Compass of the Nymphs (10 page)

Taisiya rolled her eyes but kept quiet. Ammon
held her jaw in his hands and looked over her face from all angles.
He then took some dark powders and shaded her jaw and cheekbones.
The result was a very gaunt looking Taisiya. Nonetheless, she still
looked quite like herself.

Carefully, he dabbed some of the dark powder
under her eyes, which aged her considerably. He then took some of
the more colorful shades of powders and applied them to her
eyelids. Taisiya was beginning to fade into a much older woman that
looked desperate to cling to her youth. Ammon finished his
handiwork with some careful finite shading on her forehead that in
the end looked like a very wrinkled brow.

Taisiya got up and as she did, Zara looked up
and practically jumped off the couch in fright after getting a good
look at her. His mouth agape with incredulity, he simply said,
“Nice work…”

Ammon snorted. “Your turn,” he said, patting
the empty chair. “Enough reading for now.”

Zara put his book down and came over to
Ammon. Ammon squinted as he looked Zara over and then grabbed a
brush and went to work. A dark black powder coated Zara’s short
blond hair. Taisiya, who was watching keenly nearby said
absentmindedly, “You look kind of dreamy with black hair.” Zara’s
face turned bright red, and he mumbled a courteous thanks.

Ammon continued on by darkening Zara’s
eyebrows to match his hair and then shading in his under-eyes and
cheekbones like he had done to Taisiya. The only problem, Ammon
realized, was that Zara already had a very prominent jawline. It
made him look attractive and masculine, but it also was one of the
more defining features of his face. Ammon scratched his chin in
thought.

He grabbed a brush and held Zara’s face
steady. “I hope this works,” he explained. “Antonia described many
techniques she used to make women appear to have thinner faces.
Hopefully, doing the opposite will have an contrasting effect.” He
used his brushes and tried to hide Zara’s jawline and make it
appear more plump and round. “It actually worked!” Ammon said with
delight.

“Yes, now he looks fat!” Taisiya laughed,
holding her sides while Zara shot her a look of contempt.

“Well, do I look like a forty year old
woman?” Zara said hotly, and Taisiya’s eyes widened.

“Yes, you do,” she replied, letting out
another haughty chuckle. “Anyone with this much dirt on their face
looks beyond ridiculous.”

Always the voice of reason, Ammon interrupted
the quarrel. “Might I remind you both that the point of all this
was for you to look nothing like yourselves. The fact that you look
so horrid now is just part of the fact that you both are quite
beautiful normally.”

“Oh boy,” Taisiya said exasperatedly. “Let’s
get out of here before I throw up and ruin all the work put into
this face.”

Zara chortled and got up. Ammon dusted off
Zara’s face quickly with his brush and then led Zara and Taisiya
over to the table holding all the groceries he had bought. He
mumbled under his breath and then went off to fetch something,
trying to remember where it was.

While he was gone, Taisiya and Zara rummaged
through the bags some more, their stomachs rumbling at all the
tasty food.  A couple minutes later, Ammon found his way back
to the pair. He was pulling a wagon. “Here we go, I knew it was
somewhere!”

Ammon wheeled the wagon by the table and
heartily took a bag of supplies. He tossed it in and motioned for
Zara and Taisiya to follow suit.

Once the wagon was loaded, their next task
was getting it up the flight of stairs and out the hidden door.
Zara and Ammon waited at the bottom of the stairs while Taisiya
took the wagon’s handle. The guys pushed the wagon up each stair
while she guided its wheels. After a big effort from all three, the
wagon soon found its way on flat ground once more.

“You know, this is the first time this wagon
has
ever
been up this stairs. I always knew it would...”
Ammon began, but never finished his sentence. He, Zara, and Taisiya
all three were in jaw-dropping shock.

They had expected to see the tiny shack that
was the facade to Ammon’s home. Instead, they were greeted by a
desolate landscape. Smoke was still clearing from the area, and in
the distance, embers were still burning in nearby houses. A scream
rang out a few streets over as a woman tried crawling out from the
rubble of her home.

A brief survey of the land showed that once
all the fires were put out, the entire town would be wiped off the
map. Taisiya's lip curled in anger. This meant war.

CHAPTER SEVEN –

THE NYMPH IN THE WOODS

“Let’s move quickly before we are spotted,”
Taisiya said. “The sooner we are on our way, the better.”

Ammon was still in disbelief. “My…my house,”
he said, tears streaming down his face.

“Do you want to stay here, Ammon?” Zara asked
calmly. “I’m sure we will be fine to get the boat on our own.”

The older man’s eyes were as wide as a little
baby’s. “I don’t know…I’m scared, Zara.”

“Stay here,” Taisiya said matter-of-factly.
“You will be a liability if you come with us, and you know it is
important that you protect your library.”

“What if the queen comes back for me?” Ammon
stuttered.

Taisiya stuck out her hand, motioning to the
lifeless horizon around them. “Her job here is done.”

“If for some odd reason they do come back,
your library is massive enough that you can hide easily in it. Just
be careful, okay?” Zara said, squeezing Ammon’s hand and giving him
a comforting smile.

Ammon nodded and went to turn around and
descend back into his home. Taisiya held on to the trap door, which
now stood out like a sore thumb among the ashes. She called down to
Ammon, “You’ll be safe. We’ll hide the trap door under some rubble.
Just don’t come up…we’ll be back soon. Don’t worry!”

Ammon stammered a thankful reply and then
disappeared around a corner into his library. By the time Taisiya
shut the trap door, Zara was already walking over with his arms
full of dilapidated planks and some charred vases. He tossed them
haphazardly over the hidden door and then surveyed his work. “Not
too shabby,” he smirked.

“Yes, it looks horrible.” Taisiya said,
cocking an eyebrow.

“That’s what I intended,” Zara said, sticking
his tongue out at her.

Taisiya hitched up her tunic and grabbed the
wagon wheel. “Let’s get moving before you decide to redecorate the
entire town.”

Zara snorted and took the wheel from her
hands. “I’ve got this,” he said. Taisiya normally would have put up
a fight and said she was just as capable as any man to carry a
small wagon full of goods, but she resisted once Zara flashed her
his debonair smile.

They took off at a hasty but cautious pace,
with Zara scouting the best path ahead of them and Taisiya using
her refined hearing to listen for any sign of the queen’s evil
doers.

They were deep in the forest—so deep they had
passed the glen that was, much to Taisiya’s chagrin, burnt to the
ground as well. The bubbling sound of a river soon came in to
earshot, and it distracted Taisiya from hearing someone watching
them through the trees.

Zara suggested that they take a small respite
and get some water. Despite the fact they had only been travelling
a couple of hours, they both were getting a bit famished. Once they
had stopped and satiated their thirst, they checked the map.

“Let’s see…it looks like we are
here
,”
Taisiya said, pointing to a blue line on the map. “If we follow
this river, we will end up near the harbor soon enough.”

“Yes,” Zara said, “but if we cross through
here, we will get there faster. See?”

Taisiya had seen what he was referring to,
but she was a bit hesitant. “Zara,” she huffed, “that part of the
map isn’t as detailed as others, no?”

He shook his head, and she continued. “It
would be better and safer to stay along the river than to go into
basically uncharted territory.”

A twig snapped behind them on the forest
floor, but the two were engrossed in their argument and didn’t
notice. The figure that had been watching them at a distance dared
to move closer.

“We don’t have all the time in the world,
Taisiya!” Zara fumed.

Taisiya’s eyes turned red with rage. “What
good would it do us at all if we are killed before we even get
there?!”

Zara tossed the map up in the air and threw
his hands up. “Women!” He rolled his eyes.

Taisiya glowered at him and shot him a look
of pure venom. Zara then screamed in pain and collapsed on the
riverbank, clutching his thigh. His breathing became heavy, and he
screamed. “Get it off!”

Forgetting their row, Taisiya dropped to her
knees and began fumbling through the pocket of his tunic where he
was so desperately clutching in pain. Then she felt it – scorching
hot to the touch. She pulled back her hand in pain, but then bit
her lip and reached in once again, withdrawing the compass Zara had
found.

She tossed the compass to the floor of the
forest and then plunged her hand in the water, letting out a
cathartic moan. Zara, too, let out a sigh of relief and then turned
to see what Taisiya had pulled out of his pocket.

The compass was going berserk. It trembled
and jittered back and forth, its needle spinning around and around
with great fervor. Then, without a moment’s notice, it stopped.
Taisiya and Zara looked up dubiously in the direction the needle
pointed towards. There, before them was a woman.

Zara felt his mouth go dry, and he looked at
Taisiya for help. She had her eyes in a deadlock with this
mysterious woman. How had she not noticed her before? Her skin was
as pale as ivory, and she wore a dress that matched her skin tone.
She had long, flowing hair that was a glowing orange. Nothing about
the woman was very good camouflage in the forest.

She met Taisiya’s gaze and neither of the two
looked away for quite some time. Taisiya slowly stood up and held
out her hand to halt the woman from coming any closer. A smile
crept upon the mysterious woman’s face at that, revealing a full
set of pearly white teeth. She broke the stare off to close her
eyes and curtsey politely.

Taisiya surveyed the woman up and down, still
uneasy to let her come any closer. “Who are you?” she called out to
the woman, “and are you friends with the queen?”

A melodious laugh rang out from the woman’s
lips. “No, darling,” she said, her voice as sweet as honey. “I am
no friend to whomever you call Queen.”

With a flourish of her hand, the woman
beckoned Zara’s compass, and a gust of wind swept it up and
delivered it over to her. “Where did you get this?” She asked,
looking it over in her hands.

“You’re a nymph,” Zara said, his jaw
dropping.

The woman ignored him, speaking only to
Taisiya. She repeated, “Where did you get this?”

“He found it,” Taisiya said, pointing to
Zara. “It was in an old book. One that Queen Adrasteia ordered to
be destroyed.”

A thin smile appeared on the nymph’s face. “I
can see why.” No matter which way she turned the compass in her
hands, the needle stayed pointing directly at her. “This is no
ordinary compass.”

“We know,” Zara said, “it—”

The nymph interrupted him. “It’s a Nymph
Compass. Very few of these exist. If I’m not mistaken,” she said,
rubbing her finger over the ruby, “this was the very first one ever
made.”

“How do you know?” Taisiya said.

“A very long time ago, there was a land of
nymphs. All of the nymphs were happy just practicing their craft
but one little enchantress. She sought out love, and made it her
goal to find a man.

“One day, humans found their way to the
nymphs’ land, and their mortal souls were almost burned at the
stake if it had not been for the love struck nymph falling for
their leader. She convinced her sisters to spare the humans lives
and let the humans freely visit their territory.

“In private, she met with her beau and
seduced him. They were madly in love, but he was a sailor and had
his life at sea. At great pain to her self, the nymph drained some
of her own power and captured it in this very ruby. The power
within the stone would seek to find itself back inside a nymph, and
as a result, would guide her lover back to her whenever he needed
to see her.”

“That’s very romantic,” Taisiya said.

“Alas,” the nymph went on, “it all ends in
tragedy. As decades passed, the compass fell in to the wrong hands.
It found its way into the grip of those that were scared of nymphs.
They used the compass as a means to hunt us and kill us. The symbol
of everlasting love became a terrifying icon of death.”

“Was that when the schism occurred?” Zara
asked.

The nymph turned to face Zara, suddenly
interested in what he had to say. “You know about the schism?”

“We’ve read about it,” he replied, “now
answer me.”

“Yes,” she replied curtly, “with humans now
hunting us, some nymphs took to defending themselves at
any
cost. All because of this…” She tightened her grip around the
compass.

“You said that it was one of very few…meaning
there are more?” Taisiya asked.

“Indeed,” the nymph nodded. “If you know of
the schism, I trust you will know that some of the good nymphs fled
the island. Some of us made compasses similar to this one so that
if we needed to find our way home, we could. Many of those who ran
away didn’t exactly know what they were running toward…it could
have been worse here among humans.”

“So, you are a good nymph?” Zara asked
hopefully.

The wind rustled some leaves on the forest
floor as the nymph gave a wry chuckle. “Don’t let my appearance
fool you,” she warned, “I’m more of a…fallen nymph, if you will.
Generally speaking, I’ll use my divine abilities only for good…but
it is not above me to kill to protect myself.”