Beyond the Sapphire Gate: Epic Fantasy-Some Magic Should Remain Untouched (The Flow of Power Book 1) (36 page)

SURBO

Only two guards stood posted in front of the western portcullis leading into Surbo. Crystalyn—having heard it described as a city at war—had envisioned rows of spear-toting, armored men stationed behind a self-important soldier who glared at the piece of paper required to enter the city. Yet neither ornate-helmed guard gave her as much as a cursory glance when she moved past them. Instead, they concentrated on the row of wagons waiting to enter behind her and Atoi. They did exchange a look when Broth padded past, slipping under the sharp-tipped gate held high by thick, braided ropes that wound around wooden cylinders. He slowed to match her pace. Crystalyn gave the Warden’s front haunch an affectionate shoulder squeeze, amazed how well he’d recovered after losing so much blood. It had taken seven days of his natural healing ability before he could move again. The first few days she’d exhausted herself repairing him from the inside out with her symbol. Her nose bled for days, and for a while, her complexion had been nearly as white as Atoi’s.

Two other guards stationed on the inside surprised her. Minus the ornate helms, the guard’s appeared stoic, their gazes barely meeting hers when she strode past. They seemed interested only in the steady out flux of traffic leaving the city through the gate’s right-hand side.

Most of the city’s multi-garbed patrons appeared to be in good spirits, adding a buzz of conversation to the clatter of boots on cobblestone, mixed with the creak of hand-drawn coaches and wagons.

Conversation slowed—or stalled altogether—when the townspeople noticed the Warden strolling at her side, only to buzz louder as they moved past. Some went so far as to point or shout to a friend.

Atoi’s reaction to the big city surprised Crystalyn. The young girl clung to Crystalyn’s left side, head down, refusing to look up. Atoi had been sullen since her rescue, refusing to talk about it, but at least the little girl had watched where she was going. Crystalyn thought about prying the reason for the girl’s sullenness from her, but paying attention to the route took precedence. Blindly following the one-eyed man was certain to leave her lost and stranded at some point, and she couldn’t afford to wander in circles for days, a real threat in a city this size.

The street widened beyond the gate, thinning the crowd. Hastel quickened their pace. Crystalyn gawked as they passed carved stone structures, both commercial and residential, sharing the cobblestone street’s edge with carts and pedestrians. There was no wooden sidewalk for them to traverse as there had been in Four Bridges. The moving crowd seemed chaotic at first, but Crystalyn soon discovered the faster traffic kept to the middle. The slower traffic moved along the edge of the street. Anyone not in a rush joined and departed the throng as they stepped into and out of storefronts. The left-center flowed toward the gate. The center remained reserved for anyone wishing to traverse faster regardless of mode of travel. Human-borne palanquins and odd, two-seated wagons pulled by a single man mixed with solitary runners. No equestrians of any sort roamed the city. It bothered her. Leaving Ferral at the stables outside the city gate hadn’t sat well either. “Hastel, why couldn’t we bring the horses? The streets have adequate room.”

Hastel hawked and spat, his reply venomous. “By order of the
supreme and infinite wisdom
of the Circle of Light, no hooved beast is allowed to mar the streets of Surbo.”

“Why? They’re not going to hurt the street any worse than those wagons.”

“Agreed, perhaps you can ask them. They used to allow it. Then, several seasons back, the Circle constructed a stable outside each gate and posted a decree. It touted something about ‘going clean.’”

“Do you know why, Atoi?” Crystalyn asked.

Atoi regarded her with haunted green eyes. “They don’t like us here. Do we have to stay long?” She glanced wildly around. “Especially the animals, they don’t like the animals—”

Crystalyn’s thoughts sought out Broth.
This Circle of Light wouldn’t ask you to wait outside the walls, would it?

Every report agrees the Circle has done well for the city, but no Warden has roamed here since the decree. We shall see if they wish to gain ill favor with my race. Such a thing would not be wise.

No, it wouldn’t. I would be offended by any mention of you being left outside the walls, and take it personally.

Amusement and fondness flowed.
No concerns, my Do’brieni, I will deal with the Circle of Light should the need arise.

Crystalyn wondered how and why the need would arise in the first place. Wasn’t the Circle of Light here to help people? She should find out soon, Hastel was leading them toward the city’s center. Where else would a Circle be but in the center?

In the distance, five grandiose towers topped with colored spires rose above ornate, multi-colored stone buildings, all surrounded by a sandstone wall. Centered in front of the fifth and largest tower, a monstrous dome stood its sheer size and pearly stone drawing the eye.

Staying on the main thoroughfare, they finally reached the outskirt of the dome, turning onto a beautiful plaza. They passed townspeople gathered around a large fountain that gurgled with an intricate series of carved waterfalls and clever waterways lined with flowers and plants. Crystalyn wished she could join them in front of the fountain, conversing with everyone, nothing pressing going on…but it wasn’t her, she’d never been much good at socializing.

Moving past, she began to feel the first stirrings of excitement. They were about to meet people who could help her locate Jade, a good step toward getting them both safely home. Perhaps then, she’d make an effort to socialize and assemble friends. Jade could use some friends too; there was no good reason for her to mope through life as a social outcast. There was so much to share with Jade, so many odd things to recount. It felt like a lifetime since they’d been together.

A hooded, yellow-robed woman stood with her arms crossed in front of her on a single-stepped, marble landing. The woman stood beside a wide stone door set flush against the dome’s exterior. Hastel halted at the base of the landing, executing a small bow. The woman acknowledged the courtesy with a slight nod, drawing Crystalyn’s eyes to the smooth, white stone wrapped in a leather strap around her forehead and tucked under her thick brown hair. Lore Rayna had worn a similar stone in Atoi’s room at the Muddy Wagon Inn. The woman’s deep green eyes perused each companion before fixing pointedly on Crystalyn. “What is the nature of your business with the Circle of Light?” she asked her tone neutral.

“Our business
is
the Circle of Light,” Hastel said.

The white-robed woman didn’t respond, but her eyes hardened as she continued to gaze at Crystalyn, unblinking.

“Oh!” Crystalyn said, with a start. “I, uh, we need to speak to…to the Circle of Light.”

“What is the nature of your business with the Circle of Light?” the woman asked again. “Have you come seeking aid or with an offer of assistance?”

Crystalyn frowned. What did the woman want? If only the Lore Mother or Lore Rayna could’ve been here to give advice. Or even Cudgel, he would know the protocol the woman required. But the Naturist’s homeland was threatened. She didn’t blame them for leaving, not in the least. Had it been her home she would’ve left the journey too. “I need only small help, though I suppose we could be of assistance in some things,”

Her reply seemed to satisfy the woman. At least she asked no other questions. Instead, the white stone on her forehead burst into pearlescent brilliance, then her eyes bled as luminous as the Lore Mother’s or Lore Rayna’s had, her shining emerald orbs vanishing behind the glow. The effect lasted a few short heartbeats before the stone winked out and the two deep-green eyes regarded her again. “The Circle of Light is busy with pressing matters. You are requested to call again tomorrow evening,” the woman said brusquely.

Hastel expelled an explosive breath. “Blast you all!”

“Let us depart from this place,” Atoi pleaded. “I told you, I told you—”

Certainly, they do not mean as long a time as the female Contactor has stated,
Broth sent, his confusion evident in the link.

Crystalyn frowned at the yellow-robed woman for many moments. Finally she stirred, her ire rising as the woman offered no further explanation. “So, you are in contact with someone inside. Please make them aware I did not make the request lightly. Delay is unacceptable. Tell them to meet with my companions and I within the hour or I may decide to tear down your city walls and let the animals inside. Keeping them out is barbaric, as it is.”

The woman’s eyes widened. Gathering herself, she repeated the process with the stone but not nearly as quickly. Crystalyn began to wonder if she’d have to go through with her threat when the stone winked out a second time. “The Circle has voted. You will not be put before it this day,” the woman said, her tone neutral again.

Crystalyn steeled herself for a retort.

“However,” the woman continued, “a high-ranking member has asked for your forbearance and wishes to meet with you within the hour…providing you leave the walls intact. Is this acceptable?”

Crystalyn nodded, unable to tell if the woman was making sport of her.

“Very well, the way is open,” the yellow-robed woman intoned, gesturing behind her as the heavy door swung slowly outward on silent hinges. As soon as it was fully open, Crystalyn took the lead, not trusting herself to speak further and not knowing what to expect from the so-called Circle of Light. At least they were going inside. She’d never been any good at waiting. Besides, every minute passed was another with Jade lost on this world rife with violence.

BROWN RECLUSE

For a town of supposed monks, Brown Recluse was home to many families, Jade watched a young brown-robed mother carry a wailing child down a side street. Too tired to ask Camoe for the town’s history, she kept her silence. Camoe had set a grueling pace after their paralysis had worn off. The subsequent walk had sapped every ounce of her limited energy, nearly stealing her motivation for coming to the town. A vague hope that someone would help her locate Crystalyn kept her going.

Resolutely, she followed her companion’s stiff gait. Camoe had taken the pale sunflower as a personal affront to his abilities. He’d repeatedly refused to talk about it, though he did say the plant was a carnivore, so she’d been close to something else eating her again. Did she look like dessert to this whole world?

In truth, Camoe had hardly spoken at all during the long night of walking, nor this morning. When she’d asked about making camp for the night, her question had earned her a withering look as he stabbed a finger at the full moon. He kept them moving after that, ignoring Burl altogether again. Jade spent most of their brief rests removing quills and tightening the knot on her burlap friend’s sling. Camoe had given her a sturdy rag to remove the quills—along with a warning to handle them delicately—but that was all.

At first, she’d been excited to reach some semblance of civilization on this world, but Camoe’s coldness quickly dampened it. If one of her own companions could treat Burl like a bug carrying some possible foul disease, how would the rest of so-called civilized society react? The druid avoided stopping at any of the many inns they’d passed this morning, though she would have loved to freshen up after their ordeal. The townspeople they’d begun to walk past must smell the swamps on them. She certainly could.

She hadn’t prepared herself enough for the townspeople reaction to Burl. She expected the dark looks they cast at the raggedy man as they passed, but their outright hostility surprised her. Some of the younger crowd shouted threats, or worse, picked up stones off the street. No one dared throw the stones after a glare from Camoe, though. She tried putting Burl in the middle, but he kept turning around to walk backward, keeping a watchful eye on her. Giving up, she left him at the rear, hoping for the best.

Camoe kept a steady climb, selecting the upward slope at every intersection. After an hour trudging uphill, Jade had a good indication they’d left the town proper and entered the outskirts of the magnificent Brown Recluse monastery. Carved from the top of an impressive cliff overlooking the swamps, a brown granite wall ringed a cliffy mountaintop. Scraping the bottom of clouds, cathedral-like structures lurked behind the wall, each one rising higher than the one before it; as if a race of giant, stonemasons had sought to reach the heavens in the distant past. Perhaps they had.

Camoe plodded on, selecting a narrow, winding road cut from the side of the cliff that lay beneath the crenelated wall. Jade’s knees grew weak when she looked down. The town’s horses, wagons and people resembled an insect hive going about mindless tasks important to them.

The winding road curved beneath a massive gate built into the wall and held partway open by a chain thicker than her waist. Even with such thick iron links supporting its weight, she was glad they went under the gate without stopping, visualizing an accidental squishing should it fall.

The road climbed steeply from there to deposit them in a brown granite courtyard surrounded by the majestic cathedrals. Most of the structures displayed two statues, one to each side of their main entrances, depicting winged dragons or gargoyles. The largest structure—the one Camoe led them toward—had non-winged statues with human forms. Two stern-faced, bald monks stared down at her from two stories above. They strode past to make their way through a set of gigantic double doors left open to the mild evening air.

At the back of the large room they entered, a carved statue of a winged woman had such lifelike detail Jade at first thought it drew breath. The statue took shape from the rock wall by cutting the stone away from top to bottom with immense skill, at least Jade believed so. Rows of benches led to the statue, an ornate podium stood small and insignificant below it.

Camoe trod to the podium with barely a pause. Garbed in plain yet flowing brown robes, a white-haired monk stood there, speaking in a melodic chant to his fellow monks who filled the first two rows of benches, every head bowed. No one looked up when they filed past, but the chanting monk’s ice-blue eyes flicked her way, widening slightly when he noticed who trailed her. Not missing a single nuance as far as she could tell, the monk gestured to a small, inconspicuous doorway left open beyond the statue’s feet. Carved with the same great skill, the door would be hard to discover once closed. Camoe followed the indicated direction, his booted feet making no sound on the rough stone floor.

The clever door led to a larger-than-expected austere room, cut from the same rock as most of the monks’ residence halls. Jade would be greatly impressed with the monks’ skill at carving living space from solid stone if she hadn’t just escaped from the halls of the monstrous Dark Citadel. Even so, the seasons of dedicated labor required to excavate this single room was staggering.

Setting his bags on an empty shelf, Camoe sat at a small, round table with pleasant aromas wafting from bowls of steaming food. Jade put Burl beside a wooden ladder secured under a small tunnel carved—she presumed—to provide an emergency escape from the room, since it was the only other exit.

Jade sat next to the druid in order to keep an eye on the door, and ladled soup from a serving bowl into her cup. Camoe nodded his approval. Jade almost smiled. The weeks spent with Camoe had trained her to use caution even around civilized people.
Especially around civilized people
, he would say if she voiced her observation to him, just like her dad, but she was content to rest her weary body and sip her soup in silence. Plain vegetables soaked in some sort of meat broth enlivened her road-weary extremities.

She’d finished the bowl before noticing a golden loaf of bread beckoning behind the serving bowl. Spooning soup, she sliced a chunk of bread to dip inside it. Soft and absorbent, the bread melted in her mouth, tasting wondrous in its simplicity. After weeks of enduring trail food and Camoe’s hunting and gathering, it was good to enjoy a meal and not have to eat merely to provide sustenance to keep going.

Halfway through her third bowl, the chanting monk appeared, closing the stone door behind him. Taking a seat across from Jade, he ladled a bowl of his own. Scrutinizing the three of them covertly, he finished his soup before speaking. “You continue to surprise me, Druid. Just when I was beginning to get comfortable with the idea you must have met your demise at the hands of some foul Dark User, you come dragging one of their Dark Creations straight down the main aisle of my cathedral in front of my brethren. Have you been forcibly converted, or merely gone mad?”

The monk’s voice was pleasant and conversational; his actions supporting his tone, as he calmly ladled soup with a steady hand. With his stark white hair, Jade put his age at a few seasons above her father, older than Camoe.

“Wrong on both counts, though what I shall tell you will truly have you questioning my sanity,” Camoe said, between mouthfuls.

The monk glanced at Camoe sharply, only to rest his gloomy blue eyes on her, speaking softly. “I am not as certain as I once was of my own sanity, my froman’atu. I have heard and seen much evil since you left. A great darkness is gathering strength in the southeast, faster than anyone could have foreseen. More of that later, now tell me what your part in this is, young miss. Please begin with what to call you.”

The monk spoke quietly but firmly, his large eyes drooped with a great sadness but she sensed a penetrating intelligence underlying within.

Jade swallowed some of the bread she’d just softened in the soup. “My name is Jade. I don’t know if I play any ‘part.’  I just want to find my sister and go home.”

“Well Jade, I am known around the monastery as Prominence Shadoe. You may call me by that title, or use my given name of Caven, whichever you prefer.”

“Shadoe? Are you—?”

“Yes, Camoe is my younger brother,” Caven said.

Surprised, Jade looked at Camoe. The shape of the eyes and nose, and the slightly rounded face was the only genetic resemblance she could see. Camoe’s lighter blue eyes made him appear to be from a different family than Caven’s deep blue ones all together. But then, Camoes eyes sometimes appeared darker than Caven’s were now. Pouring some water from a clear crystal decanter into a silver mug by her bowl, Jade sat back, her stomach pleasantly full for a change.

Caven sliced a generous hunk of bread from the loaf to fuel his wide frame. “I suppose it was prudent to tell your young friend our shared lineage, since you did not stop me.”

“I suppose so,” Camoe said, chewing on his own slice.

“Yes, well, it was a rather crude, but quick way to discover the level of trust you have placed in her. I imagine we can speak freely now?” He lifted the bowl to his lips, hiding a fleeting look of relief that Jade noticed anyway.

Camoe confirmed with a nod. “My wards are in place, sealed when you closed the door.”

“Ahhh, I had hoped as much, and your third companion?” Caven raised a bushy white eyebrow.

“You know I cannot ward against a Dark Creation’s link with its master,” Camoe said, setting his spoon on the table. “However, I have solid reason to believe this one has no link, or he somehow severed it while traveling with us.”

Caven regarded his brother with a sharp eye. “Indeed? Is such a thing possible? I’ve never heard of the like in all my years of study. If that is truly the case, what shall keep others from doing it?”

Camoe shrugged. “The only thing I can say for certain, Burl saved our lives as we escaped the Dark Citadel. Other defections from Dark Users remain to be seen.”

Caven sat straighter. “You gave it a
name?
”

Camoe shook his head. “Not I. Jade did. Burl follows her.”

“You did not bring it here for the Brothers or the Browns to study?” Caven asked the surprise evident in his tone.

“Burl has a name,” Jade said.

Neither man acknowledged her comment.

“No, we have come here seeking aid in locating Jade’s sister,” Camoe replied. “I hoped you could convince some of your connections within the Browns to gather information as to her whereabouts.”

Caven spread his arms wide. “I am but a simple monk, the brown robes do not listen to me,”

Camoe frowned. “Do not attempt to placate me, my froman’atu. You are the Prominence. The Browns still do your bidding if it serves them, and I have some small coin.”

Caven slumped in his chair, oblivious to his unfinished meal. “You had better tell me everything.”

Jade leaned back in her chair, her hunger sated for the time being. Now, if she could coax a hot bath out of someone, she would be happy to let the brothers’ hash out what was to come next.