3The Rivalries
Salem and I didn't speak to each other during the trip to Kaspin. It took us several days to get there, and the entire time we were crammed into confined spaces together, but that didn't mean we had to communicate. In fact, all it meant was that we had to make a bigger show of ignoring each other.
I didn't know what he said to his wife before he left, but I did know that she was crying by the time we were walking out the door. Bawling, actually. I tried not to make eye contact with the clearly distraught woman, feeling she would know that I had everything to do with Salem's departure, and not wanting to see the resentment in her eyes—mostly because I knew exactly how she felt when it came to Salem being taken away…considering she was the cause, in my case. I noticed, with a sharp pang in my heart, that the pair of them still wore wedding bands. He hadn't broken it off altogether, and I cursed him for it—for more than one reason.
It was awkward, to say the least—making our way around Kaspin to find Calen without speaking to each other wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do. We looked everywhere we could think to look before making our way to the south-western coast, where we knew Calen had to be. A great battle had been fought there, once, during our first round of glory days. Jylica, the Deer, had died there. We were close, as with all of the Ailonn, but we had never had anything particularly special between us. That hadn't really taken the sting out of her death all those years ago, however, and I remembered her pretty face and soft voice with stunning clarity as we took in the old battlegrounds. Where once there had been clear beach and forest, there was now a large town, which seemed to be largely supported by travelers. Kaspin had many fine ports due to its prime location in the middle of the Aiadem, and thus any town that was built there was fated for success. Salem and I avoided the subject of our past, though, and continued to ignore each other for awhile.
I was forced to say something when I finally spotted Calen lounging against an outdoor bar, drinking one of Kaspin's many island-style concoctions and flirting with several girls at once. While he wasn't quite at the level of Hadrian and Salem, I will admit that Calen was still ridiculously attractive. He had piercing, wolfish eyes that made him seem as though he had a lot more substance than he let on, and a sly sort of grin that made you want to agree with everything he said, no matter what that happened to be—and believe me when I say that Calen came out with some rather idiotic comments, sometimes.
"I found him," I said, pointing the Wolf out to Salem. I almost considered calling a truce before we picked him up and lost our privacy, but when Salem started walking toward him without a second thought, I abandoned the idea and once again steeled my face to an annoyed and disdainful mask.
Before Salem could reach him, I called out, "Calen!" And walked up ahead of him.
Obviously not recognizing my voice, he turned from his flock of admirers with a grin on his face, doubtlessly expecting me to be another addition to the group. The second he laid eyes on me, his jaw dropped, and a disappointed look took over his face.
"I think it's time you go," he said to the girls. "Duty calls, and all. I'll see you all around, aye?"
They shrugged unhappily, but obeyed orders, turning back to wave at him every few steps as they went.
"Alright, what do you two want?" Calen asked dejectedly, taking another sip of his brightly-colored drink.
"Well I was just in Asper, you know, and from all the way over there I got this feeling, almost like…like…"
Calen gave the Dragon an odd look. "Like what?"
"Almost like I knew you were drinking the most feminine, girly drink ever created, and if I didn't get over here quickly, I might miss a prime chance to mock you."
Those wolfish eyes of his narrowed, but it was only a moment before he broke out into a laugh, and hugged us both. "Let's have a drink and celebrate, before you two let me in on whatever awful thing has happened to bring you here, and completely ruin this reunion for me."
"Alright, but you're going to have to hear it sooner or later," I said darkly, before turning to the bartender and calling for three of the best drinks he could give us that weren't pink.
Calen, as dearly as I loved him, had always put me on edge. His blithe attitude and apparently candid nature, although in a way refreshing, were strange to me. You could always count on him for a joke, which was more than I could say for any of the other Ailonn, and to some, that might seem to be a redeeming quality. To me, it was almost as if that trait marked a fault in his character. People often use humor as a veil to keep insecurities and undesirable characteristics hidden from those around them—so what does that say about those who seem to be able to take nothing seriously?
That was far from my mind, though, as we sat down in the warm sun and sipped at our drinks for a minute or two.
"Well, I suppose that's enough light-heartedness for one day, isn't it?" Salem sighed, then bluntly said, "Luka has been murdered."
Calen simply took another sip from the iced beverage that sat in front of him, and looked at us as though there should be more to tell.
"…That's all you have to say?" Salem and I spoke in unison, slightly outraged at his dispassion.
"I didn't say anything," he shrugged.
"Exactly!" I scowled at him. "If everyone was going to point fingers toward the most soulless one in the group, I have a feeling they would all fall on me, and even I was torn up when I heard he was dead, Calen."
I frowned when I noticed how many people had begun to stare at us. The Ailonn tend to attract attention from the general public whether or not we try, and shouting at each other in the open probably wasn't one of my more clever ideas.
"We should go somewhere else to talk. Calen, lead the way," Salem said calmly.
"Where? Oh, to my house…that would probably be a good idea," he said, leaving money on the table for the drinks and motioning for us to follow him as he stood and walked off.
"I propose a temporary truce, until we actually work this out."
I looked toward Salem with surprise, not expecting him to back down first. "You have changed since I last saw you," I said.
He held out his hand in response, and I took it firmly.
"I accept the truce, under the condition that you recognize this is not a submission on my part, and that I am still angry."
"Recognized," he said.
Together we turned to follow Calen, who clearly didn't care enough about whether or not we followed him to stop and check back as he made his way through the city with a carefree look on his face. I was beginning to become very disappointed with him as my friend right then.
It was not so long before we came to Calen's house. It was rather small, at which I was slightly taken aback. Calen, much like the other Ailonn males—with the sole exception of Julian, the Hawk, was perhaps a bit of a show-off. His house clearly did not reflect his personality, the way Salem's did; nor did his choice of location, as with Hadrian. He lived in a rather simple town, in a rather simple house, and to top it all off, this brought my attention to the fact that he was indeed wearing rather simple clothing.
"I wonder, has everyone changed the way the pair of you has?" I hushed, not entirely meaning them to hear it. Calen didn't—he didn't care enough to hear, most likely. Salem, on the other hand, stopped dead in his tracks and gave me a strange look.
"And I wonder, has it occurred to you that you aren't immune to the effects of time, either?" I wasn't exactly sure what he meant by it, but I took it as a sort of veiled insult and walked past him quickly, following Calen's path inside.
Once I was actually in Calen's house, it dawned on me why he had such a small abode.
With less space to manage, you can make sure to drown every inch of the place in fineries, if you are so inclined. Ornate lanterns hung in every corner; grand tapestries and lengths of expensive red silk covered the walls; thick, lush carpets woven with painstaking detail were beneath our feet; and metal-cast statues of every size stood guarding the place, taking the shape of various ferocious-looking mythological creatures. It was the grandest place I'd ever seen, and it was half the size of any house I'd ever lived in.
"Do you like your house being this cluttered, Wolf?" Salem raised an eyebrow as he stepped in behind me. "It looks like an entire gypsy caravan stopped over and paid you for the stay in things."
The Wolf just shrugged him off. "I never said you had to come in here, Dragon." There was a spiteful ring in the way he said "dragon". Calen had never been fond of the way Salem and Hadrian become the unofficial leaders of the Ailonn, and he took Salem's use of his "lesser" title at the end of the question as an assertion of power. Wolves are strong and noble animals, it's true, but you cannot reasonably compare them to the likes of a dragon or phoenix, and this is an obvious fact. I said nothing, but he turned to look at me nonetheless. "You, either, since I know you'll side with him, same as always." The look he shot me wasn't one of resentment or annoyance, surprisingly. It seemed something more akin to…sorrow?
"Don't be an idiot, Calen."
"I just don't like to be looked down on," he said. "I didn't expect it so soon after we all met up again."
"I didn't mean it that way," Salem said. He had never been in the wrong, and I was surprised that he backed down. I'd never seen Salem back down before in his life. The look he gave me told me that it was a one-shot, though, and that I wouldn't see him do it again for a very long time.
"Oh, I suppose you think you're such a big man, now, Salem? Apologizing to your hysterical friend?" Calen glared.
"No, I think I'm a big man because I moved far away from the place where my friends were slaughtered," he replied, his eyes taking on an old spirit that I was glad to see in him. "How can you get up every morning, living in this accursed place, Calen? Does it not eat away at you that you stand, even right this very moment, on ground where our comrades fell one after the other until an entire army of our people had been wiped out? Have you no soul?"
"No," he said quietly, "perhaps I do not, for it's no burden on my heart."
Neither Salem nor myself had anything to say to that. I was too horrified. I could barely even tolerate being on the island, let alone on the battlegrounds, where Calen's house was located.
"I think we should go to bed," I said, breaking the silence forcefully. "We could all use the night to cool off, and we'll be leaving for Banvin early tomorrow morning."
The other two agreed, so Calen showed Salem and I to our rooms.
Long after we were supposed to have gone to sleep, I was shortly awoken by a sound coming from one of the rooms next to me. With Calen on one side and Salem on the other, it was hard to discern who, exactly, had interrupted my dreams.
It wasn't hard to tell what the noise was, though.
Crying.
The ship we had procured to take us to Unavere was swift, and it wasn't all that many days before we docked on the coast, in a tiny town right at the mouth of the river Helia. There, we transferred onto a smaller river-craft, and set off towards Banvin. It was slow going, seeing as we were running upriver the whole way, but eventually we stopped in the small port that was just west of Banvin. Salem paid the fare for all three of us, and we set on our way. The Ailonn weren't in the habit of carrying supplies unless absolutely necessary, so we had nothing to haul along on the trip. It was only a few hours' walk to the city, but even then a pack would have been inconvenient.
"So," I said as we walked, purely for the sake of talking, "what have you been doing with yourself all this time, Calen?" The silences between us were rarely awkward, but if things had gone on they way they were, "awkward" would have been a very accurate description.
He shrugged, smiling. "Now that we've taken up the sword again, I'm not even sure what I was doing for all of those long years. It doesn't seem real…It seems like yesterday that we all saw each other last. I don't really know how to explain it…"
"No need," said Salem. "I think we all know exactly what you're talking about."
The forest wasn't silent around us. As if to fill the gaps in our conversation, or perhaps in our friendship, a soft wind sent the leaves rustling. From somewhere off in the distance came to our ears the harsh cry of a rook. The sound had all three of us lost, somehow—as if that one sharp caw had stunned our whole trio. We stopped walking to look through the trees in the direction it had come from, but clearly the bird was far out of sight. When I realized how ridiculous we were being, I laughed aloud.
"You'd think we were expecting the apocalypse or something, the way we're all acting." I laughed quietly, but when the other two didn't laugh along with me, I fell silent.
"Adra…we are expecting the apocalypse. Or, at least, the end of the world as we know it. If we can't deal with Ammahl now, when can we? He won't be driven back again. I guarantee you things won't be so easy as they were the last time." Salem said. The intense look he was giving sent a chill down my spine—and not in the way those dark eyes of his usually did.
"Easy?" Calen gaped. "Half of the Ailonn were killed trying to rid the world of him, and we still couldn't get the job done properly!"
"I don't expect to live through this," Salem shrugged. "I don't expect any of us will. We are not a natural occurrence, and I believe that the world will work against us, to restore the balance we upset upon our creation. All I hope is that we finish Ammahl before we go down."
Silence again. The rook squawked once more, louder this time, as if it had moved closer. In the same way that it had spawned the strangely fatalistic outburst, it marked the end of that particular train of thought. There was a clear change in everyone's demeanor, particularly Salem's. Upon hearing the sound, he fell back into his far more natural, overconfident, nearly-egotistical self, and I was relieved. I had never been able to deal well with changes in the Dragon. He was always such a dependable constant that I found it profoundly disturbing when his personality became in any way different.
Without a word between us, we started walking again, and perhaps a bit quicker than before.
"So, how lo—" Calen was cut short as a dozen strangely-uniformed bandits appeared around us. "Who else finds it embarrassing that we didn't hear them sneak up on us?" He sighed.
Salem and I raised our hands.
"That's what I thought," he said.
They were dressed head-to-toe in dark, earthy colors, but for the sashes they tied around their waists, which were a pure and deep gold. Long scarves were wrapped around their heads, so as to cover their faces, and at first I thought that they must have been brigands from Vedrak, but a closer look showed pale skin and eyes where the cloth didn't cover to allow sight. The Vedraki were all of dark coloring, and thus I could not figure out what a group such as this could be doing in attire so similar to that of the desert-dwellers. All twelve carried the curved Vedraki sabers, on top of it all.
"Strange," Salem said quietly, as he took in the sight of them.
I nodded, just as one of them began to speak. The sound was somewhat muffled due to the fact that his mouth was covered, but we could all hear clearly enough.
"We bear a message," he said.
"I don't think you want to get involved with us," Calen said. "And I don't think you fully comprehend who we are."
"We know exactly who you are, you unnatural, bloodthirsty creature," said another of the group, and this time I wasn't exactly sure which one of them had spoken, or whether it was a man or a woman.
"Then you know that six of you aren't going to do any real damage, don't you?" Salem drawled.
"We have our orders," the first one replied. There was a distinct quiver in his voice—they had clearly been trained to believe that we were nothing more than vicious monsters, and had thus been prepared for a suicide mission.
It would be stupid to kill them; they had probably been misled by some organization or leader who had roped them in.
"Let them live," Salem said, just as I was about to open my mouth to say the same thing. I nodded in assent, and we both glanced over toward Calen.
The Wolf had a dangerous glint in his eyes that told me he hadn't seen any action in awhile, but that he had clearly not forgotten the rush of battle. He was not going to go easy on this group, no matter what we said.
"If we need to step in and control you, Calen, you won't like the consequences," Salem hissed under his breath. "Leave them as unharmed as possible, do you understand? Show them mercy, and we may be on our way to gaining allies."
"Or at least weakening their faith in their leader," I added.
He cast us a sidelong glance of resent, but nodded.
"Your message?" I asked loudly of the group that surrounded us.
They drew their swords as the first one spoke again. "We are messengers from the Basholt Peace Alliance. We have come to stop you from reaching the Council, and starting a war that will tear our world apart."
The twelve of them rushed us, then. We were without weapons, but that was of little consequence. I had fought many times with nothing but my bear hands—in some cases, I would even go as far as to say that I preferred it. You never had to worry about slicing yourself open or cutting up the wrong team member. The worst mistake you could make was to throw a wild punch, and it wasn't as if a fellow member of the Ailonn would fall under the force of a single blow.
"It's not like we can avoid this, you know," I said, hoping that one of my attackers was listening, at the very least. "Do you think we want to step up blindly to face an opponent who will most likely kill us in the end, anyway?" I tried to stay on the defensive, sliding around attacks as best I could.
"Sweet words from a pretty face," one of them said, "But we know what you're like underneath it all."
A slash came for my stomach, but I leapt back, just as the blade flew past a hairsbreadth from me.
"Honestly, you seem like good people—can you not understand that Ammahl is evil? He is out to enslave us all, and kill those who will not bend to his will. He was Beosahivet's closest advisor and second-in-command! He fights with the power of a god, and all the malice thereof."
I managed to knock the saber from the hand of one of the Alliance members, and kicked the blade away from the melee, into the underbrush. I continued to dodge attacks, trying to block out the movements of Salem and Calen. The last thing I needed was distractions.
"What we understand is that Ammahl is merely different than us all. Different the way you are different! He needs only to be reasoned with. He comes from a different place and a different time; he does not understand what he is doing. Violence is not the way to deal with him." This came from one that I hadn't heard before—a female, I thought.
"Do you not see the hypocrisy in that?!" I barked, before calming myself down to a more reasonable tone. "If we are on par with Ammahl—and it disgusts me to entertain that theory for even a moment—and you say that he shouldn't be dealt with in a violent way, but instead with reason…Why is it then okay to attack us? Are you telling me you don't see a serious flaw there?" I ducked out of the way of a blow that had been intended for my head.
"As soon as we saw you, and the way you responded to us, we knew you wouldn't listen to reason. Besides, it's well known that the Ailonn are rash and impulsive creatures. It is said that you didn't even try to come to peace with Ammahl in the last war."
I didn't even care which one of them had said it. I took a frustrated swing in the direction I thought the words had come from, and knocked one of them to the ground. "Forgive me," I growled, "if I found it hard to negotiate with someone who had my friends killed brutally, and who had made countless attempts on my life. Please, have mercy on my soul, for I cannot bring myself to give up the hate I have for a monster such as Ammahl! I have stared that creature in the face on more than one occasion—creature, for little can he be called a man by those who know him. There is nothing begging for redemption behind those eyes."
"Evil is only a creation of the human mind," one man said.
I gritted my teeth and, despite a good attempt made by my conscience to stop me, kicked him in the face.
"We have powerful supporters," the taller of the remaining two laughed. "Even if you kill all of us, even if you kill a thousand of us, you will still be stopped."
"See, that's the thing, we aren't going to kill you," I muttered. "We're not exactly crazy enough for that."
Suddenly there was a strange commotion over where Calen was, and a loud sort of a gasp. Salem was closer to the Wolf than I, and let out a curse when he saw what had happened. It didn't take me long to figure out what had gone on once I'd caught sight of the Alliance member laying lifeless on the ground, and the creature beside him.
"Calen…" I sighed.
It is a gift of ours, however rarely used, to take on characteristics from our namesakes. Calen sat in such a form, hunched over the man he had just killed, looking a bit like a werewolf only half-transformed. With long, sharp canines, clawed hands, pointed ears, and bristling fur, he was nothing short of a fearsome sight to behold. Blood covered his muzzle, and he had a shallow gash across his back. He had obviously let his guard down and taken a hit, and after so many years of building tension, been unable to control himself. He had ripped the throat out of the man who had cut him.
At the sight of Salem and I standing there, giving him such disappointed looks, Calen returned to his former self and attempted to wipe the blood from his face.
"I…oh, shit," he muttered. "Sorry."
Those from the Alliance who remained standing looked as though they would be sick. If I hadn't felt so bad about one of them getting themselves killed, I would probably have laughed. Obviously however prepared they thought they were, they were still years beyond being able to effectively deal with actual death.
"Get out of here!" I told them. "It was an accident. That's what happens when you point swords in the wrong direction—people die. Cut your losses and go home, before anyone else gets killed."
As they carried their fallen—including the man Calen had slaughtered—away with them, they cursed us and our creators.
"You are poison," they said. "You will be the end of our world!"
I had nothing to say to that. I shook my head at the pool of blood on the forest floor that was left in the wake of the battle. "It was a completely unnecessary death," I said. "Calen, you need to learn to bloody well control yourself! They were human, and badly trained at that. If you really thought you had to kill him, you could have done it with a clean blow to the head, not…that." I gestured toward the crimson foliage.
"I panicked, ok? It's embarrassing that I had such a response to one tiny little scratch. Just let it go."
Salem and I exchanged a look, but said nothing more on the subject. We would have to talk later.
"It doesn't matter," I said. "Let's just go and meet the others, ok? I wonder if they've had any trouble."
"I really didn't mean to," Calen muttered, stepping right on top of the blood stain as we moved to continue on our way.
Banvin was a small city, by Unavere standards, but it was situated over a picturesque lake—Lake Demaska—that attracted many travelers. It was thus the perfect place for a rather shifty group such as ourselves to congregate. We entered the city cloaked and unassuming, and because of the desensitization to strange faces, no one would think to question us in any tavern, inn or bar that we walked into.
After we'd gotten something to eat, the three of us split up to check around for any news of our comrades. It didn't take long for Salem to run into Hadrian—the two of them had an odd way of finding each other, and apparently things hadn't changed since the old times. The strange thing about Salem and Hadrian was that they were even more brilliant enemies than they were friends; everything failed at keeping them apart, but nothing could keep them together, either. Once the pair of them had met up, they found the rest of us fairly easily. Julian and Isabelle had also been out looking, but somehow we all found our way to the main street, Asher Street, and caught sight of each other.
It was Julian who I saw first, and I made my way to him quickly. "Hawk, you're sure easy on my eyes after so long," I said, hugging him.
"You've always been easy on my eyes," he laughed, returning the gesture wholeheartedly.
The others gathered around us shortly, and enthusiastic greetings were exchanged.
"We should go somewhere more private," Salem said logically, and everyone nodded in assent. If we stayed in town, there was a chance we would be overheard, and even in the best-case scenario of being heard by someone who hadn't been employed to trail us, things would only go badly once it started to get around that Ammahl was back.
The six of us headed out of town, for Lake Demaska. Out in the wilderness we could be assured at least some level of security, which was more than we could say for the city.
Demaska wasn't enormous as far as lakes go, but it was exceptional in its beauty. The glittering, clear-as-glass water had not a ripple upon it that day, and it was surrounded by the same lush forest that covered most of Unavere. Hills so high they could nearly be counted as mountains rose up on three sides. The beach was made up of round, fist-sized stones, in varying shades of sparkling grey and sandy brown; trees of many a sort lined the beach—even a few great weeping willows dipped their trailing branches in the water. It was no wonder the place attracted visitors from far and wide.
We picked a shaded spot underneath one of the aforementioned willow trees to set ourselves down and talk. The branches provided a sort of cover for the six of us, which, we supposed, was better than nothing. Salem and Hadrian refused to sit, though, and stood over us while we conversed.
"So what's wrong?" Isabelle asked quietly. Obviously Hadrian hadn't told them of Luka's untimely death.
Salem and Hadrian exchanged a look, before turning to me. "Adra," Hadrian said, "I think you can take this."
I nodded and said bluntly, "Luka has been killed." There was a pause as Julian and Isabelle processed this, before I continued. "Which means that we have to go before the Council again. Ammahl is back."
Isabelle's fair face dropped, and she opened her mouth as though she had something to say. Within a moment she had closed it again, though, and sat in silence. Her white-blonde hair stirred in a slight breeze, but other than that, she was motionless.
"How can you be sure it was Ammahl?" Julian asked weakly, despite the fact that he knew the truth all the same as the rest of us.
"Luka…was tortured to death," I said quietly, "and they found Hadrian's wings burned into his back. The guards who came after me told me it looked as if they'd been put there a good while before he died. This wasn't random. Ammahl killed Luka, and he probably picked Luka with good reason. That's one thing we should probably all think about, if we have to think about it at all. Why would he choose Luka over the rest of us?"
"Perhaps one of his men just happened upon Luka, and recognized him for who he was. Maybe he honestly didn't know where the rest of us were," Calen offered.
"It's a possibility, I suppose, but why now? Why not wait to see if Luka could lead him to all of us? He didn't know about our pact to stay apart." Julian kept his eyes on the ground as he spoke, clearly trying to process things. His light brown eyes were full of thought, and his mouth was drawn into a thin line.
"Ammahl wouldn't have killed him straight off, he's smarter than that. He probably did wait to see if Luka would point the way to the rest of us, but after awhile it was probably clear to him that that wouldn't happen. Who knows how long since Ammahl woke up? Maybe he's already been back around for a year, for a decade! I don't think he would have acted so quickly as to just finish Luka off as soon as he found him," the Wolf countered with a frown. "We're not messing with a child here, I think we're all aware of that fact. Ammahl thinks things through."
"Yes, and maybe he thought it through for all of half a day before he realized that he could not only get rid of one of the Ailonn, but lure us all out of hiding in one fell swoop if he took Luka out of the picture, and made sure we all knew who did it. Why would he want to make it so obvious to us that he was back if not to get us to all be linked back to each other, the way we were in the old days? We were all completely oblivious to him before this—he could have carried out all of his movements without suspicion. Even if intelligence reports had come to the Council that hinted at his actions, they wouldn't have been able to put it all together. They can barely put one and one together, let alone the plans of one so great as Ammahl," I theorized. Truthfully I wasn't going to put any real stock in any of our musings thus far, but I thought that stirring a debate would be good for the group.
"Maybe he didn't want to keep his actions covered because he's already set things too far in motion for us to be a real threat anymore. It's possible that he's got everything set up for his takeover, and now he's just got to pick us off or lure us out or whatever it is, and he's home free. The Council wouldn't make another group of our kind—I doubt that's even possible. I think some of them are still recovering from the effects of creating us," Hadrian said. "We could be too late."
Calen spoke again, then, with a strong conviction. "Ah! Maybe it wasn't Ammahl who did it at all! I know, I know, the wings, the…everything. Maybe, just maybe, someone else wants Ammahl gone, found out about his return, and went for one of the Ailonn in hopes that we would do exactly what we're doing—gather up and start planning a counter-attack on Ammahl…"
"Even if that's true, it doesn't make much of a difference. Ammahl is back either way, and we need to deal with him." Julian sighed and lifted his eyes from the forest floor to meet Calen's. "It's an interesting thought, though…and a dangerous one. I think we should all take it to heart and keep on the lookout for anything suspicious that doesn't seem to match up to Ammahl."
There was silence as everyone thought about Calen's comment. Someone who wanted to oust Ammahl and use us to do it? That would be a grand manipulation, indeed. It was a disturbing thought…someone worse that Ammahl could simply not exist. It wasn't possible. But…but if it was, and there was, our job would be a terrible one. Defeat Ammahl and fulfill our life's purpose, and play right into the hands of an even greater enemy? It was an absolute nightmare. Not only that, but we would doubtlessly be exhausted and greatly weakened once we had finished him off; we would be nothing short of easy pickings.
After a moment of silence, Isabelle said, "We should keep our eyes open, but there is little else we can do. We have to continue on with our task, no matter what may wait at the end of it—whether our path leads to freedom or death is of little consequence; it is a path we must walk either way."
We all nodded, and Salem took the opportunity to speak.
"Now the question comes—what do we tell the Council?"
"Ugh, do we have to tell them anything? Really, do we even have to go see them? I don't see the point. They have no control over us, really! Why do we even listen to them? Report to them? Acknowledge their existence? We can do everything on our own. What are they going to do, un-create us?" Calen said angrily.
"That's a good question," I sighed. "Why do we take orders from them? Have they ever once exercised control over us using anything but authority?"
"I'm not naïve enough to think that they have that much faith in our obedience. Surely they have some other method of dominance over us than their original bindings, it's just that up until this point I don't think any of us have ever openly gone against them, right? They've had no need to do anything," Julian said.
"But then…if they had the ability to do something to us, why wouldn't they have flexed their muscles a bit early on, so we would never even be tempted to rebel?" Calen asked, standing up dramatically.
"You have to understand, Calen, that they don't think we have any emotions whatsoever. Rebellion, defiance…those aren't the actions of creatures who, for all intents and purposes, have no free will. They've had no reason to exert their power because we've given them no reason to imply that it's necessary. Besides, even if they do suspect us of being less servile than intended, showing us what they could do would work against them. In general, I think they want to keep us placated—tightening the noose on us when they had no reason to would only cause us to resent and question them, and they know that. I know, I know, sometimes I get thinking of what it would be like not to have to answer to them, too, but it's really not a feasible option at this point. The Council created us! They are no small intellects. We all get it in our heads like we're invincible, but we're not, and if anyone knows how to hit us where it hurts, it would be our creators." Hadrian was only saying what we already knew, but putting it all out there like that really seemed to draw down our hopes.
"Besides that," Salem added, "there is the whole factor of resources. The Council has connections everywhere—they can get us shipped around anywhere we need to go, they can supply us with weapons, they have intelligence networks, they can get us food and places to stay…It's not as if we can get things for ourselves all that easily without using force, and that would only turn people against us, which is the last thing we need. Quite frankly, the Council is a valuable tool in a war where time is of the essence."
Calen nodded dejectedly in agreement, and ran his hands through his hair.
"All of that said, we still need a good story to tell them," Hadrian said.
"I say we keep it simple. Liars are always going into too much detail when it comes to alibis. It's usually their downfall—offering up answers before the questions have been asked is suspicious," Julian said as he motioned the other three to sit down and relax.
Salem sat down between Isabelle and I. "Fair enough, but we have to have things thought out nonetheless. I think it would be more suspicious to have nothing to say when they asked us about things."
"Ok, enough! We're telling them the truth—I was confronted by guards from Meles with the information about Luka, I contacted Hadrian and told him to go get Isabelle and Julian, and then I went to find Salem and Calen. We all met up here, and then went straight to them. Now we just need to figure out why we would do something like that…"
"We thought it would be more efficient than going to the Council first," Isabelle said. "We can find each other easier than they can find us, I imagine. Adra, you could say that you thought after this, any of us could have been in immediate danger, and didn't think we should be left alone. You could make the point that three of us would be a lot more difficult to deal with than one, and that six of us would be even better. That makes enough sense to me."
"Good. That just leaves an explanation as to why Adra came to find me in Basholt instead of just sending me a letter…I wasn't the closest, after all." Hadrian had effectively broken the truce that Salem and I had agreed to with that one sentence. I kept my face impassive, and didn't look at Salem. There was no point—he would be angry, I didn't need to see him to know that.
"No, that's obvious," Julian waved him off. "It's because Luka had your wings burned into his body when they found him. Ammahl was practically signing your death warrant—he was calling you on. Adra had to come find you. A letter couldn't be trusted to reach you in time."
"That actually was the reason," I shrugged. "We don't even need to lie about that."
"Ok, we're all set," Salem said evenly, without a trace of emotion in his voice. "We'll stay the night in Banvin, and then head for Meles tomorrow morning."
We all nodded in assent and stood to leave. Salem walked in front, with Hadrian, and I lagged to the back beside Julian. It would be a long few days before I could sort things out with Salem, and I intended to at least play down the awkwardness as much as I could.
I sighed, bracing myself for a fight.
(A/N): Right, this brings me to the end of what I've already written, but I'll have more done soon. Writing this is like how writing The Godsend Trilogy was...easy! Haha..yesss...So another update should come by the middle of next week at the very latest. Thanks, and remember to leave me a review!
Up Next: Ch. 3: Conflicting Agendas- Servants of Ammahl show themselves. The Ailonn go before the Council, and are given their orders. Adra and Salem begin a journey to Behelsen that is difficult in more than one way.
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This is one of the best pieces of fiction I've encountered on FictionPress. A really great read, and although the updates usually come about once a month, they're substantial and well worth the wait. Original and very addicting!