Maylin's Gate (Book 3) (41 page)

“You came to me once before,” he said. “You told me about a barrier. About needing my help. You mentioned something about Maylin’s gate.”

The woman's blue eyes sparkled beneath the room’s strange light. Eyes registering a raw mixture of desperation and fear. "There's no more time to waste," the woman said. "Both our worlds need you now."

"What's your name?" He said.

The woman half glanced toward this closed-door before meeting his gaze. "Aurelia.” A slight frown crossed Aurelia’s face.

"Who are the creature’s coming through the gate?" He said. "I can't help you if you won't give me more information."

Aurelia shivered. "The ickaret. They’re horrible beasts. They take us from our homes. They take our children. They took your children and those of the sansan."

Sansan. Zeke’s word. "What do you expect me to do against the ickaret? I've lost my magic. I can't help you."

"I told you once before, the Seeker can help you reclaim your magic, but you have to open Maylin's Gate. The Tower of Souls cannot stand without you."

"I can't open the gate without magic. I don't know how."

Aurelia stared at him with mouth agape. "What do you mean you don't know how? Did you find Zeke? He can help you."

"Zeke said that magic is tainting my soul thread. Until it's removed, I can't open the gate."

Aurelia's jaw slackened. "You're not joking."

"Can you bring the Seeker here? Bring him to me. I need to speak with him."

Aurelia glanced toward the door. "I told you, the Seeker cannot open the gate. That is your calling."

"Why do you keep looking towards the door?" He said.

Aurelia's voice lowered to a whisper. "The punishment for scrying is severe. If I'm caught...."

Scrying? "I need to speak with the Seeker. Is this the Tower of Souls?"

Aurelia glanced behind with eyes registering surprise. "Our time has run out. You have to open Maylin's gate. Open it now."

"I've told you, I don't know how."

Aurelia stepped forward and stopped an inch from his face. Tears welled in the woman's eyes turning them an impossible shade of blue.

Aurelia’s fragrance set his head spinning. How could anyone stay focused around this woman?

Aurelia leaned in and brushed his cheek with her lips. "If I knew how, I would tell you. You have to find a way. Please hurry."

The image of Aurelia and the drawing room dissolved.

He lurched upright and gasped. His heart beat a thousand miles a minute and his head swam. Like before, sweat soaked his tunic and streaked his hair. Pain pounded at the base of his skull and he reached for a dull ache throbbing in his neck.

He remembered his dream in vivid detail. But, unlike his last visit, he remembered Aurelia. Did that mean he neared the edge of madness? This couldn’t be good for his long term health.

The scent of rawhide hung in the stagnant air.

He opened his eyes and squinted through the shadows trying to shake loose a blurry haze.

A golden animal hide covered the floor beneath him. General Demos lay beside him with eyes closed.

Stacked animal hides sat in a corner. Tracers of bright light seeped through cracks in sloped walls made from animal hide.

He leaned over and placed his fingertips against General Demos's neck.

The general’s pulse beat slow and steady while the man's chest rose and fell in an even rhythm.

He turned his head upward and pain rifled down his neck and through his shoulder. He recalled something stinging him before the world turned black.

Whoever had captured them left them free and unharmed. A thought that encouraged him. He leaned over and shook General Demos’s shoulder. "Wake up."

General Demos groaned but didn’t move.

Before him, the tent flap rustled.

His stomach fluttered and he inched away from the opening.

Light flooded the angular room. A leather-skinned boot appeared through the open flap.

He shook the general’s shoulder again, harder than before. "You have to wake up."

A hand came through the opening. A hand with skin like his but scales beneath. A baerinese hand. The creature's face appeared next and stared at him.

He froze, afraid to move a muscle. His heart raced and he edged backward pressing tight against the tent wall. He fumbled for his belt knife but found it missing.

The creature before him blinked and held his gaze. A warrior's face, but not filled with malice. Animal hides covered the man's body from head to toe. The warrior's facial features appeared baerinese but different. The warrior stood several feet shorter than General Demos. A jagged ridge of scales decorated the warrior’s skull. Loose feathers hung from the man's ears. Multicolored paint lit the man’s face in yellow, red, and white.

He reached for Elan's magic, but it eluded him. Sansan. The word Zeke had used. Aurelia too. Zeke believed General Demos came from these people.

The warrior stepped into the tent and glanced between him and General Demos.

"Who are you?" He said.

The creature's forked tongue slithered outward as if tasting the air. The sansan warrior spoke in a language he couldn't understand. The warrior pointed at him and General Demos then at the tent's opening.

"I'm sorry, I can't understand you," he said.

"I can understand him," General Demos said.

He whipped his head sideways and General Demos sat upright staring at the sansan warrior.

"How?" He said.

"As a youth I studied this language," General Demos said. "I've never heard it spoken. I don't think anyone has. The language died centuries ago. I never thought to hear it in this land."

"I don’t think he knows the language is dead," he said.

A thin smile touched General Demos's lips. "He wants us to follow him."

"Where?"

"He didn't say, but it would be impolite to refuse."

"I suppose there's no harm in that. It’s not like we have much of an alternative." He stood and his muscles groaned.

The warrior stepped back through the tent’s opening and held it aside waiting.

He stepped through the open flap and shielded his eyes against the sunlight.

General Demos came after and paused beside him and the warrior.

The warrior stood a head shorter than him. An odd experience after so long with the baerinese general.

Around them, two dozen cone-shaped tents stood in a circle around a roaring campfire. Beyond the tents, the savanna stretched outward like an endless sea of spun gold. Three warriors worked near the fire fletching arrows like those he’d seen a few nights earlier. A tent larger than the others sat central to the camp two-dozen paces past the campfire. Two of the sansan warriors guarded the tent’s opening. Each warrior held a black-shafted spear with a barb-tipped made from bone.

Their guide walked ahead and motioned for them to follow.

With General Demos beside him, they followed the warrior across camp.

Near the fire, a tent stood with its flap open. Inside the tent, sansan men and women stretched out on animal hides. A woman lying near the opening groaned. Red blisters covered the woman's face.

He paused and stared through the opening.

Through half-closed eyes, the woman met his gaze and groaned.

He tugged on General Demos's sleeve. "She's sick."

The general peered through the tent flap and back to him. "It's not polite to stare. Come, before they grow angry with us," General Demos said in a whisper.

The sansan warriors working near the fire stared at him wearing hard expressions.

He turned away from the tent and the sick woman.

Their guide continued around the fire and stopped before a tent wider than those around them. The warrior spoke a few words to the guards and they exchanged nods.

"What are they saying?" He said in a hushed voice.

"He wants to take us inside," General Demos frowned. “They speak fast and I'm having difficulty with the translation.”

A guard pulled back the tent flap and stepped aside. Their guide motioned them forward and into the shadows.

He stepped forward.

The guards gawked at General Demos as he passed through the flap.

Inside the tent, a half-dozen warriors sat around a rug woven with red, yellow, and green beads. A platter piled high with cooked meat, ripe red berries, and diced vegetables sat at the rug's center. Worn clay jugs and wooden goblets sat before each warrior.

The aroma of roasted meat set his stomach growling and his mouth watering.

The guide motioned toward the open spots around the platter and spoke a few words to General Demos.

“He wants us to sit,” General Demos said.

He had mentally devoured two slices of the roast and nodded. “Good. I’m starving.”

Their guide moved aside and settled onto a plush animal hide covering the remaining spot.

He sat beside the guide while General Demos eased into the seat next to him.

The warriors didn't speak while he and General Demos sat. Like their guide, each sansan wore feathered earrings.

The warrior guide glanced between him and General Demos. “Seth.” The guide motioned to the platter.

He caught General Demos out of the corner of his eye and raised a questioning brow.

“Eat,” General Demos said.

“Shouldn’t we wait on the chief?” He shot a nervous glance across the tent, but the gathered warriors stared at him stone-faced.

“No. It’s impolite.” General Demos leaned forward and retrieved a piece of steaming meat from the platter.

He followed suit picking out a juicy chunk of tender brown meat. He bit into the morsel and flavor exploded across his mouth. “Can you tell them thank you? It’s delicious.”

General Demos spoke in a string of broken phrases and gestured toward him.

The warriors gazed toward the guide sitting beside him.

He swallowed the meat and nodded to the guide.

General Demos glanced between the guide and the warriors seated around the tent.

“Simrok sithramil. Cinthaceen fageel croc.” The guide gestured around the table and a wide grin exposed a set of sharp yellow teeth.

General Demos stared at the guide with jaw agape.

He felt like the last man in on a private joke. “What did he say?”

General Demos nodded to the guide. “This warrior is the chief.”

“He’s the chief?”

“Yes,” General Demos said.

“Why is he grinning?”

“Because you’re eating the beast from the river that almost ate us.”

His stomach churned and he gazed at the meat with a fresh set of eyes.

“They call the animal a croc,” General Demos said.

He picked up a jug decorated with blue paint and poured purple liquid into a clay mug. Without asking the liquid’s origin he washed back the croc meat.

Laughter rolled from the chief and spread among the warriors.

General Demos smiled.

“Sethra plac,” the chief said and nodded. “Victus meris.”

He nodded at the chief and grinned. “What did he say?”

“Eating the beast will bring you good luck,” General Demos said.

“Tell him I said thank you for saving us.”

General Demos translated his words and the chief answered.

“He said you’re welcome. They’ve followed us from the forest’s edge.”

“The rattling that night in the fog, it was them? Did they kill the faceless man?”

General Demos translated in halting broken tones.

The chief spoke in a low monotone while wearing a grim expression.

General Demos nodded and turned to face him. “They did not kill him. He says it’s not possible to kill one of the soulless.”

“Soulless?”

"That's what the chief calls the faceless man. A creature without spirit or life. The soulless come from the cursed lands."

He furrowed his brow. "Cursed lands?"

General Demos faced the chief and rattled off a few words in the ancient language. The chief spoke uninterrupted for several tension-filled minutes.

After the chief finished, General Demos gazed at the floor wearing a blank expression.

"What did he say?"

Tongue flickering, General Demos met his gaze. "The cursed lands lie beyond the river. The sansan believe the spirits of fallen warriors haunt those grounds. They believe the spirits of those who led dishonorable lives give birth to the soulless. Sansan law forbids touching the cursed ground. Dishonorable spirits feed on living souls and turn them into the soulless."

"So, they stopped us from entering the cursed grounds?"

General Demos nodded. “They showed us great mercy.”

The throbbing in his neck told him otherwise, but he held his tongue. "How many soulless have they seen?"