[pre]Chapter Eight – Liaend and Beyond
Garret cast a critical eye on Liaend and urged his horse a little further forwards.
“Remember, in Liaend I am William, you are Robert and Helen, my two children.” Garret said, looking sternly at Wyes.
“What?” Robert asked.
“You’re the only one who hasn’t been trained in espionage, thus you need to remember this the most, Robert.” William said.
“Yes, Dad.” Robert replied, rolling his eyes.
“Good, now that we have that settled, try not to talk much.” William remarked, as they reached the town gates.
As the wooden palisades loomed above them, a small slot opened in the gate.
“State your name and business.” A gruff voice came from inside.
“I am William, and this is my son Robert, and daughter Helen. We seek to trade and then continue to Lentu.”
“Isn’t Liaend a bit out of your way?” The same voice enquired.
“We came from Salus, and coming via Liaend meant we did not have to cross the river twice.” William explained.
“Alright then, come on in quickly. There’s strange tales abroad of entire towns being destroyed.”
“Probably some drunkard who saw a forest fire, I’m sure.” William commented.
“Still, best not to take too many risks. The name’s Leo. What kinda goods are ya tradin’?”
“Actually we’re buying, we lost all our wares when crossing the river,” William’s eyes flitted over Robert, his tone darkening slightly, “prices are higher in coastal cities.”
“Ahh, then why not just go to Vivacee? Ya’d get no prices higher.”
“True enough, but we don’t sell high class products. We’d be overshadowed by all the other merchants.”
“Ah I see, well I’ll let ya be on your way. Enjoy your stay.”
“Not bloody likely…” William muttered under his breath, as they walked away.
“Helen, you’re coming with me to buy supplies. Robert, you’re going to the inn to rent our room for the night. We’ll meet in an hour.”
Robert wondered why he’d been sent off on his own, if he was the inexperienced one. He knew Gar-William was up to something, but he didn’t know what. He guessed that William just wanted to keep an eye on Helen, in case she had lied to them, again.
After making his way down the main street, he found the inn quick enough and entered the small building. The room inside had few windows and was mostly lit by candles. There were tables and chairs scattered around in large clusters and a long bench with drinks behind it, and a man cleaning a mug, even though it looked like he was just smearing more filth on.
“Can I help ya?” The man asked, with a scowl. Robert, having never been to an inn, was a little dumbfounded.
“Uh- yeah, I- we… Um, do you have three rooms I can rent for the night?” Robert asked.
“I’ve only got one room left, but it’s big.” Mr. Scowl replied.
“That’ll be fine, thank you.”
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By the same time the next day, they were ready to leave. William had talked to various merchants to make sure their story held up, Robert and Helen had bickered like any siblings would, and nobody gave them a second glance.
They were in the process of setting a false trail towards Leggatum, to the northeast, which was a very boring process and allowed Wyes to be alone with his thoughts. He pondered how much he had been through, in the past three weeks; he had found love, he had lost love, he had lost his entire life, he had learnt the seemingly unassuming Garret had a very interesting past, he had learnt he was magical, and he had learnt to ride a horse. Altogether, he had no idea what he was doing.
Eventually they steered back to their original course, heading towards the looming peaks of the Discerpee mountain range. For the most part the mountains were sheer rock walls, some dotted with vegetation, and some capped with snow. Altogether, they made for a very imposing sight. This however, was their intended course.
“We have to go through that?” Wyes asked.
“There’s numerous safe passages through the mountains, and a few unsafe ones too. Ours is a fairly easy route, a gap that runs almost the entire width of the range. Also the only route open to large armies… It’s this mountain range that makes Saygrae so hard to access, and impossible to attack.” Garret replied.
“And also makes it quite a journey every time we travel to and from her.” Ellyra commented.
“A defendable keep is more valuable than a well-built road.” Garret shrugged.
They continued along this path for the entire day, and they slept at the roots of the mountains. Garret took Wyes through another session using magic, exhausting him quite thoroughly.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast, they set out for the mountains. Wyes was unable to see any gap in between them yet, but Garret seemed to be steering them to a particular place, so he followed dutifully. Wyes and Ellyra traded glances every so often, but neither attempted to start a conversation.
Shortly after setting out, Wyes saw the small gap that was their route between the near vertical mountains. He now understood what made these mountains so hard to traverse. The safest route, as Garret had put it, was barely three metres wide.
“It opens up into a valley towards the middle, but the rest doesn’t get much wider than that.” Garret said, understanding Wyes’ incredulous look.
“At least there’ll be breathing room in the valley.” Wyes commented.
“Yeah, as well as all the lovely critters.” Ellyra smirked.
“Critters?” Wyes asked.
“All the usual; bears, wolves, spine-backs, and so on and so forth.” Ellyra grinned.
“They have spine-backs in there?” Wyes looked further down the gap.
“Sure, they keep to themselves though. Welcome to the Discerpee mountain range.” Garret pitched in, as he started leading his horse through the passage.
“Great…” Wyes replied.
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The monotony of the pathway was driving Wyes insane, he eventually found himself looking into the sky to pick out shapes amongst the clouds.
“Bored huh?” Ellyra asked, when it seemed like Wyes’ neck had frozen in place.
“Among other things.” Wyes shrugged.
“What was her name?” Ellyra asked, casually.
“Who?” Wyes enquired.
“The girl, from Cible.” Ellyra clarified.
“How’d you know about her?” Wyes asked, eyes widening. It was Ellyra’s turn to shrug.
“One, you talk in your sleep. Two, Garret mentioned her.”
“Why do you want to know?” Wyes’ eyes now reversed directions, narrowing in suspicion.
“Because talking about things, helps you get past them.” She soothed. Wyes felt something hot boil into existence in his chest.
“What if I don’t want to get past them?” He snapped.
“You’ve got to sometime, kid, or you won’t be keep going.” She stated as she rode ahead further to catch up to Garret.
Ellyra sighed in exasperation, when she finally caught up to Garret.
“Touchy kid.” She remarked.
“What do you expect? Everyone he’s ever loved, or known, not to mention his entire life, was destroyed. If we could afford to wait, I wouldn’t have brought him out here until he was ready. But as the fates would have it, I don’t have time to wait.” Garret grumbled.
Wyes gazing up into the heavens, when suddenly everything turned red. The sky burned with fury. The cliff walls melted around him. Skeletal faces emerged from the molten rock, screaming and howling.
“MURDERER!”
“RAPIST!”
“KILLER!”
“DEMON!”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Stay away from me! You’re wrong, you’re all wrong!” Wyes shouted, falling to the ground and clutching his ears, trying to drown out the voices with his own. Everything spun around him. His voice slowly faded to nothing, along with the world.
Garret heard a thumping sound and turned around. Wyes was on the ground, writhing and convulsing, shouting nonsense.
“Wyes! Wyes!” Garret bellowed, quickly dismounting and running to his side, grasping Wyes’ wrists tightly. “Get his legs! Stop him before he hurts himself!” Ellyra brought her magic to her hands, and let it flow to Wyes’ legs, binding them. She yelped as her magic exploded back towards her, throwing her from her horse. “Use your hands!” Garret barked, still fighting to stop Wyes from tearing his own ears off. Ellyra dived onto his legs, holding them tightly against herself. She struggled and strained, until he finally went limp.
“What in the Ether just happened?” She asked.
“I don’t know, I really don’t know…” Garret laid Wyes gently on the ground, placing one a blanket under his head. “We won’t know anything until he wakes up, and I’m not sure how safe it would be to move him.”
“He broke my binds!” Ellyra exclaimed.
“You seem surprised.” Garret replied.
“He hasn’t had any training.”
“True, but his magic responded unconsciously.”
“Yeah, but only people like yourself, with colossal access to their magic can do that.” Ellyra said. Garret smirked.
“Meaning…?”
“You can’t be serious! Look at him, he doesn’t look like anything special.”
“Neither did I.” Garret shrugged. Ellyra opened her mouth as if to reply, then closed it again. “Exactly.”
As the Sun set over the peaks of the mountains, plunging them into an early dusk, Wyes awoke gasping and groaning.
“No! Stay away! Get away from me!” Wyes screamed, backing up against the wall.
“Whoa! Settle down mate. It’s us, it’s Garret.” Garret soothed. “It’s alright, nothing’s gonna hurt you. Tell us what happened.”
“They-they came out of the walls… Screaming… Lying… I d-didn’t do any of those things!” Wyes shouted.
“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Garret said, helping him to his feet. “Ellyra, water please.” She complied and grabbed a wineskin from the packs and tossed it to him. Garret caught it, uncorked it and handed it to Wyes. He tentatively took a sip, and relaxed a little. “Now, let’s try that again, okay?”
“Everything… Everything turned red, and the walls melted… Faces… they were on fire, they came out of the walls. They c-called me murderer, and demon…” Wyes stammered. Garret glanced at Ellyra, who shrugged.[/pre]
