8. Off Balance
Not a pleasant place for a picnic...
Escape from Ice Mountain marks the start of an epic tale, one where a middle-aged fish-out-of-water librarian (and necromancer!) navigates love, betrayal, and the complexities of power as she struggles to embrace her destiny and uncover the mysteries of her own origins. Yes, there are dragons too! And also magical dogs. It’s gonna be awesome!
They continued eastbound down the old but wide path to the Gate of Tears. They did not walk fast, and the dragon lumbered along beside them, everything about it loud and impossible to ignore. Traz spun tales of his adventures on the road, probably highly edited for Zochur's ears, and Zochur caught him up on the people he had known in the monastery. He whistled at the news that Dzrezor had become the doyen superior.
“I heard that a new doyen superior was installed, but not who. I'm sure Naboch was cracking rocks with her teeth.” He glanced over at Astra, who nodded.
“You aren't wrong. She was furious. I stayed deep in the north ward as much as I could.”
“Or up in a retreat,” Zochor grumbled.
“You still love those miserable caves?” Traz asked, clearly mystified.
“They are holy places of worship and prayer,” Astra said piously, which had both Traz and Zochur rolling their eyes like heathens.
“They are dark, freezing, arid caves and I know they are just as spooky now as when I was a kid.”
“You are still a kid,” Zochur corrected, making Astra laugh.
“I’m an old man!” Traz complained.
“Still younger than me,” Zochur replied with a disdainful sniff.
“Will Naboch be angry at you for leaving the grounds?” Traz asked in a desperate bid to change the subject.
“Probably, but officially she's not my sibling superior anymore since I’m dedicated to Bu. I report to Sibling Superior Damdai.”
“Eh, he won't care.” Zochur waved a hand dismissively.
“He won't know. I got my pass from one of Naboch's secretaries, who assumed I was doing research for Naboch.” She held up the little wooden card.
“Too clever for your own good.” Zochur laughed and Traz grinned at both of them.
Their conversation continued in that vein even as the trail grew ever more faded and ragged, making the walk a challenge. The dragon drifted away, eventually taking to jumping from boulder to boulder, sometimes flapping its wings. The first time Zochur had seen its wings unfolded, they had nearly cried, much as Astra had done. It was a horrifying how such a beautiful creature had been tortured — and Astra, upon getting another look at the wings, knew without a doubt that the evenly spaced punctures had been done with malicious intent. But the dragon was fully mobile, short of flight, and strong and surefooted. It seemed to be enjoying itself, but it also often peered at Traz and, sometimes, Astra, as if to make sure they were still close by.
There was no possible way it did not know what the “horn” really was, but it did not treat it any differently than the large sack of supplies it carried for Traz. Once again Astra was left wondering just how sentient dragons actually were, and once again finding herself unable to come to any conclusion. At least could come to that impasse by meeting a dragon in the flesh, she thought, instead of just reading tall tales about them.
They came upon the Gate of Tears in the middle of the day, a little after eight bell, or at least Astra assumed. The two tall, rough-surfaced purple quartz pillars rose out of a bed of rock and crystal, a rich vein of color that sunk deep into the ground and ran along the mountain like a bright ribbon.
The pillars, unlike the rocks and crystal formations around them, were undeniably imbued with magic. Even the most pedestrian travelers claimed to be able to sense the power contained in the gate. Some argued that they had been blessed by an early founder of Qordashi, but Astra immediately knew that was not true. The magic the two pillars radiated was old, so old it felt older than death. It gave her the creeps. There was no life without death, no death without life, and any magic older than death had to be as ancient as the gods. To her, it made the pillars—as beautiful as they were—wrong and corrupt. Their magic should have dispersed eons ago, along with the complex carvings they bore, before the mountains of Balashilala even shoved their way up out of the ground.
But they were beautiful, sparkling and shining in sunlight, throwing off rays that were lilac to dark purple, carved and sculpted in such a way to reflect and refract light sharply. Unlike their names suggested, the pillars were not the entryway to any place of note…at least, not anymore. Astra had read in older texts that perhaps once, when humans were young, they were gates to some forgotten kingdom, which was why it was said to be the original location of Qordashi. She thought it was possible, but the mountain pass beyond it looked harsh and unforgiving. It was known to head south and had often been the launching point of expeditions, most of which never returned.
The closer they got to the gate, the more the whole place bothered Astra, and she felt distinctly like they were being watched. She wondered if some old gods had purposefully left their magic behind to rot, but it felt more like there were deathbeds nearby.
The dragon sat on top of a boulder bigger and broader than the crystal pillars, head low as it watched her. Occasionally, it snapped its attention elsewhere, and that bothered Astra too, although Traz did not seem to even notice.
Zochur, never known for their sensitivity to magic, looked uncomfortable too. They looked around with sharp eyes, glancing at the dragon, then back at Traz.
“Not a pleasant place for a picnic,” Astra said, wrinkling her nose.
Traz crossed his arms, also looking puzzled. “No, I’d say not.”
“Is it always like this, here?” Astra asked, stepping cautiously closer to the massive pillars. They were as tall as five rangers stacked on each other’s shoulders, and as thick around as the sacred Core Salt Pillar in Mamum’s main temple.
“No,” Traz said, shaking his head. “It’s always felt weird to me,” he added, tapping his temple to suggest his own weird magic. “But not off balance like this. Then again, I have not been here in over twenty years.”
“I do not remember them like this, either,” Zochur said, soft and thoughtful. “Something has happened.”
Astra felt her eyebrows arch high. Anything that could affect the Gate of Tears was likely monstrous. Zochur returned her expression with a complicated grimace.
“We should head back and tell someone, I think,” Astra said, instinctively clutching the nearly forgotten picnic basket closer to herself.
“Sure, sure. In a second.” Traz was squinting at the pillars, walking toward them with his hand outstretched. He was a couple meters away, but Astra was suddenly filled with a sense of dread.
“No, Traz, don’t—”
The dragon called out, the sound more of a ferocious caw than the familiar roaring trills of the snow dragons, and jumped down from its perch, flapping its wings, its tail lashing.
Traz spun around, alarmed, and pulled out his short sword. “Here?” He asked, although the question was obviously rhetorical. “Who would attack us here?”
“Attack us?” Zochur echoed, voice high with anxiety, clutching their skirts as they watched the dragon pacing around them, hissing.
“The dragon knows. It always knows danger. But here?” Traz answered incredulously.
Astra was farthest from the Gate of Tears, but she felt magic begin to pulse out of the crystals in waves, almost visible to her as it traveled. An ancient power was sensing something strong and reaching out. Astra stumbled back just as she heard hoofbeats storming up the path from the other side of the gate.
The dragon bellowed and charged when the first riders appeared.
“Yosoi!” Zochur screamed, the word unbelievable to Astra's ears. The barbarians never traveled so far west through the treacherous mountains unless they were part of a trading caravan. They never sent war parties at such a distance from their strongholds. But they were there, tall and pale in their saddles, their mounts huge under them with hooves the size of Astra's head. They were all armed with swords, and they were there for a fight.
Or a slaughter.
Astra turned and ran toward Zochur with a shout. Traz set himself to face the riders with his sword at the ready and managed to deflect the blow of the first rider to come up on him. He ducked away after that, but Astra did not see what happened next. She heard a sound like fire sparking and the screams of men as they burned behind her. She got to Zochur, who was frozen to the spot by terror.
“No,” Zochur whispered. Astra grabbed their wrist and pulled. They would never outrun the riders in a fair race, but Traz and the dragon were, at least, distracting them for the moment.
“Zochur! Run!” Astra tugged at the older nun, trying to get them to move.
But it was too late, two riders had broken off from the dragon and were upon them. Astra jumped in front of Zochur, unsure of what she could do to protect them, but willing to try. The Yosoi circled, their eyes bright and narrow within the visors of their leather helmets. One advanced on them quickly, faster than Astra could follow, his horse shouldering Astra aside so he could bring his sword down on Zochur. Astra cried out as she fell away from the horse's dangerous hooves, trying to catch herself, knowing it was too late to save Zochur as she heard the sounds of a bloody, grim death behind her. She got herself standing only to see the other soldier cry out in fury, raising his sword and kicking his horse to charge at…Zochur?
Astra blinked. The first soldier's horse had skittered away, rider-less, and Zochur stood there with the fallen soldier's bloody sword held in a confidant grasp. Astra watched in horror as the other soldier attacked, only to be cut down off his mount as easily as Zochur could chop wood. Zochur ducked the blow the rider aimed at them and skewered him from the side, throwing him like tossing a radish into a stew pot off the point of a kitchen knife.
Right onto Astra.
The body hit her like a ton of bricks and she went down again, much harder than before. She shouted as she landed, the body half on top of her, the man's soul pouring out of him, along with his blood, all over her dress. She tried to shove him off, but as soon as her hands touched him, she felt a heavy, hot current of magic stab at her heart. In a panic, she yelled and kicked at him until Zochur came and simply yanked the body off her. The magic stayed, though, and Astra watched in fascination as black, wispy lines unfurled from her hands to wrap around his body…but no, she realized in horror, not his body, but his soul; where it was pouring out, her own magic was spinning around it like a spider capturing a fly. A wave of dizziness, anger, and ravenous hunger overtook her, but she slammed her hands into the dirt under her, and then again, until the magic dissipated. She pulled herself up on her feet, and Zochur did not offer to help, standing firm with their sword at the ready.
“Zochur?” Astra croaked.
The nun, unfazed, looked past her. “Trazkhor and the beast have things under control.”
Astra spun around to see that in fact Traz had killed at least one man, and the dragon several more. The scene was gruesome and bloody and the air was filled with the sounds of screaming horses and the stink of charred flesh—an odor Astra would have paid money to never recognize or encounter, ever in her life. And the dead, so many dead, their howls of fury rising from their corpses like steam, their soul dust clinging to their corpses. A few uninjured horses milled around, skittering away from the dragon but unwilling to leave their riders, even in death.
“What the six hells was that?” Traz gasped, covered in blood and sweat.
“An advance party,” Zochur answered grimly.
“Advance?” Astra asked, feeling numb.
They nodded. “The monastery is threatened. We must go back. We must warn Qordashi of the danger.” Zochur glared at Traz.
“Grab a horse to ride,” Traz said in agreement, sheathing his sword after wiping down quickly and going to nab the bridle of one of the horses.
“I don't ride horses!” Astra yelled, feeling that it was important to state the obvious, still reeling and nauseous from directly experiencing the deaths of the Yosoi raiders.
“Ride with me,” Traz answered, launching himself easily onto his chosen mount. Next to Astra, Zochur was doing the same, only less swiftly or gracefully, given their dress, but still with the same eerie confidence with which they held a sword.
Traz came over to Astra and held his hand out.
Astra followed his directions as he pulled her up to settle behind him, the dull numbness of shock settling into her bones.
Ooh wonder if the gate called the Yosoi or the horn in proximity to the gate did?