A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands

Book 2: Chapter 20: Explanations

Floating on high, a heart blossoming on the breeze, my tears too far to fall.

- From the diary of Lady Aelayah of House Salahaem.

Despite their fearsome appearance, in terms of raw statistics, the twins were a joke in comparable power. The brother had only ten more points of Health than his mother and a small bump in his Stamina. It was either they were weak, or I had started to grow into a monster. Truly, my decision to spend all my ‘free’ points on Constitution was beginning to return dividends. Not only had it probably saved my life in the mines, but it had allowed me to train longer and fight harder, which, in turn, had boosted my secondary attributes.

This was certainly something to keep in mind in my further dealings with them. It really came back down to the good old adage of never judging a book by its cover.

With Larynda trailing once more behind me, we found our way to our wagon. Once there, I informed Kidu about our encounter and that we were going with Larynda to have a quick talk with Laes. Since I could not see people’s attributes directly, I assumed that she must have a relatively-high Charisma to have opened up the recalcitrant twins. Her tagging along would probably be useful.

Locking up our wagon, we found our driver, Ables, hitching up a pair of Ruar to the vehicle. The beasts, despite their rather fearsome appearance, were docile and accepted his calm yet firm instruction as they placidly allowed him to attach their harnesses.

Noticing our presence, he greeted us with a small bow of the head before continuing with his work. I sidled up to him to engage him in a quick conversation.

“A good morning to you, Ables,” I began with a smile.

“An’ a good one to you sir,” he replied, barely meeting my eyes, as he was busy with his work.

“Just a quick question, my good man, and we’ll leave you to your work,” I started, politely waiting for him to finish tying a stubborn knot. “Where can I find Master Harevor at this hour?” It was a question I probably knew the answer to, but it behooved me to be polite to the help. If I kept at this for long enough, I might even be able to get a point in my Charisma.

“The master be at and about his business, I am guessing. Best bet though, be in his tally wagon at this hour,” he said noncommittally, his entire focus on his morning task.

Mumbling thanks, we made our way to find Harevor. On the way, we passed what could only be an old tinker or a smith mending an even older iron pot that had seen better days. Should we need to, my little group could probably get some simple repairs done from him. Perhaps they could even acquire some new equipment. It reminded me that I would probably have to do something about getting new pouches or bags at some point in the future.

We made a small detour to check on Patches. As always, shes was the very picture of equine gentleness. She gave Larynda a slobbering lick after she fed the donkey a small biscuit from one of her pockets.

Twenty or so minutes later, we arrived at the tally wagon. We soon heard the sound of Laes’ commanding voice cutting through the din of the camp, and alerting us to his presence. He was shouting orders to his crew, praising and haranguing them when necessary, all in an effort to squeeze some more efficiency from them.

“Master Harevor!” I called out and grabbed his attention.

“What is it, Gilgamesh?” he replied quickly, before giving a few quick instructions to another worker.

“I have a few questions…” I began, almost feeling a little guilty for getting in the way and taking up some of his precious time.

“I will answer them once we are on the move. Wait in my wagon, I must see to the day’s preparations,” he replied firmly, already moving on to his next task. When he saw that I was making no move to leave, he quickly added, “Which should be in about half a turn of the glass. If these shiftless layabouts get moving!” he shouted the last without any true venom, getting a few knowing grins from his workers.

I felt that I had been summarily dismissed, like a child from the principal’s office. Turning to my companions, I searched their faces for their reaction.

“Best we make our way inside, I’m guessing,” Larynda offered, shrugging her shoulders.

This drew a simple grunt from Kidu who had nothing meaningful to add. With no other options before us, my small group made our way to the wagon, finding the door open, climbed in, took our shoes off near the entrance, and sat down on the opulent and thick carpets.

There we waited for perhaps another twenty minutes before the large caravan began to move, just as Laes’ head popped in through the door. Moving with one of his hands at the small of his back and groaning a little with old pain, he sat down opposite from me, cross-legged.

“Apologies for being a little short earlier, but one is always a little busy getting these lugger louts to be off and about moving. Now, I am sure you have questions aplenty for me,” he started genially, a hint of amusement dancing at the edges of his mouth.

“For a start, my companions and I would like to know the details of your relationship with Hamsa, and about that vow-knot thing or whatever. Also, I have a few more general questions about the road ahead,” I responded, looking him in the eye with every word.

A small sigh escaped the man, giving him time to give a measured response in turn, “Ahh, old Hamsa. We were both students at Quas before our paths diverged. Long, long before I established the traveling Ravens. Let’s just say I owe him a favor from a time long ago,” he paused momentarily, his eyes growing misty before he continued, “The making of such a knot would be child’s play for someone of his caliber. By taking you and his apprentice to Al-Lazar, I hope to clear even a little of that old debt away. Though of course, there will never be a clean accounting of that now. You must have the Constitution of a troll to still be alive now, to have been afflicted with such a poison and still be able to breathe without having taken the antidote… Even the old tales never mentioned such a thing. But, if you could survive, then perhaps the messengers of old were not so… no, that digression is for another time. As you no doubt know, that Timekeeper Knot you brought to me charges me with seeing the girl safely to Al-Lazar. Something I could not easily refuse. Not that I had a reason to,” he sighed, stretching his back for a moment.

“Yes, indeed, I know all of this. The man poisoned me as a guarantee to deliver you that string thing in a timely fashion. I would be dead if the gods did not favor me so…” I replied in turn, bitterness finding its way into my voice.

“Yes, and no, there is more meaning behind such a message. In a way, it was a contract of sorts. The most sacred of things. I would put aside such thoughts for the moment. In my eyes at least, you have passed this test of character,” he said pointedly, looking at the half-elven child.

“Old Ham would never poison nobody!” protested Larynda, looking deeply flustered.

“Oh, little one, that is most naive of you. That man was capable of anything if… Bah! I do not mean to lecture the Alchemist’s apprentice, but surely, you must have learned that many substances are filled with more than one potential. In one form, and mixed just so, a deadly poison. In another, a sleeping draught. Such a simple thing, merely a matter of precise blending and dosage, but therein lies the true art of the craft. It would have been easy for a man of his skill to… but again, I digress,” he sighed.

Standing up, he moved to kneel down by a heavy chest near his desk. He ran his hands over the fine wood and muttered something intelligible only to himself. Then he inserted a bronze key into the lock, unlocking the chest with an audible click. Rummaging around for a moment, he finally found what he was looking for…

It was a vial, the same vial that I had refused, filled with a milky opaque liquid. He pressed it into my hands before sitting down and explained, “Consider this an apology of sorts, on behalf of my old friend. No, strike that. Truly it is yours, by rights. Made primarily from aged Moonblossoms, it is a powerful antidote, able to cure most venoms and poisons in these parts, both magical and mundane. Though I doubt you will have a use for it, perhaps one day your companions may benefit. It is also of some monetary value.”

Kidu narrowed his eyes in suspicion, but Larynda’s bloomed in rapt innocent wonder.

“A Cure-all remedy!? I have only read about these. Only, like, really rich people have these. Cor’ this stuff is like really rare!” she almost squealed like a stuck pig.

“As Larynda said, these are a little rare. There is a little matter of your fee, but I am willing to waive that if you agree to enter my employ as guards in protecting the caravan, at least until we reach our destination. This is fair, yes?” he said, looking at each of us for agreement.

“Those sound like fair terms,” I stated neutrally, for further explanation. Four silver pieces for the ‘fee’ was not an inconsiderable sum.

He must have taken my response for a yes, as his equine features turned into an approximation of a human smile, “Well, with you lending us your strength the long journey ahead should not be overly-onerous. Once we have waited out the rains on the Rump, the journey should take about three passings of the moon. Save for a few wild beasts, there should be little trouble for a large group such as ours. You would do well to talk with my Guard Master Khalam. Oh, and as well as waiving the fee, I will pay you from the second moon a small stipend for your services. Two silvers…” he offered, rubbing his hands together unconsciously before Larynda, of all people, stopped him.

“Three, each, cos’ he can use magic and so can I,” she blurted, causing my heart rate to skyrocket and Harevor’s eyes to narrow in shrewd calculation. I itched to smack her around the head for her little blunder.

“Just so, those are the rates for ones who are gifted by Mana,” he said bowing his head, his horsey features growing unreadable for a moment.

Having the pace of the negotiation forced by a child stuck in my craw a little, but it was sweetened a little by the promise of extra silver. In truth, a part of me was craving to make a new kill, gain more experience, and add to my strength. Being an escort for the train would perhaps allow for this.

While these thoughts played out in my mind, the paranoia within me whispered that there was truth expertly woven into his lies, that there was more to this story than what he had let on. Still, he would be a font of information.

With that in mind, Kidu and I continued to question him about the journey, and it was enlightening, to say the least. The wild man was more interested in the beasts that populated the Whispering Wastes. How the desperate things could sense the presence of moisture or how they hunted by the feel of vibrations through the shifting sands. Laes, eager to educate, named many animals that made the deep Wastes their home, beasts great and small preying upon each other, and the desperate caravans that made to cross out of season.

Laes once again talked of the great worms, the ‘Guardians’ of the desert Wastes that limited travel to the city of Al-Lazar. Though many did try to brave the Wastes throughout the year, lured by the promise of easy gold, every crossing was a gamble. The worms, although rare in the vast expanse, fear only one thing - running water, an almost non-existent commodity in the desert, except for one time of the year after the Weeping.

“…with the birth of the river, worm attacks are rare but they still do happen. To date, no one has divined the rhyme or reason as to why they attack, only that the water of the Green Road acts as a sort of deterrent. Some of the rare few who survive such attacks claim that they were as large as ships, and other more fanciful accounts say that they dwarf whole cities. What was common, by all accounts, was they were spined and spiked along their humongous, segmented bodies. The Guardians of the deep places of the Wastes can launch their very spines, like ballista bolts, a great distance at the trespassers of their realm. Very few who encounter the worms survive. I will say again, a journey such as this is nothing more than a gamble. A good gamble, with better odds than any other time of the year, but still a gamble nonetheless,” he confessed to us.

Unlike Kidu, who asked almost exclusively about the wildlife we might encounter, I focused my questions on Al-Lazar, on its language, customs, and history. Thankfully, I would not have to learn yet another language, as the locals there spoke the common Lingua Franca, alongside the local language of High Quassian. The caravan master’s explanation was brief, more in the line of general knowledge and experience rather than a scholarly understanding of the city. Still, Laes, being a well-traveled and educated man, was a treasure trove of information.

The city of Al-Lazar was the home of a great Alchemical industry, centered around the harvest of Dust, the pollen harvested from the fleshy blooms of the large indigenous plants that grew only along the shoreline near the city. The plant itself was, according to Laes, a sort of terrestrial seaweed, having roots in the saltwater, but its leaves and flowers on the desert shore. Attempts had been made in the past, at great cost by rival cities and envious merchants, to transplant the plants, but all had met with failure.

Dust itself, when taken in its purest and most refined form, was a soporific drug that gave the user lucid long dreams that they could fully control. Immediately, I could see the allure of such a potent narcotic. For a narcotic it was, and I imagined it to be a form of virtual reality, far removed from the technical limitations of my own world. According to the caravan master, in time one would grow both a crippling physical and psychological dependency on the substance. Users of the drug would soon find the appeal of the real world altogether dull in comparison to the given dreams, in which one could live out their ultimate fantasies.

Some of the richest in the city had lived their whole lives only in their own minds, their sleeping bodies attended to by mages and alchemists. It is said one of the richest patriarchs of one of the mercantile houses, upon waking from a Dust dream, had cried tears of loss. So desperate was he to enter once more into the realm of dreams, that he screamed at his attendants, threatening to have them all hanged if they did not bring him more of the substance, even as his once-proud house was ground into dust by his feckless heirs.

The workers of the Dust fields, sickly things responsible for the harvest, were paid next to nothing. They were willing to work long hours for just a chance to catch a fleeting dream when they turned in to rest. A parting gift from a whiff of unrefined pollen.

The governance of the city itself was ruled over by a council made from the heads of the eight mercantile houses that had founded the city. These eight houses had grown Al-Lazar from its humble beginnings as a small port into one the greatest trading destinations in the world. There was a legend that the founding members of the merchant houses had originally been a group of slaves, fleeing from their masters across the Wastes. It was said, for this reason, that slavery was banned and their new home was declared a ‘Free City.’

The crime of bringing a slave within the walls was punishable by death.

In the past, great armies had tried to cross the Whispering Wastes, to conquer the city of the fabled Dust. They left great water caches in the desert, building upon them with each passing year, penetrating a little further into the Wastes, at exorbitant cost to the colleges of magic. They had all been met by the great worms. Negotiating for rights of passage with the Tides, small armies had even tried to make their way along the green road, a river that cut through the desert to the city Al-Lazar, which appears only once a year. They, too, had fallen prey to the great worms, their presence an affront to the monsters who usually feared running water.

The powers outside of the Whispering Wastes had to resort to simple infiltration, corruption, and bribery, as they sought to influence the decisions and governance of the eight houses. This was no easy thing, as the city spent an exorbitant amount of money on its own security, embroiled as they were in a different sort of war. The war against the sea.

It was said in the ancient texts that Al-Lazar once enjoyed peace with the sea, for indeed that was how it had initially grown into a port city. However, for reasons unknown, the armies of the eight houses of Al-Lazar have fought a perennial war against the Mer, the people of the deep places, for many generations. With the Mer blocking the access to the port, no ships have sailed to Al-Lazar now for nearly a decade.

Yet this has only slowed, not stopped, trade to Al-Lazar. Lured by the promise of the Dust, small parties still cross the dangerous wastes, gambling that they will not draw the notice of the colossal desert worms. After the Weeping and the appearance of the green road, a stream of caravans flows every year into the city, eager to make a profit.

Despite the people of the sands and the sea being in a state of perpetual war with each other, the city still maintains all the trappings and luxuries of a large population center. Various guilds have based themselves in Al-Lazar, and it is a flourishing center of culture for the continent. Many of the greatest musicians, artists, authors, poets, and philosophers have made Al-Lazar their home, for all of them draw upon the inspiration that only Dust can give. For Dust also grants gifts of insight to the magically-inclined, and many of the new spells and ways of harnessing Mana have come from the city of Dust.

The coastal city has high walls to protect its citizens from the amphibious raids of the Mer. Stationed upon these walls are some of the best mercenaries and seasoned guards that the promise of gold can buy. To add to these formidable defenses, both the Adventurer’s Guild and the Mercenaries Guild have a rival presence within the city, and regularly take contracts and requests to deal with the Mer.

However, it is when the tides ebb at their lowest that the aggression of the Mer reaches a frenzied crescendo. The shallow waters of the sea recede to reveal the remains of an ancient underwater city, which is their spawning ground. It is then that the eight houses are finally able to strike back, but always they are met with the berserker rage of the sea folk, for this is when they are at their most dangerous.

It was a lot of information to digest, and I had to pause many times to confirm a point or to ask for extra detail. Thankfully, Laes was all too accommodating, though he could not answer all of my questions. Kidu, too, was unnaturally vocal, his eyes lighting up whenever Laes described a new animal, and his questions usually focused on how to hunt such a creature. Larynda, on the other hand, was subdued, the mention of her former master Hamsa casting a pall over her spirits.

Suddenly the wagon stopped, and Laes cried out, asking what had happened. Once he received his answer, he shouted back to the driver through the open window, before looking at me and smiling.

“It seems that fortune has favored our journey. Perhaps one of you has brought a little luck with them! We are about to witness an auspicious and lucky sign,” he cried out, his face creating a rough facsimile of childish glee.

Despite his obvious joy, I found my hand reaching for the heavy flail at my hip.