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Topiara - Chapter 55
"I will miss you," Lyara hugged Yiren tightly. "You've taught us so much about what it means to live here in the Great Forest…"
"I wish you were staying," Yiren replied, hugging her back. "I could see you both being very happy here in Tala'anru'an."
Jilan shook his head. "Knowing Lyara, she won't be happy until she's seen this quest of hers through to the end." He waited his turn to give his Vri'ia'ani friend a hug, grateful that there was no further danger of Lyara taking the gesture wrong. The two of them had had a very long talk after their passionate reconciliation – one that had been a long time coming.
Lyara had spoken at length of how it had been growing up a slave with nothing of her own to love or cherish – of how she'd long since abandoned any dreams of family and love by the time she'd tendered her freedom price and made the trip to Tandri. She spoke of her fears of commitment when the security of love was something she couldn't remember anymore. She also spoke of how Topiara's sharp and yet unclear warnings of danger had begun a vicious circle that had, in the long run, been half of the reason she'd grown so jealous and angry. The fact that she no longer wore the leather pouch around her neck with her vri'ih'sun attested to how she still wasn't able to trust herself enough to let the stone have constant access to her mind.
Jilan had spoken long about his home and family – and all of his hopes and fears for his future from days long past. He spoke of how he'd been fascinated by her wild and independent ways – and eventually fallen completely in love with her and yet been unable to express his feelings because of her defensiveness. He told her of the feeling of completion he'd experienced on the night they had become lovers – of how he knew that he'd never love another with anything approaching the same passion. He told her of how he now dared to dream of having children with her and raising them to be knowledgeable in the ways of the world as it really was.
They had laughed together that night and shed a few tears for the days of pain and separation that had been so wasted and needless – and eventually found slumber and rest in the arms of the other. Lyara had come down the access ladder the next morning with Jilan at her side, the both of them ready to participate in the life of the h'sun. Jilan had gone hunting again, and Lyara had brought her bag of fluff over to where Yiren sat with some of her old friends to spend a quiet day spinning and gossiping.
Lyara's strength steadily improved under both the watchful eye of the old healer and her i'ilim – as did her mood as she realized that the quest she'd just about abandoned had not been lost at all. The marks of their ordeal with the Chu'ichi fa'un had faded until each of them had a permanent blotch of twisted and darkened flesh at the base of their throats – marks that more than just Yiren told them were the highest honor.
"So you leave us." La'un called out across the platform.
"Today is the day," Jilan nodded and waited until the old healer was closer before he bowed deeply.
Beside him, Lyara mirrored his action. "We are grateful for all the help that you…"
A skeletal hand wiped away her words. "You performed sha'adrah for Yiren…"
"I think a healer must go from one sha'adrah to the next without their ever being recognized as such," Lyara told him earnestly. She leaned and kissed the wizened cheek. "If anybody ever asks me, I will claim you as sha'adrahni, I swear."
"May the Vri'i of the Great Forest watch over you as you travel her pathways and branches, and may your vri'i see that you return safely to your homes at the end of your journey," Yiren stated very formally and bowed to her friends. "You will always have a place here in Tala'anru'an."
Jilan looked up and saw that even the Ru'an – a dour-faced and aging man with great streaks of silver amid the red – was raising his hand in farewell. "We shall remember the hospitality of Tala'anru'an. This I swear." He raised his hand. "Until we meet again."
Yiren accompanied them all the way to the base of the zumi vine ladder that connected the h'sun with the pathway. "Remember now," she cautioned, "the mountain of fire and ice lies toward the morning sun. If you come to a fork in the path and are unsure of which direction to take, rest until morning. The sun will tell you which way is correct."
After one more quick hug each, Jilan and Lyara each shouldered their netted bags and their matched water carriers and set out down the path ahead of them. Lyara turned as the path twisted to wave one last time at her friend. "We're on our own," she told Jilan as she hurried to catch up with him.
"Nervous?" he asked as he paused until she was at his side again.
"Excited," she admitted. "Everything up to now has been an introduction or test. For once, we're working on the quest itself."
"Do you think that maybe the time has come for you to wear Topiara again?"
Lyara's steps halted as she thought long and hard about her answer. "And if it still warns of danger?"
"At least you'll know that Yiren has nothing to do with what it's talking about," Jilan commented with a toothy grin.
She sighed and then dropped her hand into the depths of her bag, eventually drawing out the leather pouch containing her power stone. She slowly drew the strap of the pouch over her head and let the stone find its customary spot on her breastbone – and in her mind. Very gently, she felt the stone whisper to her soothingly.
"Well?" Jilan's face reflected his curiosity and concern.
She shrugged. "So far, so good," she replied and reshouldered her bag. "How many days' travel did Yiren say that mountain is?"
"At least four," he replied, moving ahead and down the path again. "She said there were two h'suni'il between here and there too."
"Good," Lyara nodded and matched his speed again. "I'd far rather spend the night in a sleeping net than on the hard zumi pathway as often as possible."
"You've let yourself get spoiled," Jilan teased her with a gentle smile.
"Don't tell me you have no preference…"
"We weren't talking about me…" he complained with a twinkle in his eye.
The Rememberer of the trees of Tor remembered Jilan and Lyara – and insisted that they both speak long into the night during the Time of Telling. The leader of the h'suni'il, a tall and husky young man by the name of Na'im, was openly smitten by Lyara's dark looks and tried as often as possible to speak to her privately during the meal that evening. Jilan would have found an excuse to feel jealous, had it not been for the pointed way in which Lyara made known her preferences.
In trade for the two birds Jilan's arrows had brought to the evening Feast, a young woman gifted the pair with a sleeping net. The hour before they retired to the net set aside for them, she drilled them both in how to tie a knot that would hang the net between the railings on the path itself for a more restful night's sleep. Then she taught them how to fold and tie the unused net into another self-contained bag that could be thrown over the shoulder for ease of transport.
Two nights later they were in the very small h'suni'il of Ma'at, bringing with them two more birds for a Feast and a willingness to endure yet another Time of Telling in exchange for a quiet corner for their sleeping net and water and fruit to see them through the next day. The three families that comprised the small settlement were more than pleased with the offering, and this time it was Jilan who attracted the coy and beckoning smile of the young Vri'ia'ani maiden who was daughter to the leader. Like Lyara had before him, he communicated his preferences and devotion to his i'ilim – only he tried to make the message more gracious in light of her youth and inexperience.
"What do you think, Lya?" Jilan asked as the two of them snuggled down in their sleeping net.
"Of what?"
"Of coming back to the Great Forest when we're finished with whatever it is that we're supposedly doing."
Lyara shifted so that she could see at least the outline of Jilan's face in the dim light of the moon through the thick leaves above them. "You would want to live here – not back in Tandri?"
"Where would you like to call home, then?" he asked in lieu of an answer.
She made herself a little more comfortable with her head on his chest and wrapped her arm across his middle possessively. "I hadn't really thought about it," she admitted.
"Do you want to go back to the Kauwlut lands?"
"I don't belong there," she replied after a long moment of thought. "I thought you intended to go back to Tandri, claim your treasury from the usurer – who should have compounded it several-fold by now – and found a school dedicated to teaching about the lands as they really ARE, rather than convenient non-truths that serve no useful purpose."
"I've thought about that," Jilan replied, his arm wrapped around her back pulling her just a bit tighter against him, "but that would mean having to live amid the ignorant and enduring the problems that will come from not compromising on the truth."
"You don't want to be anywhere near your parents, do you?"
"I have no family, Lya – I was disowned, remember?" He kissed her forehead. "You are the only family I can claim – or want to."
"We could teach in Master Lyndon's Hall…"
"I like the smell of fresh air," Jilan shook his head. "Tandri has too many people in it. Even if we decided to settle in the Great Forest, I think I'd just as soon find a small h'suni'il somewhere where a couple or small family could be welcomed."
Lyara snuggled closer to him. It was a strange thing to hear him dream of their future together – she couldn't see any further ahead than just the next moment. Topiara, usually a font of hints about the future – or at least warnings – had been unnaturally quiet for the past few days, perhaps because of the way its warnings had been so poorly interpreted. "Let's just worry about getting to the mountain of fire and ice," she whispered to him. "Nilyaron gave me no instructions about what we're supposed to do when we're THERE, so the Gods only know how long it will take to do whatever it is we're supposed to do that will result in finding the new Oracle…"
Jilan pulled back. "Is THAT what this is all about?" She nodded against him. "By all the Gods!"
"Are you angry with me?" Lyara asked in a small voice. "I know I kept that hidden from you…"
"No, I'm not angry," Jilan answered finally. "I just never imagined that we would be involved in something like THAT. I feel a little… overwhelmed."
"I was always afraid that if I told you what this was about, you'd turn around and head back to Tandri," Lyara confessed guiltily. "I'm sorry that I've never trusted you…"
Jilan kissed her forehead again. "Trust is a hard thing for you, isn't it?"
Lyara could but nod wordlessly, not sure that her voice wouldn't give her distress away.
"You can trust me, Lya – I'd have come with you whether I'd known or not. You are my i'ilim – the other half of my soul – how could I think of letting you come down here alone..."
"I wouldn't have come if you hadn't come with me," Lyara told him. "Nilyaron was very clear that I needed to come down here with my mate – and with Topiara's mate."
"I really don't care about that anymore," Jilan soothed. "We're here now, and we're almost to the place that you were told to find. And when this is all over, we'll figure out just where in our world we want to call 'home', and we'll go there together."
Lyara nodded against him. One of these days, she'd tell him that wherever he was, that would be 'home' for her. But right now, she was just too tired – and they had a long day ahead of them. Her eyes slid shut despite her, and she quickly found refuge in slumber.
After a few deep breaths of pure contentment, Jilan followed.
Jilan halted as the vista ahead of him suddenly became less crowded with the trunks of trees and he could begin to make out terrain ahead of them. "I think," he remarked and pointed, "this is just about where we climb down from the trees."
Lyara looked out where he was pointing and then nodded. "I think you're right. We'll need to figure out a way down soon."
Both of them looked down over the railing toward the floor of the world and winced. Below them, in the increased light, they could easily see the movement that was the voracious zumi. "The path continues for a way yet," Jilan remarked hopefully. "Maybe it will take us almost to the very edge of the Forest."
"We should follow the path until it begins to lead away from the mountain," Lyara said with sudden assurance. "Remember how Yiren put us on the path to begin with? We crossed several branches and moved in the arms of at least five trees between where we climbed the vines up the trunk of the tree and where we encountered the path." She looked up into Jilan's face. "We just need to figure out a way to make some sort of mark that we can find again when the time comes for us to head home again."
The two walked slowly down the path until only a very thin curtain of tree trunks obscured the vista of the cone-shaped mountain that rose like a barren heap from the lush vegetation. White covered the very tip of the mountain's apex, and several places about the mountain face seemed to be emitting white smoke. "Fire and ice indeed," Jilan remarked nervously. "I thought the description to be a legend."
"That mountain is a very big place," Lyara replied uncertainly. "How are we to know where we're supposed to go?"
Jilan put his arm around his i'lim. "I'm sure Nilyaron wouldn't have brought you this far without leaving some sign for you to know when you're in the right place," he comforted her.
Lyara was grateful for the embrace, but fingered her wolf-fur fetish nonetheless. Her eyes followed the natural path that the branches of the sparse trees made toward the barren ground where no zumi grew. "There's our way down," she pointed.
He nodded. "There's another thing I just thought of…" he said with a glance down. "We're going to need shoes again. I don't know about you, but I'm not so sure about walking over that rocky terrain barefoot – even with the calluses we've developed on these zumi vines."
"And what about if it gets colder – if we have to climb close to the snows?" Lyara said in surprise. "We've grown so used to this steamy forest, that we have no clothing capable of keeping us warm."
Jilan's face was resolute. "One thing at a time. I have an idea how to fashion a kind of sandal that should protect our feet – more or less. But I have a feeling we're going to need a whole lot more of that chi'uchi thread of yours. If nothing else, we're going to need a blanket or two for the nights."
Her eyes were wide. "Should we head back to Ma'at – and trade hunting skills over a period of time for help in crafting…"
"No," Jilan shook his head. "We're creative, resourceful people. We can figure this out by ourselves. For one thing…" He jerked his nose in the direction of the mountain. "…we don't know what manner of creatures live on that mountain. We may end up using your Kauwlut skills to clothe ourselves in skins again, if nothing else…"
Lyara gazed out at the mountain peak in the distance. "So close – and yet, so far away."
"Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily," Jilan soothed her. "Let's find a place to hang our sleeping net and get to work."
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