Legends speak of a time before the Scorch. A time when instead of endless sand and merciless heat, the land was verdant, and life flourished in the interior of Okkorim. Legends also speak of a brothel in Yazeen where the ale isn’t watered down, and the womenfolk are all clean and pure as the Rahiba Nuns. I’m not sure which legend is more far-fetched…
— Journal Entry 19, Salim tev Ahmad, Zarifian Merchant
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“How can we ever repay you?” Elder Yarrow asked, hands clasped together in reverent supplication.
To Rift’s ears, it wasn’t really a question but a plea for mercy. Upon first arriving in Telrala, Rift and the others had sold themselves as simple Uzra-Rhu; Nightmare Hunters, in the Trade Tongue. Wandering Cultivators, unaffiliated with any specific sect, all looking to carve out a name for themselves along with a bit of coin.
In short, the Rhu were one step above mercenaries. Albeit, divine mercenaries, sanctioned, commissioned, and licensed by the Council to hunt creature’s regular militiamen could never kill.
After seeing the slaughter unfold on the outskirts of their town, however, that illusion had been rather rudely shattered. Licensed Hunters didn’t make it a habit of indiscriminately murdering imperial scouts or decapitating Inquisition Watchers. Outlaws, thieves, and cutthroats were as plentiful in Okkorim as sand in the desert, but Cultivator Outlaws with a grudge against the Empire? Those were far fewer. And those who kept the company of a Muzhry Cultivator?
There was only one.
The legend of the Bastard Son of the Sands had reached even here, it seemed.
The old man was pleading for mercy as much as he was offering heartfelt thanks.
The insinuation that Rift would murder innocent people was as insulting as it was nauseating, but he couldn’t fault these folk for their thinking. The myths that swirled around Rift and his fabled crew were as varied as they were bloody. Many such stories were… less than kind in their depiction. Sadly, some of them were also true.
“Your thanks are much appreciated,” Idwan replied, his voice warm and soothing.
Rift remained silent. Chains would say he was brooding, though he wasn’t. Just thinking. About where to go. What to do next.
“But they are also most unnecessary,” Idwan continued, spreading his arms wide. “We are but humble servants hoping to help those less fortunate.”
“You honor us with your humility,” the old man said, bowing so deeply his head nearly brushed the floor, “but surely there is something we can do, yes? Not only have you saved us from the Uzra, but you have spared our people from the iron fist of the Imperator. Were it not for you, they might well have slaughtered us all,” the man said.
He spoke candidly, though his words were little more than a whisper. They were a whisper for good reason.
Speaking out against the Council or the powerful ruling class that governed the broad swatch of Okkorim was tantamount to a death sentence if heard by the wrong ears. This man, Elder Yarrow, knew exactly who they were and was clearly sympathetic to the cause. The same sentiment simmered just beneath the surface in many of the border villages, though few had the courage to mutter those sentiments out loud.
The shadow of the Sorcerer-God reached far.
“There is one thing you can do for us,” Rift finally said after a long, tense beat. “You can tell us why they were here. Why they were really here.” He stared at Elder Yarrow, then each of the assembled elders in turn. They were twelve in all. Thirteen before the scouts had shown up. “I don’t mean to offer any offense, venerated clan elders, but what could they possibly want from you?”
Elder Yarrow shared a guarded look with the others.
It was nothing more than a glance, so quick someone else might’ve missed it. Rift was not someone else. He could read the man like a scroll. The way his muscles tightened. The way his heart raced. The faint sheen of nervous perspiration dotting his brow.
These were men with secrets.
“I have no idea what you mean, honored Cultivator,” Elder Yarrow replied, dry washing his hands the whole while. “They came searching for you, or so it would appear.”
“No,” Rifted replied flatly. “They didn’t even know we were here—not until we showed up to save you lot. They were looking for something else. And it must be important for them to send a Watcher to the back end of nowhere.” He swept a hand around at the empty stretch of desert and the simple mud huts that served as homes. “There is nothing here worth taking. Not that I can see. So tell me, Elder, why did they really come? The truth this time.”
He didn’t raise his voice. Didn’t brandish a weapon in threat. He didn’t need to. Although Rift would never hurt these people, they didn’t know that, and they had just seen what he was capable of with the right incentive.
Elder Yarrow licked his lips, his heart thundering so loudly it sounded like a war drum in Rift’s ears.
“Forgiveness, honored Cultivator,” he replied bowing even more deeply than before. “We are a simple people and deception does not come easily or readily to our lips. But you must understand, this is an old thing. A secret entrusted into the care of our ancestors a thousand years ago or more.” The man muttered apologetically, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. “If you must kill me, then kill me, but I shall speak on the matter no further.”
The elder winced, clearly steeling himself to receive a deathblow.
It was a rather impressive display of courage, Rift had to admit. Few were willing to defy a Cultivator, and no one defied a member of the Peerless—not even if he was a disgraced outcast. Especially not one who was a disgraced outcast with a history written in blood.
After a long, tense moment there was a sigh followed by a rustle of fabric.
The assembled elders parted and a shriveled man, stooped with age and curled in on himself like a dead spider shuffled forward. He was ancient. Older than the sands themselves. He had brown skin like thin parchment left too long in the sun, and a wispy white beard that trailed all the way down to his waist.
Despite his frail appearance and diminutive size, the other elders backed away from him with reverence. Rift extended his perception. He faltered when he felt the smallest flicker of mana running through the old man’s body. Though far too weak to ever be considered a true Cultivator, the wizened elder had magic in his veins. There could be no doubt about it. Rift sensed Water Aspect, but it was a curious thing. The trace of mana was so faint it was almost like the shadow of an Aspect, rather than the real thing.
The man wasn’t strong enough to even be considered a proper Iron, yet clearly the power inside him had somehow extended his life beyond its natural limits.
“I am Elder Ferhat,” the man wheezed, “the eldest of the elders of Telrala and Keeper of the Seeker’s Stone, charged by the long dead Sect of Flowing Waters with keeping this artifact safe. Secret.” He sounded tired. A man exhausted by the weight of far too many years. “It seems, however, that secret has taken wing like the hawks of the high passes. No use in keeping it hidden away now.”
The ancient elder dipped a skeletal hand into the deep folds of his robes and fished out a circular metal ball about the size of a ripe apple. It appeared to be gold, but was not, and intricate sigils covered its surface. Inset into the top of the odd orb was a glimmering blue sapphire about the size of a robin’s egg. In all his long years, Rift had never seen anything quite like it, though he knew this wasn’t the work of a modern crafter.
Those runes marked the orb as an artifact of the ancient Ydrissid, though it carried only the faintest whiff of magic.
“Forgive me, honored Elder” Idwan said bowing his head respectfully, “but I’m still not sure I entirely understand. While I have no doubt this sacred treasure is of great personal and historic value to you and your people, I find it hard to imagine why the Council would seek such a thing so earnestly.”
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Chains snorted and rolled her eyes. “What my eloquent and well-mannered friend is trying to say,” she interjected before the elder could answer, “is why would the Imperials give a camel’s arse about your hand-me-down relic? They have Dream Vaults filled to overflowing with sacred treasures like this. To you sand farmers, I’m sure this is the heirloom of a lifetime. But to an Exarch or an Archon? This is a desk bauble to hold parchment.”
Muttered gasps of shock and dismay rippled around the circle of elders.
Chains likely wasn’t wrong in her assessment, but she had a bluntness about her that could rankle even the patience of a saint. Fake relics and forged artifacts were as prevalent in Okkorim as sand was in the Scorch. If Elder Ferhat was perturbed or offended, however, he showed no sign. His weathered, wrinkled face remained neutral and placid.
“You are young,” he said, once the disapproving mutters had finally died down, “so you may not have learned that looks can be deceptive and that the value of a thing is not always in the thing itself. As you say, perhaps the worth of this trinket is of only nominal value to someone like you or the powerful nobles of Chentoufi. To us, who know its true purpose, it is beyond priceless.”
A mischievous light sparkled in his eyes.
“For us, young one, this treasure is life itself.” He gently, almost loving, ran a withered hand along the outside of the orb. “This unassuming artifact is the fabled Vaultseer's Eye.”
The words momentarily caught Rift off balance. He knew of the Eye, though few others did. It was a legend as old as the long-dead Ydrissid. A legend so old that most had never heard of it at all. Unlike the Sands of Eternity or the Lamp of the Djinn King—treasures so well-known, even the youths of Chentoufi daydreamed about finding them—the Vaultseer’s Eye was a story whispered only among scholars, so bored they had nothing better to talk about.
Even Chains seemed ignorant, though recognition briefly flashed across Idwan’s stony face.
“The Eye contains the location of a temple,” Elder Ferhat continued. “One long buried to the world. Within that temple is a treasury that even the high nobles of Chentoufi would wage war to possess.”
Chains eyed the ball with a spark of renewed interest and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “What sort of treasure we talking about, eh? Weapons? Armor? Or just a wagon loaded down with uncut diamonds?”
“A wagon loaded down with uncut diamonds?” Idwan scolded, stealing a sidelong glance at the rogue.
She shrugged and examined her fingernails. “A girl’s entitled to dream, isn’t she?”
The old man offered her a gap-toothed grin. He was missing more teeth than he had left.
“I doubt the sacred treasure at the heart of the lost temple is something so simple as gemstones, young one,” Elder Ferhat replied, spreading his hands as though in apology for disappointing her. “But our legends do speak of powerful sacred treasures, lost knowledge, and ancient cultivation manuals written by the Ydrissid themselves, although these are not the true reward.”
“And what exactly is this true reward?” Rift asked, growing more curious by the minute. Even he knew precious little about the Eye or the treasure it supposedly guarded.
The elder grimaced and shrugged. “Apologies, but I must confess that I do not know. No one does. All we have to guide us in our ancient duty are the old stories, passed down to me from my father and from his father before him, back ten generations or more. Still, I can share them with you, if you wish?”
Idwan reached into a small satchel slung low around his hips and pulled out an intricately carved wooden tablet, not much larger than his palm. He opened the tablet with care, revealing hardened red wax and a small bronze stylus, pointed at one end and with a flat, triangular-shaped scraper on the other.
Rift suppressed a groan. Idwan’s studious nature was legendary. He was nearly as greedy for stories as Chains was for coin.
“We would be honored to hear your tale,” the blue man replied. “Do you mind, honored elder, if I take notes? I’m something of a scholar among my people. A chronicler, some would call me.”
Elder Ferhat offered Idwan a creased smile, then nodded, clearly delighted.
“It is said that hidden away within the temple’s treasury is an artifact of the Seventh Age. An age before even the rise of the Yrissid or the Cultivators,” the old man began. He spoke with a rhythmic cadence and a sing-song quality, which told Rift this was a story he’d told many, many times before. “That its foundation was laid, and its walls formed back when the land was still lush and fertile. Back when verdant grass and never-ending orchards covered the dunes, and the blighted lands were settled by men and not the monsters of the Null.
“Yet, as the sands of time inevitably flowed—years turning to decades, decades to centuries, and centuries into millennia—a dire struggle between the Sentinels of Creation and the terrors of the Null unfolded. The once fertile lands were ravaged, the crops withering to not but sand. The waters vanished, swallowed by the arid expanse. And in the desolation, humanity languished, their hunger and thirst unquenched, left with only dust and bitter ash to eat and drink.
“In their darkest hours, humanity beseeched the Driss, the creators of their race, crying out for succor. For salvation, lest they be undone. The Driss, hearing the anguished pleas and gazing upon the mighty work of their hands, were moved by compassion. Thus, in the Eighth Age, the Driss bestowed upon humankind a fragment of their celestial might to contend with the malevolence of the Null and fight back against the corruption of Ruin. And so were the ancient Ydrissid born. The first of the great Cultivators.
“Yet, even the arcane marvels wrought by the Cultivators of old could not fully mend the grievous wounds inflicted upon the land. Seeing this, one of the nameless Driss, a deity of boundless benevolence and power, descended from the firmament. With a crown of water droplets upon his brow and robes crafted from a living river, he forged the hallowed Temple of Eternal Waters. Confronted with the suffering of creation firsthand, he made a solemn compact, and the most noble of sacrifices.
“And so it was that temple became tomb. The final resting place for the body of a god. Although the desolation of the land was too profound to be entirely dispelled, the divine power of the sacrifice sustained the land, holding chaos at bay and offering sanctuary and solace against the nightmare Urza that bubbled up from Null. But the power contained within was a double-edged sword. Necessary but far too dangerous for the hands of mortal kind. The temple-turned-tomb was swallowed by the dunes, and its location entrusted to none but one. To our people.”
The elder clutched the metal orb more tightly, squeezing it against his chest.
Rift folded his arms, “And you really believe all that?” he asked, not bothering to hide the skepticism in his voice.
Once, what seemed a lifetime ago, Rift had been a pious man. But that was then. Before he’d experienced, firsthand, the cruelty and callousness of other pious men. Until he’d experienced the black-hearted treachery and bloody butchery they could perform in the name of indifferent gods above.
“Sometimes we must simply hold to such things in faith, young man,” the wizened elder said. Then he frowned, thumping the orb against his palm, thwack, thwack, thwack. Finally, he sighed and extended the treasure toward Rift. A round of shocked gasps rippled through the other elders, but Elder Ferhat silenced them in an instance with a raised hand. The sounds vanished as though cut off with the edge of a knife blade.
“I am its guardian, and this is the way it must be,” he muttered softly, speaking to the other elders but never taking his eyes from Rift.
“Why?” Rift asked, slowly accepting the offering, though still confused.
“Faith,” the old man replied with a shrug. He faltered, clearly warring with himself. “The magic,” he said, “it is failing. There can be no other word for it. I have lived in this village all the days of my life and in all those days, there was water in the well and food enough to feed us all. And the Urza?” He slowly shook his head from side to side. “They never darkened our shade. Not once in a hundred years, even though we are but a stone’s throw from the edge of the Blighted Lands. Yet now?”
He grimaced, the expression scrunching up his face like creased leather.
“Now the well is dry,” he said, “the crops fail. And those… those things”—he flapped a hand toward the cave high above—“have taken up roost in our lands. I already feared there was something amiss with the Temple. I can feel its magic waning. Can feel it in here.” He tapped his chest with one gnarled finger, right above where a Cultivator’s core would reside. “Those Imperial thugs confirmed it, though. When they started asking about the Eye, I knew the truth in my heart of hearts. Which is why I will give it to you.”
“I don’t know what you expect me to do,” Rift replied honestly, though he made no attempt to return the artifact. “I don’t know who you think we are—”
The elder cut him off. “I know exactly who you are,” he snapped. “Edriah tev Kular, Bastard Son of Blood and Sand. I may be senile, but I am not that senile. I knew the truth of it long before we ever hired you to take out the Urza in the caves. And I also know what they say about you. Some of it is true, but not all of it.” He squinted his eyes, studying Rift closely. “You are a good man, despite your protests. I see it in your heart. You could’ve run. Could’ve left us for dead, yet you came back. There is honor in you, Outlaw.
“I have no false notions about you or your band,” the Elder continued. “Mercenaries, they call you. That, I believe. And there is a bounty within the Temple. Sacred treasures, which will no doubt be worth your while. And if you should decide to cleanse the Temple and help our small, defenseless village in the process?” He shrugged again. “Who can say? Maybe there is goodness enough in your heart for such a thing.”
Rift pursed his lips and, after another moment of consideration, tucked the Vaultseeker’s Eye away into his Blood Bound armor.
“Gambling on the mercy of an outlaw and a mercenary is a dangerous bet,” he said.
“Faith,” Elder Ferhat replied for a third time. “Besides, better you have the Eye than High Lords on the Council. You may be a crook and a killer, but at least you’re not a monster. Serab afida ezhar min siyasiye ameen.”
Better to trust a sand viper than the mercy of a Noble.
On that, at least, Rift couldn’t argue. Of the two evils, he was surely the lesser no matter what those in Chentoufi said.