The Vitalis Chronicles: Steps of Krakador (19 page)

“
Come.” Hevetican took Ardin by the hand. “It is getting late in the day. We must rejoin the rest and make camp, but first... can you...”

He looked up at the high walls of the natural cleft in the stone. Ardin understood well enough, and gestured that they should make their way ahead. He walked slowly behind them, watching as they laughed and slapped each other on the back. He envied their carefree joy in spite of the slaughter below. They had survived another day and proved themselves at the same time. It compounded Ardin's loneliness to see their love for each other.

He turned after walking fifty feet into the cleft, halfway to the other side where the path worked its way up and over a hill. He sighed, and raised his hand. The warmth came at the slightest suggestion, swirling up and through him in such a familiar way that he scarcely noticed it at all. He opened his hand, sending out his grip on the walls, then closed it into a tight fist. The first ten feet of the cleft were left untouched, but the following twenty were brought together in what must have felt to the old stone to be a cataclysmic event. He raised the broken slate up, heating and re-solidifying it in a manner he had thought impossible until he applied himself to the task.

“
God help us if this is all that stands between us and destruction,” he said to no one as he turned to follow his new companions.

The march to the coast was long and dull. The people were slow for all their wounds and wear, but their hearts were lighter. They were no longer hunted, to their knowledge, and no longer feared betrayal from their ancient rivals-turned-stewards. They may have been relatively unprotected, but many of them had never expected to make it this far in the first place. Most seemed content to die free in place of wallowing in the prison camps that had been their homes for so long.

Ardin wasn't sure any more where he stood at the moment, nor what options were truly open to him. The long walk to the coast was providing him with more time to think than he really wanted. The people were more welcoming than he had expected; every night he was ushered to a different campsite to share a meal. He didn't speak the language and rarely found someone with whom to talk, but he knew they were grateful for him nonetheless. The story of his arrival had spread well ahead of him, and his white armor and cape marked him for the man to whom deference was owed. He still didn't know where the armor had come from, though he expected it was somehow tied to the Shadow King.

The lack of companionship brought its own sense of loneliness, and soon he found himself thinking of Cid, wishing the old man was around to warn him of danger or play some joke and laugh his belly laugh. Their companionship had been brief, but so intense that Ardin felt he had hardly known life without him. Those thoughts only led him to Alisia. How he would call her to himself now was a mystery he had yet to even approach, let alone unravel.

The people he found himself traveling with now were strange in almost every way to him. To every meal they added the spiciest herb he had ever tasted, and they added it in plenty. He had never eaten food so hot, nor so strange in texture. They ate out of shared bowls, each person digging into the same dish on the ground with one hand. The stuff wasn't all that appealing to Ardin at first. He particularly disliked eating out of the same bowl. But he came to like it after a few meals, and the shared dish soon was a normal part of every meal to him. Still, it made him miss food from home with every bite.

For all they had been through, the people laughed and sang a lot, much more than what he had briefly seen when they had been under the care of the Islendans. They even tried to teach him some of their language once in a while, but he felt like his tongue swelled up and stuck to the roof of his mouth every time he tried.

Hevetican visited him regularly. It didn't take long for the Truan to fill him in on everything that had transpired in his absence. Ardin was shocked at the Greatbow's treachery, angered that he would turn on Cid. If he hadn't shot the Fisherman, Ardin was convinced his friend would still be alive today. Hevetican surprised Ardin, however; for all the fear and hatred he had heard the Islendans spew about Truans, he seemed eloquent and reasonable enough. To Ardin's surprised relief, he was discovering that the Truans were warm and welcoming.

Tristram had pointed out the mark of the Demon in Hevetican as a caution, but noted that he had stood to give his life against the Demon's forces. Ardin wondered if the old Truan truly was a threat from time to time, but if the old man looked to keep him disarmed, he was doing a fantastic job of it. He would pull out plants and roots as they walked among the low trees that dotted the landscape, teaching Ardin their healing or harmful properties, showing him how his people mixed leaves and roots to make salves, how they thought of it as magic.

Then one night he pulled Ardin aside to show him his own magic. He had been the chief magician in the royal courts of Trua before it fell, he told Ardin. Now he was but a shepherd of a nearly-exterminated flock. He was the guardian of lost arts, some of which were Truan, some of which were Thranish, but most of which were offshoots of the Demon's own.

“
The only real difference,” he said, “is in how you perceive the world around you. The Magaic arts are about creation. The Magi used their imaginations to train their bodies to take the Atmosphere and build with it. They would call upon the broader scope of reality in the same way you do, appealing to it in a way and creating what wouldn't otherwise naturally occur. Eventually, like I have seen you do, they could manipulate the Atmosphere thoughtlessly.

“
The Relequim, however, looks at the Atmosphere as a tool for subjugation. Instead of creating or willing fire into existence, for example, the Relequim enslaves it and turns it to his will.”

“
I don't think I understand.” The whole concept seemed like mincing words to Ardin. “He's still using his imagination, like me, and the result is the same, isn't it?”

“
Not entirely. One goes against the grain of how the universe was designed.” The Truan rubbed his beard for a moment as he thought of how to describe it. “Imagine you wanted to pass a great distance, and a horse happened by. Imagine that horse is the Atmosphere, and it is yours to manipulate to your purpose. The way the Magi trained their minds to operate would be much the same as enticing that horse into a partnership. You offer it something, be it friendship or food, and it agrees to take you where you need to go.”

“
You befriend the Atmosphere?” Ardin's incredulity seeped through.

“
It is simply an analogy.” Hevetican dismissed the sarcasm with a brush of the hand. “The Relequim would subjugate the horse, capturing it and forcing it to do his bidding. He would assert his dominance over it and get to where he was going as an expression of that control.”

“
Isn't that just two sides of the same coin?” Ardin asked. “I don't understand why it's different, let alone bad.”

“
You are obviously familiar with your own methods; over time they will actually build you into a stronger and healthier creature, for they are healthy methods that align with the way things are to be. The Demon's methods are effective, often more so than your own, but they come at a cost to both parties. For the affected, the subjugation crushes the soul, or in the case of matter, it tears it apart at its foundational level. The one wielding the power is corrupted over time and also begins to deteriorate at a very foundational level.

“
Humans that take on the Demon's craft and work towards its mastery often go mad or die of strange illnesses long before their time. I know a little of that vein of magic, but have held myself back for fear of that very cost. It is a price that I am simply not willing to pay.”

“
Why are you telling me all this then? If what you're saying is true, I wouldn't want to pursue those methods either. Ever.”

“
No,” Hevetican conceded. “But you should learn to recognize them when they manifest. You haven't seen them in me, though the signs are surely there, thus I know you will miss them in others. I would teach you to recognize those who have been brought into the Demon's fold at a distance, so you don't find the need to defend yourself when they have drawn near.”

“
Will I be able to tell so easily?”

“
You have a great power, Ardin, and that power will show them to you.”

Ardin laughed to himself at the mention of his power, as if it were a third party in his plight. It wasn't so far off the mark when it was put like that. “If it wasn't for my power, I would have died a dozen times over by now.”

“
You are walking a path predestined by the gods, and in their wisdom they have brought you to us in our time of greatest need.”

“
Gods?” The plurality caught Ardin off guard. “I thought there was only one Creator.”

“
That is the way of the west and the people across the sea to whom you belong. But there are many, and they protect you even now.”

The concept threw Ardin's mind into a brief spin. It took a while for words to form. “Is the Demon one of your gods?”

“
No.” Hevetican shook his head as he took a grim expression. “He would have us believe he was such, but we no longer worship him. He is evil, a Dread god. We fear the Dread gods, but they are as mortal as the rest.”

“
So you still think he's... God?”

“
Not 'God,' a god.” Hevetican swept his hand over the sky as they walked. “The gods take many forms, but the most powerful are the Swift and Dread gods. They fight an endless conquest to bring the universe under dominion. The Swift seek to bring everything under the dominion of light and order. The Dread under dominion of darkness and chaos. Many fight independently of the others, like the Relequim. In his own madness he believes himself to be the only god, though the Swift gods certainly proved him wrong at his internment.

“
The Dread gods have been greatly subdued, but they are returning. Their numbers are few, but they make new gods in the north as we speak, while the Swift gods do nothing. The Islendans speak of war with the East, and my people with the West, but the only true enemy lies in the North. The Swift gods have believed themselves secure in their peace, young Ardin, but they were wrong. We are in a great danger.”

F
OURTEEN

A
NDERS
K
EATON KEPT HIS SHORT-NOSED RIFLE FIRMLY AGAINST HIS SHOULDER AS HE BACKED SLOWLY TOWARDS HIS EXIT
. The sewer junction they were in had provided enough surprises as it was, but to find Woads packing the tunnels that led into it was too much. Grimes moved back slowly with him as they tried not to make any noise. But Keaton could already feel the attention of the closest monsters shifting towards them with interest.

He wasn't sure what to do. The monsters were moving into the city, that much was clear, as their numbers continued to diminish into the darkness. But whether to try and stop them or to allow them to help unseat Merodach left Keaton's whole mind in a lurch. They were his enemies, but if they pushed the populace towards rebellion they might be an unlikely ally.

But they'll kill hundreds, if not thousands...
Keaton's eyes started to dart around the dank, dimly-lit room for an answer.
What point is there in saving the people from Merodach if there's no one left in the end?

“
Grimes.” He reached into one of the pouches on his belt, pulling out a small explosive. “Move that timer up to three minutes.”

“
Sir?” Grimes spun on him in surprise. “We'll barely have time to get to the grate!”

“
There won't be any point in getting to the grate if these things are after us. Set the charge and go.”

Grimes hesitated only a moment before clicking away at the timer. He and the other Hunter crouched at the edge of the water next to the entrance of the pipe through which they had entered. They weren't leaving him, Keaton realized.

He turned and hissed at them to go. “Get out and cover me when I come through, you idiots!” And with that he twisted the cap on the explosive in his hand and threw it towards the Woads in the dark. The two Hunters splashed into the water behind him, overshadowing the same sound the charge he had thrown made in the same moment. He pulled his gun back up, a low rumbling working its way down to him from the darkness.

His skin crawled to hear the guttural noise of the Woads reverberate against the stone and across the water. He set his weapon to automatic and covered his ears as the first Woad stepped into the light. The concussion of the explosive going off in the small space felt like a kick in the chest. The Woad in front of him was knocked from its feet and fell into the current. Water and blood misted into the light as the rumble rose to a roar; it had worked, he realized, all too well. He fired blindly into the distance as he backed to the wall. He put his mouthpiece in as the first of the Woads came tumbling into the juncture. There were dozens that followed.

He threw himself into the rushing water, kicking wildly with his narrow flippers as the current propelled him towards the river ten times faster than he had left it. The speed was welcome, but scarcely lightened the burden of the chase as he heard more bodies enter the water behind him.