The guard withdrew his hand and scratched his head embarrassed. “I apologise for my rudeness, lady. It is standard protocol.”
She smiled. “I understand. We are headed for Erana in hope of finding a healer to cure my father’s ailments.”
The guard blushed slightly behind his grey skin. “Well then, I better not keep you. Do not worry; you will definitely find the help you seek there.”
“Thank you. Your words are most kind,” she said as they moved along.
Once they were through the gate, Killmar turned. “Your father?”
She laughed. “You look like an old man, hunched over like that.”
“Very impressive. We should head into as thick a vegetation as we can find. I need privacy.”
He threw the grey rag aside as they found an appropriate spot, and she stared on in apprehension. His skin was constantly fluxing to light transparency.
“Throw the shield to me.”
She removed the clothes she had wrapped around it and did as he asked. He caught it and his hands darkened. His skin stopped fluxing, except for his hands, which were growing darker each passing moment. As his hands continued to blacken, so did her fear of it. When she felt like she could no longer bear it, they returned to normal.
He tossed the shield aside as he again stood proud and powerful.
“What just happened?” she asked bewildered.
He took the wooden box from her and put all the clothes inside the Bag of Zanoul before tossing it away as well. “I’ll explain later. For now, we have to move quickly. I arranged for a ship to take us to Hallion, but I am not sure how long they’ll wait.”
She glanced at the discarded Shield of Yonil. “What about the shield? Shouldn’t we take it with us?”
“Leave it. It is nothing but a piece of metal now,” he said. Seeing that she did not deem it a proper explanation, he added, “I’ll—”
“Explain later, right?” she said with a smile.
He grinned. “Let’s move.”
She watched his back as they ran. It was comforting to see him back to his formal glory, but she started to regret it as she fell behind. It seemed that he was quite serious about them needing to hurry, as he kept increasing their pace.
“Killmar, wait!” she said finally before gasping for breath.
“Too fast?”
She could only nod.
“Very well,” he said, kneeling with his back turned to her. “Get on.”
She knew better than to protest.
He took off, and she was struck by how much of a burden she must have been to him since their meeting. Even with her added weight, he was moving at a speed that would far surpass even the fastest horse, and so gracefully. He never missed a step or struck a single branch of the hundreds of passing trees and bushes. It only took them a few minutes to reach the anchored ship where he slowly lowered her to the ground.
“I’m sorry,” she said ashamed.
“For?” he asked surprised.
She looked back from whence they came. “Being such a burden. You had no obligation to bring me with you, but you did so, none the less, and I’ve been nothing but a hindrance.”
He lifted her chin and kissed her softly. “You are no burden.”
The captain of the ship saw the couple and approached. “The ship is ready for you, just as we agreed, Killmar.”
“You knew?” asked he slightly surprised.
The scruffy man smirked. “Well at first, I thought you were just a common criminal trying to get a discreet ship, but then I heard what had happened at the market square. It didn’t take much to make the connection.”
He walked up the gangplank. “Then let us embark. I tire of this place.”
The captain and Jessica followed suit. “You and the girl can use my cabin for the journey.”
“You have my thanks,” said Killmar with a grin as he led her to the captain’s quarters.
She turned to him as she closed the door behind her. “So?”
“So?” he repeated.
“So, it is later, would you mind explaining what in the nine hells just happened?”
He sat down in one of the chairs and motioned for her to do the same. “I suppose I should tell you. Let me start at the beginning.”
Secrets
E
lizabeth put her
hands next to the tinted alembic and added the needed energies. The mixture absorbed them like she had hoped and gained a slight white glow. She was extremely impressed with the craftsmanship of the U’norgarr moulders.
She had not had much hope when she had first described to them what she required. Though it seemed like they were indeed able to fashion almost anything out of the material they call cre’per’um. At least, that was what she had come to believe after her time spent in the Black City. Almost everything, from their impressive architectural structures such as the arena, to their most basic cutlery where made from the material.
They, however, had a very basic knowledge of working with other minerals like iron, gold, and silver, when compared to the other tribes. Their reason for this was that cre’per’um does not deteriorate like other minerals, and thus, they never had the need to learn how to work the others beyond making rudimentary decorations.
F’lar entered her house and workspace. As the only individual with a more than meagre knowledge regarding healing, she had gotten her own villa, while many other yog’murgarr still lived outside of the walls in tents. “Any progress now that the moulders supplied you with what you needed?”
She always enjoyed the old yog’mur’s company, and not just because he had his genitals covered with a lion pelt. “Yes, but the mixture needs more time. How are the U’norgarr men and women adjusting to the change?”
“You seem to have all but mastered our language. Very impressive. I still struggle with Zinoxian, I’m afraid. If I remember correctly, you said it is similar to other spoken languages?” he said as he made his way through the array of tables and shelves housing various vials, herbs, and animal parts.
“Yes, the closest of which would be Franca. It is a language that was created by traders over the course of hundreds of years. In hindsight, we probably should have started with it, as it has bits of various languages in it. So regarding the U’norgarr adjustment?” she said as she checked the progress of some of her other experiments.
F’lar shook his head. “They have been isolated for so long . . . I’m beginning to fear they’ll never become one with the other tribes.”
“Has there been another incident?” asked Elizabeth, concerned.
Twisted strands of black hair swung from side to side as he shook his head again. “No, no, they are all still too terrified of Asteroth. When he stepped in after the third incident, they quieted down, but there are many things about yog’mur culture that they still reject. These Old Bloods claim they’ve longed to regain what they’ve lost, but I suspect the reality of it was not quite what they imagined.
“They are obsessed with this idea of personal wealth and gain, longing for the little metal tokens they call money. A tribe is supposed to take care of each other; everyone should reap the bounties of the tribe, not just a chosen few. And don’t even get me started on their women . . . Did you know that the U’norgarr woman were not allowed to practice a craft? They are wholly unskilled, and more than a few are lazy. The men seem to have done everything in the tribe except what they were meant to. Small wonder they are blundering fools on the field of battle!”
Elizabeth smiled as she tied up her golden locks. “You should not be so hard on them, F’lar. You would be hard pressed to find anyone in the world who would not balk at the idea of women filling all occupations, save warrior.”
“But—” he started before she cut him off.
“And all of the known world work with some form of currency . . . tokens to trade for goods,” she said compensating for the lack of the word in Yog’mur.
“But, E’lir, you are more yog’mur than they are,” he said finally, using the yog’murgarr adaptation of her name.
“Just give them time; they will come around. Though I can’t say I will be pleased to see more naked men and women walking about.”
“A man—”
“Must earn his Cloth of Honour during the Rite of Blood and a woman must be clothed by her mate to show she is taken, yes, yes, I know,” she finished as she bent over a counter to check on the growth of some magically altered herbs.
“To know and to understand are two different things,” he said as he browsed through her shelves.
“I understand.”
“Then why are you clothed in that robe when you are not taken?” he commented nonchalantly.
Elizabeth hit her head as she tried to come up. “You want me prancing around naked?!” she said, switching to her native Zinoxian.
She saw him smiling at her obvious discomfort. “You are part of the tribe, are you not?”
“Yes, but—”
“And you don’t have a mate, correct?”
She blushed. “I . . . yes but—”
“Then you should not be clothed. You are scaring away potential suitors,” he answered in a very father-like tone.
“Gods, F’lar! I’m human. Who among the tribe would want me as a . . . mate?”
He walked over to her and placed a scrawny hand on her shoulder. “You are an immensely skilled Art user. Neither I nor any of the other shang’gomagarr is even close to your level of expertise in healing and mending. I am sure there are many young warriors who would swell with pride to call you their mate. It might not even be the only thing that swells,” he said with a wink.
She blushed but did not react as a lady from the Kingdom would. Her time among the yog’murgarr had changed her in more ways than she was probably aware. She still thought of them as a strange people, but they had a certain charm about them; a warmness and sense of community that wins you over without you even realising it. “Come on, you old hur’thlu. It should be done by now.”
They walked over to the alembic, which now had a dull brown glow. She poured the reddish liquid into a bowl and added a dash of each prepared herb on the table. “Now, if my theory is correct, this should work.”
She placed the bowl on the floor before stepping back and beginning the incantation.
F’lar stumbled back as she finished the spell in an explosion of energy. An image sprang up from the bowl and hovered in the air.
“It worked!” she said before hugging him.
“Well done. Now, if you would be so kind to give me some sort of explanation as to what I am seeing . . .”
She turned around and made a simple hand movement that enlarged the hovering green image. It had two vertical strings of little balls; the strings being connected by horizontal sticks. Most of it was a light green, except for a certain section that glowed a deep crimson. She pointed to it and said, “That is our problem.”
“E’lir, I’ll need more than that,” said F’lar appearing a bit humbled by his lack of knowledge.
She turned. “Before I . . . met Asteroth, I had a rather controversial theory that all manner of life had a formula, a recipe if you will; one which shows what a being is made out of. And if we could understand it, we’d be able to cure illnesses that are passed from father to son, most of which are currently untreatable.”
He stepped closer to the image. “Remarkable. So this is one of these formulae?”
“Yes,” she answered proudly before adding, “But I can honestly say I could not have done it without the help you and the other shang’gomagarr provided.”
He looked at her surprised. “I don’t remember any of us helping you with this. Gods, I am not even sure I understand this. If I did not know better, I would think you’ve gleaned some of the Book Beast’s secrets.”
“Not directly, but you taught me how yog’mur magic functions, allowing me to apply energy in a manner I never would have thought of otherwise. It also does not hurt that I’m a devout worshiper of Ge’noss,” she said with a wink.
She saw his awed reaction and held up her hands. “It was just a joke. I am not Favoured. I have no divine powers.”
“Ge’noss is the god of knowledge and secrets, E’lir. It is not unimaginable to think that those Favoured can be ignorant of being such,” he replied solemnly.
“A valid point, but nevertheless irrelevant to my role among the tribe,” she said before pointing to the floating formula. “Asteroth tasked me with discovering why the U’norgarr possess a wholly superior intellect. I believe this is the start to an answer.”
Out of all the yog’murgarr, she had come to realise F’lar was by far the most interested in their intellectual abnormality, even more so than Asteroth. Though, since their assimilation of the U’norgarr, F’lar had tried to discreetly distance himself from the issue; try being the operative word.
She continued, “I decided to start at the root of the problem and work from there. What you see here is the formula for a typical yog’mur male. Now, I am not going to pretend I understand all that we are seeing, however, look here,” she said as the crimson section enlarged. “This shows something foreign has altered, or infected if you will, the formula.”
“Something did this to us?” asked F’lar in disbelief.
“It is the most probable explanation. I will need time to study this to discover exactly how, but at the very least, we now know for certain that the variances of yog’murgarr intellect is not natural.”
The old yog’mur reached out to the crimson section. “Why? Why would someone do this to us?”
“I am more concerned with how. If this was done by magic, it is something on a scale unheard off, not to mention the mastery of the magical arts required . . .” she left the thought unfinished when she saw the tears on her mentor’s cheeks. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, E’lir, I have done terrible things. In my youth, I was arrogant, possessing an intellect far beyond even the other shang’gomagarr; I thought I could do anything. I was obsessed with improving my tribe, fixated on the very thing my son asked you to uncover,” he said almost desperately.
He was a foot taller than she but felt so frail and small in her arms. “That’s understandable.”
“No, no, I had not your knowledge. My mate was a lovely woman, a smith by trade. But she was of low intellect, and when she told me that I was to be a father . . . Do you know that one in every sixty children is born a shang’goma? I just could not stand the idea of my child being born with a low intellect. Oh, In’kanak, have mercy. My methods were so crude . . .” he said, weeping.