Souls of Aredyrah 1 - The Fire and the Light (18 page)

The wall took a sudden turn to the right, and
Dayn hesitated before rounding it. “God, please let this lead us
out,” he whispered. He took a few steps in that direction, then
stopped dead in his tracks. A brilliant light could be seen
flooding into a wide space in the corridor ahead, as if the very
hand of Daghadar had put it there. At first Dayn thought it must be
a celestial vision. Perhaps he had died and was taking that eternal
walk into the After Place. Memories of past transgressions left him
with the sinking feeling that he might soon be answering for them.
He looked back at Alicine, wondering if she was seeing what he was
seeing. From the expression on her face, if he was taking that
walk, then she was taking it with him.

Dayn quickened his pace, drawing what was
left of his energy into his legs. To his profound relief, the light
was not that of the After Place but of wonderful, beautiful
daylight. It spilled down through an ample opening in the rocks
above and angled into the corridor. Crude steps could be seen
carved into the wall, curving upward to the sky.

Dayn ushered his sister ahead of him, then
stumbled out behind her. Their eyes squinted at the sudden stab of
sunlight, and they raised their hands to shield them from the
brightness. The sky was a brilliant blue, not a cloud in it, and
the sun was hovering above them in its slow journey to cross the
mountains.

Dayn pulled the fresh air deep into his lungs
and relished the warmth of the sun against his skin. He scanned the
distant landscape. From where he stood he could see patterned
hillsides and a river that poured from the mountainside below. It
wound like a bright blue ribbon through miles of white cedars and
disappeared into a pastel horizon. Dayn drank in the sight of it.
It was as if he were realizing the beauty of the world for the
first time.

“There, you see? I told you we’d get out,” he
said. He smiled and put on his most confident face, but in reality
he was completely surprised they had made it out alive.

“But where did we get out to?” Alicine asked.
By her expression it was clear she believed they had only gone from
being lost in one place, to being lost in another.

They were standing atop an outcrop of stone
that jutted like a tongue from the mountainside. Dayn stepped to
its edge and searched the distance for a familiar landmark, but
there was nothing recognizable to him. At first he assumed they had
wound their way back to a different location on the northern side
of the mountains, the side where they had started. The voice of
Kiradyn reason reminded him there was nothing on the other side of
the vast range; it had vanished generations ago, or so they had
been told. Yet, he knew in his heart they were not in Kirador, and
though he felt somewhat disquieted by it, the biggest part of him
felt jubilant. There was life on the other side of the mountains,
not death as they had been taught.

The surrounding hills sloped steeply and were
covered in part by forests not as old and dense as the ones in
Kirador. A vast meadow also wound along the slopes and swept
downward, painting the landscape in wild, vibrant colors. Dayn’s
heart leapt. He felt the overwhelming desire to run through tall
meadow grasses again. His time in the cave had left him craving it.
Too many times in the darkness he had feared he might never see the
colors of a meadow again.

“Come on, let’s go,” he said, grabbing
Alicine’s hand and pulling her along behind him. She didn’t say a
word, but he could feel the tension in her grip and the hesitation
in her step. “We can just follow the river. If we follow the river
it’ll take us home.”

“I don’t think it will take us home,” Alicine
said.

“Sure it will.”

“We’re on the other side of the mountains,
Dayn.”

“You can’t be sure of that. Maybe it just
feels like it because we’re turned around. You know, confused
because we’ve been in the cave so long.”

For some strange reason Dayn felt it
necessary to keep alive his sister’s hopes of getting home, but he
knew she was too clever to be fooled by his arguments. He stopped
and turned to face her. “I’m sorry I didn’t get you back to Kirador
like I promised. But I will. Honest. For now, though, let’s just
see what’s down there. Maybe we’ll find some apples. I’m starving,
aren’t you?”

Alicine’s eyes brightened, and she nodded.
She didn’t wait for him to lead the way, but marched around him and
headed down the shrub-strewn mountainside. Dayn smiled, noting a
sudden perkiness in her step, but then he looked at his own feet
and frowned; they were feeling anything but perky. Blisters still
tormented him, though he had at least been able to put his socks
back on when they finally dried. He dreaded removing them, however.
No doubt they were stuck to crusty sores and would not come off
easily.

When they reached the meadow, the first thing
Dayn did was plop down, reach up a foot, and untie the straps of
his boots. He didn’t care how much it was going to hurt to peel the
things off; it couldn’t hurt as bad as the good they were going to
feel afterward. As predicted, skin came off with the socks. He
squeezed his toes between the blades of grass and into the damp,
cool earth, then closed his eyes and groaned. Alicine laughed at
the expression on his face, then kicked off her slippers. They had
also proved to be a poor selection. With a renewed sense of energy,
she and Dayn bounded through the grass.

As they made their way further into the
meadow, it became apparent the flowers were no longer growing wild,
but were arranged in such a manner as to suggest someone had
planted them. The flowers were in neat terraced rows now, not
strewn about as was nature’s way, and looped along the hillsides in
well-organized patterns. Dirt paths criss-crossed between the rows,
and there were obvious signs of cultivation. They had obviously
stumbled onto a well-tended crop. The concept seemed somewhat
strange, as flowers, valued by Kiradyns, were always left to grow
and reproduce at will. The meadows had never failed to provide them
with all that they needed, so man’s interference had not been
required. The realization that someone, or something, tended this
place put an end to their frolicking.

Dayn stopped and Alicine moved to his side.
They surveyed the area silently. No one else was there, only the
two of them, standing in a peaceful and incredibly beautiful
countryside. Surely there was nothing, or no one, to fear in a
place such as this.

Dayn reached down to pick a bright yellow
blossom. He rotated its stem between his fingers as he examined the
tiny petals. It looked like a buttercup or perhaps a poppy, but it
was trimmed with a strange, lacy design.

“What is this one called?” he asked, glancing
at Alicine. She did not seem to hear him, and continued to stare at
the horizon.

“I’ve honestly never seen a flower like
this,” Dayn said. He thrust it under her nose. “Have you?”

Alicine looked at the flower with sudden
interest, then took it from him and examined it.

“No, never,” she said.

She reached down and pulled a handful up, her
eyes alight with discovery. She gathered more and brought them to
her nose, inhaling deeply.

“Maybe Mother and I could use them to make a
new potion,” she exclaimed. “If I saved some to take back home, I
could plant the seeds.” She tucked them into the side-seam pocket
of her dress, then headed off to skip between the patterned
rows.

Dayn followed several paces behind. He
smiled. “You look like you sprouted right out of the ground,” he
called to her.

“What?” she called back. She looked down at
her dress and at the sea of tiny white blossoms at her feet, then
laughed with delight. The embroidered flowers of her skirt cascaded
to the ground, blending with the others. She gathered a corner of
her skirt and curtsied, then plucked another handful of
flowers.

Suddenly her smile was replaced by a look of
concern, the same concern that she recognized on her brother’s
face. “What is it?” she asked, turning her attention in the
direction of Dayn’s gaze.

Dayn stared out toward the hills. “Someone is
coming,” he said. He crossed over to her side.

From a distance Dayn could make out few
details, but it was obvious a person on horseback was galloping
full speed toward them. Dayn’s first inclination was to grab
Alicine’s hand and run in the opposite direction, but they would
accomplish nothing if they avoided contact with others. They needed
help: food, clean clothes, a place to sleep, directions back home.
No one would deny them that, would they? No, they would just have
to face whoever was approaching, and pray that the person was
friend, not foe.

The whirlwind of horse and rider reached them
in an instant and surrounded them in a cloud of dust. The strange
boy atop the horse reined the lathered animal to a halt, nearly
trampling Dayn and Alicine beneath its hooves.

Alicine screamed and grabbed Dayn’s arm. He
pulled her close, his blue eyes flashing in the direction of the
angry violet ones now staring him up and down from atop the
horse.

“Why are Jecta trespassing in the fields?”
the boy on the horse demanded. He steered the animal around the two
of them, circling them as if herding sheep. With each pass he made,
he created an invisible corral. He glared down at them with an
expression of simmering anger.

The horse snorted and brushed against Dayn
and Alicine, nudging them with its nose. The animal seemed aware of
the discomfort its closeness caused and appeared to take some
delight in it. But the boy’s face revealed no such delight as he
stared at them with steely eyes. His mouth was hooked down in
obvious distaste at the mere sight of them.

“I said, what are Jecta doing trespassing in
the fields?” the boy repeated more firmly.

“I—I don’t understand,” Dayn said, glancing
around. He didn’t know what a Jecta was, but thought perhaps he
might spy one.

The boy narrowed his eyes. “The question is
simple enough,” he said.

Dayn could feel his own legs shake and prayed
the stranger did not notice. The boy expected an answer from him,
but he wasn’t sure he could give him the right one and didn’t know
the penalty should he fail to tell the boy what he wanted to hear.
“We’re lost.”

“Lost? Do not lie to me, Jecta. You will
regret it.”

Dayn felt a new uneasiness as the strange
eyes bore into him. It was almost as if the boy knew him. But Dayn
was quite certain he did not know the boy, for never in his life
had he seen such a boy as this. He was tall, almost as tall as Dayn
was, and certainly taller than any Kiradyn. His hair was odd, the
color of fire, and though it appeared an attempt had been made to
pull it back, most of it was whirled about his head and shoulders
as if blown by a great and furious wind. His skin was fair, yet
obviously exposed to the sun, and his violet eyes, neither pale nor
dark, were of a color Dayn had never seen before. The boy wore
gloves, but little else on the rest of him. His feet were bare, and
the only thing covering his body was a faded black cloth tied about
his hips, and a belt that appeared to have the handle of a long
knife sticking out of it.

Dayn glanced at Alicine, who was still
clinging to his side, and felt sudden concern for the fact that his
little sister was standing before a practically naked boy. His
common sense told him this was the least of their problems, but
when he saw the expression on her face, he felt a new twinge of
nerves take hold. He had expected her eyes to be modestly averted
from the bold display of flesh atop the horse, but he was startled
to see her examining the boy, her eyes full of wonder. It was all
too clear that the wonder Dayn saw there was not just the question
of what was going to happen to them, but the wonder of the boy
himself.

Dayn pried Alicine from his side and moved
her to stand behind him. He felt her bury her head in his back, but
then she peeked around and continued her inspection of the strange
boy who glowered at them from his lofty place of authority.

“We didn’t mean to trespass,” Dayn said. “We
were just looking for food, that’s all.”

“Do you eat Frusensias?” the boy asked,
eyeing the bundle of flowers still clutched in Alicine’s hand.

“Frusensias? I don’t understand,” Dayn
said.

“Frusensias—the flowers the girl has in her
hand there. I am losing patience with your act of ignorance, Jecta.
You had best answer me and be quick about it. I asked you a
question. You were going to eat them?”

“Eat them? No, she’d just never seen any like
these and—”

“So she stole them,” the boy said.

“No! I mean, well, she didn’t steal them.”
But then Dayn began to realize the ramifications of the boy’s
words. He recognized that the plants were being cultivated, such as
a farmer would a crop of corn or barley, but in his mind flowers
were not such a crop. It had not occurred to him that they were
stealing. Now, however, he was being forced to see it somewhat
differently.

“I’m sorry,” Dayn said. “We didn’t know we
were stealing. Where we’re from flowers are for everyone to use and
enjoy.”

The boy sneered. “I know where you are from,
Jecta, and you speak nothing but lies.”

Alicine stepped out from behind her brother
and placed her fists on her hips. “How dare you call him a liar!”
she said. “He doesn’t even know how to.”

Dayn grabbed her by the arm to pull her back,
but she shrugged it from his grasp and threw the flowers to the
ground. “There, have them back,” she snapped at the boy. “Eat them
if you wish. I certainly have no desire to.”

The boy’s mouth dropped as though he had
never been addressed in such a manner. He leapt from the horse and
drew the long knife from the band at his waist, pointing it in
Alicine’s direction. Dayn took a step forward in her defense, but a
quick wave of the blade under her chin stayed his approach.