Lady Vera of Beit-Orane (v_eritas) wrote in adusta, @ 2011-06-16 01:14:00 |
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Entry tags: | the fifth child, vera of beit-orane |
Stone Veins (Part Two, Narrative)
The path into the mountain sloped and curved in ways neither Vera nor her brother could predict. They tripped into each other like babes in the dark so often that Vera began to lose all sense of direction. Her eyesight was just good enough that she could anticipate enough not to run into a wall. She tried to keep track of time by counting the beats of her heart as the Meditations of Armas taught, but rhythm was useless against the sounds of Gavrie’s boots. Vera felt shame that she could not find her place in the descending caverns or in Time. Gavrie never traveled ahead of her, though. He never turned his head to look upon her weakness. This did not occur to Vera until her legs felt leaden. There had been a halting rhythm to her brother‘s gait. When she stopped and slid down the black, stone wall, Gavrie was eager to collapse beside her.
“We’re in the middle of the road,” Vera pointed out in a whisper.
“Who cares,” Gavrie replied in a voice just as soft. “If something down here is looking to kill us, they’ll come regardless of where we sit.”
She went silent and pressed her cold hands to her hot face. She wiped away the sweat and the hair that came loose from her braid. Vera knew she was shivering from exhaustion instead of cold. She felt more and more like a child should. Gavrie was right. Whatever wanted to kill them could do it. Being here felt foolish now. They weren’t on a sky-lit path with high walls any longer. Beyond this road was endless darkness -- maybe ledges and cliffs, maybe lakes of rock and underground rivers. Who knew what resided in the mountain? The road to Chrysaor had been closed to Eistocene since before her father’s rise. And where was the dwarf she had wounded… They walked in his realm! In this dark place he was most powerful. Would he finish what he started and seek his revenge on her?
Gavrie scooted close to her and Vera didn’t notice until he wordlessly pulled her against his side. She did not mind the armor. She never rested in her brother’s presence, much less against him. This was a demand that he take first watch. There was no pride in her now. She gave him the honor gladly, letting the illness in her gut shove her into unconsciousness.
--
Lovely.
Their voices scratched the stones and the bark of the trees, but their hair was lovely. The last remnants of a touch long forgotten. Long in length and pale as the fingers that spun Bahamut’s bright ornaments in the heaven. It was an ancient thought to have. She watched such lovely white stream behind them from shadow, stream into the red river that poured from various skins on the field. Skins with black armor and gold armor, skins hung on the trees, skins hung from the stars made for them all. They could not see her yet, but soon they would. Soon they would all be seen.
How lovely were they. How lovely was this world. Soon she would never worry again after such loveliness, not even for that which dwelled in the north…
“Can you hear them?”
--
“I do not like this place. We should not be here.”
“Her eyes are open.”
“He chose the place and the timing. It is his blood, his right.”
“Let him speak then, he stands just there.”
“You owe him as do we all, mage. Still your tongue.”
“But she is right. Her eyes. It is her soul”
“And you only speak on souls when it suits you.”
Something burned. She wanted to cry, to squirm. But the voices scratched against the stone. The voices sang sweetly in the branches waving above. Blurry shapes, but not blurry against her hand. It burned.
“When does this begin? I keep my word, but I can hear them screaming.”
“A children’s tale.”
“Perhaps for me. You were not yet made.”
“Unlike you, leech, I was born and not made.”
“Quiet. The smiths come.“
“Can you hear them?”
--
“Vera.”
She jerked herself awake and found Gavrie’s face in front of her own. He actually looked at her with concern. Tears were running down her cheeks, which instantly reddened with embarrassment. Gavrie put a hand over hers -- it was clasped over her own wrist. And oh her wrist hurt more than ever before.
“Were you wounded?” Gavrie’s voice was barely audible as he tried to pry her fingers open. Vera shook her head vigorously no. He paused. The sound reminded her at first of taught strings being ran over with an inexperienced bow, shrieking in delicate and strange notes. “Hear it? What is that?” he asked.
Her wrist hurt her so much she could have sworn someone had ripped it off her body. Could she still move her fingers? The skin felt completely numb. She squinted her eyes shut for a moment and then looked upward. Far, far up. There was something deep and far back. It moved in odd diagonals… like someone had brought a piece of light into this place and had forgotten it.
Vera scrambled to her feet. The noise was so quiet, but it echoed in her mind. She’d never heard it before! It felt like she should remember. Gavrie was confused as she pulled him to his feet and began running. She couldn’t explain it.
“Hurry,” Vera breathed.
“Have you gone mad?”
Mad? But she could hear Gavrie drawing his weapon as she dragged him on blindly. She felt the need to move faster and was insistent. Her heart throbbed hard in her chest as the road curved sharply downward. The crunch of uneven stone was beneath her boots. No, no, no… if one of them tripped the wrong way… panic welled in her chest. They had to get out. Somewhere that was far from the noise that was beginning to sound like shouting. It was language, language on the stones that reached like hands through the dark.
Gavrie finally caught the same panic. He was cursing under his breath and stumbling. He nearly ran into a wall with her. They weren’t moving fast enough.
“Shit, shit…It’s Drow,” her brother said, no concern for whispers now. “It’s not possible. Drow in the Fire Mountains…”
Drow. How did he…?
The first blow Vera didn’t see coming. It separated her from Gavrie.
Drow were dropping from the ceiling. Her surroundings had somehow become more defined with one of the tall, pale haired demons standing in front of her. Vera lost thought. The Drow was speaking to her in that scratching knife-like tongue. Blood trickled down her forehead from her scalp, where she’d been struck. She was terrified, not of dying but of the Drow itself. She scrambled back. Her fingers reached in the pocket of her belt.
There was the sound of metal upon metal. Gavrie was fighting. How was he fighting? Her weapon was still sheathed. He was shouting for her. But she…she couldn’t. She just couldn’t…
The filthy crystal that Dirt Beggar had given her was in her palm and she clutched it -- the only thing she could hold onto. The Drow stood over her still talking, almost commanding like a guard might. A blade that reflected almost no light raised above its head. Vera brought her arms over her face and ducked her head down. Her hand sweat as she squeezed the crystal hard.
She didn’t want to be cut down. Not like this. Not ever.
Light tore through the cavern. Her eyes weren’t open, but she could feel the force of it against her lids. The source was so close. Screams echoed around them and the blade meant for her heart clattered on the ground. In the distance she could hear other sounds -- less pained and more determined. The light endured. These voices did not scratch against the stone.
“Vera, Vera, they’re gone! Cut the light, even I can’t see!”
The crystal. She dropped it into her lap almost instantly. Its light went out but there was a remnant halo that clung to the air around the quartz. When she lowered her arms, Gavrie was standing in front of her with his weapon still drawn. Blood stained his neck, but he did not waver. The Drow were gone. Vera heard the sounds of heavy armor and pushed herself up. She was quick to hide the crystal as she peered around her brother.
It was too much to hope that the sound would be of human armor. A group of Dwarves came to a stop in front of Gavrie. Their stern leader held up a lantern. He looked over Gavrie and then her from beneath a thick, red brow. His beard was long and braided, as told in the stories she'd heard from her mother. The leader whipped around and held his lantern up to another of his number. His shoulders were tight.
“Surface children?” he asked, his voice not believing. “Human?”
Gavrie’s hand tightened on his weapon.
“They seemed much taller under the sky! They were skilled!”
Vera looked more closely at the Dwarf highlighted by the lantern. His arm was bandaged. It was the one that almost killed Gavrie. She swallowed hard in the tense silence as the leader swung his lantern back toward them. Quiet snickering began behind the leader’s back that quickly developed into a rolling wave of laughter. It wasn’t the kind that eased her brother or made her want to join in. It was mocking. Their laughs were the sort that came before someone did something foolish.
“If you came to finish what you started…” Gavrie said, making it known his patience was done.
The leader held up his hand.
“You don’t belong on our roads, but we have no quarrels with human children,” the Dwarf said. “You can leave this place when you tell me who stopped the Drow from cutting off your heads.”
“No one,” Gavrie snapped.
The laughter rolled through the cavern again. The leader held up his lantern higher; he was the only one who did not laugh. His eyes were drawn to the sign of Beit-Orane emblazened on Gavrie’s sleeve. Anger creased the dwarf’s bearded face.
“Look, boy, my patrol was under heavy attack before the Drow left us. They didn’t fall back because we were winning. They were drawn here. Something else forced their retreat. A bright light. Don‘t think of lying to me.” The Dwarf drew his blade. “Your trespassing is enough of an insult.”
Vera looked over her shoulder at the dark road. Gavrie was getting read y to be stupid with his words because he, too, was insulted. But it was pure luck to survive Drow. She did not think the Dwarves would let them farther into the mountain without a fight. How were they going to find the others and figure out where this road led without help?
“My brother isn’t a liar. It was me,” she said, quietly. All of them turned toward her. The lantern light was an insect compared to what she’d held between her hands and she did not blink when it was upon her. That small crystal. She pulled it out of her belt and placed the crystal in her open palm so the Dwarf could see it. “I used this. I didn’t know what it was.”
The men went quiet. Gavrie was glaring powerfully at her.
“A piece of Sibgren's Falls…I know that crystal. I used to guard it,” one of the Dwarves said. “It…it did that? Can it make that kind of light?”
Vera swallowed. She did not know of Sibgren’s Falls, but the place seemed important to these Dwarves. The leader said nothing. She had their interest…everyone‘s eyes were on her. Her blood still hadn’t forgotten the fear she felt when waking to the presence of Drow. The Dwarves’ interest seemed as important as a sword right then. “We’re here because we were sent here--”
“Shut up, Vera.”
She ignored her brother.
“We were sent.” Vera found the Dwarf leader’s eyes and tried her best to keep hold of them with her own. “We don’t know why or for what. We don’t know where we are. I think we were tricked into believing our House wanted us to journey into your mountain. You have to help us.”
“The only help I can give,” the dwarf leader said. “Is to kick you out of here.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” Gavrie spat.
“We can’t,” Vera said, trying to correct her brother before the skepticism in the dwarf’s eyes turned to hate. “Our brother and sisters are somewhere in your mountain. There was a gate with four doors...”
At the mention of the gate, a stillness passed over the whole group. Tension pulsed more heavily through the cavern now than when Drow had loomed over her. Gavrie grabbed hold of her arm to silence her and move her backward.
“You…you are no children. Beit-Orane does not raise them. They only send them here to take and lie,” the leader said, darkly. “And you will leave.”
Gavrie wasn’t going to leave. There was going to be a fight. Even if they won it, there was that dark road ahead of her. There were Drow beyond that. Vera had no idea why the sliver of kindness shown to them at first was slipping away. Maybe there was more truth to the speech Dirt Beggar gave her siblings than she thought. Was her father truly here when he was young? She saw the other Dwarves begin to draw their weapons.
Remember…
Vera could still hear his howling in her mind. She couldn’t forget Dirt Beggar. Nothing that he’d given her had been without its uses. He wasn’t crazy. She knew it.
“We’re not like the High Lord,” she said quickly, even as Gavrie drew his own weapon. “We’re not lying! We’re…”
Her back hit the boulder behind her. Vera’s mind raced.
“We’re like Lord Ithlas! Lord Ithlas, the dead!“
There was a pause in the dwarf’s steps.
“He was betrayed, just like you. We’ll… set it right. If we can.”
“What are you talking about?” Gavrie hissed.
Vera breathed in. “Just help us.”
One by one, the Dwarves' weapons were re-sheathed. Vera felt her hands shaking and pressed them hard against her sides. She could feel her brother’s anger for her. Where he’d kept information on the gates from them, she had neglected to tell him everything of Dirt Beggar. But that was his own fault, wasn’t it? He rushed in with everyone else and now…
“She doesn’t know what she speaks of, but she plays her words well. It’s enough and fair for a bargain. I am Ulrend Bloodstone, an Axe of the Stonecutters. My men and I defend the roads beneath Bathnat Pass. I will tell you of the deal you’ve made as we walk to our camp.”
Ulrend’s voice only became more grim as he turned away.
“If you stay with us after that, I will be eager to see how much you value the lives of your siblings."