Chapter 51 - Traditions
"Do not kill it," Drahk commanded.
Garhalik slammed the staff onto the Rosharam's head. Its winding, elongated horns shattered like pieces of glass. The beast's limbs tumbled, and the body slammed onto the ground. In one strike, it had been rendered immobile.
"That would be enough," Liesel said, and she glanced at Fiya. "Chain it."
Fiya's chains rose from the ground, binding the beast completely to the floor, though it seemed to have already lost all its will to fight. Its rage was gone. While it seemed to be a strong creature, physically, it wasn't a complicated being. A four-legged animal with a pair of tails, blades attached to the tips. It bled black from the broken horns.
"What are you going to do with it?" Drahk asked, eyeing the jewel carefully. He might have distanced himself, though was that a conscious decision or just mortal fear?
"Nothing too complicated," Liesel replied. She approached the bound creature. If there was one thing she didn't like about the situation, it was the fact that a second Rakamel had to know, and Fiya's magic was exposed to them.
As she approached the creature, its red, beady eyes began to quiver. It powerlessly struggled against the chains, and Fiya clamped the bindings around its body tightly.
The forest was dark, and the glow emanating from its fur was almost the same as Auram's wings. It was a gift of the Primordial Vein, Liesel guessed, but that also meant the Spirits drew their life directly from the veins as well. Auram had previously said she didn't need any sustenance to survive—Materiality was enough.
It certainly was, but it was also a poison to the physical body. Liesel was living through it, so she could understand that danger a little better.
"Are you going to feed it?" Auram asked.
"I doubt that is possible," Liesel replied. The Custodian, naturally, hadn't given her an instruction, but she couldn't imagine how she was supposed to feed the jewel to a creature that seemed to grow anxious at its aura.
She unsheathed her sword as she stopped in front of the Rosharam. She stabbed it into the side of its neck and shoved the jewel inside.
The creature let out a pained shriek, one that Liesel found bothersome. It was long and drawn out. She had little issue with harming other creatures, but the necessity of this cruelty was always unpleasant. Perhaps because she had watched her mother suffer through her death for months and months, or maybe because she was a dropout from the academy and lacked the heart of a White Crusader.
The Rosharam went limp.
"It's in pain..." Auram whispered.
Thump!
Liesel felt the beat of a heart in the air. "Let it go!" She stepped back as Fiya's chains melted.
Thump!
A streak of red energy coursed through the beast's nerves with each thump.
Thump!
Thump!
The Rosharam screeched again. The color of the blood leaking from its antlers went from black to thick red, almost luminescent as it splashed over the emerald grass.
Its quivering eyes narrowed at Liesel. It snarled, and this time something was mixed in its voice. A high-pitched hum that made her teeth clatter.
Drahk and Garhalik prepared their spears. Before they even attacked, the creature crumbled to its knees.
It's not mutated yet. It is merely the concentrated energy that gives its body the energy to move.
"Auram," Liesel whispered, "Will you be able to feel its energy later?"
"Yeah."
"From how far?" Liesel asked.
"I will find it for you," Auram said confidently. "Don't worry."
"We must withdraw for now," Liesel said, louder this time.
"What did you do to it?" Drahk asked.
"A preparation for something I can use later," Liesel said. "I hope there is nothing here that is precious to the caravan."
"We gather materials, but it is not a daily quest."
"We should withdraw for today. I will take care of it tomorrow, when the jewel has finished its work," Liesel said. She had considered a time frame and felt that everything so far related to meddling with the soul had been around a day or a day and a half, so it should be the same here. If it was longer, she could worry about it tomorrow. Of course, she was not happy to have shown Drahk the jewel, but necessity demanded that she act fast, even if a little recklessly.
*******
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After they returned to the village, Liesel and Fiya made their way to the tent, while Drahk and Garhalik went to attend Elder Ahura's meeting. She was going to choose Liesel's opponent right now.
"Wish we were in different circumstances," Yehia uttered. "I mean, where you weren't literally dying. I'd have loved to see you fight against a human opponent under fair circumstances."
"It is that," Liesel said, "I am not going to hold back anything, so what you are going to see will be the best I could have done."
"Yeah, but it's not the same if you're burning days from your life for it, can't get any joy out of it."
"How's Kurvam behaving?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary. He can be shrewd when his neck is at risk," Yehia said, "But I doubt his lucidity would last more than a few days."
Liesel nodded. She was practicing her channeling, while also maintaining the faux seal on the withering spot. Regardless of the outcome of tonight's duel, there would be a tomorrow, and a mutated beast to subdue, so she couldn't just bet everything on tonight and be exhausted.
With her Soul Veins sufficiently rested, channeling wasn't painful beyond a minor burn that would take weeks to relieve, if she didn't abuse them again. It wouldn't cross tonight.
Then, she tried Layering, which was slow, but it did help her subconscious mind divert its attention to two areas at the same time.
"Did the news of my duel concern them?" Liesel asked. She hadn't told anyone about it except Fiya, and Yehia had been present at that time, so she knew. Yehia should've broken the news after the night's rest.
"They are somewhat worried, but except for Verka, they all think you will prevail... It's hard to feel this is how it ends after surviving the wasteland, and on some level, I can't say I am not the same."
"It might; who can say we are not a mere tragedy in a grand comedy of some sort?"
"I'd rather not worry about that," Yehia shook her head. "And I was wondering what you think will happen to Saffron Helm. The Scholar should be here by now, and we have not opened a passage. The western line might fall."
"I... haven't considered it," Liesel said. She hadn't pondered many things, whether it was about Fur or Isa in the city, or everything else in the realm. What could she change by worrying about them? Their goal couldn't be anything more than just survival right now. "Time flows differently in the Necropolis and the world outside, so it may not be as late as we think. It could just have been five days outside."
"Still, I find it absurd that we are going to live because we are trapped inside the Necropolis, and the rest of the realm would be slaughtered by the demonoids."
"All we can do is survive, and hope the Seer and Chancellor would have the foresight to act... though, I have my doubts about Kurvam's father's care for the realm."
"He chose to send his inexperienced son to look over the most consequential task in the realm. I have no doubt he'd use a Shade Passage to run away with his family if the realm were to crumble," Yehia uttered bitterly. "He sees the writing on the wall. If communication with the empire is severed for several decades, he has no power to stay as the ruler, and sooner or later he would have to relinquish his seat or be assassinated. Kurvam may have been his desperate attempt to find that footing."
"You give him too much credit," Liesel regarded her fully white, marble-like hand. She couldn't maintain the layer and risked injuring her hand. "I think the Chancellor believes it is only natural that his son, his heir—to his lineage as well as his throne—should lead the expedition. The consequence comes secondary to that, if they even register in his mind in the first place."
"That's just... He couldn't possibly think Kurvam could ever...."
"Yehia," Liesel said. "Do you think the Chancellor realizes, in its entirety, what the severance of communication means? And if he did, what was his decision? To send his son to his inevitable death? Are you sure you are not mixing the Seer's understanding of the events with the older Vera?"
"That..." Yehia went quiet for a moment. "Yeah. Maybe he does not, and it's the Seer who is trying to save him."
******
When the meeting came to an end, Drahk invited her to his tent again. It might be better to call it his administration office, though. There were other members of his Pathstriders there, but they were already leaving.
Only Drahk and Garhalik remained in the tent, and Kfahan stood behind her.
Today they were not sitting at the table but on the floor. There were circular sitting mats placed in the center of the tent, and an object in the middle from which Drahk wove string.
There was a gloom in the tent that had set Liesel on edge before she even settled down, and the silence that stretched worried her that her worst fear might have come true.
Liesel waited patiently, watching his work. Garhalik used the threads formed to knit a small armband? Or were they gloves? Liesel hadn't seen what a Rakamel child wore, but she was sure it was being woven for one.
It lasted over an hour, and Liesel found herself weirdly charmed by it, and she didn't mind channeling Materiality to practice while she watched.
The final shape looked like an armguard that would protect the back of the palm, too.
Garhalik expressed something to Drahk that Liesel didn't understand, and Drahk patted his back.
Garhalik finally glanced at her, and his eyes widened slightly as if he had been burned. He got up and left the tent with a nod.
Drahk glared at Kfahan, hissing something at her, who flinched, but then said something back with equal anger. Kfahan then dashed out of the room.
A sinking feeling clenched Liesel's guts as she realized what she had witnessed on a subconscious level, though her mind refused to make it a conscious thought.
"Is Garhalik my opponent?" Liesel asked as Drahk finally calmed down.
He nodded once. "Regardless of what the outcome is, we will never blame you for anything."
Liesel nodded, watching the energy construct. "And what were you doing?"
"His last wish. Whether he prevails or not, we try to fulfill both participants' last wish. I shall not burden you with the knowledge of what it was."
"And Kfahan is..." Liesel said. She could tell what the woman was trying to do.
"The closest term in human relationships would be wife, I believe," Drahk said. "I apologize for what she has done. But once you were here, disturbing his meditation didn't mean anything."
Or perhaps, you wanted to be the reluctant man once I had witnessed his last act for an hour.
"Humans are far more selfish than she thinks if it was her idea to give me pause," Liesel said.
"She merely wanted you to see the man whose blood will stain your sword, if you prevail. And to see him as the man he was, rather than the one you will witness tonight. The powerless man who must fight a stranger to survive, with no way out of it."
"Did you not have a way out?" Liesel asked.
"Elder Ahura's choice is final. None can challenge it."
"You cannot challenge it?" Liesel stared at him. "Is that your adherence to your belief, or the cowardice to challenge the authority of a woman who wields too much power and not enough—"
"Please don't finish your sentence," Drahk said. "No more shall be spilled than necessary. We are different from you, and so I know you will frown at your traditions, but it has given us a home in the wasteland, as you call it; there is a power that you cannot feel."
"I understand," Liesel nodded.
"And if you have a wish that I can fulfill, please ask me now."
"No request, but I do want some information if you are willing to talk."
"Ask away."
"I was wondering, how did your people arrive at this place?" And if we can use it to leave the Necropolis.