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Topiara - Chapter 36
Lyara pushed the plate away from her and leaned back in her chair contentedly. "That was delicious, Master," she told Lyndon. "I'd forgotten just how talented your cook was."
"I'll have to remember some of the seasoning tricks she used," agreed Sharin after putting down her tankard of bitters. "I tasted some creative combinations of herbs that I'd like to be able to duplicate."
Lyndon bowed very slightly from the shoulders. "I'm glad you enjoyed your meal. I have to admit that the stories you tell have been very entertaining. I'm not exactly sure how, between YOUR aristocratic upbringing," he was looking at Jilan, "and YOUR training as a Guide and a Navigator," he looked at Lyara next, "you ended up being such an effective pair at taking out an entire criminal network, but I'm sure that everyone appreciates not having to worry about Vinzen anymore."
"It wasn't just Jilan and myself, Master," Lyara reminded the Guides Master. "I had Farranby and Sharin. It was a group effort that took ALL our skills combined. And since things have worked out so well…"
"And since I now have some idea where my daughter was taken…" Farranby added with a mouth filled with the succulent and seasoned meat.
Lyndon nodded. "You feel you might as well make a try to rescue your daughter. I can appreciate your reasoning, but…"
"I've lived with the Vryies before, Lyndon," Farranby washed his last bite of dinner down with bitters. "I know some of their rules of behavior, and I speak some of their language."
"But there have been some changes in the politics between Talandri and Vryies in the past few years that you might not be aware of," Lyndon pointed out, leaning forward and poking a forefinger into the top of the table. "For one thing, there have been a number of raids into Vryies territory by some of the southern holders looking for slaves and servants to work the crops – and even though the King has sent several representatives to the Rotal explaining that these raids are in no way sanctioned officially, the Vryies have become far less likely to tolerate Talandri traveling their paths."
"This is nothing new. The raids are a long-standing issue between the Talandri and the Vryies," Farranby shook his head in disgust. "Before I spent my time there, there were several of the farmholders in the area I was in that were doing that on a regular basis – making raids into the Vryies territories and then using slave labor to work their fields and tend their animals in order not to have to spend any specie. When a slave died of overwork or starvation, there were always more raids to replenish the workforce."
"The situation itself may not be new, but heightened tensions between the Talandri and Vryies is a recent development. The last three envoys to the Rotal never returned from their journeys," Lyndon stated flatly. "Not alive, anyway. Frightened ponies with bloodied cloaks and robes were driven onto Talandri roads to be found – the message unmistakable."
"Sounds as if we'll be walking into a firestorm," Jilan remarked quietly.
"I need to know," Farranby stated with resolute steadiness. "If my daughter's alive, I need to find her and give her the chance to come back to a decent life. And if she's not – then I need to know so I can mourn her properly before getting on with the rest of my life. As it is, I'm tied to the past."
"What kind of information do you have for us?" Lyara asked, having allowed the conversation to wash over her and listening carefully. Topiara had also been attentive, but it was now whispering in the back of her mind that the time had come to move forward.
"Come into my office," Lyndon suggested, rising from his seat and stretching to settle the meal more comfortably into his stomach. "I have maps of the territories, for one thing, that indicate the sphere of influence under the control of the individual Ru'an."
"Ru'an?" Jilan asked, rising and pulling the chair back for Lyara without thinking about it – and then accepting a smile of thanks with a nod.
"They're the local leaders," Farranby filled in the gap before Lyndon could answer. "If memory serves, there are seventeen of them – all owing loyalty and support to the Rotal – their King – but all within their limits to keep and train armies of men for their own protection against their neighbors."
"Are you saying that the Vryies are constantly warring against each other?" Sharin gasped.
"It isn't exactly war," Farranby answered her indulgently. "It's more a constant contest for reputation and influence in the Sin'at, which is what they call the collective body of all Ru'an."
Lyndon waved several of the glows on the walls of his office into full brilliance and then went to his wall of charts to pull one out from beneath several others from a cubby that didn't look like it got disturbed very often. Signaling for his four guests to approach, he unrolled the map across his desk and pinned each corner down with a weighty book. "There are a few Ru'an who have non-aggression treaties with the Talandri holders closest to their territories – I'll make a list of them for you before you leave. Generally, it is safest to enter the Vryies Territories in the east, for it is the western holders who have made a habit of raiding."
"The eastern Ru'an are also a little more flexible when it comes to customs and traditions being suggested and preferred modes of behavior as opposed to die-hard rules and edicts that MUST be followed lest one suffer the consequences," Farranby told the Guides Master. The western territories tend to be far more orthodox in their beliefs and practices – although for the life of me, I'm not sure why. The easterners I lived with when I was there used to make jokes about them."
Lyndon nodded, listening intently. "That's very interesting," he said, "and something I'd not heard before." He sat down in his comfortable chair. "This map also includes the more utilized passages through the forests."
"You mean the roads?" Lyara asked, her mind catching on the strange way to refer to travel routes.
"No, actually I mean exactly what I said," Lyndon told her frankly. "Very little travel is done on the ground once one is in the forests themselves…"
"It's virtually impossible to create a clear passage on the ground that will still be clear an hour or two afterwards," Farranby added. "The zumi vines on the forest floor grow very fast, and the blossoms are carnivorous. Any creature who falls from the trees to the ground for whatever reason will be consumed to nourish the whole within an hour or so until not even the slightest sign will remain of where they fell."
Sharin shuddered. "So I take it that all real travel happens a certain distance about the ground?"
"All of the passages are constructed of zumi vine and living wood – making it incredibly strong and quite practical. The Vryies live their entire lives in buildings that are constructed in the branches of the forest of living wood and zumi," Lyndon told her, feeling sympathetically for the young woman who was just now finding out what she was about to get herself into. "Living life completely up in the air is also one of the reasons that the Vryies take to being captured in raids so badly. It is generally accepted that touching the ground is tantamount to death – if not physical death, then certainly the death of their vri'i – their eternal shadows."
"That's one of the reasons why they look at Talandri travelers with such suspicion. The more superstitious of them believe Talandri to be completely devoid of vri'i – non-human – and therefore a threat to the humanity of any Vryie." Farranby looked from one of his companions to the next. "That's one of the reasons why I told you all that you didn't have to come with me. I know how to dress and act Vryie – and I have an amulet that the Rotal himself gave to me that protects my vri'i in the land of the 'chan'vrii'."
"'Chan'vrii?'" Lyndon peered at the former steward curiously.
"The soul-less, or shadow-less ones," Farranby translated. "That's the term they use to refer to Talandri. Where as they are vri'i, men with souls, or men who cast shadows."
"Where does the name Vryies come from then?" Jilan asked quietly.
"From not understanding what the name refers to," Farranby answered evenly. "You know how Talandri aristocracy works and the misinformation that is prevalent there."
Jilan sighed. Yes, he knew all too well.
"Well, at least we have some idea where we can board our ponies before they end up feeding zina vines," Jilan remarked as the group walked slowly through the dark street back toward the White Flower Inn. "I'd hate to leave Fleetwind somewhere that wouldn't take care of him properly when I wouldn't be sure just exactly how long I'd be gone for."
Lyara reshouldered the pack that held the maps that Lyndon had given them, as well as the precious list of Ru'an that would be the least likely to kill them simply for being Talandri. "Farranby, we'll need to start spending some serious time learning the customs and some of the language that you remember. Are you up to becoming a teacher for the next few days?"
"I've been spending some of my time alone trying to recall the language and tones to mind," Farranby told her. "I'm almost to the point that I can think in the language again – and until I can, I can tell you all I remember otherwise."
Sharin, who had been quiet and attentive for most of the evening, finally burst out, "I don't know about anybody else, but what I heard tonight has me frightened. Man-eating flowers? Roads paces above the ground? Doesn't anybody else think that we're heading into something a little bigger than we're ready to face?"
Farranby stepped closer to the young woman and put a comforting arm around her shoulder. "Remember how I told you that you didn't have to go with me?" he asked her gently.
"I know," she leaned into him slightly. "I thought that, after everything that we've already been through, that I could handle just about anything. But to have to live up in the air because there are creepy, nasty things on the ground that will devour a person should they set foot there wasn't exactly what I was getting myself into."
"Sharin," Lyara said, with a hand on Jilan and Farranby's shoulders to halt their progress through the dark streets, "If you don't think…"
"I'm not staying behind," she pouted at the former Guide. "I'm just…"
"The idea of going off into a whole new land, with a new language and a new set of customs isn't the easiest to wrap a mind around," Jilan told the young woman sympathetically. "Lyara really put me through my paces to get me ready to handle things when I hired her to take me into the Kauwlut lands looking for my little cousin. By the time we got back, it took me a while to get used to even speaking my own language again – and wearing something other than furs made me feel almost undressed."
"We may not even need to go as far as Vryies Territory," Farranby reminded her. "The information that I have about the slave trader that took Herrista was that he was KILLED in the Vryies Territories – but not that he definitely took her all the way there with him. It's entirely possible that he sold her to some holder or innkeeper on the Talandri borderlands."
"Aren't any of the rest of you just a little scared?" Sharin gazed at Jilan and Lyara in some amazement. "I mean, I would expect Farranby to be calm and prepared – but this is going to be something SO new…"
"What has you frightened is the sense of heading off into something where you have no idea what to expect," Lyara nodded, understanding now. "Information and preparation will help you settle some of those nerves – not all of them, of course, but enough that you'll feel more up to what's ahead." She glanced up into Farranby's face. "I don't think that we can put off beginning to prepare for our trip south any longer."
Farranby nodded agreement in the moonlight and began walking again, holding Sharin close. Jilan put a hand to Lyara's arm and held her back just a bit from the others. "We may have a problem here," he cautioned.
"I'll talk to Farranby by himself something tomorrow," Lyara promised. "If we're going to take Sharin with us, I'm going to want her completely dedicated to the quest we're undertaking. We can't afford to have her nervousness compromising us in a bad situation."
"She was so much help to us before, I'd hate to think of starting out without her this time."
"The four of us DO make a good team," Lyara admitted, and then slipped her hand into the bend of Jilan's arm in an unexpected gesture of solidarity. "I'm thinking that it's just a case of the jitters. She's had no training other than what she's gotten with us. Perhaps I'll speak to Master Lyndon again and see if I can't get her some time in the sawdust with the current self-defense instructor at the Guides Hall."
Jilan warmed to having Lyara's hand tucked into his arm, and he put a hand on top of it fondly. "Will we have some time to ourselves too somewhere along the line?" he inquired quietly as they began to follow in the steps of their comrades. "As much as I enjoy their company, I have to admit that I'd like to have you to myself every once in a while."
Lyara smiled as he pulled his arm away from her hand and cautiously wrapped it around her shoulder, much in the same way that Farranby was holding onto Sharin. "I'm sure we can arrange something," she agreed, leaning into him just a little and enjoying the way the closeness made her heart beat just a little faster.
Nilyaron had called Jilan her mate, and she knew that there was something very special between them – over and above the fact that they shared the experience of being channels for their respective power items. There was a sense of completeness that came when she was communing with him privately. She didn't mind his touch, his kiss – indeed, the few times she'd allowed him more than just the superficial closeness of friendship, his touch and his kiss had exhilarated her.
Perhaps before they departed for this new and dangerous journey, they needed to take the time to figure out exactly where they stood with each other. Certainly the last thing they'd need while on such a dangerous quest was to have unresolved personal issues between them. And perhaps it was time to suggest to Farranby and Sharin that they also take the time to figure out their relationship too. The less insecurity and unknown territory that they had to deal with in the future, the better for all of them.
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