Horrors of Truth
A warm peach light awoke Von-wratha. Her eyes were still closed before she moved her palm over her lids, casting a shadow dark enough for her to open them. Her back slightly ached from laying on a warm stone slab, a taste of old saliva swirled in her mouth before gulping it down. Her navy mane clung onto her sweat-ridden forehead and neck as her fingers tried to ply the damp hair from her skin.
“You looked like you had an intense dream,” he said. Nalax rolled around to face her, holding up a water pouch.
“It was a nightmare,” her voice was hoarse as she took the pouch and popped open the corked lid.
“Oh, if I had known, I would’ve woken you,” his golden orbs twinkled in the sun.
Von-wratha tried to keep her smile at bay while gulping down the cool liquid. “Some telepath you are,” pressing the lid down into the hole.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he said sitting up on the flat stone.
“Not much to say, just dreamt of home again,” she said as she strapped the pouch to her belt.
Nalax sighed, his legs pushed himself up. “We can go back, you know. We can just tell them that we got lost during the Trials.”
Von-wratha shook her head, her legs felt invigorated by the sun’s warmth as she stood. “Like they’ll believe us and won’t throw us in the dungeons. Besides, what’s there to go back to?”
Nalax shrugged before skipping down the stone and onto the orange sand. “I don’t regret staying out here, although I do miss sleeping in a room rather than a cave,” he said with a smile.
“I apologise, your highness, for not having a spare makeshift castle in my belt before coming out here. Next time, I’ll remember to bring one,” she said, walking to the shadowed hollows of the Sun Hills.
“Good, I can’t work with someone so incompetent,” she heard a smile in his voice.
She felt herself cool upon entering the shade. The lime grass prickled her skin from under her sandals, and her nose was filled with the fresh, delicious water from the river running through the centre of the oasis. Her toe kicked over a dry animal skull. It rattled across the grass before cracking against a stone.
Nalax walked over to it and bent down to study the deceased creature as he rubbed his thumb against his lips. “How do you think we got out here?”
“The matrons kicked us off the Black Walls,” Von said, her shoulders shrugged.
“I mean, how did Girians end up here? We can barely survive out here, and these animals also seem to struggle. Did that ever make any sense to you?” he said while keeping his focus on the skull.
“Oh, that’s an easy answer: The Twins made us and then dumped us here. If Aeos heard you question that, your cheek would be blue,”
He looked up to her. “You don’t sound convinced, haven’t you ever wondered?”
“The stories of the Serpents were always fun to listen to, but I never thought they were anything more than that,”
“So, there’s no truth behind it at all, is what you’re saying,” he said as he straightened his legs.
“I’m saying I don’t know. But if the Twins really did exist, they wouldn’t care what happened to us. They wouldn’t lose a wink of sleep if we followed their dogma or what we did,” Von said with her arms crossed.
“I think someone would care,” Nalax said as he strode over and gently squeezed her shoulders, “I would care what happened to you,”
Von-wratha pulled from his grasp as a devilish smile crept across her cheeks. “Prove it.” She darted past him to several large boulders hanging by the edge of the river. She pounced on the dusty stones as she pushed herself up.
“What are you doing?” she heard him call as she continued her ascent. She reached the stone’s narrow flat surface. She smelt the dry sand from her face, but also a rotting odour. Von-wratha froze. She felt hot breath blowing on her skin as she slowly glanced up to see a bosh’kag’s snarling mouth inches from her face. She slapped at her belt for her curved daggers, but her hand was met with empty pockets.
Von-wratha spun around to see Nalax’s eyes wide and his body still. Before she could let herself fall from the boulder, the beast growled as its thick arms wrapped themselves around her neck and torso. It pressed hard on her throat, holding her scream in her chest as she frantically looked to her friend, who remained unmoving.
It’s crushing me! Her mind screeched as the bosh’kag sunk its fangs into her. This time, her screams couldn’t be contained.
It’ll eat me too, Nalax called. Von-wratha watched him spin around and bolted further into the shadowed canyons.
A hot liquid run down her torso before the beast crunched harder into her bones. The world began spinning. The canyons and the faint clouds in the blue sky twisted in an indistinguishable wheel. Von-wratha stopped screaming. She ceased struggling as her core stiffened and went numb under the bosh’kag’s crushing hold. Her eyelids felt heavy as blood poured from her wounds. She just wanted to close them and go to sleep. The sky blackened. The last thing she heard was the bosh’kag’s shrieks as her world fell into darkness. Its screams continued, but it began to form words. She wanted the monster to just vanish, yet it forced her to open her eyes again.
When her view came into focus, the first thing she saw was a ceiling of cloth slightly waving in a breeze. Von-wratha sat upon a thick quilt which surrounded her shoulders and waist. She looked to her left to find Kan missing. Her senses peaked as more shouts and shrieks emanated from beyond the tent’s drapes. She wriggled herself free of her blankets before tearing open the entrance.
Half a dozen zealots lined unmoving across the canyon’s ground keeping a group of fearful Girians clinging to each other. More zealots hauled slaves and commoners alike and tossed them into the centre with the others. She felt the entire settlement buzz as their thoughts swirled in confusion and stress. It took a moment for her to remember why. A white shroud stained with black, blue blood covered a humanoid shape in the middle of the settlement. Zenin stood by looking down at the covered corpse with irritation written across his face as other zealots dragged carts of damaged supplies beside the body. Von-wratha suppressed a smile as she glared at the thick-bellied master. His eyes shot up at her for a moment before her attention snapped to a familiar agitated voice coming from the crowd.
Her glance only caught Kan shoving a warrior off him, but the armoured Girian had none of it and threw his entire weight behind a punch. Kan collapsed to the ground as blue saliva dribbled down his lip. The zealot reared its leg for a kick but was ushered back by the others. Several commoners huddled around Kan and slowly lifted him to his feet. A pang of guilt rippled in Von-wratha as she watched Kan wiping away his broken lip. She rushed over, careful to keep her mind vacant and feign confusion about the scene.
“What’s going on?” she said while her face darted around the crowd.
“Supplies were destroyed last night, along with a zealot,” Kan said as he tried to shake off the injury.
“So, we’ve got nothing?” she said.
“Nothing to eat, nothing to bandage people up with and no seeds to sow the soil with,” Kan said with a sigh. He leaned in close enough for a whisper, “those who did this are insane.”
“At least there’s something to drink,” Von said as she glanced over to the blue horizon.
“Eh,” Gul rushed over to the group. He pushed himself so close, Von-wratha could smell drink on his breath, “did you see the guard? He was absolutely demolished,”
Kan shook his head as he wiped the blood from his chin. “I just woke up and didn’t know what was going on,”
“Oh, I was already up before dawn. A few others and I saw him by the crates before the rest of the guards showed up,” he said.
“And?” Von said, feigning her interest in Gul’s tale.
“He was executed by someone. I’ve seen a lot of bodies in my time, but you can always tell those who died from accidents or amateurs, or professionals,” he said.
“How’d you know it was only one person? All of the crates were destroyed too quick, not to mention downing a zealot all on their own,” Kan said.
“Nah, I feel it was only one person. And from the looks of his chest, they were a pro,” Gul said as he snuck a glance to Von-wratha, “and where were you last night? Get your tent fixed?”
Kan blushed. “Uh no, she was with me the whole night – didn’t get around to that. Besides, why wreck the supplies?”
Gul chuckled at his embarrassment. “Think he caught the one doing it and paid for it,” a devilish grin spread across his face, excited at the thought of his next words, “I reckon it was the Black Blade.”
Von-wratha felt as if she had swallowed a stone. She hadn’t needed to fake her distress as she glanced to Kan and the others. Kan’s face hardened, he parted his lips, ready to say something until he was interrupted by a booming voice ahead of the crowd.
“Citizens of New Giria, hear me now,” Zenin called, the valley went silent as all eyes turned to him, “Our supplies: gone; one of our kin: murdered. However, I promise that I will find the savages that did this and bring them to the Twins for justice!”
Zenin’s eyes narrowed as they passed over the faces of the crowd, including Von-wratha’s. “Keep vigilant and come forward with any knowledge of these acts, for if you fail to do so, and when we find out, your skin will hang beside our banner!” His double chin flapped as he pointed to a long and slender cloth draped over a metal pole around his ornate tent.
All in the valley stiffened and the wind seemed to cease in the narrow divide of the canyons.
She sensed the guards scan their minds; it was fortuitous that she had carefully buried her memory deep within the caverns of her consciousness hidden from their sensors. The zealot’s must have detected particularly disloyal thoughts as they moved in and pulled people from the group. Von-wratha was a skilled telepath, but even she knew that she couldn’t fend off a deep scan from a master reader. She breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the others get pulled into Zenin’s tent for interrogation. Several others were pulled from the crowd and tossed into the zealot’s tents for holding. She heard their cries and pleas that went unheard by the guards and by everyone else.
A warm palm tapped her shoulder. She spun around to see Kan smiling down on her with his blackening lip. “You’ll be fine,”
Von-wratha stared at his injuries as the distant cries of the prisoners echoed in her head. “They won’t be,”
“Listen, I’m a bit sore and hungry, I’ve got some food stashed in my tent, if you’d like join me?”
Her head started spinning. Her body had taken a strain from using her psionic gifts for far too long without nourishment. “No, I need some time to recover.”
Kan’s face slightly drooped at her refusal, but his tone was still undeterred, “Alright.”
Without another word, Von-wratha slipped through the crowd and cast a minor obfuscating illusion to escape to the higher reaches of the canyons. She skipped over several boulders and was well beyond sight of the settlement. Her eyes were caught by the waves of blue water creeping up the sandy shores. She let her body collapse in the cold liquid as she palmed it into her mouth. After regaining her senses, her mind was on the hunt for the creatures in the water.
~
The only source of light in the Barrier Hills was the fires burning in the campsite. Before the arrival of the Girian settlement, Von-wratha adapted to the faint starlight in the dark heavens to navigate her surroundings. She felt empowered by the shadows around her. She took her seat on the edge of the camp, looking down at the small figures huddled by the braziers and scavenging the crates for any source of food. If they were lucky enough to find something, they would be met with a gang of thugs or zealots and have their goods stripped off from them by force when resisting. Her senses would catch the cries of the prisoners being interrogated by Zenin and his lackeys. Sometimes she would see them tossed out of the tent, while others carried out by the guards covered in a death cloth. The zealots now travelled in pairs or more when patrolling the site. Their aggression multiplied too.
In the centre of the settlement, a stone foundation was laid with several frames of dark steel nailed into the ground. She watched as the workers pulled in their efforts to construct a town hall. Every so many hours the workers would be replaced by a new team to continue the building. Despite this, some of the older Girians would collapse from dehydration and exhaustion. Zenin would ensure the new group kept their momentum up with the use of his whip. Kan had worked for most of the day and was relieved when the night settled in. Von-wratha noticed he would take glances around the canyon occasionally, to find the sight of her. When his shift ended, it was no different. She watched him slowly wander back to his tent with his eyes still fixed to his surroundings. His lip had swollen to a blackberry. It would irritate her to no end when he would try to rub and squeeze it, making it grow.
She would need to return to the camp before he raises any alarms, not because she wanted to help tend his wounds, she tried telling herself. Von-wratha cast an illusion so she could return to the settlement without being spotted above the canyon. With little effort, she blended in with the crowds as she passed the construction site. She glanced to the edge of her hood to see Zenin glaring at her. Not allowing stress to settle, Von-wratha kept her mind quiet enough for him to be distracted by a worker falling from one of the high beams. Her head straightened as she heard a cracking of a whip followed by a small moan.
An amber light filled Kan’s tent. She strode over to the curtains and contemplated what she would say to him when he saw her. She outstretched her hand, readying herself to pry it apart until his face appeared in the opening.
“I saw your shadow,” he said as he held the curtain open for her.
She chuckled before letting herself into the tent. “I’m not as stealthy as I thought then.”
“I’d say you are, haven’t seen you all day,” the growls of his stomach echoed the small space, “if you’re here for something to eat, then I’m afraid someone got here first,”
“Don’t concern yourself,” Von-wratha shook her head as she tapped her bony knee, “there’s a few creatures and plants that won’t kill you around here, if you know where to find them,”
Kan’s chest puffed and stilled. “Have you told anyone else this?”
Von-wratha shook her head.
“We’ll go hunting before dawn, bring Gul and a few others and you can show us,” Kan said. Von-wratha regretted mentioning the potential food in the hills. If the word travelled to Zenin then the chance of returning to Giria would be lost.
Kan tapped his lip and her frustration grew watching him along with his pain. “Stop touching it, it’ll get even worse,”
“I can’t help it, it’s sore,”
Von-wratha rolled her eyes. “It’s infected, that’s why. Your finger or tongue will only make it bigger and eventually kill you,”
Kan shot his hand away from his mouth as his eyes widened.
“Come here, I’ll see if I can fix it,” she said as she raised her hands towards his mouth.
“What are you gonna do?” his head slightly jerked back from her palms.
No talking, just speak with your mind, she transmitted.
Kan gave a short nod before her hands were encircled with a dim red light. Von-wratha projected her power through the skin of his lips and gripped on to the growing infection below. In her mind’s eye, she envisioned the green puss mixed with the blue of his blood in his soft tissue. She imagined pulling the liquid through the crusted black cut. Kan moaned in pain as she continued to pull the green ooze out. She didn’t relent not even when the muscles in his face involuntarily started twitching. Comfort him with words, she thought. She couldn’t recall the last time she did that for someone, even if she tried, it probably wouldn’t do anything. Von-wratha’s only skill was causing and receiving pain.
Do you think Zenin will find the bastards that destroyed our supplies? she said, carefully adding some anger behind her thoughts.
Eventually. New Giria is still small, so someone will know someone who did it. A lot of people will suffer before that happens. Master Zenin is ruthless, but effective. Guess that’s why the old Council made him the second choice, he replied as he tried ignoring the pain.
He should send word back to Giria about what happened. Before long, people will be too thirsty and hungry to care when those people are found. Zenin should get a convoy to pick up the goods, she said as the infection hung in the air.
Kan recoiled in disgust, but she clamped her power around his head to keep him steady.
Master should, we’re too far to call home, he said as his eyes flickered from the sticky liquid to hers while its smell stung her nose.
He won’t be able to hold New Giria for long. I’ll put the word out tomorrow and so should you, Von said, masking her growing confidence in her plan. She snatched a thin piece of cloth and wrapped the rancid puss inside.
Surus would’ve sent people off straight away and found the maniac that got us here in the first place! Frustration swelled in Kan.
How would he have found out? she said as she tightly pressed the wound, tugging the skin to seal shut.
There’s still some mind left after someone dies. He could read someone’s final thoughts or senses of their last moments, even who or what killed them. I only knew a couple of people who could do that, Surus was the best, but Gul is satisfactory at best.
Gul can do that? Von-wratha was desperate to keep her focus on Kan’s lip as she echoed his words in her head.
I’ve seen him do it. I’ll bring it up with him tomorrow before hunting as well as everything else, Kan chimed.
We don’t want to bring too much attention to ourselves. Zenin will think we did it. The confidence in her conviction waned as she tried to suppress her stress from his senses.
But if we know who it is, then we can bring them to Master Zenin and he could deep scan them for himself. If Gul thinks that horrid Black Blade is the one that did it, then we can finally watch its head get hammered on a spike for its sins! Rage billowed inside Kan with enough force for Von-wratha to be pushed back, breaking her telekinetic hold over him.
His breathing eased as his finger glazed over his lips. She could no longer sense any discomfort in his physical body.
“You’re a great healer, Von,” he said as an awkward smile stretched across his cheeks, “where did ya learn to do that?”
“Far from it. I practised on my injuries, so I’d hardly call myself one,” she said as she pulled her knees closer to her chest.
“You could be one for here, none of the other healers couldn’t even dream of what you have done,”
Von-wratha said nothing, as if her thoughts had failed to comprehend his words. A healer for the village, a respected and loved member of this tiny community where the shadows wouldn’t have to hide her work. A healer; not a killer. Her thoughts flickered deciding if she really wanted to return home.
“You don’t have to go back to your tent you know, you can stay here if you want. I wouldn’t mind the company,” he said.
“Kan, why does the Vizier’s death upset you so much?” she said. Her low crackling voice was barely recognisable to her ears.
His shoulders dropped as he let out a drawn sigh. “He was my father,”
Von-wratha felt her heartbeat rise and her muscles tense. “I’m sorry for what happened to him,”
“Nothing you could’ve done,” Kan shook his head violently. His face refused to meet hers, “he was a great Girian, my family loved him, and so did everyone in the city. He was one of the few close to the oracles that really cared for us all and almost became one himself. When that worthless assassin got to him, we lost everything.”
“In the past, I’ve done some work with those types before,” she slowly said as she pushed her legs under the quilt covers, “and what I know of the Black Blade, they only work for the oracles,”
Kan blinked a few times; his face was unreadable. “So, you think they called for his death?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“They’re too far away now, even if they did – what could he do to the Council?” he shrugged as he stretched his back on the thick blanket, “still the Black Blade could’ve made a different choice.”
“The Council keeps us all in the dark, even the one’s directly serving them. They never tell the complete truths until it’s too late. That’s why we’re here, and they’re there. Disgusting, the lot of them,” her heart still thudded in her chest as she lay on the cushioned quilts.
“What work did you do before, Von?”
Von-wratha sighed as she rolled over where she didn’t have to face him. “I was one of their courtesans. I don’t wish to speak more about it.”
As her eyes shut, she could hear the faint banging of nails echoing in the distance.
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