Chapter 6 - Part IV

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Then, she had let that seed of hope, of finding kinship grow unchecked. Now, as her cart dragged by the buttes of Mae'elt tau'chuik, she chided herself for that flight of fancy, that somehow she might meet up with her kinfolk, steal away to the Dutchy of Vem and find herself on a ferry to the Outer Crest. With no one to trust at her side, and an uncertain and barely communicable companion in Cedric, she could not hope to survive outside of her path. Gregor's intended destination for her was unavoidable.

Onion, Vren, knew nothing of the Risen Stone Capital, Pho (Capital City) Boteth (Crags), of Heilth. Try as she might, she could learn very little from Cedric in their pidgin conversations. It was not the first time since her encounter with Gregor's allies that this feeling of linguistic frustration would smolder like Toch'vik. Perhaps it was time to learn this mosquito-tongue.

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Gregor had lost his moody silence before Onion's lunch had disappeared from her tray, but he had forgotten nothing of his contempt for the mysterious, cloaked man.

"Stay clear from that thing, if you value a decent life. Nothing good can come from a gegleth." he cautioned, his tongue laced with bitter anger.

"What is this person, a gegleth? I am not familiar with that country." she struggled with the exotic sounding word.

Gregor appeared at a loss for words, as if he struggled to turn raw emotion already digested and accepted as fact in his mind, into some form of verbal communication. Better if he could construct some sort of articulate string of nouns and verbs, but perhaps that was expecting too much.

"Women...," he tried, "are not safe around them. They cannot remain themselves for long." he managed.

Onion sensed the underpinnings of his frustration, or at least she through she did, and she let out a brief, coy chuckle.

"I don't know of what you speak, but do not worry. I am a woman of experience. I can handle myself well enough around the opposite sex." she smiled, hoping to reassure him.

Gregor ceased his brooding as he contemplated the Nü before him. He realized how terribly young she truly was. Physically, she might not be much younger than himself, perhaps she had survived twenty or so high tide seasons. Had she been born in Lithen, and shared his own childhood experiences, she would likely have already brought several new souls to this world at her age.

But Vren was not a continental, as Gregor reminded himself. She still carried the sort of cynical naivety that only one certain of their adulthood could maintain. Even though he knew her hair, short brown and bound in two, was an indication among the Nü of a woman of age, it reminded him much of the little girls and boys he played with during his early years.

Gregor had heard of tales that the southern Nü had unnaturally long lifespans; stories of entire tribes where skilled hunters reached the ages of 80 or 90. Those accepted as elders could live as long as 120, using their long earned wisdom to guide the movements of their kin generations younger. Perhaps, he reasoned, because of this their childhoods were also prolonged.

Chapter 6 - Part III

"Cedric had been important to us for sometime, but we hadn't reached out to him before. We had to see if there would be any problems later on, so I went to him."

"Why?" Onion forced him to cease his monologue, having found interest in only one aspect of it.

"What?" Gregor's eyes re-focused on the brash Nü, as if realizing she was there for the first time.

"Why is Cedric important to you? Why did you help us?"

Gregor had looked taken aback, but he quickly sought refuge from the potentially dangerous question in the sudden appearance of Vaughn. At his side stood an enormous human figure whose cloak hid the entirety of his height.

With Gregor he had been brief, "The arrangements have been made?"

"Yes sir, they leave before nightfall." Gregor responded, his face darkening as he noticed the cloaked figure.

"Good, bring the girl to dress and ensure she is among their number before they depart."

"As you will.", he said curtly, his glare fixated not on his superior, but the man who accompanied him. "What is he doing here" Gregor hissed, his words launching from his lips with intent to pierce the mysterious figure.

A brief moment was all it took for Vaughn to note the object of the younger man's ire. "Do not be a fool boy," he spat, keeping his voice low but his tone intense. "You are bei'thal, not some selfish child. Recollect yourself!" While she was not able to understand his words, Onion was shocked and the power he put behind them. A mighty wave from the ocean, she reflected, smashing mutely upon the porous rocks of a lonely cliff.

"He has done his duty," Vaughn continued, easing his temper some, "and with great skill and honor. It is time for him to return home. He has earned his rest."

Vaughn left no room in his tone for continued discussion, yet Gregor was unable to contain his rage, "Yes, he has earned himself a great reward for his service, a mate." he muttered towards Vaughn, just over his breath to be heard. "And a chance for a brood of his own upon her. A man must satisfy his unholy cravings no matter the cost." The blond man's face flushed beet red with the excitement and the anger of the horde of the Keeper Vera herself. It was all he could do to keep his voice hushed in the back corner of the teahouse.

For his part, the cloaked man had said not a word and Onion never found out who he was. The exchange between Gregor and his superior went untranslated to the golden eyed Nü though the ferocity of the conversation unnerved her. In the short time she had come to know the younger bei'thal, she had not once suspected his heart to contain such poison.

"Yiren made her choice, you must live with that and move on. Put this prejudice behind you or you will be put behind. We've indulged enough of your Nüish obsessions. Understood?"

Beaten, suppressed, but never forgiving, Gregor nodded, muttering obscenities under his breath.
In the space between the the assassination of the conversation and its funeral, Vaughn and his mysterious guest departed as quietly as they had come. Gregor was left to brood in silence while Onion sat in curiosity. She understood nothing of what had transpired, but she had picked up a few words in the parade of sounds. "Nüish", "Yiren" stuck out to her like brilliant stars in the spaces of a confused and cloudy sky.

The name Yiren was a Nüish name, if somewhat out of fashion in the southern reaches of late. Her grandmother's sister had been called Yiren from her nameday until the days before her death, and she was a woman whose kindness had yet to be duplicated on the web of Vren. Perhaps there were those on the continent like herself and her brothers; perhaps other Nü whose restlessness begged a larger web. Perhaps she might find help and direction somewhere in this confused world.

Chapter 6 - Part II

Travels on the road wore on the city-dweller Cedric much more so than the durable Onion, though their pace was slow. Even among hunting parties, the Soa rarely made trips from their mountain villages without their families. The few Soa who engaged in trade with the city were no different, and the children made slow traveling companions.

They still had a few more days to pass through the increasingly dominant buttes to the mountain pass of Eora Swou. Among the other travelers neither Onion nor her companion had been willing to venture anything in Nüish and Onion was confident her accent in pidgin Eirdren would quickly give her away.

Gregor had not been lying about her new role as Gael the leper. To play a more convincing infirm, he had forced her to don heavy wrappings which had the even more important role of covering her distinct bronze Nü skin. Her attire was vexing in the summer heat and to make matters worse, the shabby cart she and Cedric sat in jostled with every pothole and then some.

Before parting ways, Gregor had treated Onion to a meal together and in the dullness of travel, that is what mostly occupied her thoughts. He had not been shy about expressing his extreme dissatisfaction at the idea of leaving the Nü and Cedric without the bei'thal, without a conduit of communication between himself and Onion, but the decision was not his to make. He told her he could only make it up to her by treating her to some decent food before her journey.

"You see this?" he had commented, pointing to the bulgar dish topped with flower stems and thin slices of rein and boar meat, "Cedric can cook up the best tasting parla anywhere in Eirdred. This parla is not terrible, but it is more worthy for the gulls when compared to the parla of that man. While you two are in such close company, make sure that you get him to cook for you as much as possible. Don't let that man's talent go to waste while it is still yours to take advantage."

Not waiting for a response from Onion, he happily delved into chatty banter headless of her interest in it. "That is how I first came to meet Cedric in Eirdred." He paused. Unseen by Onion, he savored the strange flavor of the words "first met", as if he had buried the memory of their true first encounter under the burdens and joys that had accumulated over the years that passed without his friend. It was as if he truly forgot when the world was flat. But he kept those thoughts in the deepest recesses of his mind, and that was neither here nor there anyway.

"I caught him out at the market in the Durendul District. Rel's host overwhelm me if I don't admit they have the best seafood available, imported from the Outer Crest." Gregor resumed his exited small talk, using the Eirdren term for the archipelago Onion called home, as the Nü had no such term for all of the hundreds of islands. Only to mainlanders was she an Outer Crestan. To herself and her kin, she was a Nü first, and a Deezh'ullan second. Never did her loyalties extend beyond that. Nonetheless, she had come to understand the term over the few years she had resided on the continent.

Chapter 6 - Part I

Two days had come and gone before the cusps of the Eirdred city walls had finally sunk into the dawn horizon. Until then, the city had stood vigilant and strong in the hazy surroundings of fields and woods, like a lone, worn molar in the gums of an old man. Long after the clay quarries had dissipated from the river shores, the scent of wet clay still hung on the caravan's clothing as a smooth aftertaste to the metallic smell of the road.

Onion had not initially understood the need for costly mercenary protection in this fairly gentle but increasingly desolate landscape. As the caravan moved further west, trees were rare among the wide open plains. There were few areas of shelter or ambush. Yet as they passed smaller, less armed caravans, light of cargo and bleeding, Onion felt renewed appreciation for the passive deterrence provided by the mercenaries peppered throughout the caravan. For her part, before the end of the six day week of the Chosen's calendar, Onion would begin to appreciate how danger could infest the lands that laid beyond the tendrils of the City of Eirdred.

On Dagleth'ir, the fourth day of knowing, the day of the keeper of Vem, the monotony of the low gradient plains ended violently. Mighty plateaus of earth hammered themselves towards the sky with cake layered lithology of shale and sandstone. The Eirdred of the Chosen Empire, scholars, explorers and cartographers, referred to this land as "The Explosive Might of Rel's Host"; Rel tau'chuik'ahr Mael elt (Rel, outward-forceful/explosion-adjective, Host (in religious terms only), particle for indicating possession by sentence subject) No mapmaker cared that long before the first Eirdren viewed this desolate land and long after the Eirdren were no more the great buttes would be known to the Soa as the "Tables of the Gods", Soasor Rhux.

The increasingly oppressive new summer sun bore upon the flat buttes and the caravan alike, but the space under eroded shale overhangs and between the cracks of stone slabs lived an entirely different world of greenery and shade. Here, the soils were poor and the indigenous peoples of rural Eirdred province had never attempted to master the land with cultivation. Native beasts, such as the horned butter yak served more use for sustenance than the parched grasses that tickled at Onion's feet could ever provide.

Occasionally the caravan would encounter sparse herds of the butter yak, and even more rarely, see evidence of the Soa hunters' successful kill. As a child, Cedric had read in detail about the minor peoples of Eirdred and their cultures. These quasi-nomadic tribes did well to keep their hunting parties away from the roads, or more specifically, away from the foreigners, including denizens of the city. Hundreds of years after the concession of their conquered lands to the administration of Eirdred City, few Soa claimed kinship with their lord. It was difficult for Cedric to imagine how the arm of the Eirdred nobility could ever reach these remote peoples. They lived in the freedom of anonymity and the chaotic stability of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle; a concept that had always scared the poor man to the core.

But the encounters with a herd or the bones of a yak carcass were very limited. For the majority of daylight hours, the land seemed as looming and empty as the sky; perfect conditions for the bandits of infamy. Still, the outlaws made no appearance to the healthy and robust caravan. Instead, Onion felt her bones turn to jelly when a group of Imperial Guards passed the caravan on Rüern'lir. They stopped the travelers and spoke at length with the Soa man Gregor had spoken to days before.

Even at the distance from which the lepers traveled from the main caravan, Onion could hear the Soa man become increasingly ill-tempered and shout angrily at the Guard in thickly accented Eirdren before the armored group laughed and moved on. As they passed her group of sick and pretending to be sick, the some of the Imperial Guards glared disdainfully but most gave them the courtesy of being ignored.

Chapter 5 - Part VII

The crowd floated in no preordained direction; nameless faces tossed about in a turbulent and ever-changing sea. Today, Onion took a measure of comfort from the anonymity but remained at high alert, knowing that the jaguar always took one in the herd of painted rams.

Caravans and their wagons coalesced on the edge of the shanty town and that is where Gregor and Onion made their way. Groups of wéhkàu, great creamy white and brown, leathery bovines with ivory tusks jutting out from their jaws waited patiently by the ceder wrought carts the Soa peoples used to travel from their highland homes to the city periphery to trade. Native to the central plains, the wéhkàu were the only beasts of Eirdred province that could survive in either the lowlands of the coast or the high plateaus in the west while dragging along a family and their cart. They did not thrive in the Soan highlands, but thanks to their use in travel the Soa were rarely seen without them.

The wéhkàu dragged flat beds of hard woven straw on top of the four wheeled wagons lay exposed as their owners loaded up goods and children for the return ride, but thick sheets of wool adorned with long bell chimes awaited to be hoisted upon the square cart frames.

Onion had never seen the high desert dwelling Eirdren folk before, and had she lived in Eirdred City for 10 years she still might not have met one. Gregor, on the other hand, who had made the trip to Heilth and back several times in recent years, often had the opportunity to learn more about the peoples of the lands he traversed. That the peoples of the western part of the province were called Eirdren, citizens under the Red, held not the slightest significance to the thick bodied, leather-faced Soa. Their coarse, black wool hair, worn long and free, flat noses and black, epicanthic folded eyes held little in common Eirdren kindred. Their customs and tongue held even less in common.

Those who followed the paths of the migrating Soa, merchants and travelers headed to Heilth via the way-point Eora Swou, or Runner's Cross, at the crossroads of Soa territory, at the edge of the Chau'chàr desert. Most traveled in their own parties, avoiding the few Soa caravans that left the their homes to sell to lowlanders. They made their own preparations.

Eirdren merchants haggled with small time mercenaries and former GuardHands, trying to secure their products to the next town as cheaply as possible. Lone travelers and small families in turn haggled with the merchants, or if they were very desperate, with the Soa themselves, trying to seek the benefit of protected passage without the price tag of hired muscle.

Gregor and Onion passed a man, pleading with a gem dealer to afford a slot for his sick son and himself with an Eirdren caravan. The man's eyes told Onion that there wasn't much money to spare, and his cause was dire, but the dealer's visage was rock solid. There was no mercy in her eyes.

But not every interaction was doomed to failure. Another man was engaged in negotiations with a flax merchant not far off. The golden face of the old Scholar Emperor Maglen, known as The Merchant, exchanged hands and both men reached for the left shoulder of the other, signaling that a deal had been struck.

Onion was guided further out to the Soa caravans. Here, Eirdren were not to be seen save a few; the destitute and ill who needed to travel but would not be taken in by their countrymen. They passed a couple of Soa wagons, bustling with activity. Gregor had learned a few words in the tongue Sóa'ràu but the tonal language baffled him past light conversation. He doled out greetings to some of the older women who sat, piecing together baskets of flax and wool while they waited. At the sight of the blond man singing their tongue, they flashed a smile rarely shown to outsiders. They responded in kind, shín'shìr, peace and blessings, not once closing their lips on a word. For this reason, Gregor later told Onion, throughout the empire the Soa are known as the people of the open mouth.

"You will travel among these people," Gregor began, "When you leave at nightfall, you will no longer be Vren, you will be Gael, the leper, and you will be traveling with your brother, Leon to seek healing at the University on High.

Be careful. They will not mourn you if you fall behind. They will find no pleasure should trouble befall you, or should you be mugged or raped. But nor will they make much concern. You and Cedric are to stick as closely to them as they will allow, since that is the only way to ward off those who would do you harm."

"Széetù hau" nodded the huge, gruff Soa, as he caught the coin satchel Gregor tossed to him. The man whose wild black beard covered nearly all of his thick torso, offered a wide grin of stout yellow teeth to Onion, who could only begin to wonder where the winds were going to carry her spider next.

Chapter 5 - Part VI

Nonetheless, Onion felt her heart constrict momentarily as he folds of her linen skirts were examined by prodding hands. That those hands took liberties with the exploration of her body barely registered in her mind. Not many Nü traveled the inner parts of the continent. It would not take much for one of the GuardHands to have heard the recent news...

And before she could take those thoughts to their natural conclusions, Onion was shoved along forward. She glanced back in time to see Gregor also routinely and personally violated, but the shaggy blonde man seemed to pay no heed. They had made it outside of the city with little incident. That was all that mattered.

On the other side of the massive sandstone walls was another world entirely. In a matter of the 25 feet that were the thickness of the fortifications, cosmopolitan life had died out entirely, though the handiwork of humans was not lacking. In the distance, ancient and temperate plainslands rolled out from the coastal oak wood forests located to the north and south of the city. In the vicinity most of the plainslands had been converted to kingdoms of millet, maize and hemp monocultures. Further north Onion could make out the Rein Peaks as a hazy purple backdrop, whereas further west the vague hints of the Ghetan Buttes could be seen.

At the entrance of Eirdred City, however, amassed a conglomeration of canvas covered wagons, tents of various shapes and sizes, and a few outcroppings of lodges and taverns that served at the shanty town's lone permanent structures; the sole needs of a town of transients and day laborers.

The odors of fresh, wet clay could be experienced fro the nearby clay pits that dotted the riverbed. Not far off the sounds of steel against rock emanating from the sandstone quarries orchestrated the ambiance of the day.

The town had no name, and could barely be considered a settlement. It served to support the men and women working daily in the native industries of soil, rock and clay, but over time the outpost had also become a meeting place for the myriad of peoples traveling to and from the city. Onion recalled a mere week ago when she and her party of kinsmen first collected the nervous and twitching Cedric in that nameless tavern, face drowning in a mug of cheap mead.

Today's atmosphere was a little different. Families and merchants gathered traveling companions and goods, preparing to make journeys north, south or west. Others arrived from the west, road weary and occasionally bearing the cute, bruises and emotional scars of the highway.

Chapter 5 - Part V

The Lithenese poem fell on her Nüish ears without comprehension, but it did distract her from the sight before her as she followed the humming blonde man down the packed streets.

The two left the crowd and followed the tan sand and pulverized red clay River Road which led out of Center City to the east. As the number of people thinned out, Onion could better view her surroundings. To the left, the River Eir flowed, constricted by levies and sandstone masonry. The travelers and the river were sandwiched on either side by the towering sandstone and oak supported walls that encompassed the northern and southern districts and exiting highways.

While antiquated clay and wood walls separating each individual district had fallen into disrepair ages ago, the fortification surrounding the city of Eirdred were still prepared for the most sudden of threats. They were maintained diligently, even though the ancestors of the city learned that they could not hold against powers like those of Heilth. The walls nonetheless provided shelter from lesser attacks and if nothing else, were one of the few remaining symbols of unity against the increasingly crushing homogeneity of the Empire.

Seemless sandstone slabs held in place by thick wooden frames and topped with layers of red shale boulders scraped the sky fifty feet above Onion, and from there the City Enforcers or district police could track any move with lethal consequence. The River Road and Coastal Highway paths to Center City had never been sealed to the outside world, yet who would be foolish enough to bring an army through the gauntlet Eirdred offered? Even Heilth had dared not assault the city from the roads and was forced to use a combination of sabotage and naval might to establish their presence.

As they navigated the bustling roadway, Gregor explained to Onion in hushed tones the significance of these walls and their failings. This had brought to an end the rule of the Chosen, the coastal empire spanning halfway through Sandor to the south and encompassing all of coastal Lithen, as carved out by the First of Rel, Taecho Archne. "The Eirdren will tell you that Heilth broke over two hundred years of peace, but that is simply because Eirdren are not Lithenese." he grimaced.

At the exodus of the city stood two Guardhands and two City enforcers. To Onion's great relief, none of the faces appeared to be familiar, but she and Gregor remained alert as the cooperative Heilthian and Eirdred forces questioned Gregor and searched for contraband. Their suspicions were unwarranted. Those who manned the gates outside of the city of Eirdred more often than not, were those at the zenith of their service - the very young and the very old. While certainly not feeble, such a mundane task was useful only in training the inexperienced or maintaining the employment status of those who soon sought to retire by having them keep an eye out for fermented hougrixi reed juice, imported from the Outer Crest, or a powdered depressant known as gegleth moss.