Culaya was crying as he ran back toward the camp. Could he blame her? She was tired and afraid. Suddenly, he regretted bringing along a child to see the black fog. But how could he have known what would have happened? What did happen anyway? Those beams of light, where did they come from and why did they leave behind a wounded man? Was he some sort of gapling whose experiment went awry? No, Monu himself was considered a gapling and and he barely had any power. Perhaps he was some sort of ardent or gapmaster? Either way, the man appeared to be wounded. How severe the wounds were, Monu had not a clue. He only caught a glimpse of the figure and knew he had to be rescued. So instead of stopping at the camp, he ran past it and continued down the trail until he reached the spot where they tethered Dinin. The warg was busy chewing uselessly on a rock, his mandible clicking against the stone. Monu set his sister on the ground and squatted to her level, his hands on her shoulders.
“I will buy you Warin's entire store.” He said “I will buy you every toy he has. But we're both going to have to do something scary. There's a man down in the valley and he's hurt. We are the only ones who can help him.”
“No!” She protested, “I do NOT want to go down there!”
“Look!” Monu withdrew his stormcrest, the flickers were growing dimmer. “The fog is leaving. We will not have to go through it. We have to take Dinin and use him to climb down. It will be a rough ride, but he can do it.”
“Off a cliff?”
“No, we'll find another way down. There is a trail that leads to Runak Run. Look, would you rather I leave you here?”
He could see the thought horrified her even before she spoke. “No...”
“Every toy in Warin's store.” he repeated, then he patted her on the back. He knew he would regret that promise later, but if it allowed him to bribe his sister, then it was necessary.
He hoisted Culaya onto one of Dinin's front-most segments, untethered the beast from its tree, and pulled himself up after her. After strapping them both onto the saddle, he tucked his legs into the crevice behind Dinin's head and whispered a gleaning into the lantern mounted on the saddle. It flared to life and projected a narrow beam that widened just enough to illuminate the warg's path. Pulling the reins, he turned the warg in a fluid motion and barked a command. With ten legs on either side, the beast shot forward like flowing water, weaving along the road they had taken. Monu turned Dinen into the trail that led toward the riverbed.
The rhythmic clatter of the warg's claws echoed through the night as he flowed over dirt and rock. Every now and then, Monu would hold onto his sister to keep her from hurting herself whenever Dinin crawled over a fallen log. Occasionally, he had to duck under a low branch though thankfully, there weren't many of those. The beast's smoothness belied the speed and dexterity at which it moved. When it came across small ravines, it arched its front end like a bridge over them instead of falling in. Before they knew it, Dinin had reached the shore of the Runik Run.
As he had predicted, the fog was no longer present. In fact, starpieds began to crawl back out of their hiding places and the yikai climbed to eat them. Where had that man been? Monu chose a direction he thought was the right way. Dinen navigated the various rocks and boulders as if they were little more than waves on water. The clouds made the search easier by thinning and allowing a little bit of the twin moon's light shine through. Monu flinched at every fallen log, tree, shadow that may have been a man. Eventually they rounded a large boulder and found what they were looking for. A large, long rut had been gouged into the gravel as if one of the Nikral's totem walkers had dragged a massive finger through the shore. At the end of the rut lay the figure they had been looking for, surrounded by metal debris.
“Okay, stay here.” Monu said, freeing himself from his sister, who had been burying her head in his chest. He left her on Dinin's back and slid down, his feet crunching gravel. He hurried his way over to the figure, who must have tried to crawl since appearing in the black fog, for now the figure was lying face down, unmoving. He feared the worst when he heard the man groan.
“Hey!” Monu said, catching up to the figure, pausing briefly when he noticed the stranger's bizarre attire. He had seen nothing like it in the entire world: arms and legs adorned with fabric that looked as if it had been woven with fine hair-thin threads of gray-black metal. There were no seams that he could detect, just a continuous “skin” of metal weaving. His lantern cast bands of light across the beautiful yet outlandish material. The weaving seemed to coalesce into a segmented carapace along the man's spine. There were a series of symbols written along the odd structure, but they were part of a language Monu did not recognize. What kind of work was this? As he was pondering the strange dialect, the man on the groun groaned and tried to crawl forward.
“Hey, friend?” Monu said moving to the stranger's side, “Are you all right?”
The stranger lifted his head and looked at Monu. From front to back, his pale-white flesh was completely devoid of any hair, not even on his eyebrows. His eyes were dark orbs of obsidian, pupils so black they seemed to refuse light. And his ears were not bisected as a normal man's were. Instead, they were fused together with only the mere hint of a seam, thin skin where the split should have been. Several blisters bubbled around strange metal gauges, or “holes” embedded in the stranger's temples. It was grotesque, why would anybody put gauges in their skull? He did not want to look into them for fear of seeing the stranger's brain. A streak of blood trickled from the stranger's mouth, looking stark against the ashen flesh. Monu startled involuntarily at the strange individual. he really did look like one of the dead. Could the myths about the black fog be true after all? The stranger stared at him as if expecting something from him before simply scowling and continued to drag himself forward, toward a pile of strange metal debris. Where did that come from?
“Whoa, slow down friend!” Monu said, “You should not be moving. You....just wait here.”
He left the crawling man briefly and grabbed a canteen of water from Dinen's back. When he returned, the stranger had pulled himself up to the pile of metal debris, his arms trembling. He was tossing aside pieces of shrapnel and trash as if looking for something. Monu placed a hand on his shoulder. The man flinched and immediately grabbed some sort of twisted metal rod, then he swung it around like a bludgeon. Perhaps if he had been in a better physical condition, the blow would have landed. But the man was slow and uncoordinated, his dizziness was clear from the way he stumbled back to the ground.
Monu leapt back “Hey, calm yourself stranger. I am not your enemy.” He held up the canteen. The man fixed him with a look of menace and fear, but he seemed to comprehend what Monu said. Without putting down the bludgeon, he took a seat and held out his palm, accepting the canteen. He inspected it for a moment, pulled the cap off and took several long swills. As the man drank, Monu began to have doubts. The man was clearly not in his right mind, that was obvious. He was violent, afraid perhaps, but of what? Was he some sort of escaped criminal? Was he some sort of spirit that manifested himself out of the black fog's miasma? What danger would he be putting his sister in if he tried to help the man? He glanced back at Dinin to make sure his Cuyala was still there. He could barely see her shadowy silhouette crouching on the warg's head.
“What is your name?” Monu asked when the stranger quenched his thirst.
Instead of answering, the man tossed the canteen to him and resumed his search, pushing aside pieces of strange metal. Where did all that metal come from anyway? It was beautiful, pure, unblemished alloy, as if some majestic work of art had been demolished moments ago. But it was not just metal that he noticed, but also bits of glass, strange torn “leaves” with images on them fluttering around. Vines of red and orange grew from apertures in the metal. Where they broke, they revealed cores of copper. Not vines, Monu thought, some sort of cords. The stranger reached a heavy metal slab and tried to lift it, but the exertion almost caused him to faint. Frantic, he began to dig at the gravel with the bludgeon he carried, as if he meant to burrow under the slab. Monu hesitated, then he stepped forward, preparing to defend himself if the man attacked again. The man did hear him coming and raised his cudgel as a warning. But when he saw Monu position himself on one side of the slab, he hesitated and took up his position on the other side. Monu stared straight ahead and groaned as he heaved upward, his shoulders protesting acutely. They both lifted and dragged the plate to the side before dropping it to the ground.
The man staggered over to the thing he had been looking for. At first, Monu thought he was looking at the skeleton of some strange beast. But it was not bone he was looking at, more of the pure metal. He saw a chassis, something that resembled legs protruding from beneath it and where the “head” should have been, there was instead a large black dome made of either glass or polished crystal. An eye perhaps? The man stood the construct up on upon its legs and Monu saw something that could have been a saddle, or a seat on its back. But before he could speculate on what he was seeing, the man approached a large container near the construct's posterior and reached through it. Through it? Monu's eyes must be playing tricks on him. He blinked twice, but he was not mistaken. The man had his arm submerged in the walls of the container as if it were no more substantial than air.
The stranger pulled his arm back, producing a large gray cylinder whose sides swung open to reveal an array of smaller metallic vials. Each vial had a crudely drawn representation of a face on it. Some were frowning, others were smiling, scowling, screaming. Others had not faces, but crude child-like pictographs of people sleeping, leaping, laughing, performing all sorts of gestures. Before Monu could read them all, the stranger sat down and raised a hand up to his right bicep and ran a finger across the only seam in the entire garment. It opened to its touch, as if his finger were a knife. Embedded in the man's bicep were several more of those grotesque gauges, metal holes in the man's pale flesh. To Monu's horror and disgust, one of the holes ejected a small vial. It was identical to the ones in the cylinder. Then it ejected another and a third soon followed. The man grabbed three more vials, one with an image of a man sprinting, another with a smile, and another representing a grinning man with a knife jutting out of his chest. He pushed each one into the same gauge, then ejected the other three, closed the sleeve over it, then took a deep breath. In seconds, his trembling subsided and his breathing steadied. A slight smile crossed the man's face as he pushed himself up off the ground and looked at Monu.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Khelen.” he said, his voice sounded raspy but young. In fact, he sounded no older than Monu himself. But it was difficult to discern his age. The hairlessness of his face gave him an ashen, ageless look. He stood as if he had not moments ago been on the verge of collapsing.
“K-khelen?” Monu repeated.
“Khelen.” Khelen repeated, tapping his chest.
“Uh....Monu.” Monu said.
“Monu...” Khelen repeated. “Cypher...is dying.”
“Cypher?” Monu repeated, “Is Cypher a friend of yours?”
“Cypher is dying.” Khelen repeated, a hint of irritation in his voice.
Monu paused, “...I don't understand, friend.”
“It malfunctions. Are we...near a city?”
“Uh...the nearest village is Inshod. It is not far but...” Monu began but Khelen cut him off.
“Village?” Khelen looked confused for a moment, as if the word were unfamiliar to him. “No time... Take me, I will reward you.”
“Hold on friend,” Monu said, “There may not be time for questions, but I cannot just take you back to my village after...after you just tried to attack me. You could be a danger to me, my sister...”
“I will answer later.” Khelen cut him off, anger in his voice. “I will reward you. I am in Saxion’s favor.”
The strange individual walked over to the skeletal structure, bent his knees and picked it up, his muscles bulging underneath his strange weave. He began to drag it toward Dinin, the legs of the structure bouncing off the rocks. Monu froze for a few moments of utter confusion before running up beside Khelen, having apparently decided to help the man. But wasn't that his duty anyway? Wasn't that the reason he came down here in the first place? Without knowing why he did it, he helped the man carry the construct to the warg's posterior, then used a rope to hoist it up. It was heavy, but Monu expected it to be far heavier, considering the material it was made from. He also expected it to come to life as the glass dome seemed to glare at him in the lantern light as he tied several knots around the legs.
Why am I doing this? Monu thought to himself. Who was this man, who was Saxion, the entity in whom he supposedly found favor? Who, or 'what' was Cypher? More importantly, what was he doing in the black fog, what were those lights, and how was he standing when moments before he was on the verge of passing into unconsciousness? He comforted his sister as Khelen continued to gather stuff from the glittering refuse.
“I do not know why he attacked, but he is not a spirit,” he said, “In fact, I think he was afraid I was a spirit.”
“Really?” she asked in a voice quivered with exhaustion.
“Yes. I also think...” excitement and dread filled Monu's chest as a possibility occurred to him, “I think he may be favored by a Nikral. I saw him do things...well, I think he may be very well-liked by a lord somewhere, one called Saxion. He said he would reward us if we help him!”
But his sister was too tired to understand any of it. In fact, she was already laying sideways across Dinin's back, falling asleep. He reached up to stoke her hair and then helped Khelen load the rest of his wares into the bags on the Warg's sides. He treated them gingerly, arranging them so they would not clang against each other. If one of the Nikral held Khelen in high opinion, then he would do everything he could to earn the man's favor. After the pale man was done, he took one appraising look at Dinin and hoisted himself up on the beast's back, near the middle.
“I am sorry...I do not have another saddle,” Monu said, pulling himself up behind Culaya, who whined softly as he straddled behind her. She lay her head across his thigh. “Inshod is close...”
The ride was not long, however Monu decided not to stop at the camp. They were near enough to it that he could retrieve their belongings tomorrow. So instead, he headed straight for Inshod as fast as Dinin would take them. The twin moons seemed to watch them from their stations in the night sky, white orbs observing with celestial scrutiny, painting the road with pale light and shadow. Though the trip was relatively brief, it felt long as doubts crept up on the young guardian. He was new to his duty to protect Inshod, be an aid to the people who lived within. In a way, it was a boon that he happened to be assigned to his own home. Yet it also made him more wary that he was bringing an unknown stranger into their midst. But if Khelen was favored by the lords, then surely this was a blessing?
He thought about the brief exchange they had. Why would Khelen ask such a thing when it was clear Monu had every capacity of speech? He glanced back briefly at the man, Khelen's pale countenance looking ethereal in the moonlight. The man seemed to be staring through him as if seeing something in the distance. Beads of sweat glistened on the man's forehead and his hands trembled slightly, though that could have been an illusion cast by Dinin's tread.
The warg crawled its way up the Colori Steps, a shelf road named after the way it weaved back and forth as it ascended Colori Mountain. Pillars of stone, like petrified tree trunks, marked the sides of the road. Blunbar Creeps wrapped around many of these columns, draping their turquoise vines from one to the other. Monu was glad the elders decided not to clear them out. When they were in bloom, their flame-like petals turned the Colori steps into a tapestry of fire. The brief display would make up for the fact that they were ugly chokers for the rest of the year.
The Colori Steps lead all the way to Caldera of Colori Mountain, but he turned off on The Inshod way, named for the obvious fact that it passed through Inshod Village. A brief run over the Whistling Arch, a stone bridge which spanned a small, but steep crevice took the into another canopy of trees, their trunks alight with starpieds. Monu saw the watchtowers of Inshod in the distance and knew somebody would be coming to meet him. It was unusual for visitors to arrive this late at night. Sure enough, he saw two lantern lights appear in the distance so he brought Dinen slowly to a stop and waited. Culaya slowly stirred from her sleep as the clattering of wargs approached.
“Monu?” one of the guards said, a fellow guardian by the name of Borin. “I thought you were camping in Runak.”
“I was.” Monu said, “But....” How could he explain what had happened? “I...need to bring this stranger to the elders.”
“Stranger?” the other guardian said, an older man named Cahlai. “This pale one?” Cahlai's warg circled Dinin to get a better look. “Strange indeed, I've never seen garments like those. And I have never seen anybody sleep on a warg while sitting.”
“What?” Monu turned around and sure enough, Khelen had his head bowed and eyes closed, but he was still upright and his grip on Dinin's carapace remained firm.
“That is impressive!” Borin chuckled, “Is he a soldier?”
“I do not know,” Monu said, “He has...done things I cannot explain. His name is Khelen and I think he may have the favor of a 'Lord Saxion'.”
“Are you sure?” Cahlai was right to be skeptical.
“No,” Monu admitted, “he only said he had Saxion's favor and that he would reward us if we helped him. Have you heard of a Lord Saxion?”
The guards both shook their heads. “Why is there blood on his face, did you both get into a brawl?” Borin asked.
“He is a spirit.” Culaya murmured.
“He is not a spirit,” Monu said softly, “I found him lying near the Runak Run while black fog poured through the valley. There was...a bolt of lightning...well, I do not know if I can explain it.”
“Well, we better take him to the Ardent,” Cahlai said, “He does not look well.” The older guardian was right. Beads of sweat began to run down Khelen's face and his hands were trembling. A quiver shook the man's breath. “I am sure Malk will want to hear more your new friend so find your words while we ride.” Cahlai added before moving closer. “Also...I would flee Inshod for a few days after you debrief Malk. When your stepmother hears you took your daughter down into black fog, she will skin you alive.” He glanced at Culaya and gave her a brief smile.
“It was gone by the time we got to him, but you are probably right.”
Cahlai dismounted from his warg and climbed up behind Khelen, holding the man in case he fell. Monu followed Borin, who lead Cahlai's mount alongside him. Khelen began to murmur strange words under his breath, his voice quaked. What was wrong with him? Was he ill? Had he been poisoned? Was it those strange vials Khelen...Monu did not want to think about those. The more he thought of those apertures in Khelen's flesh the more he wanted to squirm and scratch at his own arm. Monu had many questions but he was too tired to think of them all.
Finally, they began to see the light of Inshod village, blue and yellow illuminations caused by combination of sap and oil lanterns. Husk huts and homes of carapace filled the moderately-sized town., though many of them were tucked between the densely populated trees. As was the tradition of most towns and villages in the region, Inshod's homes and shops seemed to spiral around the center, orbiting the hall where the elders and elect met. A few people nodded curiously to Monu and the guardians as they came into town. But at this hour, most were asleep. Only the tavern seemed to be active. But then again, the tavern was always active, frequented by night duty guards. Culaya began to whine when they were about to pass their home.
“What is the matter?” Borin asked when he noticed they had stopped.
“She is tired and scared.” Monu said regretfully, “She wants my parents.”
“Borin, take the girl.” Cahlai ordered, “Catch up with us later.”
Borin tied both his and Cahlai's mounts to some nearby ground posts and gently coaxed a grouchy Culaya off Dinin's head, catching her as she slid down the creature's head. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she ran for the door and tried to open it. “Hold on now,” Borin trotted up to her, “Your parents lock the door when sleep, we have to wake them up-”
“We should go before your mother gets up.” Cahlai said.
“I agree.” Monu directed Dinen toward the center of the village, but cut through an alleyway in the direction of the Ardent's house. He hoped Riese would not resent him too much for being disturbed at this hour. But Monu was relieved when he saw lights in the Ardent's brick and mortar home. The construction immediately set his house apart from the polyquisk husks which surrounded it. Brick, though far more expensive than polyquisk molts, was far more durable and it did not have to be anchored in seasons of strong wind. Nor did it have to be coated in shrac resin for privacy, bricks were already opaque. Riese had a couple of small nectar lamps hanging from her windows. Several starlocks, with their glowing blue bodies, crawled over the nectar-infused mantles. Monu brought Dinin to a stop and dismounted.
“Hey, are you awake?” Cahlai nudged Khelen who continued to mutter. His entire face was slick with sweat. When he opened his eyes, several drops fell onto his chest. No, those were tears, not sweat. Khelen was crying. He looked around at Inshod, the lanterns reflecting in his black eyes and in the streams which began to roll down his cheeks. What? Was he in that much pain? No, it was more than pain. The way his gaze darted back and forth in desperation...he was terrified. Terrified of what?
“Khelen.” Monu said, the man looked at him. “Come on, I'll help you down. We brought you to our healer, Ardent Riese. You do not look well.”
Khelen did not seem to hear him. Once again he seemed to stare straight through Monu, as if the guardian were not there. But eventually Monu's words pierced him and his gaze focused. “The cypher,” he said, “cyastic interference...I need....” Khelen closed his eyes and swayed, as if struggling for words, “cage.”
Monu said nothing, he did not know even know what to say. The man's words were so cryptic they seemed to defy understanding. Instead, he helped Khelen dismount Dinin and had to hold him up when his feet hit the ground. The man shook in his grasp as if trembling with a severe fever. He looked up at the trees, at the lanterns and at the homes around them. “Where....” he whispered, horror and confusion in his voice, “Where....where...am...” and he passed into unconsciousness. Where am I? The words finished themselves.