Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter
Topiara - Chapter 57
Lyara stretched lazily and felt the cold metal of her sword hilt pressing into her backside from where she'd tossed it when she and Jilan had finally emerged from the warm water and laid themselves down on the green carpet to consummate their passions. The sky in the direction of the sunset was still a light pink and lavender with dashes of violet clouds, and the air next to the lake was, as she'd expected, quite warm. She smiled as Jilan stirred beneath her head and gently wrapped his arms around her. "Happy?" he asked with a slow smile that told her more than anything he could say.
"Mmmmm," was all she could muster. She still felt as if she was glowing from every pore. She ran her hands down his body, still amazed at herself for the passion that she'd found within just a little while earlier. If there had been any doubts about the ability of their relationship to heal from near disaster, they had been very capably dispelled by what had just ensued between them.
Jilan kissed her forehead and let his own head fall back to study the growing darkness above them. The two of them had been intimate before, but never before had he felt that he'd touched her soul – her vri'i – as he had just a while before. 'I'ilim.' He rolled the word over and over in his mind and decided that it was the best term for what she was to him. She was his other half – the missing piece of his soul that had left him always searching for completion in books and studies. This was the most perfect of days, he also decided.
"I suppose we should get dressed and eat something while we can still see," Lyara sighed against him in reluctant homage to the passage of time. "We don't know what crawls on the ground after the sun is gone."
"I know," he sighed with her, "but I'm so comfortable…" His hands ran down her soft skin from shoulder to small of the back. "I could stay right here…"
"We have a sleeping net, remember?" Lyara reminded him, pushing against him gently to sit up and gaze down into his face. "And all this exercise has made me hungry."
"Now that you mention it…" Jilan sat up too, bent forward and kissed her on the lips softly before moving to get to his feet. He extended his hand down, never more aware of just how beautiful his i'ilim was than in that moment. She rose and, hand in hand, they walked toward the trees again, where the sleeping net hung right where they'd left it over an hour earlier.
Jilan suddenly felt Lyara freeze next to him in mid-step, and he looked first at her and then out at what she was staring at. Next to their net stood two men, garbed in very thin and flowing white robes and quite obviously waiting for them. Neither was obviously armed or seemed intent on violence – but both stood with a wary caution that one would expect from the discovery of strangers.
"You've come at last," the taller man said in heavily accented Talandri. "We've been waiting and watching for you."
"Did you bring the signs?" the other man asked without stepping forward. "Prophecy stated that there would be two of you, and that you each would come bearing the signs of power."
The two glanced at each other. "Do you mind if we get dressed first?" Jilan asked finally, pointing to the sleeping net. "I know I'd feel better in a conversation with my clothes on, and I'm sure my i'ilim would as well."
The men bowed in mirror image of each other and backed away from the sleeping net slightly, an obvious indication of their willingness for Jilan and Lyara to reclaim their belongings from the net. The two hastened to the opposite ends of the net and quickly put on their clothing again, and then turned to face their visitors. "Now," Jilan began, deciding to take the lead when Lyara didn't step forward immediately, "what was it you were asking about signs?"
"The two we seek each bear with them a sign of power that appear only once in an age," the taller man stated as if reciting a formula.
"What kind of signs?" Lyara asked warily. There was no way that she was going to speak willingly about Topiara without more assurance that these people knew what they were talking about.
"A stone the color of the sunset that glows from within, whose nature is to inform and to forewarn, is the first sign we seek," the second man continued the apparent recitation. "The second is a flute, small and clear, that plays with the mind, and not with music."
Jilan nodded shallowly to Lyara. "We know what you are looking for. We carry the signs you seek."
"We need to see these signs," the taller man stated very formally, stepping a little closer.
"I don't know about that…" Jilan began, looking to his i'ilim for agreement.
Lyara, however, had Topiara whispering in the back of her mind words of comfort and rejoicing. "We have nothing to fear from these men, Jilan," she replied, moving to his side and slipping her hand into his. "I'm told that these are exactly who Nilyaron wanted us to find."
"How…" Jilan's brow furled into confusion even as he fumbled with his jerkin to pull the leather pouch from beneath it and open the drawstrings for the first time in a very long time. Slowly he pulled Rodayn from the soft pouch and put it in the palm of his hand – and beside him, Lyara had extracted Topiara and had it in the palm of her hand too.
"They are the ones," the taller announced to his companion, and then the two of them bowed to the leather and shi'ili clad strangers. "Put them away," he directed them with a graceful gesture of the hand, "and collect your belongings. The entrance to our city is but a short walk to the other side of the lake, and you will rest there from your journey in peace and honor and safety."
"So much for the sleeping net," Lyara commented to Jilan in a whisper as they gathered their bags, their weapons and their water carriers before untying the sleeping net from its two tethers and folding it back in on itself to form another bag.
"Please leave that," the shorter man pointed to the rolled hide that Jilan had just settled on his back. "You will not need it. It is enough that you wear the skins of other creatures, and your signs reside in what was once living flesh."
Jilan's eyebrows shot up as Lyara thought for a moment. "You don't approve?" she asked pointedly.
"We believe that killing other creatures for any reason is unwise and contrary to nature," the taller man answered, touching his companion very softly on the arm. "But we also recognize that others do not share our beliefs. There is a place just outside the city where you can leave your… animal skin… in safety – a place where it will be kept until you are ready to leave us again."
"What about our clothing?" Jilan asked with a skeptical tone.
"Once inside, you will be given clothing to take their place," the taller one reassured them. "We will transport your animal skin clothing to the place where your larger skin is to be kept – you can reclaim them both there when the time comes."
The shorter man bowed in concession to the directive of the other, and with a quick glance at Jilan, Lyara nodded. "Lead," she told him, "and we will follow."
There was a cave on the other side of the lake, and a square stone container with a heavy, flat stone lid sitting askew just outside the cave entrance. "You can leave your animal skin here," the tall man stated with a note of finality. "You have our word that it will be there when you return."
Jilan dislodged the rolled hide from his shoulder and found that the container was just long enough for the skin to fit comfortably within with plenty of room for more. The shorter man eyed the jerkins with obvious distaste, but then leant his shoulder and back into the task of shifting the flat stone to completely cover and protect the contents of the square stone.
"In there?" Jilan asked with some skepticism.
"Our city lies beyond," the tall man informed him. "It isn't far."
Lyara once more slipped her hand into Jilan's. "We'll follow," she told him again.
With the tall man in front of them and the shorter man directly behind them a few paces, the walk into the darkness of the cave was unsettling until suddenly both men's robes began to glow with an eerie, silver-green hue. Lyara's hand clung a little more tightly to Jilan's, and his hand tightened about hers – but they made no other comment about the strangeness by which they now found themselves surrounded.
The walk was a little further than just 'a little ways', Lyara decided as she began to detect a warm glow further up the tunnel through which they were traveling. "Is that your city ahead?" she asked.
"That is Helm," the tall, glowing figure in front of her nodded. "City of the Ancients."
The tunnel curved to the left, and then opened into a vast underground chamber with a high and vaulted ceiling that glowed with a soft, warm, golden light. Below it, delicate towers stretched high into the chamber, each linked one to many others by slender walkways. The streets below the towers were wide and clean, with many others garbed in similar light and flowing robes walking one way or another on whatever task was theirs.
"City of the Ancients," Jilan repeated, looking carefully at the faces of the people toward whom he was drawing near – and then he tightened his hand about Lyara's. "Gods!" he exclaimed. "These are Nilyaron's people!"
"What!"
The tall man who still was leading the way nodded. "Nilyaron was the one of us chosen to leave Helm and lend his wisdom to the outer world for as long as he could. The signs of power chose him. And now the signs have returned to choose another to take his place, as is the way of the world."
"You knew Nilyaron?" Lyara asked in an awed whisper.
"I did."
Jilan stared. Nilyaron had always had the white hair and bent mien that comes with age – and yet, this tall man's bearing was of youth and strength, and his hair was a dark and shining gold. "But you look…"
"Your questions will have answers," the shorter man interrupted his companion, "in good time. For now, know that you are safe, your needs will be met, and your purpose in coming is nearly accomplished. Here."
As if in silent harmony, the tall man led them through a tall and narrow doorway and into what must have been a living chamber. "This is where you can rest. Food will be brought to you presently, before the Dark comes. Through there," he pointed, "is a sleeping chamber, complete with more suitable clothing. If, when you change, you can leave your animal skin garments at the table with the food dishes, they will be taken and placed with your other skin near the mouth of the cave. When Light returns, you will be summoned."
Lyara gazed around them. The room – indeed the entire city, it seemed – was bright and clean and nearly colorless. The floor beneath their feed was a very light tan, and the robes of their escorts nearly blended into the white of the walls and the furnishings around them. Recessed into the walls at regular intervals were fist-sized globes of soft, glowing white to illuminate the room.
Jilan, on the other hand, focused his attention on the two who had brought them into the city. "Will it be you who comes for us in the morning?" he asked.
The shorter exchanged glances with the taller, and then turned to shake his head. "No. We will have rituals to perform to purify ourselves from the exposure to the outer world. Two of our brothers will come for you." The two turned to leave.
"Wait!" Lyara called. "At least tell us your names?"
There was a slight pause where the two seemed to listen to something that neither Lyara nor Jilan could hear – and then the tall one turned to face them again. "I am known as Hagistem. My brother is called Rashilon."
"It is an honor to know you, Hagistem, Rashilon…" Lyara stated very formally in her best Talandri and bowed in the proper Vri'ia'ani fashion. "I hope to have an opportunity to see you again."
"When the time comes," Hagistem told her, "it is we who will escort you back to the outer world. Until then, farewell." The golden-haired man lifted his hand until his open palm faced them, and then turned to leave and pull the tall, narrow door closed behind him.
Jilan and Lyara turned to stare at each other for a long moment before Jilan gave a shrug. "I suppose we should check out the sleeping accommodation," he suggested, "and see about the robes these folks would prefer we wore."
"Did you hear them say that they needed a ritual to cleanse themselves from exposure to the outside world?" Lyara asked, following him as he walked past the table and toward the far doorway.
"I wonder what they'll have to do to this room to make it habitable again, once we're gone," Jilan commented wryly. "Disregarding the fact that we just took a very thorough bath…"
The sleeping chamber was as white and colorless as was the rest of the dwelling, and the robes hung on almost invisible pegs set into the wall near a window overlooking a courtyard many floors below them. There, several golden-haired and white-garbed people were sitting on benches as one stood and spoke in a clear and bell-like voice, in a language that was completely foreign.
Topiara whispered reverently in Lyara's mind that she shouldn't be watching them from above in that manner. As she moved away from the window and pulled her jerkin over her head, she told Jilan what Topiara had told her.
"It's likely that our friends would understand the rules of this place better than we do, at this point," he replied, following her lead and pulling his jerkin off. "This is a very strange place – and nothing, in any of my studies, ever even hinted that this place existed."
"Weren't there any writings from the days when Nilyaron became our Oracle?" Lyara asked, gaping.
Jilan shook his head. "Everything that I'd ever read indicated that Nilyaron was one of the reasons Talandria became a civilized country. It was his guidance that gave us our places of education – our system of laws…"
"I wonder that the Vri'ia'ani knew of him as well," Lyara seated herself on the edge of the bed and bounced carefully. "I know the Kauwlut never spoke his name…"
"That you know of," Jilan corrected her as he pulled one of the white robes over his head. It fit him as if designed for him – neither too long nor too short. "Oh!" he blinked in surprise. "This is really very warm and comfortable!"
Lyara pulled the other robe over her head and was surprised at how the light and flowing material seemed to pick up the heat of her body and reflect it back at her. "There is a very powerful magic at work here, Jilan…"
"Very likely." Jilan opened his arms and collected her close. "I'm just glad that you're here with me."
Lyara clung to him, feeling as out of place and on alert as she ever had. Topiara tried to soothe, but she dismissed its reassurances. "Hold me," she whispered urgently and snuggled into his embrace as his arms tightened about her. Magic made her nervous, because she had never had the chance to learn to become comfortable with it from her father – and because this magic was bigger and stronger than any she'd sensed before. She closed her eyes and mentally petitioned the Wolf-Faced One to give her strength to succeed in whatever was to come next.
Previous Chapter Table of Contents Next Chapter