Aldhyor, I quickly realized, was big.
I hadn’t really gotten a sense of the size of the volcano when we first saw it. It was a conical haze at the edge of my vision, just another of the dozens of mountains I’d seen in this world. Sure, this one spewed smoke or steam up into the sky in a continuous plume, but that was the only extraordinary thing about it. It stood in the middle of a vast prairie, so I had no real way to understand its scale, at least not until we drew closer.
I’d honestly expected us to reach the base of the mountain in a few days at most. As the days turned into a week, though, we still hadn’t reached it. It swelled at the edge of my vision until its base covered a large chunk of the horizon. After five days, we rode in its shadow through the middle of the day, as the sun hung too low to the south to clear the summit even at its highest and only touched us in the morning and late afternoon, when it hung more to the east or west. The volcano stretched up until its bulk dominated the entire southern sky, its peak shrouded by a layer of clouds that seemed to drift around it all day.
The volcano’s size wasn’t the only way its presence dominated the landscape, either. As we neared it, the air around us warmed, and the humidity slowly rose until it almost felt balmy. Clouds rolled off the slopes and dropped warm rain on us regularly, small showers that coated the ground and fields nearby in a glistening sheen before passing. I assumed that meant the plume coming from the top was steam, not smoke.
“Most likely, John, yes,” Sara agreed as I gazed at the massive mountain.
“Any idea how big that thing is?” I asked.
“I can’t be precise without something more specific to use as a scale, but I’d estimate around 34,000 of your Earth feet.”
I refrained from letting out a silent whistle. I was pretty sure that made Aldhyor bigger than Everest back on Earth, or at least similar in size. “That’s pretty damn big.”
“It is, yes. Honestly, it’s far too big considering how young it is—and that makes it something of a geologic anomaly.”
“What do you mean?”
“Aldhyor is what you might call a composite volcano, one that’s typically built up over a long time and many, many eruptions. That’s what gives it its conical shape. However, composite volcanoes are highly vulnerable to erosion, mudslides, and explosions that tear them down and wear them away. It’s probably worse on this plain, considering the extreme temperature changes that would freeze and crack the unstable rock of a volcano.” She appeared beside me and pointed to the distant glow of the volcano.
“For a composite volcano to grow that large, it would have to erupt repeatedly over thousands of years, at least, if not tens of thousands. During that time, all that steam it emits would sink into the rocks of the slope, freeze, and cause erosion and landslides. The mountain would look uneven and broken. It doesn’t, though, so it can’t be all that old—or it must still be erupting regularly to fill in the signs of erosion.”
“It does seem pretty active,” I noted.
“True, but it can’t erupt that regularly—at least, not judging from how densely populated this area is. An eruption from a volcano of that size would devastate everything in a large region, and the accompanying earthquakes might collapse the nearby valskabs. Either the people here are very good at predicting the eruptions, evacuating, and rebuilding afterward, or it rarely erupts. Like I said, it’s an anomaly.”
I had to trust Sara on that, but she was definitely right about one thing: the closer we got to Aldhyor, the more people abounded. Far more Menskies worked the nearby fields. Boats drifted across small lakes, pulling up fish and some sort of plant that I guessed grew in the waters. Stands of trees jutted from the earth, no doubt watered by the frequent rainfall and dense humidity, and open wagons trundled back and forth between those carrying loads of lumber. The road had gotten a lot busier, as well, as people walking, hauling carts, and driving wagons moved back and forth across it. It intersected smaller east-west roads frequently, and I assumed that the heavier traffic meant there were more valskabs nearby, a fact that Aeld confirmed.
“As I said, Freyd, Aldhyor is the heart of the Haelendi,” he smiled at me when I noted the increase in local population. “It’s also the most fertile land in the entire Haelendi. Its forests supply us with most of our lumber, and both tin and copper are plentiful nearby, deposited here by the mountain in its past rages. The first and oldest valskabs made their homes here, and from here, our people spread out to fill the Haelendi.”
“Didn’t you say that your valskab was right near the High reaches?” I asked. “Does that mean that it’s a newer one?”
“It does, you’re right,” he said approvingly. “Valskab Fyallvorth is only a couple generations old. We were founded by hunters seeking to make a place from which they could easily hunt the High Reaches.” He gestured around us. “These valskabs, on the other hand, are hundreds of years old, and they have many times the people that ours does.”
“Does that mean they have a lot more spirits, too?”
“They do, and their spirits tend to be older and more powerful. They have more elder spirits than we younger valskabs—often three or four—and the more elder spirits a valskab binds, the more spirits they can add to their valskab.”
I noticed that Bregg scowled as Aeld told me that. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen that in the past several days, either. Aeld seemed to feel that defeating the elder spirit had indebted him and Fifa even more to me, and he’d tried to pay that back by giving me more instruction during our trip, including teaching me a meditative technique that he said would help my spirit heal its injuries faster. He was right in a way: the meditation did improve my Draining Aura and let me concentrate more on the restorative spell Sara showed me, boosting my energy recovery.
Bregg didn’t seem to care about that, though. What bothered him was when the letharvis instructed me on things about the valskabs, the rashi, or Menskallin culture in general. Those, apparently, were secrets of the people, not to be shared with outsiders, at least in the hunter’s mind. I was grateful for the information, though, as it helped me to understand the Menskallin and their society a little more.
I had to admit, when I first met Aeld and his hunters, I’d assumed that the Menskies were primitive and brutish. I quickly learned that wasn’t the case. They’d never developed advanced technologies because they didn’t need to; they could use their spirits to perform all the tasks that a machine might otherwise. Why build a powered mill when they could command stone spirits to grind grain to flour? Why create advanced sailing vessels when they could bind wind spirits to fill their simple sails and get just as much out of them? Why develop advanced weaponry like bows and crossbows when they could have spirits carry a hurled spear just as far, a lot more accurately, and deliver a much greater impact?
I’d also mentioned that one thing I was missing in this world was entertainment; apparently, the Menskies had that, as well. When we stopped at one valskab for a night, I walked into a room that seemed to serve as an art gallery, decorated with cured hides covered with elaborately painted images. Some were simple, depicting successful hunts or spirit summonings, but others were complex images of the Haelendi, other Menskallin, and even a few abstract pieces I didn’t understand. I saw athletic competitions and even a group of young Menskies playing a rough game that involved spearing a leather ball on wooden spears and chucking it into a hole.
It also didn’t take long for me to realize that the valskab dominated Menskie culture. I knew that it was important to them, obviously, but I’d never really understood the depths of that importance. I’d assumed that the valskabs were like a clan or extended family, but apparently, their bond was far deeper than that.
“All within a valskab walk a single path, Freyd,” Aeld explained. “Long ago, we realized that trying to build a society where each individual walked their own paths led to things like war, jealousy, infighting, and despotism. The valskab fixed that. Everyone within it is joined to everyone else, bound to support and nurture them. There’s no fighting, no envy, no hatred because we all share in one another’s minds and feelings.”
“They—they can’t really be like that,” Kadonsel protested silently. “Conflict is the way of the world…”
“Or that was a convenient lie that your people are fed to justify all the internal conflicts in your society,” I chuckled. “One that’s obviously false on its face.”
“What—what do you mean?”
“Don’t your leaders teach that the spirits exist in a state of conflict, too?”
“Yes, of course. That’s why the ancients often trouble our people.”
“Except that from everything I’ve seen, the spirits don’t care about people in the slightest, Kadonsel. It seems like they ignore us and each other as much as possible, and from what Aeld’s said about them, that makes sense. Why would a wind spirit that only understands the breeze it rides on care about you or your conflicts? It wouldn’t, not unless you bothered it to take power from it or have it do something for you. Left to its own devices, it would utterly ignore you and everything else around it.”
“Assuming that the letharvis is telling you the truth.”
“He’s got no reason to lie.” I laughed again. “Whereas your leaders have every reason to lie to you to justify all the struggles, conflicts, and wars that only exist to keep them in power. Plus, you’ve already realized that some of the things they’ve told you aren’t true. Why should this be?”
“I—I don’t know,” she admitted in a troubled voice. “Do you really think the savages can live like that?”
“They seem to. Of course, it could all be a ruse, or they could have all sorts of internal conflicts that they’re hiding from me. After all, I’m an outsider, and they don’t trust outsiders—which is its own type of conflict, I guess. But they seem to be mostly peaceful, don’t they?”
“I’ve seen you and Bregg argue any number of times,” I pointed out aloud when the ojain remained silent.
“We can disagree, of course, but in the end, we walk the same path. Bregg worries about the path we travel, but he travels it, nonetheless, and he wouldn’t turn aside from it. Part of being in the valskab is surrendering a bit of yourself to the whole and knowing that the valskab is more important than your individual wants and desires.” He sighed. “That’s why so many of the people you meet are reticent toward you. As an outsider, you’re only beholden to yourself, Freyd. That means you might do anything if it benefits you, even if it might hurt others around you. That’s how the Oikithikiim live, but not we Menskallin.”
“But even in a valskab, you have to have different levels of caring, Aeld. I mean, a parent is going to care more for their children than someone else’s children, right? A person will care more for their mate than anyone else.”
“All children are raised by the entire valskab,” he corrected. “Their bond with the woman who birthed them isn’t any stronger than it is to anyone else. As far as mating…” He looked slightly uncomfortable.
“According to our histories, it’s true that long ago, one or more females might bond to a male, reproducing only with him, as if she were his possession, or he hers. That led to nothing but jealousy, fighting, and even deaths, as females killed those who might usurp their place or males killed others to claim their females. Now, mating is simply an act, nothing more. A male and female who wish to—engage in reproduction are certainly welcome to do so, assuming that they aren’t close-siblings, but that doesn’t create any specific bond between them, any more than sharing a meal or working together does.”
It was an interesting glimpse into Menskallin culture, and I wasn’t the only one who seemed to think so.
“These people—we’ve been so wrong about them,” Kadonsel said one night as I listened in silence to three Menskie musicians playing for their valskab, one beating on a set of drums made of leather over wood, another strumming a flat, eight-stringed instrument laid across his lap, and the third blowing into a long, hollow bone pierced with holes to serve as a flute. As they played, a pair of young women danced to the music and sang wordlessly, their voices lilting, lyrical, and oddly heart-touching.
“How so?” I asked.
“We know about their valskabs,” she replied quietly. “Some of the Redeemed Elders told us the stories about them. I was taught that their supposed peacefulness comes from their letharvisa binding the spirits of the others and ruling them like despots.”
“Obviously, that’s not the case,” I chuckled. “At least, not judging how much Aeld and Bregg butt heads.”
“No, it’s not. They’re tied to each other, it’s true, but it’s a binding of understanding, not servitude.” She sighed. “So much of what we think is just—wrong. They aren’t stupid, or savage, or violent. I think that if we left them alone, they’d be happy living up here and ignoring us.”
“It’s possible,” I agreed. “Of course, we haven’t met all that many of them. They obviously have the capacity for violence, and when they indulge that, they’re fairly good at it. If we went south to where they’re actually fighting your people, we might see a totally different side of them.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“I suppose. Still, I think we could learn from them. The way they seem to coexist—if my people could do that, we’d become so much greater.” I felt a surge of sardonic amusement flow from her. “Of course, even thinking that would be called heresy. The Kungas teaches that conflict is the only way to reach the perfection of the great spirits, and peace is weakness. According to our teachings, the Menskallin exist to challenge us, so we can prove our worth by overcoming them.”
“I take it you don’t think that anymore?”
“I—I don’t know. What if their apparent peace is a temptation? What if struggle really is the only way to the great spirits, and the Menskallin’s way of life exists to try and pull us from that path?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle silently at that. “That’s a pretty narcissistic view, you know,” I pointed out. “Assuming that an entire species of intelligent people exists just for your benefit. What if they simply are, and their lives have nothing at all to do with you? That seems far more likely than that these great spirits created them just for you, doesn’t it?”
“I—I suppose, but…”
“Isn’t it more likely that the leaders of your people encourage you to fight with one another so that you can’t unite against them? That they teach you that conflict is life so that you don’t threaten their power by allying together? That they keep the Menskallin war going so that you see them as the enemy and direct all your anger there, safely away from them?” I gave a mental shrug. “I don’t know about you, but that seems a lot more likely to me.”
She fell silent for long seconds. “Do you—do you really think that could be true?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know your leaders. Maybe they really do believe what they say about conflict. Maybe your species is naturally combative and aggressive, and they’re giving you a healthy outlet for it. But you’ve seen that your history and religion lied to you about the Menskallin; if they’ve lied about that, what else have they hidden from you?
“And even if they weren’t lying—if they were honestly mistaken—I think that seeing all the ways they were wrong might make me doubt them. I might stop and wonder if the rest of what they said was wrong, as well. Maybe they were taught incorrect beliefs, and they simply perpetuate them, but if one belief is totally wrong, you have to wonder if they all aren’t.”
“I…” She grew quiet again. “You’ve given me a lot to think about, outsider. You’re right. Seeing one falsehood should make me question everything. I—I need to think about this.”
The woman’s doubts actually made me a little hopeful. If she could be convinced to question, maybe others could, as well. The war between the two groups would end if they just stopped assuming things about the other and actually asked questions. Kadonsel was right: it did seem like the Menskallin would be happy being left alone. That meant that the Oikies were likely fighting just to fight, not to defend themselves. They weren’t even fighting for territory since from what Aeld said, Oikies couldn’t survive on the Haelendi. It was a war being fought simply because it always had, and those were the stupidest wars of all.
Of course, none of that really mattered to me. I was here to stop whatever the Oikies were doing, nothing more. If the war kept going afterward, that probably wasn’t any of my concern. I had enough on my plate without worrying about issues that didn’t concern me.
Besides that, the trip was honestly a little boring. Thanks to my weakened body, I couldn’t undergo Bregg’s training daily. The damage to my spirit healed after a few days, taking most of the energy I’d stolen from the elder spirit, but I still acted like I was weak and easily tired. I couldn’t explain how I recovered so quickly, after all, so I had to feign lasting injury.
As she’d promised, Fifa carefully avoided me. She stayed in the front of the wagon, near the remaining soldier from her valskab, and I hung as far back as I could, putting as much distance between us as possible. When we stopped in valskabs, she and her escort slept separately from the rest of us. She didn’t participate in Aeld’s training sessions, and she didn’t ask me to meld any spirits. Part of me actually kind of missed her—not her temper, obviously, but I preferred her sarcasm to Aeld’s politeness—but I was happy not to have to worry about random erections or having her trying to sit on my lap. Despite what Aeld said about the Menskies treating sex like no big deal, to me it was a big deal, and I couldn’t get past the idea that bumping uglies with Fifa would be like doing a Wookiee, and I had no interest in bending Chewbacca over for some fun.
Of course, my pretended weakness meant that my physical stats and spear skills didn’t go up. Fortunately, I had other skills I could work on instead. I spent much of each day in the meditation Aeld showed me or practicing spirit channeling. At night, I left the others behind and practiced Sara’s calling ritual. Discovering that partially melding a spirit created a stockpile of energy I could use to heal myself made claiming land spirits useful again, so I set up a ritual each night to call a single spirit of a different type. When it came, I battled it until it surrendered and sent it on its way. I didn’t gain any stat points from what I took, but I did get a bunch of energy I could use if I needed to heal my spirit again. Plus, it added enough XP to my undtharvis profession to level it up.
Profession: Undtharvis has gained a level
New Level: 5
With each level of Undtharvis, you gain:
Intuition, Charm +2, Perception, Vigor +1, 3 Skill Points
I also got two levels to scholar from all the lore Aeld dumped on me, bringing that to level 9, giving me two points to Reason, and giving me another fairly weak ability.
Ability Gained: Speed Reader
Active Ability
You can read an entire block of writing with a single glance. Simply looking at a continuous block of writing reveals its meaning without needing to read individual words.
Special: This only functions with languages and scripts you understand.
That ability wasn’t super useful because Sara could already do that. In fact, according to her, basically it was just a shortcut. If I wanted, I could have her dump the knowledge of whatever I read directly into my mind, rather than needing her to explain it to me. Honestly, I would probably just keep letting her do that; I was certain that when she told me about the kateen’s diary, she left out a lot of pointless information, and I didn’t need my head cluttered up with his fantasies about the cabin boy or whatever the hell he wrote in there. Unless I was in a hurry, it was probably simpler in the long run to let her filter out the important information and feed it to me.
I also spent a little time each night creating Henguki crystals. Finding suitable rocks was easy thanks to Genius Loci, and I discovered that I could partially claim a spirit and store its energy in a crystal the same way I partially melded the elder spirit. That left the spirit sort of intact and left the energy inside suitable to be used for healing myself if needed. I had no clue what I’d actually do with those stones, but I slipped them into storage anyway. I’d rather have them and not need them then need them and not have them, after all.
All the practice gave me some decent skill gains. Ritualism went up to Adept 7, Meditation to Adept 6, and Spirit Channeling to Adept 5. Henguki Channeling made its way to Initiate 2, which improved the flow of energy into and out of a crystal by 1% per skill level. That wasn’t much, but the speed at which I could draw on those crystals were their biggest limiting factor, so an improvement there was very useful.
As we neared Aldhyor, the ground became rockier and rougher. The wagon lurched more despite its suspension system, forcing the driver to slow a bit to navigate without risking damage to a wheel. The river ahead of us spread out into a large lake that seemed to press up against the base of the volcano, and we crossed a stone bridge spanning the river, following a new road that curled around the lakeshore to the west. Aeld grew quiet as the hours passed, and Bregg looked tense and anxious, which I assumed meant we were getting closer.
The huge peak loomed overhead, dwarfing everything around it, and as I stared at it, I felt an odd chill run through me. It wasn’t my Sense Imbalance ability, but something about the peak felt—wrong to me. It didn’t look odd in my magical or spiritual senses, although I saw that spirits swarmed thickly about it. Land spirits swirled through the ground, air, and water, spirits of every type I’d seen, all clustered on the mountain. Genius Loci revealed little except that those spirits had varying levels of strength and power. As I stared at the peak, I couldn’t help but frown.
“Sara, didn’t Aeld say that the volcano had a spirit?” I asked.
“He did, yes, John.”
“Where is it, then?” Land spirits swirled thickly about the mountain, but I couldn’t see anything that looked like a powerful high spirit, and Genius Loci didn’t find one, either. Despite its majesty and size, the mountain looked—empty.
“I don’t know, John. Maybe he was mistaken.”
“Maybe, but it’s hard to imagine that something so important to the Menskies and their culture doesn’t have a spirit attached to it, don’t you think?”
“I agree,” Kadonsel said. “Areas of worship like this fire mountain or sacred Sura Jarvi always have high spirits attached to them. The spirits grow stronger from that worship, so even if it didn’t have one originally, at least one of its spirits would have grown to that point over the centuries.”
Another river flowed to the west out of the lake, and we crossed it as well before turning east and heading toward the volcano. The wind swept around the peak and washed over us, carrying hints of sulfur and chlorine that made me wrinkle my nose. The road led swiftly upward, climbing the side of the peak in winding switchbacks. I glanced upward and saw a wide ledge carved out of the side of the mountain that the road seemed to lead to, and as we crested it, the wagon rolled to a stop. I followed the others out the back and looked around curiously.
The ledge we stood on didn’t look natural. It was too flat and smooth, despite the layer of gravel covering it that crunched beneath my feet. The mountain’s wall flanked it like wings, wrapping around it in smooth and gentle curves that swept inward into the mountain. Those met in a flat, arched wall of stone ten feet high and equally wide. Paths had been worn in the ledge leading to that wall, which I assumed concealed a door or tunnel of some kind.
Five Menskies stood between us and the door. Four looked like larger versions of the soldier that escorted us here, each wearing bronze armor and carrying a spear tipped with the same metal. A quick analysis confirmed their status as guards.
Menskallin Guard
Warrior, Level 13
Estimated Physical Stats
Prowess: 36 Vigor: 31 Celerity: 30 Skill: 33
Strongest Bound Spirit: Beast Class O, 35 Power
Each of the guards had similar stats, focusing mostly on Prowess and bound to powerful beast spirits. I guessed that they could use those to boost their physical stats even further, as well. None of them concerned me, though—while I didn’t think it would be easy to take them in fair combat, I wouldn’t fight them fairly. I had enough spells to even the odds with them, or at least to drive them back long enough to give myself a chance to run. My Celerity was higher than theirs, and with my Endurance skill in the master ranks, I had a feeling my stamina was, as well. Even if I couldn’t beat them, I thought I had a pretty good shot at getting out of here if I needed to.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that, John,” Sara said in a grave voice. “Try using See Spirits.”
I activated the ability with a frown, and my heart jumped. Brown, speckled shapes that I knew were mortal spirits surrounded us, clustered behind the stone walls half-encircling the ledge and pulsing beneath the ledge itself. I readied my spear without thinking and looked around; at least a dozen people surrounded us, hidden somehow behind or beneath the stone—which, for all I knew, wasn’t actually rock but some kind of illusion.
“What are you doing, Hettlug?” Bregg asked in a low growl, his voice irritated and somewhat frantic. “Put your weapon down! You’re standing at the entrance to the most sacred place in the entire Haelendi!”
“I don’t think so,” I said grimly, sparing the hunter little more than a glance. “Is this a trap of some kind, Bregg?”
“What are you talking about?” He looked genuinely confused. “Is what a trap?”
“We’re surrounded.” I swept my spear around, pointing at the hidden figures. “There are people hiding all around us.”
“I don’t see…” He fell silent as a huge, gray spirit flowed through the stone nearby. The rock seemed to liquefy, flowing apart like curtains in several spots to reveal concealed passages leading deeper into the mountain. Menskallin warriors similar to the ones facing us poured out of holes in the walls and scrambled up from hidden tunnels beneath us. They quickly moved to encircle us, their spears held low and pointed in our direction. I readied my own and began to pull up strands of energy from my core. A quick lightning blast to the two warriors between me and the road would probably make a hole, and a surge of Spiritual Empowerment would give me the speed and strength to slip through that hole. From there, I’d run as far and as fast as I could…
I froze as a huge, glowing barrier rose up behind the guards, one that hummed and crackled with power. It spread like a dome up over us, vanishing into the rock walls. A massive, silvery spirit edged with the coppery sheen I’d seen in valskab spirits flowed through that barrier, and when I used Genius Loci to learn about it and the warriors around me, I felt my heart sink.
Unknown Spirit
Class N High Spirit
Power: 2,941
“There’s no way I’m dominating or draining that, is there Sara?” I asked with a tinge of bitterness.
“It’s possible, John, but—it’s very unlikely. Even if you could drain it, it would take you a bit under five minutes to drain it completely, and that’s assuming you’re uninterrupted the entire time. You’d have to kill or disable all these warriors, first.”
That wasn’t likely, either, but it might be possible if I could break through the cordon and get my back against the barrier. If the Menskies couldn’t flank me, I might be able to hold them off and pick them off a couple at a time. That assumed, though, that these weren’t elite warriors who’d spent their lives training with their spears—and that they didn’t have throwing spears handy to deal with me from a distance. I had a feeling both of those assumptions were deeply flawed.
“What’s the meaning of this?” Aeld demanded, stepping forward and lifting up his staff with an angry expression. “I am Aeld, Letharvis of Valskab Fyallvorth, and…”
“Your identity is known,” the warrior in the center of the group between us and the mountain cut the shaman off.
“Then you should know that we’re expected by the rashi, and…”
“The rashi allowed you to reach Aldhyor so that they could deal with the threat in your midst.” He pointed his spear past the sputtering letharvis directly at me. “This one can only be one of the tarpish, the blood traitors, sent into the High Reaches to infiltrate us and tell his masters the secrets of the Haelendi—secrets that you both have shared with him.”
“That’s absurd,” Fifa protested, also stepping forward. “I demand to speak to the rashi on this matter!”
“You demand nothing, letharvis,” the guard said coldly. He looked us all over. “You are all to be held until such time as the rashi determines whether or not you’ve betrayed the people and what punishments you’ll serve to regain your places of honor and trust.”
“And me?” I asked in the sudden silence, stepping forward past Aeld.
The warrior looked at me with a contemptuous sneer. “You? You, treacherous one, will be stripped of your spirits, held until the Ritual of Chaining can be performed upon you, interrogated for information on your masters and their plans, and then executed. Such is the fate of all who betray the people. Surrender your weapon and come with us.”
“Doesn’t seem like that’s a good idea,” I chuckled, shifting my grip on my spear. “It seems smarter to take my chances with all of you.”
“You’re welcome to fight us, traitor,” he laughed. “The rashi have instructed us to leave you alive, but they never said not to injure you. You’ll be far more docile without your hands and feet.”
“You can’t fight them, Hettlug,” Bregg growled from behind me. “These are the elite warriors of the rashi, trained in battle from childhood.”
“Surrendering doesn’t seem like a good idea, Bregg,” I spat without looking back at the man.
“Battle will only lead to more suffering and death, Freyd,” Aeld said, his tone despairing. “If we go with them, perhaps Fifa and I can speak to the rashi and explain…”
“Enough of this!” The voice that spoke came from nowhere but echoed across the ledge, ringing in my ears. The silvery barrier above us suddenly collapsed downward, dropping onto our heads. It felt like a net plunging over me, wrapping around my body, sealing itself against my skin. I tried to move, but the barrier held me tightly, locking me in place.
“It’s obvious that the tarpish has affected these with whatever profane arts he’s learned from his masters,” the voice continued. “Take all of them to the holding cells, Hurafn. It may be that they’ll all need to undergo the ritual to ensure that none of the Oikithikiim taint can spread.”
“Your command, Heltharvis,” the guard spoke, bowing his head low, obviously unaffected by the net that apparently held all of us. “Disarm them and take them to the holding cells.”
A hand yanked my spear from my grip, and I felt rough hands grab my immobile body and lift it up. As I was carried inside, my mind worked furiously. Somehow, I had to escape these bindings and get the hell out of Aldhyor before they could strip my spirits and perform their ritual on me. And if I couldn’t, well, whatever the fuck was about to happen to this world would become the least of my problems.