Into Forbidden Lands

Dawn was only a bright line on the eastern horizon when Illiom raised herself onto her elbows, yawning.

The camp was still. Pell and Zoran, already awake, sat close to the rekindled fire. Pell quietly sorted breakfast utensils while the other looked on.

“Pass that pot, will you,” she heard Pell instruct softly.

As Zoran complied, Illiom slid out of her bedroll and made her way to the water’s edge. As she splashed water on her face, she heard others stirring.

A ripple moved across the otherwise still mirror of water. A moment later Undina broke the surface, hair dripping, eyes sparkling.

Illiom smiled at the Pelonui and the tribal girl beamed back at her before vanishing into the depths once more.

“Do you still worry that she might never come up again?”

Illiom turned to Scald and shook her head.

“Not anymore,” she admitted. “I have also given up waiting to see her emerge, life is too short.”

A smile flitted briefly across his scarred features.

Illiom stood and ran her hands through her hair.

“Azulya and I experienced something new last night,” she said, surprising even herself with this unplanned disclosure, “something we must share with the rest of you.”

Scald raised an eyebrow.

“Funny, just last night I had a strong feeling that something was brewing between you two! Anyway, the Riders are off hunting for the next few days, so it looks like your timing is perfect.”

They headed back to seek Azulya.

“A meld?” Malco asked when Azulya finished relating the experience she had shared with Illiom.

“Yes, we did not share thoughts or ideas, as such. It was more like we became one being for a time.”

Undina looked confused.

“You not speak, you not think…what you do?”

“We used our Keys, but rather than try to explain it, we can do it,” Illiom said. “Then you will know exactly what we are talking about.”

Zoran and Mist had stayed behind while the rest, including Argolan, had gone off to hunt and gather food. The two Riders watched over the group as the Chosen paired off. Kassargan, Keilon Var, and Dreel moved a little distance away to talk amongst themselves.

As their number was uneven, Azulya opted to absent herself from their first sharing, so Illiom found herself sitting with Scald, Malco with Elan, and Undina with Sereth.

There was shyness in Scald’s eyes as they held hands. When their Keys flared, his grey eyes ignited with an inner light.

What followed was completely different from her experience with Azulya. Scald, the irritable Chosen who went to such lengths to be disliked, suddenly displayed a quality that she had not detected in him before. She saw in him a fundamental desire to protect and shield.

At first she wondered if it was personal, if Scald had masked an affection especially for her, but this was not so. Deep within him she found a burning need to keep them all safe, to steer them away from danger. She also saw his frustration at his inability to adequately defend them.

Where does your desire to protect come from?

He made no attempt to deny or divert her questioning; the power of their combined Keys appeared to make those reactions unavailable. Instead, as Scald smiled at her, Illiom became aware that he was just as engrossed by something he was seeing in her.

I do not know, maybe from a similar place as the longing that drives you.

Illiom was not distracted by Scald’s response. His mysteries seemed far more fascinating than her own.

There was also something that ran much deeper than the need to protect. It was a stewardship of the spirit that she saw in him; a longing to serve that included protection, but also reached far beyond it. Illiom lost herself then, wandering around the reaches of the other’s soul, just as she had with Azulya.

It was almost noon by the time they emerged.

“That was really something,” Sereth exclaimed, jumping to his feet, his face aglow with unbound excitement.

Illiom felt intoxicated. She looked at Scald with new eyes and a respect that she had never felt before. During their meld, she had perceived a quality in him that was entirely at odds with the man she had come to know. Illiom knew that when it flowered, it would reveal to all an aspect of the man no one could have fathomed.

“What happen?” Undina managed to ask, blinking at Sereth’s restless excitement.

“What happened?” Sereth asked. “I saw you, Undina, that’s what happened. I saw you like I have never seen you before this day.”

Their accounts all varied, yet Illiom was more fascinated by the commonality of their experience than by the differences. It was much as Sereth had expressed it; each had perceived in their partner a depth of presence that they had never seen before.

This was how they spent the remainder of the day. Changing partners, they melded twice more before Argolan and her Riders returned from their hunt.

Illiom had melded with Undina and, unsurprisingly, had experienced the tribal’s profound connection to water. But more than that, she had perceived the extent of the girl’s fearlessness and her longing to seek out the depths of any experience that called to her.

Illiom’s final meld had been with Sereth, and in him she found a spirit of unconditional acceptance. She loved his insight and depth of vision.

The return of the hunters shifted the focus of the camp to more practical matters. They had brought back a deer, half a dozen rabbits, and a variety of wild tubers and herbs. They had skinned, quartered and dressed the deer in the field to prevent the meat from spoiling and to distribute its considerable weight evenly.

While the Chosen were engrossed in their melds, Zoran and Mist had not been idle. Illiom saw that they had dug several pits, filling them with kindling and timber, and alongside each had erected a pyramid-shaped frame of green saplings.

The returned Riders were soon cutting the venison into strips which they hung from the frames. They lit the fires and, when the flames caught, fed them with green wood until a cloud of smoke was billowing from each pit. Finally, each frame was placed over a pit and covered with a skin to seal in the smoke.

The curing of the meat continued all the next day, so it was not until the following morning that they finally embarked upon their desert crossing.

Illiom awoke to the bustle of the Riders preparing for the day’s march.

As they still had access to an abundance of water, they ate a final meal of Nammak. Even though they had eaten it every day since setting out, Illiom had not tired of it. The root’s effect on her body was instantly revitalising.

Afterwards, they led the horses to the edge of the lake where they encouraged them to drink their fill. Black Lightning did not need prompting. Like the other Surmur steeds, he drank significantly more than the destriers.

The humans did the same, drinking until they could drink no more.

Argolan led the march under a sky that was clear of cloud.

By noon they reached a band of hills that slowed their progress, forcing them to climb in order to continue beyond. The vegetation had been changing for some time, but Illiom now noticed how sparse it had become and how much harder the earth was here. The day soon became quite warm and by noon many of her companions had shed their outer layers.

Soon afterwards, Argolan called a halt and instructed everyone to rest and drink before resuming the journey. It was not long before they descended the last of the hills and before them stretched a flat and barren plain.

Argolan called a second halt.

“This will not do. It is much hotter than I hoped and there is no shade ahead. We will stop and camp here for the rest of the day, and resume travel when Iod sets.”

Unaccustomed to so much walking, Illiom was grateful to bed down and soon drifted off to sleep.

“It is time.”

Tarmel gently touched her cheek.

Iod’s radiance was blazing low across the western horizon when the party resumed their march to chase the God-light beyond the rim of the world.

The land before them undulated slightly for half a league, but then levelled to a flat and featureless plain. The ground hardened, the dry and cracked earth crunching underfoot. The vault of sky was soon peppered with crisp starlight.

However, with Iod gone, the temperature rapidly dropped and it was not long before the travellers were retrieving the clothes they had cast off earlier.

Beneath that clear sky, accompanied by the tempo of the horses’ hooves, the travellers journeyed into the night. Sudra’s radiance dominated the heavens, but Irrsche’s presence was now impossible to ignore. Her fiery glow bathed the lands towards the south in a crimson wash like a promise of slaughter. The two Goddesses accompanied them for over half the night, until they too lowered themselves beneath the horizon. Then, only the starlight remained to guide them and the landscape vanished into pitch-blackness.

The travellers were enveloped in a silence that made Illiom feel alone and separate – as if the world had contracted to a small sphere. Travelling became unpleasant, but even more unsettling was the unexpected heaviness that weighed upon her.

She was comforted when the light of dawn finally relieved the darkness through which they had been travelling.

Argolan reined in before the sun could properly rise and the Riders fell to their tasks, erecting both tents, one for the humans and the other for their mounts. They also dug a trench, which they covered with a large oiled skin and filled with water, creating a makeshift trough for watering the horses.

Illiom felt an uneasiness that soon began to overwhelm her.

She turned towards the direction they had come from, but saw nothing there. There was no sign of pursuit, not even any sign of the hills where they had last camped. The land behind was a mirror of what lay ahead: a sprawling, featureless expanse.

She sought Azulya and found the Kroeni unrolling her bedroll.

Azulya turned to her with a smile that dissolved when she saw Illiom’s expression.

“What is it?” she asked, laying a hand on her arm. “Has something happened?”

Illiom shook her head.

“No … I do not know! It started a few hours ago and…” She brought a hand up to her throat and struggled to swallow. “I am terrified and I do not know why. I have been feeling so contented since Sudra and now … do you feel anything?”

The other paused for a moment, searching Illiom’s eyes, but finally shook her head.

“No, I feel nothing unusual, but Illiom, we are heading towards a perilous unknown. We have had a long rest – maybe too long – and now that the time has come for us to move forward, I am not surprised that…”

“No, this is more than just a fear of what lies ahead,” Illiom interrupted. “I have not felt like this before, this is something else.”

Illiom moved away then, aware of Azulya’s lingering gaze.

By the time Iod touched them with his long fingers of light, Illiom and her companions had already claimed a portion of shade and had bedded down for the day.

She did not speak of this fear to Tarmel, not because she felt any shame or embarrassment, but because she did not want to burden him with something that he could do nothing about.

Walking by night and resting by day, the party travelled deeper into the desert.

On the third night, the hard ground gave way to sand. Their progress slowed and became laborious.

There were sighs of relief when, on the fifth evening, Argolan announced that they could ride their mounts once more. However, the unspoken implication was that they had used up all the water saved by walking, and their supply was dwindling rapidly.

As dawn seeped across the sky on the morning of the sixth day, the Riders fell to their habitual tasks. Only one among them did not join the rest. Grifor walked a short distance away from the group, peering intently towards the south.

Illiom, seeing this, also scanned the horizon, but was not surprised to find nothing there. Grifor’s eyesight was legendary.

“What is it?” Argolan called.

For a moment the Rider did not answer, then shook her head, pointing towards the horizon.

“Something jutting out of the desert, over there. A long way away. Must be big. I cannot make out what it is yet.”

After a moment she turned to the Shieldarm.

“There are two of them. There is another further to the north. Their shapes are remarkably similar.”

Argolan nodded slowly and gestured towards the south.

“That one is closest to our direction of travel. We will head towards it tonight.”

Sudra cast a ghostly silver light upon the bleak landscape.

The sky was so clear that Illiom felt she could just reach up and brush the sweep of stars with her fingertips.

As it happened each night, the temperature dropped quickly. One of the blessings of walking was that the activity helped them to stay warm; they now felt the cold even more keenly, and huddled under their blankets as they rode.

Irrsche’s rising marred the beauty of the night sky by diverting all attention to herself. Her bloody glow almost directly ahead was impossible to avoid, a taunting reminder of the destiny that awaited them.

Illiom wondered then if it was the Illstar’s poison that had worked its way into her heart.

As the party’s shadows lengthened, Sudra became the dominant beacon in the western sky, and Illiom kept her eyes upon the Goddess. She breathed her healing glow deep into herself, murmuring prayers she had learned as a novice of the Daughters of Sudra.

The silent ride was broken by the Shieldarm.

“I see it now,” Argolan said.

Illiom looked ahead, but she had been staring at Sudra for so long that she saw nothing but the Goddess’ imprint.

“That is most definitely not nature’s doing,” Sereth said.

Finally, Illiom began to see what they were talking about.

A stone monolith rose starkly out of the desert dunes in the distance, silhouetted against the night sky, made bright by Sudra’s light on one side and Irrsche’s stain on the other.

Sereth was right; its shape bore the symmetry of intention and design.

“Krodh forbid!” Scald swore. “It is a sculpture the size of a mountain.”

“It is one of the Guardians,” Dreel whispered, craning his neck to better take in the enormous form. “Now who would have imagined…”

“Something your people are responsible for, Kassargan?” Argolan asked.

The descrier was slow to respond.

“Dreel is right, it is one of the Guardians, an Ice Dragon. I always believed them to be legend,” she said. “I have never spoken to anyone who has seen them and now I am standing before one!”

The party continued on for some time before they rode past the enormous flank of the creature’s right leg and slowly made their way around to face it.

The Guardian had been carved from a single mass of pale stone. Its gaze fixed upon the west, it stood fierce and alert, poised for flight. Its focus was absolute, as though it was waiting for something to happen or someone to arrive.

They dismounted and Illiom walked with the others to where the Dragon’s forelegs rested upon the earth. As they passed directly beneath it, she was caught and held by the Guardian’s ancient presence.

Time had left its mark. Wind and sand had rounded all sharp edges. Some of the carving’s finer details, like the scales that covered its body, had nearly worn away.

“To guard against the western lands, in ancient days of lore

The Guardians to the border went, earth’s enemies to awe,”

Keilon Var intoned.

“They stand there still

They watch, they wait

And ward their kin from wretched fate

They show what shines at wisdom’s core

And mark the way to the farthest shore.”

“Igdrin It’tal,” he added after a silence. “The Guardians of the West.” His eyes were wide with wonder. “Veralanum, my first mentor, told me stories about them when I was child.”

“What is their purpose?” asked Sereth.

Keilon did not turn at the question, but continued gazing up at the Dragon, shaking his head.

“The Forbidden Lands have a bad reputation,” the magician muttered eventually. “Legend has it that the ancients placed the Guardians here to protect Iol from something that might one day return. But the tales are fanciful and have no base in history, and yet here we are. I remember Veralanum saying that the Igdrin It’tal offered sanctuary to whomsoever needed it, and that they would come to life, if danger ever threatened, to protect Iol and all the eastern lands.”

The space between the Guardian’s forelegs was as broad as a small valley and overshadowed by the Dragon’s body.

“We will stop here,” Argolan announced. “I do not believe that we have come here by accident.”

She did not elaborate.

The Shieldarm sent Zoran and Tarmel to scout the area. By the time the two returned, the camp had been set up, a fire lit, and Pell’s venison stew was being dished out.

After the meal Tarmel went to groom his mount. When he had finished with his, and was moving towards Black Lightning, Illiom stopped him.

“Let me do it,” she said, and took the brush from his hand.

She had watched his way of grooming often enough to know what was involved, but in the middle of her ministrations, Black Lightning nickered softly and moved away.

“What have you done to him?” Tarmel teased.

Illiom did not answer, but went after her horse, concerned that she might have touched upon a wound. He made for the deep shadows where the stone of the Guardian’s chest met the sand.

There he stopped.

He snorted a few times as Illiom approached, and raised his head, as though paying homage to the great Dragon.

Illiom took the bridle to draw him back to the fire, but he resisted, snorting again and stomping a few times.

Illiom turned to enlist her Rider’s assistance and stopped, astonished at the sight before her. All the Surmur steeds had come up, and just like Black Lightning, now stood facing the base of the Dragon.

A shiver ran down Illiom’s spine.

“This is very strange,” Tarmel said, coming up beside her.

The Chosen and Riders all gathered to witness the phenomenon. They wondered and speculated, but no one, not even the Iolans, had any explanation for this extraordinary behaviour.

They bedded down for the day after feasting on Pell’s stew, but the bulk of the giant Dragon loomed over the party and Illiom knew that she was not alone in struggling to sleep. It seemed that she had only just drifted off when Tarmel woke her up.

No words, just a hand on her shoulder.

Illiom was instantly awake.

He was kneeling next to her, his posture tense, his blade drawn.

Iod’s light was blinding, for the Sun God was halfway across the sky. Illiom screened her eyes and peered towards the wall of warriors surrounding their encampment.

She looked at Tarmel in alarm.

Who are they?

Silhouetted against the sunlight as they were, they were hard to make out. Robes covered them from head to foot. Some held staffs. Behind them more shapes, a disconcerting number of men and horses.

“Iltiaham-ote.”

At first she thought that one of the men had spoken, but that was not so. It was the dwarf, Dreel, who moved towards the men with both arms extended before him, palms raised towards the heavens.

“Ellei elefrin hur Iol, Shakim hevel.”

One of the men replied with a series of sounds that made Illiom’s skin crawl. Dreel glanced back at his own party with a tense smile.

“Nothing to worry about,” he said. “They are Shakim tribesmen.”

But the dwarf looked frightened and Illiom was not reassured by his words.

The same Shakim tribesman who had first spoken now took a few steps forward and spoke again. He was somewhat taller than his companions and his braided hair was dyed a vivid red.

Illiom could tell that Dreel was attempting to communicate in the same language, but the sounds that came from the dwarf’s mouth were different to those of the Shakim. There was a curt sharpness to them, an aspirated quality to the vowels that Dreel seemed unable to mimic.

“What is he saying?” Argolan asked, urgency in her tone.

“He wants to know what we are doing here.”

The tribal spoke again. Illiom did not need a translator to know that he was not merely impatient, but outraged by their presence.

“Tell him that we mean no harm,” instructed Argolan. “That we are just resting before continuing our journey. Ask him if we have transgressed in some way and tell him it was not our intention to offend.”

Dreel stuttered as he attempted to comply. He had barely finished when the tribal spat some words straight back.

“He says this is sacred land. He says we should not have come here, that we have offended the ancestral spirits.”

“Tell him that we are very sorry. We did not know this was a sacred place. Tell him we were only seeking shelter from the sun. If it will appease his ancestors, we will leave immediately.”

The dwarf struggled to explain all that Argolan had said. When he finished, the Shakim regarded the intruders in silence.

“Did you tell him?” the Shieldarm asked Dreel.

“I believe I did.”

Then the tribesman spoke again.

“He still wants to know what we want here. He seems to think that we cannot be here by accident.”

“Tell him where we are going,” Illiom said, stepping forward. “Tell him we are going to the Forbidden Lands.”

Several turned to stare at her.

“Is that wise?” asked Sereth.

“Why not? Just tell him,” Illiom insisted. “What do we have to lose?”

After a moment Argolan nodded, without taking her eyes off the Shakim.

Dreel sighed and complied.

“He now wants to know if it is death that we are seeking. He says that there is nothing in the west, but death.”

“Tell him that we already knew that,” Illiom said. “But tell him that we know a way through.”

While Dreel translated, another Shakim stepped forward.

The new arrival peered at Illiom with an unsettling intensity and, as she looked upon him, her heart quailed.

The man’s deeply tanned face was tattooed with sharp geometric lines. His beard was chiselled to a point and the wolf-like stare of his indigo eyes was unmistakable.

His stare unwavering, he said something. The other tribal made a cautious retort.

“Hir griss shlet’ma,” the man looking at Illiom said, and slowly broke into a wide grin.

Dreel turned to look at her, his eyes round with surprise.

“He says he knows you?”

Illiom took a deep breath before nodding slowly.

“Yes, I know him too.”