head was on some pillowy cushion. It was heavenly. He wanted to sleep, but Pal Pal had said not to, so he didn’t.
The party journeyed onward, as Azrom seemed to move across the sky in fits and starts. In time Deros realized he was slipping in and out of awareness. Most frequently, what brought him free from his zoning out was Paetas and Palamera coming near, her calling his name and asking how he was doing. Over and over, he answered, “Fine.”
Gradually his senses came back to him, and the weariness lost some of its power. Soon he felt an absolute loathing for what he did — and the ensuing results. He’d been an idiot, and then a literal idiot from head damage.
Well, I’m in the right company, if so. Give me horns and call me Ironblood, I’ve arrived. The thought almost amused him, but his mood was too dark.
Once more, with Azrom still an hour or two above the horizon, Paetas and Palamera drifted close, and the latter craned over him and asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Not fine. Like utter bâvâ. Or parta… whatever that is.”
“Worse bâvâ. Putrid, grimy pont,” Paetas offered.
“Then it works smashingly for how I feel.”
Palamera seemed to sag back down into the ‘saddle,’ letting out a relieved sigh like she’d been holding her breath for ages. “You’re back with us.”
Deros grunted in answer. “For all the good it does.”
“It is good, Deros. I want you here, I need you here. I can’t lose another I-... I can’t lose you. Please be careful.”
He didn’t answer her, and couldn’t even meet her eyes, for all the multi-layered shame he felt. “I’m going to rest,” he said finally.
“I approve. Azrom will always come again, Deros.”
He closed his eyes, but before long at all, he heard someone nearby clicking their tongue. At the second round of closer, more-insistent clicking, Deros opened his eyes. Semõìn, holding a waterskin up close to his face.
“Say ‘ah,’ kampriço,” the Ironblood said, but did not wait before pouring the water down.
Deros had water splash on his face and neck before he appropriately gauged the falling stream, and even then they were both contending with two moving animals underneath them. Half of the water was wasted, which was something of an affront to a traveling Azakan.
Semõìn thankfully didn’t just keep pouring, pulling back after a few moments. “More?”
“No, you ass!” Deros glared balefully at his inefficient waterer, flagrantly annoyed.
With a chortle, Semõìn declared, “I see you are getting ripe and better, kampriço. You can’t go off dying on me, alright? Not without permission.”
Scoffing, Deros replied sarcastically, “Yes, I’ll be sure to include a by-your-leave before expiring, rest assured.”
“Good, good. Keep that chin up, eh?” Semõìn closed the top of the waterskin and rode off.
Perhaps Kerrick can come by next, needle me about being a weak, primitive sack of dung. Sprinkle me with salt.
Shaking his head, Deros closed his eyes and tried to doze off. Ineffectually. Even from the minimal maneuvering of his head to catch the water, he felt off. Spinny. Like his mind and perceptions were a step slower than the rest of the world, and it wanted to curl away. Despite it all, that tightness in his brain — that feel of a hard knot closing off daug’makar — was gone. All he felt was the typical sense of nausea when he flickered at the potentiality of using it. He absolutely would not, would fail abysmally in the attempt anyway, but he technically could try. It surprised him how quickly he could tell things were okay. Then again, Pal P-... — Palamera! — had said he was fine.
And she’d lied about my ‘condition.’ They’d have probably just laughed if she’d told the truth, but that is its own kind of blessing to avoid. And she’s neatly maneuvered a means to get us closer, perhaps. On occasion. I have but to feign a dizzy spell… feign it at the right time… no Kerrick, maybe just Paetas around… less suspicion… yes. It has potential.
Was he merely looking at the bright side, grasping at loose weeds while drowning, or was the heinous failure actually of benefit? As Ryza would say, what was done was done. As his father would, ‘it is past time for planning anew’. He had tried something ridiculous and failed, but…
‘In coming up short, steel your despair: opportunities persist. Darkness is often merely a shadow of hidden light. Seek it, find it — never relinquish the hope of illumination. Step to the side and find a different perspective. In a new light, see the truth.’
I’m trying, Father. I’m trying. But I have no control, no power. I’m caught in a river. You would know the deep roots from the shallow, on the shore. I feel like I’m grasping at every weed I can and missing the ones I need. I can’t get out of this River of Shadows if I can’t even find a handhold… I’m barreling right down the middle, headlong, faster and faster, blind and lost…
Sleep continued to elude him thanks to noise, jarring bumpiness, and his too-active, scattered thoughts. His ire about the ‘gods’ forsaking him blended together with memories of his father, and it recalled to Deros his warnings about agnosticism in the public eye. While Beyaugus never admitted any doubts, he was never greatly devout in private. He only seemed concerned with how it reflected on him politically and publically. Typical lip service, but dressed in flowery rhetoric. Deros was too curious and questioning not to glean his father’s true philosophy: practicality. Respecting the gods outwardly was simply traditional and necessary.
And so his father — despite humoring it all with reasonable tolerance — had cautioned him about being vocal in any doubts. He heeded it, as a good son ought to, but some still heard about it. Palamera and his mother, for instance. The former rarely had much to say either way, regarding it similar to his father and giving him an outlet to vent, but his mother had been chiding about it in his youth. She was a fair believer, praying to Healer and Founder. Explorer, to watch over her son. The Ahbra — in Deros’s youth — heard his doubts, being of similar mind, but his father’s cautions had included the unfortunate possibility of an old man speaking freely around other apprentices. And the Observatorian had indeed gotten old and openly opinionated. Deros increasingly heard gripes about him being ‘blasphemous.’
I shut my mouth up, Father. Especially after having my soul crushed at everyone snubbing their nose at Esteron’s newly-arrived diaries, to which I was so, so excited. The reality had hit home then: when the writings were declared heretical fantasy stories by the old temple priests. He could’ve chosen the truth and been a heretic the rest of his life or… let it go.
So I did.
He was aware suddenly of them stopping and he opened his eyes to a twilight that had snuck up on him. From his vantage, he saw they were descending down a large, sloping canyon. He craned his neck around, but there was no way to see directly behind him, with the bed, straps, and pillow set up such as they were.
He noticed Elek passing by and he called, “Where are we?”
She came close by and said, “See for yourself, Deros.” Slapping the hard rump of the rekas Deros was on, she barked a sharp command, and it turned around in place.
The rest of the group was clustered ahead, with Kerrick further out from the rest talking with three other mounted Ironbloods. Immediately beyond them was some sort of large, walled camp hugging a river, and beyond that, on the other side, was an extensive construction of strongholds like a great spearpoint-shaped peninsula of hard-angled stone, surrounded by the water in a sharp loop.
“Twisted Bend,” Deros declared in wonder.