4. A Lost City
An unexpected revelation changes Astra's plans...
The Lost City continues the journey of Astra, respected Head Librarian of the Tiered Library in the renown monastery Qordashi deep in the Balashilar mountains, after an attack on her home destroyed everything she knew and took the lives of people she loved. Her childhood companion, Traz, has returned after 25 years for mysterious reason, and along with the Am’Ayat warrior Xavai they are on the run from the attackers: snow dragons and the dreaded tribe of Yosoi warriors.
Previously: Astra took matters into her own hands...
The river disappeared under and then emerged from the pyramid, which spanned it and rose four or five stories high into the air. It was built with the red and gray rocks of the Balashilar mountains, but the style of the design and decorations carved into the stone were odd and unfamiliar. Astra thought all of it was odd, but by far the worst of it was the scent of burning bones and the pull of powerful, twisted magic. Anyone with an ounce of magical sensitivity would hate the place. Even the blue forest pulled back around the edges of the decrepit city.
Traz, further confirming Astra’s suspicions of his own magic abilities, recoiled from the sight. But what surprised her was the reaction of Xavai, who immediately armed himself with his sword and looked around, wild-eyed.
“What is this foul place?” Xavai snarled. Astra stared at him, because until that very moment, she assumed his magic as a dowser was too focused to pick up on anything ambient.
“If this is what was pulling you up the river, I’m sorry for agreeing to this folly. I have never even heard of a city on the eastern side of Broken Hump. Does it hide itself?” Traz looked around, as if awaiting an attack. “We need to leave.” He gestured back at the trail they had walked up.
Astra looked past the pyramid to the city beyond it, which was really more of a minor town—it would fit easily within any of the four wards of Qordashi monastery. Still, it radiated undue power and malice, the empty buildings scattered up the steep side of the mountain echoing with hollow grief.
“What happened here?” She asked no one in particular.
“Do you see the dead? Are there many?” Xavai asked, his voice hard but edged with fear. It was a place built by human hands, but something unnatural seethed in the very stones of the complex.
“No. There are no dead here.” Astra frowned.
“How can that be? It is clearly a city. People have died here.” Xavai waved his sword.
“What is he saying?” Traz asked, casting his focus between Astra and the pyramid that sat over the river.
“He asked if I see the dead of this city, but I don’t. There are no dead here.”
“Impossible,” Traz echoed Xavai’s commentary.
They could not get too close without exposing themselves. Snow dragons circled lazily far overhead, looking more like small birds against the sky than massive dragons. They were clearly on some kind of flight pattern that took them in large loops over the area, though. There was no chance the dragons would miss seeing Astra or any of them if they ran into the city.
She looked more closely at the edge of the complex and realized that the forest ended there naturally. It was not chopped back or held back, it simply whithered away. She pointed it out to Traz, then Xavai.
Traz shrugged but Xavai frowned. “Yes, that is odd. As if the forest is sucked dry.”
“Oh.” Astra stood there in astonishment. It made sense, in a horrible way: the city was stealing all the soul dust from the forest, killing it and giving it eternal life at the same time. Life without a soul, life of growing and never dying, of being without truly living. It was an evil, cruel use of magic, and Astra wondered what on earth the city could be doing with all of that power, while yet still looking and feeling so lifeless and deathless.
“Perhaps it was salted?” Xavai added, his tone conversational, as if salting a living land was something people did in the world.
Of course they did. Astra knew that. But she had read about it, not seen it or known anyone who had seen it. He was wrong, but even the guess damned him, not that she should have been surprised of that kind of careless horror from a soldier of the violent Am’Ayat kingdom. She wondered how someone who had surely witnessed atrocities could fear her necromantic powers so much. She shook off the line of thought, turning back towards the vile city. She had work to do.
“It’s the power of the city doing it.” She stated the fact without explanation.
“I believe that,” Xavai said with a nod, agreeing despite the fact that he could not possibly know what she meant. “Let us go.” He waved at Traz, who did not understand the words but knew the meaning of the gesture and started to turn away.
Astra let them go, instead looking up to the sky. The snow dragons flew back and forth, covering leagues of territory with a mere flap of wings. They swung around and disappeared from view as they dropped down closer to the ground, but she noticed that there was an odd hitch to the pattern.
They did not fly over the dead city.
“Stop!” Astra said, pitching her voice low.
“Astra—”
“Look at the dragons, Traz! Look!”
He sighed the same woebegone sigh he had been giving her since they were children, but plodded over to where Astra stood near the edge of the forest. Xavai followed, sensing that something was up. They all watched the sky, for a long time. Xavai finally let out a heavy breath.
“The dragons avoid it,” he said, pulling away from the edge and further under the forest canopy again.
“Yes. There is something about it that repels them,” Astra replied, unsure if she was excited or terrified of the path her thoughts were going down.
“The dragons don’t fly over it,” Traz said, then shook his head. “Good enough reason for us to get as far away from the damned place as we can.”
“No!” Astra hissed, grabbing the sleeve of his tunic. “Whatever magic is there repels them. Perhaps it is something we can use to get the dragons to ignore us.”
He gave her a flat stare. “That place reeks of death and evil. Bu wouldn’t touch that with a talon’s tip. No.”
“No, it doesn’t reek of death. I would see that. This is something else.”
“I note you do not deny that it is evil, however,” Traz countered.
“What is this argument?” Xavai broke in, looking back and forth between them.
“I think we should go into the town, to see if the magic repelling the dragons can be used to protect us.”
“That is folly. That place is full of death and evil.” He nodded at Traz. “Which no doubt the thief has said as well.”
“Perhaps not in so many words,” Astra hedged.
“The soldier agrees with me, doesn’t he?” Traz said, looking smug.
With a look between the two men, Astra shrugged as if in defeat, then took off at a dead run toward the pyramid.
NEXT: A Devil’s Hall
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