18

Light rippled through the air like waves, shimmering over a lush landscape. Though the Portal looked to be identical to the one they had passed through, the world on this side looked different, alien. Some of the vegetation was familiar—they found themselves in a clearing in the middle of a copse of oaks, pines, ferns, and other familiar plants—but other plants grew at odd angles and bore strange leaves. One plant grew in stalks with long, drooping tubes that brushed the ground, swaying in a light breeze.

There was no sky.

When Caru looked up, he saw only more earth, hanging down from the jagged ceiling of a massive cave, over a thousand feet high with no edges in sight. Stalactites pointed to the world below, and he fought the urge to cover his head and hide beneath the oaks.

Though the ceiling hid the sun, there was still that shimmering light. It seemed to come from all directions at once, but Caru saw a source in the distance, a rod of light that connected the ground to the ceiling above. From the point where the rod connected to the ceiling, it broke apart into a web of light branching along the ceiling in all directions.

With shaking steps, Caru brought his drenched body away from the Portal and off of the black pedestal. Water tapped quietly as he and Mieta descended, leaving small puddles in their wake. Neither of them spoke as they studied this strange world.

He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath, but he exhaled slowly as he pressed his feet into the soft soil. Lightning flashed somewhere in the distance, but it was too far away for the thunder to come crashing through. A cool breeze blew over them, and this one was thankfully free of rain.

“It’s beautiful,” Mieta whispered.

Caru nodded dumbly. He couldn’t find the words.

A thought occurred, and he spun to face the Portal again.

Empty. No reflective surface, no ripples. Nothing.

Mieta turned with him. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“There’s no power,” he said, taking a short step to the pedestal’s base. “The other side was activated because of the lightning. It must have been some kind of wild aether. There’s nothing on this side, though.” He studied it, hoping to see some change. This wasn’t how Portals were supposed to work. Paired Portals were supposed to activate in tandem. Perhaps it had something to do with the lightning? Was that why the Portal’s interior had been red?

Mieta stood at his side, frowning and looking up at the Portal. “And Kimke?” That name broke the spell the beautiful clearing had cast.

“I don’t know,” Caru said. “I can only hope she felt whatever I did back there. Some kind of buzzing led me here. At any rate, we can’t go back through this as it is. Not yet, anyway. We’ll need to find another way back.”

“I hope she found her way,” Mieta said quietly.

“Me, too.”

Mieta turned back to the clearing. “Do you want to wait here?” she asked, looking over her shoulder to him.

“For a while, sure,” he said. “We need to find a way to power this thing again if Kimke isn’t here. If we can get it open, I’ll go back into the storm to look for her again, but let’s look around here first.” His cuts and scrapes cried out at the thought of going back into that storm, but he muted them. Will would drive him; he wouldn’t fail Kimke again.

He walked forward with his back to the Portal, pushing foliage aside as Mieta followed. At least these plants weren’t covered in barbs, hungry to bite his flesh. The bushes’ soft leaves even managed to soothe his wounds to some degree. The cuts were still angry, but they quieted somewhat. Not much, as he noticed at least two still trickled blood down his arms. The dense plant cover ended abruptly, yielding to the landscape beyond the Portal grove.

Rolling plains opened before him, revealing a broad expanse as far as he could see, trailing off into the horizon. The column of light was closer than he’d expected, possibly only a few miles away, and he could see evidence of a small village near it. He looked up in marvel, but when he looked back to the ground, he saw her.

Kimke lay on the ground, sodden where she’d collapsed. She was likewise still covered from the weeping cuts and scrapes they had taken in the spinecorn field. She lay on her side, her hand outstretched toward the light.

Caru stepped away from the forest edge before staggering. His balance failed, and he fell to one knee before he could catch himself. Mieta gasped and was at his side in an instant. Her light touch against his back was a wondrous comfort. He planted a hand onto the ground and pushed to stand, but Mieta shifted and did most of the work for him.

“Kimke,” he whispered. Mieta supported him as he limped toward Kimke’s prone body. He shook Mieta’s hand away when he reached her and then knelt at her side. She was breathing, but faintly. Her skin was cool, and her eyes were closed. Caru was lucky to only bleed from two or three cuts; Kimke was bleeding in more than a dozen places.

Mieta knelt at his side, swallowing as she looked over Kimke.

“Help me roll her onto her back,” Caru said after a moment. Mieta nodded, and they managed to do so.

Kimke now lay on her back, hands laid at her sides, eyes open and blankly staring at the stone above. She breathed, but things looked bad.

“What should we do?” Mieta asked.

A thousand thoughts came, but none stuck. Rip clothes into bandages. Go gather some of those soothing leaves from the bushes behind. Apply pressure, find cold water, find something to fashion into a needle. More thoughts, and they were all worthless.

Caru leaned forward and pressed a hand against her forehead. He closed his eyes and focused. Mieta looked like she wanted to say something again, but she instead closed her mouth and waited.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Caru said. It was the truth. He closed his eyes and tried. They had taken his wings, but that didn’t mean they got everything. He imagined his wings opening and pulling in aether, the same as they always did. He imagined using aether to look into a stone, getting a sense of what it was like inside, how the grain moved, where the fracture planes would lie. She was alive, but there had to be something similar with Healing.

Nothing came.

He remembered Kimke that night at a camp in another copse of trees, focusing on making fire as she spoke of what it was like to lose wings, to lose aether. Caru exhaled and tried.

Martel had died to protect them all, and Caru refused to let that go to waste.

He pushed. They thought they had taken everything, but they hadn’t. They’d left enough for him to escape during the Soulless Moon, and they’d left enough for Kimke to start a small fire. They’d tried to take everything. They thought they had.

They hadn’t.

There, a sensation of something from Kimke’s body came into Caru’s mind. It was like the first time he’d ever used aether to peer into a stone. No details, only a general sense of what was, like a light flooding into his mind. There were thousands of components, but he only knew one part. He could feel that light, and he felt that it was weak and fading. He imagined his wings spreading wide, and he pushed. The light drank, and his vision swam. Still, he pushed more into it.

Kimke coughed. Caru opened his eyes and saw her as she sputtered, raising her back and bringing a hand to her mouth in reflex to cover the next cough. He turned to Mieta, who was already on her knees to aid Kimke.

Caru’s vision swam, and the world darkened. With the last of his strength, he steered his body away from Kimke and passed out on the ground at her side.

—

Mieta sat alone in the clearing for a moment, stunned. How had everything come to this?

Martel was dead now. The thought came unbidden, one she’d tried to force down every time that it came bubbling to the surface. Now it was there, stark and in the open. Martel was dead, and she’d done nothing to stop it from happening.

Caru and Kimke weren’t dead, but they weren’t good, either. There was still nothing she could do. Only a short while ago, the four of them had been walking down a dusty path in western Serana, laughing and chatting as they made good their escape.

Those times were gone now.

With the limp forms of her friends on the ground before her, and with the encroaching silence of the world around her, Mieta dropped to her knees and screamed.

—

The hand rocking his shoulder was unwelcome, but it wasn’t necessarily unpleasant. Caru pushed his eyes open with great strain. Those mountains were upside down. He shook his head, trying to reorient himself. No, that was a ceiling. How much time had passed? With that wavering light, it was impossible to tell. He wanted to speak, but his throat burned like fire. How many times had he screamed for Kimke in the storm? Was that today or yesterday? A wordless groan escaped his gritted teeth, and he pushed. He had to find a way to power the Portal back to the maelstrom. He had to find Kimke. I will not let her die!

A soft, feminine voice spoke. He shook his head in protest against the agony as he leaned forward and folded hands into his lap. A blonde erman sat before him, and a hand reached forward to touch his shoulder again.

Kimke?!

No, not Kimke. This woman was years younger, maybe as old as twenty. She did have blonde hair, but hers was shades darker. It fell about her shoulders in loose ringlets, not moving as she stared patiently at Caru. Deep brown eyes bore into his own. A concerned frown marred otherwise lovely features. Large yellow wings rested on her back, folded into a heart-shaped pattern. Feathers rustled softly as she tilted her head in his direction.

An erman? Here? How?

Caru raised a hand, brushing it over his torn face. His fingers rubbed along more grooves than he remembered, most of them budded with dried blood after his slumber. Mieta stood a short distance away from this woman, but she approached when she saw that Caru was awake. She was in a much better state than when they’d first crossed through the Portal, now with no sign of cuts on her skin. Was this woman a Healer?

“Sorry,” Caru said to the newcomer. “I decided to take a dive into some spinecorn.” The young woman’s frown deepened, so Caru flashed what he hoped was a winning smile. What was going on here?

The woman said… She said something. He couldn’t understand. It sounded like she was concerned, but none of the words made sense. He felt the concern more through her expression than her voice. Caru nearly repeated himself more slowly but knew she wouldn’t understand him any more than he could understand her.

Instead, the woman shook her head and pressed her hands onto either side of Caru’s face. A tingle spread through his body as her wings spread wide. Aether flowed through her fingertips. Caru’s eyes rolled up slightly as his body threatened to go limp. He forced numb fingers to dig into the ground at his sides, holding his focus on her as he felt wounds closing up all over his body. His shirt was still bloody, but he otherwise felt fine. The woman took her hands away, and Caru gasped before sagging back to the ground.

The blonde erman leaned back, squatted, and sat on her heels, smiling as she let her wings close. During the two weeks of his imprisonment, he had experienced the vicious healing of bloodmages, but it felt like years since an erman had mended his wounds. She spoke again before laughing. Caru strained to understand, but none of the sounds meant anything. This was beyond a simple accent. Caru hoped that strange sentences and laughter meant something good. He itched to ask her questions: Were there more ermen here? If so, would they be willing to help in more ways than just healing? Could he finally get a message to Edaria? And where was “here” anyway?

He stood on shaky legs before bowing deeply, hoping that was the way of things down here. She laughed before standing and bowing herself, so that seemed alright. Caru nodded before planting a hand against his chest and tapping. “Caru,” he said before pointing to Mieta. “Mieta.”

The woman nodded, repeating the odd words in her odd tongue. “Kair-yoo. May-yeta.” Close enough. “Belara,” she said, patting her own chest.

“Belara,” Caru repeated, wondering how the name sounded in her ears. His voice sounded stronger, and the burning was gone.

Belara raised an eyebrow and pointed to Kimke, who appeared to be asleep. Belara’s feathers bristled as she shifted, but she kept her wings closed. When Caru looked at Kimke, he saw that the worst of her bleeding had stopped. A few trails of dried blood remained along her face and arms, but she was only resting now. “Kimke,” Caru said, scrambling forward to her side. He gripped her wrist and rubbed his thumb at the base of her hand until he felt her pulse. It was still weak, but it was steady.

A gentle hand eased onto Caru’s shoulder, and he looked up to see Belara’s concerned expression. She rubbed her hand in small circles between his shoulders, and he slowed his breathing. Belara smiled and nodded. Caru relaxed his grip on Kimke’s wrist, not realizing he’d held it so tightly.

Mieta then knelt beside him, leaning in to study Kimke’s battered body. Belara tended to Kimke, running fingers over her face and examining her other eye.

“How is she?” Mieta asked.

“Better than she was, but she still had a long way to go,” Caru said.

This was all his fault. He shouldn’t have pressed her so. She would have come to her senses eventually. Grief did terrible things to people, but Kimke would realize in time that Mieta wasn’t her enemy. Instead, he’d wanted her to accept Martel’s death and press forward even as he himself grieved. The man’s death still tore at his heart, but Caru was willing to move forward and cooperate with Kimke and Mieta, so long as it ended with the deaths of those responsible.

Rustling feathers echoed in the peaceful clearing as Belara again spread her wings. Kimke’s pulse quickened and strengthened against Caru’s grip. Color returned to her cheeks, and her body warmed. Another moment passed as Belara shifted her aether flow, and the rain evaporated from Kimke’s body. Clothes wrinkled, and her hair dried into kinky tangles, but she seemed otherwise healthy.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Kimke lurched forward, gasping air in a huge rush before she collapsed back to the ground. Her eyes stayed closed. Erman healing was efficient, but it still took something from the person being healed. Caru’s stomach now growled from his own healing, but it seemed that healing made Kimke faint, and there she remained. There were a few things Healers could do nothing for, and unconsciousness was one.

“How long—?” Caru began before stopping. No use.

Belara muttered something again. No, no use. She looked into his eyes and put her hand on his shoulder again. She spoke clearly. Please let her be saying that everything is alright. She gestured at the pillar of light and made a beckoning gesture. If she was leading them to more ermen–or even helpful humans–then Caru was all for following. It was easy to be optimistic since this one had healed them. And also because they had no other options.

“Kimke looks better,” Mieta said.

Caru wished Kimke would wake up, even if only to yell at him for running her off. He leaned over and put hands beneath her body. If Martel could carry her for so long, maybe he could too, with enough determination. When he stood, he realized a limp body weighed more than he expected, but he didn’t let that slow him. If their positions had been reversed, Kimke would have looked after him. She was heavier than he thought she would be, but that wouldn’t matter. She may be unconscious for a while yet, but there was no time to waste. This place was beautiful, but it had nothing to do with his goals.

Get back through the Portal and kill the ones who did this. Nothing would stop him. Not the Tempest, not a bloodmage, not the Blood Emperor himself. Nothing.

“You think you’ll be able to carry her?” Mieta asked.

“I don’t like the idea,” Caru said, “but it’s the best plan I have.”

“We don’t know how long it’ll take before she wakes up, though.”

“If Martel can carry her for five hours, I can carry her for one.” That felt like a lie, even to himself. “We’ll stop to rest when we need to. I’ll be fine.” Carrying Kimke, reaching the small village in the distance would probably take six hours. Walking at a steady pace would make it much shorter, but he knew he would need frequent breaks.

Mieta nodded. “If you say so.”

Belara coughed weakly, and Caru turned to her. She still looked concerned, feathers bristling uncertainly across her wings. She pointed to him and Mieta, then made a hand gesture, punctuating each motion with a different word he couldn’t understand. Kimke rested heavily in his arms, and he could only hope deka-shay meant follow, as Belara then walked down to the path leading away from the small copse of trees, looking over her shoulder every few paces.

—

More time passed, but Caru couldn’t say how much. Judging from the ache in his shoulders and the way his arms screamed, it had been several hours at least. He kept thinking of laying Kimke on the ground for a moment so he could rest, but his feet kept pushing him forward.

“Are we really under Edaria?” Mieta asked. She’d been trying to keep him distracted with conversation for some time.

While Caru still wasn’t sure himself, it made sense. No one had ever come this far beneath Edaria and gone back out to mention it. This could be anywhere on the planet, but then there was an erman down here. “It would seem,” Caru said.

He looked up to the lattice of light radiating out from the central pillar. They had always thought the continent was floating, but it wasn’t; it was apparently being held up by whatever that was.

She stared into the distance, eyes jumping in all directions ahead. Wide Seranian plains had impressed her only days earlier, but now there was this world that even Caru struggled to understand. “They say ermen have a lot of secrets,” Mieta said. “Is this one of them?”

“Is what one of them?”

She turned, gesturing in all directions. “All of this. This place. It’s behind the Tempest. No one knows anything about all of this, and it’s under your home. These plants, that light in the distance.” Mieta pointed a finger to Belara, who still walked ahead, leading them somewhere. “Her,” Mieta said. “Did you know about her and others like her?”

Caru shook his head. “We never knew about any of this. The only people that ever went into the storm were soldiers, and it’s too dangerous to go far, even for them. I doubt they ever found that Portal in the first place.” Or if they had, maybe they hadn’t gotten out again. Why else would an erman be here, in this skyless place? Was the Portal broken on this side?

Mieta hesitated. “You felt it, didn’t you? The Portal, I mean. You went straight to it, even in the storm.”

“I tried to say something, but you couldn’t hear me over the rain.”

“You lost your wings, but they didn’t take everything.”

“I doubt they could have,” Caru said. “They must have been working blind. Kimke was still able to start that fire once, remember?”

Mieta nodded. “And you were able to heal her a little.”

“Only a little,” Caru said. “Maybe enough.” He paused to shift Kimke’s weight again. He would need to rest before much longer. “How long was I out after?”

“Hard to say without the sun,” Mieta said. “Maybe two hours. I was worried at first, but you two seemed fine. I was about to rest when she showed up. I don’t know why she was out there, but she knew what to do and went to work as soon as she saw you.”

“I’m glad she did. It would have taken a few more hours to get moving again without her.”

Caru thought again about resting, but he didn’t know if he could bring himself to start walking again if he stopped. Instead, he focused on his steps to mute his thoughts. Heavy though Kimke was becoming, she was his responsibility now. If she melted his muscles away, it was the least of what he deserved.

Belara turned again to check on them. She frowned, studying Kimke before turning away again. She may think it strange that Kimke remained unconscious as long as she did—especially after being healed—but Caru had no way to convey to Belara the emotional trauma they had all endured only a short while ago. Kimke may have been in good physical condition, but Martel’s death and everything after may have damaged her mind more than he’d assumed.

Caru was glad to see that Belara led them in the general direction of the strange light in the distance. It still pulsed and flickered, connecting this land to Edaria. Millions of ermen lived on the surface above, but none of them knew about this weird beam pulsing beneath them. They never knew that more of their people lived in this place.

Belara spun suddenly, showing her palms to Caru and Mieta before turning her hands over and motioning to the ground. Stay here? It was the only guess he had. Was there danger? He dropped to his knees and laid Kimke on the soft ground. Standing, he realized how brutal the ache would feel later as he surveyed their surroundings. The cast of the land itself seemed very similar to that of western Serana - softly rolling hills with no mountains. The pastel hues of the pillar of light in the rift next to the village dappled the land differently than sunlight, but he could tell it was geologically familiar. Some of the vegetation was the same, but there were plants Caru had never seen before. More plants grew in the distance, but they were generally clumped together like the copse surrounding the odd Portal. He noticed something that looked like a turtle on the far side of the light. Visible this far away, the creature must be astonishingly large.

Belara leapt into the air, flapping wings as she motioned again for Caru and Mieta to remain in place. Minutes passed as Caru studied Kimke, cradled comfortably on the ground. He whispered a prayer for her well-being and hoped that some force or fate would hear it. Mieta did the same several times. They took the opportunity to rest, sitting on either side of Kimke with their legs folded. Dark thoughts swam through Caru’s mind, but he quelled them. No time for berating himself for different choices he could have made.

“Kair-yoo!” The voice echoed through the sky.

Caru jerked his head up to see Belara descending, followed by three erman men with wings of various colors. Belara looked concerned as she landed. She spoke quickly, sounding panicked enough that he thought she’d forgotten that he couldn’t understand her. Belara gestured furiously, but none of those meant anything to him either. Alarmed, he stood between the men and Mieta and Kimke.The three men all bore steel swords. With their wings spread wide, they shaped aether that pulled Kimke into the air, ignoring his protests, and held her in place as she limply floated a few feet above the ground. He rushed at them with a shout, but invisible bonds enclosed Caru, binding his hands to his sides. Mieta stood likewise, head erect and shaking as she stared at Belara. Damn it, why had he been so trusting?

Belara turned to shout more strange words at the men.

Whatever she said, Caru didn’t think it made a difference.

—

A silent march brought them nearer to the thin column of light and the village at its base. The bonds around him and Mieta weren’t necessarily uncomfortable—only disconcerting—and the soft ground had made the walk feel much shorter than Caru suspected it had actually been. Caru squinted as he tried to make out more details of the village, but it was too far away yet.

Belara had chattered away in her strange tongue for the entire trek, but none of the soldiers gave her more notice than the occasional irritated glance between themselves. It seemed the young woman was much better at healing than swaying opinions. Bright yellow wings had flapped in frustration, but she had kept her argument rolling. Caru hoped she was telling them to keep them alive. Did they kill humans here? By all appearances, he and Kimke were as human as Mieta.

They made quick time to the city’s edge. There were no walls or outward fortifications, only a defined ring where trees and other plants had been cleared away, giving way to homes and shops made of stone and wood. Mieta flashed him a concerned glance, but neither of them spoke. Caru knew holding a conversation in their native tongue would be unwise while still in captivity. If the guards’ reactions to Belara were any indication, Caru and Mieta were already in more trouble than he’d anticipated.

The village was filled with ermen. Most went about their daily business, leaping or flying over buildings rather than walking the city’s pathways. A few did walk those streets, mostly laborers moving heavy materials, and there were a few market stalls near the outer rim of the village. Leaves like those of the great ferns covered the otherwise dirt route. They were from the same kind of plant that soothed his wounds when first leaving the Portal. Walking on them was even more comfortable than the soft, springy ground.

“No humans,” Mieta whispered.

Of course.

If these ermen had lived in the eye of a storm for so long that no one knew of their existence, it would be unlikely that they would know much—if anything—of what happened outside the Tempest’s border. For all that Caru knew, they may have believed that the eye’s edge was the end of the universe. Indeed, many erman villagers did notice their procession and swooped down to watch the spectacle. Before long, they were being watched flying ermen, from rooftop ledges, and some even who landed a distance behind on the leaf-covered pathway. As more people came to watch, the village quietened until the only sound left was that from Belara’s continued protests.

“I don’t think they know what we are,” Caru muttered.

One of their captors turned with a glare, but he kept moving forward. He was suspicious, but he seemed uncertain. His forehead looked like it had one too many wrinkles. Caru realized the man may not understand what he was holding in the restraints.

“We do look strange,” Mieta said.

That was its own revelation. How many times had Mieta stood out like this in her life? She’d lived in a human city, filled with humans like her. More ermen descended. With a final turn, they came into a wide forum devoid of leaves, filled instead with broad, granite paving stones that extended from a large central building into a broad avenue that bisected their current path. Ermen now surrounded the ring, watching as the soldiers led the detainees across the opening, leading them up a long flight of stairs to the tall building in the center. Caru noticed several of the ermen pointing at Kimke, still unconscious as the soldiers guided her. Rumors would no doubt spread quickly.

The building itself was tall and open, looming over the rest of the city. Drapes blew lazily on the outside, rustling over windows without glass. Columns rose from the stairs, connecting to a large overhanging balcony. The doorways leading in stood twice as tall as an erman would need, closed with long flaps made from the same material as the drapes.

Belara walked up the stairs backward, still making her argument. The lead guard gestured for her to move, and, for once, she complied. With a pained expression, she folded her hands together over her waist and moved to stand next to the large doorway at the entrance. The guards pushed through a slit that ran the length of the fabric, pulling Caru and Mieta behind. He gave Belara one final look before entering. “Keno-shay,” she said. No use.

The interior was dim, but still bright enough to see. More soldiers stood inside, speaking in small knots of conversation and eying the prisoners with curiosity. Belara must have come here when she’d left, leaving suspicion in her wake. Their escort remained silent, not answering anyone that spoke to them. At the room’s far end, they climbed a candlelit stairwell that dug deep into the building before coming into the second floor. They moved silently through a long hallway that ended in a single, open room. Light swam across the floor as breezes pushed the drapes aside. A small doorway led to the high balcony that shadowed the entranceway steps.

A single erman man sat atop cushions in the center of the room, facing outward toward the balcony, feet crossed before him. Kimke’s body drifted forward, lowering until she came to a rest before him. He raised a hand and spoke. The soldiers bowed, then withdrew from the chamber, Caru and Mieta’s bonds dissipating as they left. Caru exhaled, realizing how tense the captivity had made him. It would be foolish to think these people would automatically treat him with compassion, even if he could prove he was erman himself. And if being erman was the criteria for survival, what of Mieta?

Long, black hair fell well below the man’s shoulders, blending with the black of his wings. His face was lightly wrinkled, but he didn’t seem old. Possibly fifty years, if that. He smiled and gestured for Caru and Mieta to sit. Finally, a good sign, Caru hoped. They pulled cushions from the pile and sat on them with feet crossed at the ankles.

“Caru? Mieta?” he asked, pointing to them each in turn. His diction was better than Belara’s, but his accent was still thick. Caru nodded before pointing to Kimke and speaking her name, which the other man repeated. He then pointed to himself. “Drend.”

Caru and Mieta repeated the name, and Drend’s smile deepened. He leaned to one side and pulled several sheets of coarse paper to the pair. He tilted in the other direction, withdrawing a small bottle of ink and two feather pens, which he handed over as well. Caru held the pen between his fingers, and he knew that the black feather was one of Drend’s own. Edarian ermen had once used such writing tools themselves, although those were now more fashionable than functional. Caru pointed to Drend’s black wings, and the man nodded, feathers bristling for emphasis.

Caru leaned forward and planted the first sheet of paper against the wooden floor. He stuck the tip of his pen against the paper. Mieta did the same, but neither of them made a move.

Where to start?

Caru made sketches of recent events, wishing for once that he was a painter or calligrapher instead of a sculptor. He made his sketches easy to decipher, but he couldn’t think of a way to explain it all. He sketched an erman, standing next to a human, little more than blocky stick figures. He showed that picture to Drend before lowering it and scribbling over the erman’s wings. Drend frowned, appalled, but then Caru remembered the state of his back. He twisted on the cushions, lifting his torn shirt to show Drend the scars from the humans’ surgery. Bloodmage healing left scars, and even erman healing would not erase such an old wound.

Drend nodded sagely as Caru righted himself on the cushion again. Caru pointed to himself, then to Drend and Kimke. “Erman,” he said, tapping the image that once had wings. He then pointed to Mieta and tapped his pen against the other figure. “Human,” he added. Drend nodded again, repeating the words. Slow progress, but Caru felt himself moving forward.

Drend then looked to Mieta, raising an eyebrow as he hooked his thumbs together and made a flapping motion with his hands. Mieta shook her head before standing and turning away. She lifted the back of her shirt, showing her naked back. No wings, no scars. Mieta sat again. “Human,” she added. Drend pressed a hand against his chin, rubbing slightly as he processed the information. It appeared the man really had never seen a human before.

Caru drew more sketches, hoping to hit the important points as he showed them to Drend. They came from a land beyond the storm walls. That was the hardest point to make, and Caru worried it would shake the man’s beliefs. What if they thought the Tempest was a god? The man shook his head incredulously, but he seemed to understand after some time.

Mieta added her own sketches to the collection, drawing maps of the outside world. She seemed to have a talent for cartography, especially for someone who had never left the confines of her own city no more than ten days ago. Sketches of Garenesh followed with special emphasis on the Celestial Palace. They may not have added much to the most pressing issues, but Drend seemed especially impressed by her ability.

Caru did have one thing he wanted to test. He drew a circle, then two outer circles with a circle on each of the two. It was a crude drawing, but he hoped to represent the world Ilthirios and its moons, Cirellias and Rythellas. Drend only shook his head, confused. No, that would be too advanced of a concept. It was hard for Caru to believe that any erman wouldn’t know of the two moons. That was part of what made ermen who they were. Lunar cycles guided nearly every aspect of their lives, but here was an erman that didn’t even know the moon existed.

Drend then leaned forward, motioning for Caru to hand him a sheet of paper. Caru complied, ready to see what the man finally had to say in response. A moment passed before Drend leaned forward, sketching something onto the paper. The feather of Drend’s pen was long and brown, not one of his own. Caru craned his neck to see the man’s drawing, but the sketch was already complete.

In the center was a large column of what looked like lightning, long like a thread, and then he pointed out the open window to the column of light still some distance away from this village. That much Caru had seen already. To the left was a figure of a human. Drend tapped a finger against that figure and then pointed back to Caru. Not a human then; a wingless erman. Drend drew a long arc through the lightning, connecting the figure representing Caru to another on the page’s opposite side.

An erman.