Grevail crept into the shadows at the mouth of an alley. Revelers swamped the street here too, but fewer than where the stage was. He saw no sign of the Sifters in the crowds of smiling village folk. They must have followed the caravan, but Grevail could only wonder what plan they might have beside steal the Emberstone.
He pushed the Sifters from his mind and instead focused on the task at hand—finding his friends. Far down the street, two Keepers walked along, though thankfully heading away from him. Grevail took a deep breath and slipped out of the alley, keeping as far from the swirling crowd as he could by hugging the garland draped buildings along the street edge.
As he continued, he drew on his experience eluding the watch in Merchant Row to avoid the eyes of curious partiers. Luckily, the villagers seemed much more interested in enjoying the celebration than questioning a strange young man slinking around in the shadows, especially on a night when strangers were not so strange. The sickly sweet scent grew stronger as he came to the highway, where on the other side sat the dark tree-lined road his friends must have went down.
Ducking his head through the mass of village folk he crossed the highway bathed in Arulan’s light and eased into the darkness beneath the canopy arcing over the street. He released a breath as he wandered away from the moving bodies and noise of the road, confident that at least the Sifters would not venture down here looking for him. He couldn’t stand idly by any longer, especially when clues to his friends whereabouts were within reach...just down this road.
He jumped at every shadow beneath the trees, but the few people roaming the night here showed little interest in him, if they noticed at all. He came to a large building behind a tall fence where the smell of horse manure was thick, as was spoiled wine. The relic must have stopped here for some time. How long, he couldn’t be sure, but longer than if it just passed by. Did the stablehand work here too? Surely the stablehand didn’t kidnap his friends and attack Sifters just to sell the wagon and horses. He moved toward the fence to search for a way inside.
“They’re not here,” came a voice behind him.
Grevail whirled, nearly tripping over his own feet. Lyphon stood in the moon dappled darkness a few paces away, but to Grevail’s surprise, the Purifier remained motionless, studying Grevail with stoic, knowing blue eyes.
“How do you know?”
“I’ve asked,” the Purifier said, eyeing the stable and resting a hand atop the sword hilt at his waist. “It must be true then, you can sense that relic. I don’t know how else you’d find your way here.” A smile seemed to curve Lyphon’s lips, though it was hard to tell in the dark. “I’m surprised you escaped the cage, and I certainly didn’t think you’d escape those Sifters so easily after bumbling right into one. Those years in Lowtown helped you avoid them, but you’ll have to do much better if you want to avoid me.”
He was smiling, Grevail realized.
The smile vanished from Lyphon’s face as he stepped forward into a pale shaft of moonlight. “I have an important task…and I’ll need your help. In exchange…I’ll overlook your little outing tonight.” The Purifier’s skeptical eyes weighed Grevail like he was a horse at auction.
“Me?” Grevail ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t believe Lyphon hadn’t hauled him back to camp by now, and found himself even more surprised the man wanted to make some kind of agreement. “How am I supposed to help you?” Is this a setup? A game? What does he think I’m going to do? Hunt Esh with him?
“The stableman was here, or so the villagers said, but he moved on well before we arrived. I want to travel ahead on the highway to see if the relic stayed on it, or…if you prefer…we can return to Joszi and tell him what you’ve been up to.”
Grevail swallowed. If you wanted to get locked up forever, this would be a good way to do it, fool. “Lead the way.”
“Good,” Lyphon said as if there’d been no other possibility and waved Grevail to follow. The Purifier returned to the highway, bronze sallet helmet bouncing on his hip. Lyphon’s brown stallion loomed out of the darkness where it was tied to a tree at the roadside, switching its tail and nibbling on a clump of grass between the roots. Lyphon mounted and offered him a hand to climb up behind him. When Grevial was seated, Lyphon kicked the horse into a canter.
They maneuvered through the thinning crowd and clumps of departing revelers on the way out of Esiphon. One by one, the villagers turned down rutted dirt tracks fading into the night, leaving Grevail and Lyphon alone far outside of town.
The eerie and dark fields held no sign of life as they went south. Lyphon remained silent, though his head turned to consider every sound—any hint of movement. The Purifier radiated tenseness, rolling his shoulders and grumbling at the night. They traveled in silence for some time with no other sound than the thud of horse hooves in the dirt.
Why is he bringing me all the way out here? It was possible that the stableman did leave the highway, but Grevail couldn’t understand why. From what he remembered of maps he’d seen, there wasn’t anything out here but forest and swamp. Had the Purifier heard something in town about his friends that would lead him to believe such a thing? “You think they left the highway?”
“We’ll know when we get there…if what you claim is true,” the Purifier said over the sound of his bronze sallet helmet clinking against the straps of the saddle.
Grevail restrained a growl. The man wouldn’t tell him anything worth knowing. All he wanted was that damn relic. The sound of the helmet clanking with every step of the horse made him want to grind his teeth. He had never seen the Purifier without it. “Do you have that helmet because you think you’re going to be fighting something all the way out here?” Grevail asked, failing to keep the mocking tone from his voice.
Lyphon snorted. “I always have it with me. The Stricken can be anywhere…at any time.”
“You need that for the Stricken? Is that why it is bronze? I’ve seen plenty of soldiers in the capital and none of them ever had a bronze helmet.”
“Some Stricken can read your mind,” he said, his voice taking on a hard edge. “Do you think the Stricken are real? I know many who do not, city folk usually. Some even think I’m a myth.”
Grevail frowned and resisted the urge to tell him about the Esh at the tomb. Reading minds? Grevail knew now that tales weren’t always just tales, but that seemed far fetched. “I’m from the city, but I’m no fool. You can’t sell me a patch of swamp and call it a Hightown lot.”
“I know. You are from Lowtown. You steal from those people with a Hightown lot. I prefer that, if you didn’t know. There are many different types of thieves, scamp. Some, like yourself, skirt the law. Others…the worst kind…they disregard the law.”
Lyphon paused, as if waiting for Grevail to respond, but then went on. “I’ve met rich merchants and nobles who know nothing of what a Purifier does or about what we keep from their doorsteps. They think I’m a liar when I tell them, much like you probably do. Sometimes, I wish the Stricken would return. Nobody could excuse it as nonsense from a Thavan with no use, as they usually do.”
Anger flooded over Grevail at the man’s condescending tone. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to know anything about you, Thavan, or the Stricken. “You Thava know everything, don’t you? If someone doesn’t listen to you, you’ll call them Cythraul and dig up the graves of their family.”
Lyphon noted the scorn on Grevail’s tongue with a shake of his head. “Count yourself lucky if I don’t repeat some of what you say to Joszi,” he threatened. “Yes, we believe Otash and Seren turned the Emberfolk to Stricken for their misdeeds, just as they do to Cythraul. What do you believe? Do you believe like the Dawnbreakers? Do you believe the Emberfolk fled from the Stricken into the sea…to Eldimirian?” he finished with a snicker.
Grevail shifted on the horse, reining in his tongue. The last thing he needed was for Joszi to know what happened here tonight. “I’m not a Dawnbreaker. Only they know what they believe.”
Lyphon scoffed. “I wonder if they know that Esh can sense living things over vast distances? That’s how they find fresh meat.”
Sense living things? Grevail remembered the Esh that followed them from the tomb entrance. He wondered afterward how the thing managed to track them through the rain that night. He shook his head. Sense people, not read minds. If she could read minds, she would have followed us all the way home. “I’ve seen Esh before.”
Lyphon chuckled, bemused. “I’m sure that you have. A dead Esh was found at the tomb you claim to have never visited. I saw the tracks of one that left there with my own eyes…following in the footprints of a band of at least three, maybe four. They were wearing poor shoes, not made for trekking through swamp…the kind Lowtown scamps might wear.”
Grevail’s breath caught, then his anger boiled over again. “So why is your helmet bronze? You said it was because Stricken could read minds, now you are saying they can sense living things. Which one is it?”
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“I’m surprised you made the distinction.” A long breath left Lyphon. “Esh sense living things, but Aelfic can read your mind…control it too. A Shimmerbeast will know what you’re going to do before you do. The helmet helps protect against it.”
“Aelfic? Is it true they can fly?”
Lyphon snorted. “Fly?”
“Yes, and—“
“And they can turn food to gold by staring at it?” Lyphon finished for him. “I suppose you also believe they are so beautiful they can hypnotize any man or woman? They can look like anything they want, that’s what makes them so dangerous. Do they smell like sage? Or perhaps it is tar? I’ve heard people claim both, and many other things besides.”
Grevail tried to ignore the heat in his cheeks. “How does your helmet help you fight them?”
Lyphon laughed when Grevail avoided his questions and shrugged. “No one is certain, but many think some metals interrupt their powers…or at least weaken them.”
“I heard once that Purifiers can sense Stricken. Is that true? Maybe you and Esh aren’t so different?”
Lyphon responded with a rueful shake of his head. “Said the scamp who claims he can sense an Emberfolk relic. Maybe you’re not so different from us either.” He half turned in the saddle, sweeping up the amulet laying against his chest. “With this I can.” Inscribed into the thick, diamond-shaped silver amulet were two crossed swords behind the Thavan lantern and flame.
Grevail furrowed his brow at it. “How does it work?”
“Now that is a secret, but suffice to say, our enemies make us stronger.”
Grevail puzzled over Lyphon’s cryptic statement for a moment, but did not understand what the man meant. “If Stricken are such a threat, why does everyone think they are tales made to scare children? Why aren’t they everywhere?”
Lyphon sighed, as if pitying Grevail’s ignorance. “Once, everybody knew why we wore bronze and copper. Everybody knew the powers Stricken had over the mind. Now, only rural peasants know much at all, and they are vilified if they so much as utter a word about the Stricken. We’ve grown soft, and if they ever come back, we will not be prepared.”
“What do you mean if they come back?” Like most people, he thought Esh were a fairytale before that night at the tomb. He’d never seen one, and everyone he ever knew had never seen one. Whenever someone claimed they had, they were likely just telling stories.
“I didn’t think I’d be giving a history lesson to a…” Lyphon paused to clear his throat. “In the past, many hundreds of years ago when ash still fell from the sky, the Stricken were everywhere. Cities were fortresses under siege from their filth. Over centuries, the Thava have cleansed Voxetta so that we can travel along this highway in relative peace. But now, there are more Cythraul than ever, more Dawnbreakers than I remember in my lifetime. More and more, people forget what life was once like. They forget our commitment to the Parents and the Accord. Now, I fear they will return.”
Grevail furrowed his brow. He’d never heard any of that before. “All the Dawnbreakers and Cythraul will make the Stricken return?”
“I’ve heard too much of late to take anything lightly. Stricken have appeared in places they haven’t been in hundreds of years, lots of them, and not out in the hills, but near cities and towns. Something is happening. We’d be fools to ignore it—” the Purifier went quiet.
Grevail peeked around Lyphon’s shoulder. Ahead, down a long and dark stretch of road, the orange glow of a large fire pushed back the night. A group of human-shaped shadows stood beside a huge lick of flame at the edge of the highway. Grevail realized it was a wagon as they came closer—a bonfire on wheels.
Lyphon halted his mount a good distance from the blaze. The villagers regarded them in silence, neither moving or voicing a greeting. Lyphon dismounted and helped Grevail down.
“What is it?” Grevail asked.
Lyphon shook his head, as if he was unsure himself, or as if he didn’t want to say. “Do you sense anything?”
Grevail began to say he didn’t, but at that moment realized he did. The smell of spoiled wine was…thicker. The relic had spent some time in this place. “It stopped here.”
Lyphon loosed an uncomfortable sigh, like a man forced to do something unwanted and waved Grevail after him.
The villagers watched Lyphon approach, wary eyes lingering on the sword at his hip, but the Purifier jerked to a stop over a broken board laying in the dust of the road. Tilting his head, he studied it and mumbled under his breath as if it were something he’d never seen before. He knelt and brought the board to his nose, inhaling sharply.
Grevail crinkled his own nose. “What are you doing?”
Lyphon shoved the board under Grevail’s face. “Do you see them?”
Glowing in Arulan’s light, long and delicate white hairs were snagged on the board, wafting on the night air.
“A Shimmerbeast has no eyes,” the Purifier said. “Instead, it uses these long hairs to judge currents of air, down to the smallest of movements, like that of its prey. Because of this, they are most often found in caves or deep forest and only venture outside of those areas when there is little wind.” Lyphon plucked one free and after studying it between his fingers, released it to the breeze. It floated lazily, like a wriggling translucent worm until it was swept away. “Worth a lot of money to Dawnbreakers, whatever they use it for.”
Grevail turned his gaze on the fields stretching into darkness. A Shimmerbeast! Ash and embers!
Lyphon judged Grevail’s reaction with a stoic grunt and dropped the board. “Do you think they are real now, scamp? Do you quiver from laughter?” The Purifier turned and walked toward the villagers. “What happened here?” he said to be heard above the fire.
An older man with dull gray hair and a full beard spoke, pulling his brow down. “You don’t want to know, sir. It’s best for you to be on your way.”
Lyphon walked closer and Grevail stayed at his side, casting worried looks into the surrounding fields. Shimmerbeasts were made of smoke and tall as trees. They could be everywhere at once…or so Raela’s books said.
The Purifier motioned at the wagon. “I heard rumors in town. I want to help.”
A young woman at the old man’s shoulder turned incredulous brown eyes from the blaze. “Help?” Her gaze fell to Grevail. “With him?”
“I’m a Sifter. He is my apprentice.” Lyphon said in a gruff tone, as if it were none of the woman’s business.
The old man shook his head. “I don’t think your abilities will help you here, Sifter. Whoever did this is long gone.”
Lyphon folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me. I’ll see what I can do.”
The old man stared at Lyphon a moment longer, then shrugged. “Well, I suppose if anybody can help it would be you.” He sighed and grimaced at the night. “Damned if I know what happened…I’m not sure I want to know. I’ve never seen anything like it…and I’ve been the undertaker all my life. There wasn’t much left of the bodies, the only thing we could think to do was burn it all and be rid of it.”
“A good idea,” Lyphon said.
The old man raised an eyebrow.
“The burning.” Lyphon gestured to the fire. “With no one to guard the bodies, they may well have turned to Stricken if they’ve been left out for too long.”
The old man appeared unconvinced, glancing at the helmet on Lyphon’s hip. “So the Thava say. I don’t think it happened long ago, maybe a day or two at most.”
Lyphon nodded. “I suppose an undertaker like yourself would know.”
The old man raised a gnarled, calloused hand to rub at his brow. “Something needed to be done and Marsham came to me with the job. Still the undertaker even after all these years. If this keeps up, maybe I’ll buy some land like I’ve always thought about. I’d rather dig a furrow for sprouting life than a grave for concealing death.” He grunted with a shake of his head. “Always work for an undertaker, even during the Sprouting.”
“What did you find?”
“Parts…” the old man said with a frown. “The wagon was covered in blood, the ground all around it too. So much blood. There were chains in the wagon, along with a few dead horses still in their harnesses…or what was left of them. We can’t be sure how many dead there are, but we found seven hands. Up near a small hill over there, we found the body of blond girl. Found a redhead too, well…just the head, but nobody seems to know who they are. Folk coming in for the festival passed the wagon but nobody wanted to go near it, covered in flies and stinking to death in the heat as it was.”
“Where did you find the…parts?”
The old man gestured at the fields around them. “Out there. We collected them and put them in the fire. Whatever happened here…whoever or whatever did this…I just wanted to be rid of it.”
Lyphon nodded, wrapping a fist around the amulet on his chest.
Grevail’s eyes followed the Purifier’s into the fields, trying to swallow away the apple sized lump in his throat.
“One man who passed by on his way to the Sprouting mentioned strange footprints in the road,” the old man said, pointing at the ground. “But when we got here, there were none to be found. Likely swept away by the wind.”
Grevail dropped his gaze. Shimmerbeast footprints? He shuddered, imagining what kind of feet a creature like that would have. Could something made of smoke even leave footprints? A glint of metal caught his eye, strobing in the light from the fire, as if something were buried just beneath the soft dirt of the road. He knelt and studied what looked like the edge of a coin. After sweeping away the soil, his mouth went dry. It was the coin Dell kept from the tomb. The angular symbols stamped into the perimeter were obvious as the dirt fell away. A terrible tightness crept across his chest and it seemed as if an huge weight were pressing him into the ground.
“What’s that?” Lyphon appeared at Grevail’s shoulder, staring at the coin with a fist still wrapped around his amulet.
Grevail’s eyes burned. His heart hammered against his chest like it was trying to escape. A wave of dizziness swept over him and he put a hand to his forehead. “It belonged to my friend,” he grunted. A girl with blond hair. A redhead, too.
Lyphon’s eyes raised from the coin and studied Grevail’s face. His features softened and a gentle sigh escaped his lips. “They could still be alive,” he suggested.
“How? You heard what he just said.”
“Is the relic still here?”
“Who cares about that damn relic!” Grevail growled.
Lyphon paused, as if he were choosing his words. “If it isn’t here, your friends might have went with it.”
Grevail walked from the bonfire, sensing that the trail continued. “No, it is gone.”
Lyphon stopped Grevail with a hand on his shoulder. “If the stableman escaped with it your friends could still be alive.”
“How do we know somebody else didn’t take it?”
“That fellow said nobody wanted to go near this with...” Lyphon paused whatever else he was about to say with another long look at Grevail.
Grevail wanted to throw the coin at his face. “I would have been with them if it wasn’t for you!”
“What would you have done?”
“I could have done something,” he said, fighting the wetness growing in his eyes.
Lyphon shook his head and tuned his voice to a whisper. “Against a Shimmerbeast, Grevail, there is little you could have done. You must have hope that the Paragons protected your friends. They are still alive.”
“What do you care? All you want is that cube. My friends mean nothing to you.”
A frown turned Lyphon’s lips. “True…I do seek the relic, but I never wanted anything to happen to your friends—”
“I’m not helping you find anything! My friends are dead!”
Lyphon leveled a serious gaze at Grevail. “There are two possibilities, scamp. The first is that the stableman and your friends are dead and the relic is lost forever.”
Grevail clenched his jaw tight around a scream, fighting the sobs shaking his body. “It is your fault! Not mine!”
“I don’t think it is your fault,” Lyphon said. He softened his voice. “The second possibility is that at least some of your friends or the stableman survived…and continued on with the relic.”
“You can’t know that!” Grevail shouted. The villagers around the fire turned to stare at them but said nothing.
“Can you tell how long the relic was here? You say you know it stopped here, can you tell how long?” the Purifier asked.
Grevail refused to answer, and with tears streaming down his cheeks, challenged the Purifier’s gaze. You will pay Thavan! You will all pay for what you did!