Sword of Fire and Sea (The Chaos Knight Book One) (8 page)

Vidarian hunkered back down in the basket and pulled his coat shut against the wind. As he scooted toward the back of the basket to redistribute its weight, he found that it carried built-in wicker bins, three of which were tied securely and a fourth that was only loosely fixed. Curious, he peered inside, and found that it contained a smaller basket covered with white linen cloth.

//
Help yourself
, // the gryphon to his left offered, catching sight of his movements with her sharp eyes.

Vidarian needed no further invitation, discovering an abrupt wave of intense hunger that washed darkness across his vision. Within he found a waxed and stoppered bottle of a thick golden wine, two rounds of hard-crusted bread (curiously tangy, he found upon tearing one open and taking a bite), and equal portions of dried beef and fresh green grapes. Pausing every now and then as the basket gave a lurch and temporarily obliterated his appetite (//
Sorry, breakage in the wind currents
, // came quick apologies), over the next hour he made himself a simple but satisfying meal of the provisions.

Stomach full and heart empty, he finally allowed his weariness to overcome him. Though not knowing how in the lilting movements of the basket, he slept.

For the second time Vidarian woke in the basket's embrace, but this time it was discomfort that roused him. The gryphons were rapidly descending, and as they neared the earth he found an alarming pressure building up in his head.

//
We're landing
, // the forward gryphon announced, turning his head to look back on the passenger. //
Move your jaw, it will loose the pressure in your ears.
// Vidarian did as he was told and found to his relief that, after a slightly worrisome
pop!
, the pain did recede. This process repeated itself perhaps three times before the mountain below hove into view.

The gryphons’ great wings tore at the clouds as they descended, sending tendrils of thick moisture spiraling away in their wake. Directly below, golden-capped spires began to appear, and they sparkled in the mist.

“Is this Kara'zul?” he shouted.

//
No
, // the gryphon to his right answered. //
It is Sher'azar Temple. We cannot take you directly to Kara'zul; you will have to speak with the gatekeeper here.
// As he spoke, the gryphon landed in tandem with the other two, setting the basket down lightly on the mosaic-tiled ground. On legs that did not quite want to work properly, Vidarian managed to lever himself out of the basket, and landed weakly.

//
Here we must leave you
, // the front gryphon said, giving a bow of his beak. //
We have tidings to bring to the high priestess.
//

“Then I thank you most sincerely for your aid,” Vidarian said, giving a bow of his own, and knowing little else what to do. “If I can ever be of service to you, please let me know of it.”

//
We will keep it in mind
, // the right gryphon answered, with a twinkle in his eye. Then the leading gryphon gave a nod and the three creatures leapt once more into the air. The wind from their wings beat strongly down upon Vidarian and he squinted as he watched them ascend. Within moments they had disappeared back into the clouds.

Vidarian peered intently at the handful of tiny buildings that comprised the Temple at Sher'azar. Built in black lacquered hardwood, the structures echoed those of the lightning-scar settlement priestesses, reaching up into the slate-grey sky like the remnants of kindling in a smoldering fire. None were quite the same height.

Like the previous settlement, all was stonily silent—but this one was apparently unpopulated. Though the etched clay pots and their occupants, a variety of strange (and probably dangerous) plants, showed signs of recent and dutiful tending, no creature, human or otherwise, gave a sign of their existence here.

As time dragged on Vidarian grew increasingly restless, finally forcing himself to sit on a large spur of rock that climbed up out of the ground. Some interminable minutes later, the steady but painfully slow sound of hoofbeats began to echo from further down the foothill to which the Temple clung.

Vidarian stood and waited long enough for his legs to start stiffening in the damp air before a covered cart arrived, drawn by a grey donkey. Its driver was a shadowed figure wearing one of the now familiar burgundy robes.

“Greetings,” Vidarian called, raising his hand. “I come seeking the Gatekeeper of Sher'azar.”

“Then I'm afraid you've come at the wrong time,” answered a dulcet voice from inside the hood of the burgundy robe. “The gatekeeper is not here.”

“Not here?” Vidarian asked, startled out of protocol. “Where is she? This is a matter of most urgency.”

“She has gone Down to teach children at a neighboring village,” the priestess answered with peculiar emphasis as she pulled the cart to a stop. Tossing back her hood, she unveiled a rather startling mass of deep red curls that bounced across her shoulders as if thankful for freedom. Her pale green eyes turned upward as she gave voice to a strange, warbling chant.

A smattering of hooded figures began to materialize out of the mist, many of them carrying baskets partially loaded with mountain vegetables or wild mushrooms. They gathered around the cart.

“We will help you if we can,” the redheaded priestess offered, a less than reassuring smile on her thin lips. She remained in the cart.

Vidarian stared at her, wondering where to begin. “A trio of gryphons brought me to your Temple…”

“Gryphons brought you here?” she asked, looking at him slantwise. “Strange, we had no word from them, and they did not remain to introduce you?” She clucked her tongue.

“They claimed urgent business with the high priestess,” Vidarian frowned, brow furrowing.

“Ah, and so you seek the Gatekeeper,” his erstwhile hostess smiled, folding her hands around the cart reins. “I'm afraid that in her absence, your only option would be to ascend the mountain yourself. And by our law, we cannot offer you more than a token assistance with such an undertaking.”

At her words the other followers of Sharli exchanged a few surreptitious glances. More of them were smiling more than Vidarian liked, but all he could do was forge ahead.

“Very well then. I will gratefully accept any assistance you can render.” He decided on forthrightness, which seemed to inexplicably miff the priestesses slightly.

“Come, then,” the one on the cart said, with abrupt coolness. “We are permitted to trade with you for supplies.”

He had very little coin on him, but the attendants accepted what Vidarian did carry with his gratitude. They did not offer a mount, but supplied him with a rather disturbingly small quantity of food in a canvas sack along with a firebox and a very basic assortment of medical supplies. Then all of the priestesses gathered to see him off, bowing with synchronized solemnity. Without preamble he started off along the ascending mountain trail, but he caught a flash of white teeth as the priestesses turned back to their chores. He hoped he had imagined their smiling mouths, and all disappeared into burgundy velvet and mist before he could decide one way or the other.

The mountain loomed before him, indistinct in the mist. Drawing in a deep breath, he filled his lungs with the pine-laced scent of the thick air, then started up the rocky slope.

Time gradually lost its cohesion, punctuated only by the heightened rush of blood in his veins. He repeatedly steered his imagination away from thoughts about the fanciful forms of torture a telepathic race might visit on a captive.

He did not know precisely where he was going, but the priestesses had offered only a single word in response to numerous queries: “Up.” Presumably the High Temple was at the pinnacle of Sher'azar Peak itself, lost somewhere in the maddening fog that engulfed the mountain range. The muscles of his legs and arms began to grow stiff in the clammy air, but he grit his teeth and forged on up one craggy pass after another.

Only when he first began to hallucinate did he stop to rest. The slender demi-peaks that reached up off of the mountain began to take the shape of hazy hooded figures, shadowed against the mist. Their invisible eyes seemed to reach right to his bones.

Blinking rapidly, he turned at the next spur leading off the trail and sat gingerly on an outcropping of blue slate. But the shadows still watched, and after a few moments he spurred himself on again, unable to stand their scrutiny while sitting still.

Driven by that new discomfort, he passed a ghostly night climbing the mountain. The unending mist made sunset unclear; he only became aware of it when there was so little light that he stumbled on the forbidding terrain. At last he found his legs would carry him no further; the air had grown cold and thin in the heights. Dizzied from lack of air, he made a poor excuse for a camp, did not bother with a fire, and set himself down in a shallow hole dug from the gravelly floor. He tried not to compare it to a grave.

The darkness that shrouded the mountain came at last to drape itself across his mind, and he slept.

The pale grey light of dawn did not wake him. Only when the sun began to burn through the mist, falling like liquid flame through the morning fog, did Vidarian stir. He struggled upward in his pit of a bed, blinked bleary-eyed at the rising sun, and prepared to force his aching muscles once more into movement.

A flicker of motion from the eye of the sun gave him pause.

Before he had time to stand, a figure separated itself from the crimson sphere that slowly flooded the morning with scarlet light. Her hair burned with wild abandon down the length of her back, seeming to take its color from the blood of the sun itself, and her skin in the painfully bright light was whiter than the finest porcelain. Sharp blades of sunlight, now streaking down across the mountain, gave the illusion of elfin slenderness to her burgundy-robed form and sheltered her feet from the indignity of making contact with the cold, wet earth. In the tepid twilight her hands glowed golden at her sides.

In a moment the fiery vision was gone and in its place stood a woman of indeterminate age and build. Her hair was indeed red, and gloriously so, but when separated from the sun her entire form seemed to dim into mortality. The smile that lit her features when she caught sight of him, however, reminded him of Ariadel. Presumably they instructed all fire priestesses in the art of smiling to dwarf the breaking dawn.

“Well, hello there,” she said, and there was a strange hollow quality to her voice as it echoed against the stone mountainside. “You certainly look a sight.”

Vidarian scrambled in the gravel, surprise making his sore muscles move faster than they might have otherwise. “Er, good morning, Priestess…?”

She smiled again. Her voice was like crystallized honey—strong and hard but sweet and bright at once, as if just on the verge of bursting into song. “My name is not important now. I was simply out on a…morning constitutional, you might say, and was surprised to see a Son of Nistra this far up our mountain.”

“S-son of Nistra?” Vidarian echoed, unsure that he'd heard her correctly.