The Bonds of Blood (45 page)

“Don’t be afraid,” the leader said one
more time, this time without the echo from the sprites surrounding
him. With that last cryptic message the line of sprites turned
their backs on the group and began walking slowly toward the
Mountains of Nependier. After three steps, the line disappeared in
one collective sigh of wind and gust of smoke. Flowers all across
the Chaundebar Plains seemed to glow for a moment, as if life were
being restored to them.

A shiver ran through Angelica and
Jovian that had nothing to do with the power of the sprites, and
everything to do with hearing a cryptic message that they had
previously hoped to be imagined.

That which must be done
…

CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE

_“T
here are many things that
I
could teach you,” the voice proclaimed in
the darkness of her dream. Joya was without form, without thought
(until the voice had intruded on her), and she was fairly certain
that she was between dreams.

This time when he came it was not with
the malicious sense that he had brought with him the first time. In
his words Joya felt comforted and calm. There was not the sense
that she was tapping into something murky and oily; instead it was
like she was being filled with a hunger to know, a hunger to delve
into mysteries and come out with an answer.

“What can you teach me about?” she
asked, truly curious. She tried not to let her wanting get in the
way of what she had felt the first time. Briefly Joya Neferis
wondered if the reason she felt differently about him this time was
because in a way she had been waiting for him.

“I can teach you many things about the
wyrd,” the voice of Wisdom soothed.

“But the voice of wyrd already teaches
me those things,” she protested.

“Haven’t we already been over that,
Joya? Haven’t we discussed that oftentimes something that goes
against conventional knowledge doesn’t ‘feel’ right because it
offers change? Change is never easy.”

“I know …” Joya sputtered, feeling that
his words spoke true to her at this time. He was right, after all;
the only reason that she felt wrongly toward him was because what
he offered demanded change. Not just change of thought, but change
of deed as well. With all this thought riffling through her, it
would be hard to raise her Wyrd in offense again without weighing
all that hung in the balance.

“Now you see the truth of the
matter?”

“Yes,” she conceded. “But I told you
that I have a teacher already.”

“Do you now?” the voice asked sounding
puzzled. “The voice of wyrd that you talk of so often? Is that the
teacher you have?”

“Yes it is.”

“A good teacher. A busy
teacher.”

“What do you mean?” Joya asked, her
quick mind seeing the masked meaning in the words he
spoke.

“Well, I am afraid that
there are so many wyrders in the world that she does not have
enough time and resources to spend ample time with all of you. She
is not meant to be a full-time teacher, a mentor. She is meant to
guide and help as is needed … as is needed until an
actual
teacher is
found.”

“An actual teacher?” Joya
parroted.

“Yes, a real teacher.”

Joya nearly laughed at him then. “A
real teacher, you say? And I am supposed to believe that you are
this real teacher? You who appear only as a voice in my mind. A
real teacher would be of flesh and blood as I am, not an enigmatic
voice in my mind that I can’t force myself to completely
trust.”

“A real teacher indeed,” the voice
said. “How would you expect a truly gifted teacher of the Wyrding
Way to appear? Would you put more trust in a flesh and blood
teacher that has not mastered the Wyrding Way enough to transcend a
physical body? Or would you put your training into the capable
mentoring of one versed enough in the lore to have ascended from
the physical plane?”

Joya went to speak, but found that
words escaped her.

“I see that I have given you more to
think about,” the voice said. “As with last time, I am sure that
this thinking will take up a large sum of your time. I will be
back.”

As her surroundings suddenly grew oddly
quiet, Joya contemplated the identity of this voice who claimed
status above the voice of wyrd.

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX

_I
t took them the better
part
of five days to cross the Chaundebar
Plains. Five uneventful days devoid of sunlight and moonlight due
to the constant gloom that enshrouded the first part of the Wyrd
Holdings that started with the Chaundebar Plains and ended in the
Realm of Air where the Ravine of Aaridnay separated the Realm of
Earth from the Realm of Air.

The Wyrd Holdings’ vast lands stretched
from the Chaundebar Plains, and was at least several weeks of
travel by foot from one end to the other. The Ravine of Aaridnay,
the final destination before venturing into the Realm of Air, was
still a long ways off. They still had to trek through the Foothills
of Nependier, which eventually would lead them to the Ivory City.
Yet the adventure certainly wouldn’t end there, they presumed.
They’d still have to battle through the treacherous Mountains of
Nependier, leaving them only at the halfway point of their
journey—if indeed Amber was taken that far. In the heart of the
Wyrd Holdings now, they could only follow the darkness that trailed
behind their sister on her way to the Otherworld.

Five days void of all wyrd, save the
drained land they traveled alongside. Alongside, because Grace
refused to let them travel on the defiled path itself in case there
had been some leftover residue of malignant wyrd.

They rode most the time making small
talk among themselves. All of them talked and joked except Joya,
who seemed to be turning more and more introverted with every
passing day.

Many thoughts clouded her mind
presently. She no longer thought about right and wrong. As she had
deduced a while back, she figured right and wrong were a matter of
perspective. Now she thought about the voice that came to her
professing that he could teach her. She doubted for a time that he
was actually the teacher she sought, but then just recently other
thoughts had been entering her mind—thoughts that at first she
couldn’t claim as her own as they seemed to be coming from an
outside force. Joya scoffed; that was impossible. They only seemed
like they came from outside herself because she was not used to
having such thoughts, and so was not used to claiming them as her
own.

The thoughts she entertained now were
about the way in which she would learn. There was not much known
about sorcerers claiming their power. It was said that they would
undergo a type of training in which they would be tested by the
elements. She wondered a lot now if this was the beginning of her
training. Wouldn’t it make sense that the one who trained her came
to her in her dreams? After all, when a sorcerer came into their
power it was normally a time of deep reflection, so deep that the
sorcerer went comatose.

Joya wished there was someone that knew
about this. Someone that could help her decide if this was the
right way, if this was what normally happened when the training
started.

But alas there was not. The book was
silent, yet another thing the voice of Wisdom had been right about.
Joya often would flip through the book at night when camp was set,
but she could not read anymore of the blocky language than she
could before.

Frustration at not having answers or
guidance gnawed at Joya, making her testy and irritable at the
others she traveled with. Simple things seemed to grate at her
nerves, because the simple things were normally the things that
interrupted her thinking and got in the way of her making a
decision. It seemed when she was about ready to come to a
conclusion, right when an answer or resolution to this internal
conflict was at hand, some form of stupidity would crop up, making
the answer fly from her mind.

Such was the way things went for them
as they left the Chaundebar Plains on the sixth day and entered the
Foothills of Nependier.

The Foothills of Nependier had been a
beacon for them the last few days. Day by day they had came into
focus, at first as gray-blue silhouettes far off, then slowly as
large hills that foreshadowed the huge Mountains of Nependier
behind them.

Somewhere deep in the Foothills of
Nependier rested the capital of the Holy Realm. The Ivory City,
named so after its ivory construction, would drop them into the
White Mines, where the city’s ivory was mined. The White Mines were
hidden in the depths of the Mountains of Nependier, a region
teeming with secrets.

“What I want to know,” Jovian said as
they began the easy ascent into the foothills. “Is how they were
able to put a city as vast as the Ivory City in these jagged
foothills.”

“Jovian, dear,” Grace stated as if
explaining something to a child, “we are humans, isn’t it obvious?
We had great concern for both flora and fauna when we leveled the
land to make way for the capital,” she remarked
sarcastically.

Voyagers Pass took the easiest route
through the Foothills of Nependier so that travel by horse, foot,
or wagon was as safe and comfortable as possible. Jovian realized
that he had not even broke a sweat yet, which was strange on such a
warm day of traveling, especially through hills as large as
these.

Traveling had increased in speed and
fervor now that they knew they were on the right track to
retrieving Amber. Truth was that they were all more heartened now
that they had solid proof that they were on the right track—more
proof, that is, than obscure footprints on the side of the road or
dreamlike visions.

The energy of the place filled them all
with a relaxing joy that Grace found slightly humorous seeing how
the road lead to the capital, which was anything but relaxing with
all its restlessness and governmental intrigue. Still their
conversation was light and cheerful even if there was a slight
undercurrent of anticipation at their journey being so near
completion.

Now, more than ever, Angelica felt the
distance from home weighing on her emotions. While out on the road
surrounded by nothing more than fields and wildlife, it brought
close to her heart the memories of the plantation that had seen
them through so many childhood years. But as dusk settled upon the
group yet again, her feelings drifted from the comfort she felt. As
they set up camp that night off the ever busying Voyagers Pass, she
thought (not for the first time this trip) of her father and
friends left behind. So much could happen in just a few days on a
plantation of that size, Angelica wondered how much had changed in
the weeks since they had left. Similar thoughts crept into the
minds of them all that eve as they sat round a weak fire—just
smoldering enough to keep the chill at bay.

With the capital in view, its buildings
scraping against the horizon demonstrating the power and prestige
that dwelled there, it was hard for any of the travelers to
convince themselves that they were not that far from home. Indeed,
they were very far from home. In times past Lytoria had been a
destination that was only rarely seen by their father, and never by
them. Meedesville was the farthest any of them had ever ventured
from home. Now they were nearly all the way across the Holy
Realm—the closest they had ever been to the Realm of Air outside of
books.

So it was with a heavy heart that camp
was set, dinner eaten, and the first watch began. Before Angelica
knew it, Maeven was waking her for the second watch and she settled
herself on the ground away from camp. There was not really a need
to keep watch from animals or dalua that night, but instead from
bandits and other unsavory people that traveled this part of
Voyagers Pass.

None of those things bothered Angelica
now though, and not even the cheerful energy of the Foothills of
Nependier could bring her out of her melancholy. Looking up at
those silvery mountains Angelica was reminded of her birthday, and
the ring she had gotten. These mountains looked the same as the
ones she had seen in her mind.

She was not sure what moved her hand to
the pouch where she kept the ring safe. It might have been longing
for the feeling she felt that day being safe and loved by her
family; it might have been missing her father, Amber, and a slew of
other people at the plantation; or it might have been something
more wyrd than that. All Angelica knew was that soon her hand was
in the pouch, and the ring was being slipped on her
finger.

The moment the ring was in place she
felt a thrumming of power inside of her. A pulsing that she could
feel being answered from somewhere distant, off in the mountains.
She could feel the energy leaving her, and then a different, alien
energy being returned to her.

Curiously the white dots in the center
of each palmed that marked her as one from the Holy Realm seemed to
prickle with a sensation close to heat.

She could feel the energy of the ring
rippling out from her body as if she were a stone dropped in a
serene pond of Wyrd. Just as the energy left her, so too did it
return as if hers was querying and the returning energy was the
answer.