The Shattered Oracle
Chapter IV - The High Road
The wind tugged at the threadbare fabric of Maenthrai's long-coat as she continued walking along the abandoned high road. The air was a perplexing mix of chill coming off of the ice-coated walls ringing the city's exterior and the warmth emanating from the slowly churning river of magma on the left side of the road. Oddly, being so close to the magma river didn't assault her senses with the expectant stench of brimstone, nor was the heat all too overbearing.
Maenthrai remembered as she continued walking what Thaellon, the head Azhemyra, had told her when they first arrived in the forgotten city of Kalshuyr Azkholl. He had informed her rather obliquely during one of their long walks through the city, that the molten rivers were made of super-heated metals. All around the city subtle enchantments were placed that turned the head produced by the magma, against itself, so as to contain it. One of the added enchantments on these containment fields managed to purify the air, turning many of the noxious or deadly gasses into inert forms that could be harness at key areas around the city; possibly as a fuel source for the many indigo and silver lanterns that provided a haunting and dim light throughout the ruins. The magma itself was used as a fuel source for a great many mechanisms throughout the city, most of which were faltering or failing due to centuries or millennia of wear. It all seemed rather complex and entirely fantastical, but Thaellon was certain about it all and when the last elder Azhemyra in the world — especially someone as wise and stubborn as Thaellon — was certain about something his ancestors created, who was Maenthrai to say otherwise.
It had been almost two years since Maenthrai and Thaellon had brought their combined retinue of students to the forgotten city. To her, it both seemed longer and shorter than such a concrete frame of time. Longer in that she missed her husband and her children, being separated from them for their safety while she worked on figuring out how exactly to pierce through time and space to see what happened to her mother two decades earlier. Shorter, in that all the time spent on her work, perfecting her blood-bound abilities, learning the secrets of the Azhemyra, and constantly living in fear had given her very little time to make any substantial memories.
Thaellon was the eldest and the most experienced of the remaining Azhemyra. Those younger artificers that followed him around were his chosen and prized students. He cared for each one very deeply. He was of the philosophy that any who could harness the magicks and complicated sciences of artificing were his adopted family. He treated his students like his very own children; being very protective and caring for each as if they were of his very blood.
Maenthrai, however, was a distant teacher to her students. She didn't need to be close for them to realize the importance of them to her — or more importantly — to her work. A few of her students were older members of the remaining oracles of the Sharr-vhult Collegium who had survived the purge of Neshran when her mother became an inhuman abomination. Most of her students were nothing more than teenagers or young adults who she had found in her travels. The younger students had just woken up to their powers, having inherited some diluted lineage of the Haeth. Each of her students, no matter their proficiency or source, knew their importance not just to Maenthrai as her pupils, but to all of the Hoelatha Empire as the last remaining oracles.
Maenthrai's mother had done much in the last two decades since becoming a monster to hunt down any who had the latent abilities of divination, known as the Haeth. She had purged them from the populace in a mad attempt to cripple the entire society she once vowed to protect. Perhaps it was partly this reason that Maenthrai remained so isolated and detached from those that now depended upon her. She had lost many of those she cared for throughout her life. Getting too attached to her students might lead to further heartbreak. None of the students had complained thus far about any neglect. They were all frantically consumed with the work they must do and she really didn't want to spoil them like Thaellon was prone to do.
One of the prime examples Thaellon spoiling his pupils was that of Wynnol, who walked further ahead of Maenthrai at this moment along the high road. The young woman continued to prattle on about esoteric nonsense to her silent friend, Hildger, who trudged along beside her. Hildger could have been Wynnol's father, yet he acted more like a sibling.
Every hundred yards or so, Maenthrai would come back to herself from her many thoughts to see Wynnol looking over her shoulder at her. She couldn't tell in the disorienting light — given off by the nearby churning river of magma and the flickering indigo lights of lanterns posted on the roadway — if the artificer was scowling or smirking at her, but she didn't enjoy the attention at all. Hildger remained focused on his destination, walking forward with his thunderous steps; the only interruption being to slowly nod or slant his head to the side at something Wynnol said to him.
Despite being filled to the brim with academic vigor, Wynnol was still nothing more than a fresh-faced youth. She hadn't tempered her disciplines with experience and worldliness; she was all knowledge and little wisdom. Maenthrai didn't enjoy her company and liked even less the thoughts and emotions that the young woman kept spewing out of her like a constant rush from a waterfall. She began to wonder if it was Wynnol's personality that truly grate on her nerves or the resemblance she felt with her. The young artificer was very much like herself when she was young. She was impetuous, overly confident, had a huge chip on her shoulder, and — the gods old and new help them all — the raw talent to make a difference in the world. She was exactly the same as Maenthrai during her early adult life after losing her family.
Maenthrai let her eyes trail off to the left of the road, taking in the sight of a small park-like area jutting out into the river of magma. It wasn't much of a 'park,' but more of a lounging area still filled with rusted skeletons of what were once park benches or railings. The area was a large semi-circle that left the roadway and walkways to lower down to almost a dozen feet above the surface of the churning molten metal, below. The wooden slats that may have once made up the resting areas on the benches had been worn away over the millennia, leaving nothing more than collapse, rusted, and gnarled metal jutting up from the cobblestone the area was made of.
It was a sad sight to see a place that may once have been filled with life and hope so long ago, now being a distant and forlorn echo. Maenthrai reached out and began to wonder what memories were stored in that place that seemed so near — to one as sensitive to energies as she — and yet so distant within the vastness of time. Maybe that was a place where a young couple met for the first time and would return to on their anniversary until their deaths. Maybe that was a place where an old scholar sat to be alone with their thoughts, thinking up new enchantments and devices to help their people. Maybe that was a place where a young man, given up on the world and hearing the news that his people were suffering, made one last choice to cast himself over those ancient railings to throw himself into the fires beyond.
Maenthrai snapped herself back from her emotional reveries and into the present moment as she continued her walk past the park area. The entire city was an ever-deepening labyrinth of lost memories and heart-wrenching emotions for her. It was fortunate that she had a bit of discipline at her older age so that she could pull herself away from reading all the energies trapped within the stone, metal, glass, and remaining bits of wood that made up the truly ancient place. She began to realize how hard it must be for her younger students, just coming into their abilities and not knowing fully how to turn them off. It was good that she kept them busy, after all. If it wasn't for her, it was Thaellon, or her brother Serranos that kept all the oracles focused on their projects.
She continued to walk at a slightly more brisk pace, keeping her head down and now focusing her eyes on the amethyst-hued, cobblestone road ahead of her. The high road that she was walking along was one of the widest and longest roads she had ever seen, dwarfing even the great highways and byways of Morrthault City. The road on either side of her was large enough that almost fifty people standing shoulder to shoulder could walk down it. In the days when Kalshuyr Azkholl still had life within its confines, it must have been used heavily. It had plenty of room for merchant stalls to cling to its edges or space for any kind of transportation devices that the ancient artificers of old may have used.
In the first few months, once Thaellon and Maenthrai's students had begun to occupy the city, she had found herself continually pulling Thaellon away from studying the different enchanted trinkets or devices that were still strewn about the ruins. She felt like it was a constant game of 'hide and seek;' that every moment she needed him, she had to find him stuck in one of the farthest and darkest corners of the city. There he would be fawning over some either superbly complex machine or some trivial trinket. She felt horrible — every time — for having to pull him away from such investigations. She knew that every piece of the city that Thaellon became enamored with, was a small piece of his ancestral legacy.
She knew though, that she had to, given how precious and in very short supply time was. They were all here for a purpose and it was her duty to remind him of such when he found himself lost and off point. It was originally his idea to seek out the forgotten city and use it as a refuge away from the continual stalking of Maenthrai's mother. The monster still searched for her and her brother after all these years. She was bent on a singular purpose of eradicating her bloodline and with all the unholy powers at her disposal, she would have succeeded many times in the past if it wasn't for Maenthrai's ingenuity at seeking out Thaellon and his Azhemyra. The idea of a forgotten city, deep inside the earth, covered in numerous magicks and enchantments was a perfect place to hide her and her brother away while they worked.
When Maenthrai had approached her younger brother to join her on her quest to find out what happened to their mother, he was extremely hesitant to join her efforts. He had become a practical and cord sort of fellow in these recent years; even more isolated than Maenthrai seemed to be. Both of the siblings complimented each other, as Maenthrai seemed to burn hot with emotion, yet was cold on the inside; her brother had a cold, iron-like exterior, yet was extremely moody and prone to bouts of brooding when his inner self came to the fore. She could understand his hesitation, given that he was a very decorated Palaedharc in the Morrthault Guardian Knights. He didn't want to give up his duties, so it had fallen to Maenthrai to orchestrate events in such a way that Serranos could maintain his vows, while also both assisting her endeavors and having him close so she could keep him from the predations of their mother.
When their mother had turned into the undead horror she was now and had brutally murdered the rest of their family, it had affected Serranos in a singular and profound level. Well, obviously such an event had affected both surviving siblings to their core, but while Maenthrai had used the event to sculpt the purpose of her life, the same event seemed to hamper her younger brother more than anything else. The fear and horror of the event had created an emotional weakness at the heart of Serranos, and because of this, he had spent the last two decades overcompensating. He understood just how vulnerable both he and his sister were against something that was almost not of this world, so he spent all of his time honing his magickal powers to the exclusion almost of his very humanity. He was drawn to the legends of the Guardian Knights as a child, but as a man, he now used his powers to ensure he would never be the vulnerable boy he once was.
Maenthrai wished she could see her younger brother as a stalwart champion of their culture, saving the day for the humble-folk and raising high the banner of the Hoelatha Empire in distant lands. Maybe, in some superficial way, that is how Serranos saw himself. She knew the truth of the matter, however. He was still the boy she grew up with. Underneath the enchanted plate armors; underneath the command of devastating elemental magicks; underneath the bluster and brawn, he was still the bespectacled boy who ran into his sister's room to hid under her covers when he feared that the thaekkuz revenants or ghulg shades of the catacombs beneath Neshran were after him. That such fabled horrors might follow him to his room.
He was still the scrawny apprentice that arrived on her doorstep, drenched with rain and covered in mud, one evening so many years ago. After he had traveled — the gods only know how far — simply because he had a bad vision of their mother coming after them both. To the knights that he had brought with him to Kalshuyr Azkholl, he might be the most courageous and decisive among them, yet Maenthrai knew the truth; a truth she dare not utter, but which gnawed at her very moment she saw him. She had to resist her sisterly instincts to grab him close and run her hands through his hair as she used to do when they were children. Her attempts to sooth his troubles and continually tell him he was safe.
They weren't safe; none of them were. With the folly of her choice just an hour previous, any safety that the forgotten city of the Azhemyra might have provided them with would soon be at an end. She didn't need to be the most powerful oracle in the world — that was still human — to know that her mother was stalking them to this very place with each passing moment. She could fee the oppression of slipping time with every step she took.
Maenthrai picked up her pace, using the anger she felt toward herself to increase the push of her feet against the cobblestone of the road a little harder and a little further. She felt the emotion inside of her bubbling up once again, as it did earlier when she was still in her quarters. She focused the dissipating energies into a telekinetic crackle around her that popped up the trimmed collar of her coat as she moved. Those ephemeral tendrils of her will began to glide on the astral currents around her, snapping at her heels to drive her forward. She dissipated the rest of her energies into her feet fully now, giving her a bit more momentum with each step.
She heard a loud crack and boom from far off to the right, a few hundred feet away, as a boulder the size of a small building broke from the extremities of the ice wall at the edge of the city. This jagged spire of ice dislodged to fall on top of some ruins beneath it. For a brief moment, she wondered if her emotional energies had caused the devastation. She shook her head and kept moving forward. IT must simply have been a coincidence.
Off to her right, she could see the shadowed towers of the central district. She was no more than a few hundred yards from entering that claustrophobic area of narrow alleys and almost vertical dizzying causeways. It was at the center of that mess, perhaps a half hour's walk more, that she and the two artificers accompanying her would find the rest of the assembled oracles, artificers, and knights. It was within the deep halls of the Hestumarch, a great ceremonial chamber beneath the central district of the city, that everyone would be gathered to work on the artifacts that Wynnol had recently named 'the Nesharite Spheres.'
"Hyah! Well look at that-" Wynnol's voice rang out from Maenthrai's flank as she passed by the two artificers with her renewed vigor. Maenthrai lifted her shoulders to draw her collar in tighter to her face and neck, almost wincing at having drawn the young woman's attention. "Seems the oracle wants to beat us to the Hestumarch!" There was a loud slap as one of Wynnol's thin hands hit the broad leather straps of Hildger's stomach. "Are you going to stand for that HIldger?"
Maenthrai continued to move forward in silence, ignoring the shouts or attentions of both artificers behind her. She was just a hundred yards or so from one of the off-ramps into the central district. She had let her idle fancies waste time and now she must make up for it. The two Azhemyra had done their duty in telling her that the artifacts were completed, they were of no more use to her now. She lifted her eyes to see further ahead, as she did a bit of motion and shifting of dirty-blond hair came into focus from her left periphery.
"What has you in a rush; your garters all tightened and ready to snap, neigh?" The blond hair and youthful face came into focus. Wynnol was half-jogging next to Maenthrai. She then performed a quick burst of speed to get ahead of her, pivot on her agile feet and thin legs to begin running backward. She wanted to maintain eye contact as she moved. A cruel grin spread across her face and those same feline-like incisors began to peek over her bottom lip. "Could it be-" The young woman lifted one of her fingers to her cheeks like she had done in Maenthrai's quarters, earlier. Her large and vibrant green eyes looked up at Maenthrai with a sarcastic kind of mirth to them. "Could it be that we're in a hurry now? That time is of the utmost importance?" She paused for a moment, looking down to her feet as she kept pace backward. Small puffs came from her mouth and her small chest heaved up and down with her run. Her eyes quickly shot back up as her arms pumped for added momentum. "Could it be, that because of a selfish and foolish choice by an oracle... We're all about to lose our ancestral home and possibly be killed, neigh?"
"Wynnol!" Hildger's voice boomed like cracking ice from behind. The large man's breathing began to become audible as he picked up his pace. Each of his footsteps shook the cobblestone road ever so slightly. It was hard for him to build up enough momentum given his size, but he was slowly building up power. "Don't-" More wheezing as he continued to push his body forward. "Be-" He gave a long sigh but continued his pace. "...A wretch!"
"Me?" Wynnol kept jogging backward, heedless of any obstacles before her. She lifted one of her gloved hands to her chest, splaying out her uncovered fingers across where her heart should be. Her eyes were focused backward on the large man struggling to keep up. "Me, be a wretch? Phah! I merely state the truth of the matter."
Maenthrai narrowed her stark, blue eyes at the young woman jogging a little ahead of her. A very slight smile came to her lips as she decided to seize upon Wynnol's distraction. It was an entirely juvenile impulse, she admitted in her own mind as soon as the thought presented itself, but she felt in a wicked sort of mood and would now gladly turn those negative attentions she would otherwise keep reserved for herself, instead to the impetuous artificer. She felt her earlier energies seeth into life around her again. A few more astral tendrils reaching out from her hands and giving an ionizing crackle to the air. She spotted some errant rubble on the roadway ahead, well out of distance of the of them running. With a slight flick of her will and a sympathetic curl of two fingers on her right hand, she used some tendrils of telekinetic power to summon a sufficiently large rock from that rubble pile. She lifted the rock, not too high to be noticed; just a mere inch from the ground and set it to skitter across the cobblestone a few yards in front of Wynnol's path. Maenthrai grit her teeth behind her full lips as she used the remains of her telekinesis to muffle the sound of the rock's movement. The corner of those same lips pressed upwards in a half-concealed smirk.
"I shan't sugar-coat the facts, Hildger!" Wynnol rang out to the entire empty roadway. She lifted both of her arms out and moved her head side to side as if to signal to all the shades of the dead that might be gathered her eternal defiance. "We're all about to die-" She didn't get to finish her sentence before the hell of her left foot stuck the jagged rock behind her, that she could not see. Her previous speed and momentum sent her tumbling backward, her arms useless to stop her fall. She fell hard on her back, almost striking her head on the stones of the road. She managed a breathy "Oomph!"
HIldger now as at his full speed after overcoming his own mass. His puffs of air were in rhythm with the thunder of his feet as he pressed forward after Maenthrai. It didn't slow him down to grab Wynnol by the front of her tunic. He lifted her up roughly by the chest in one of his boulder-sized hands and flung her forward at such an angle that landed on her feet a little bit ahead of him. He did so with such swift grace that as Wynnol struck the ground with both feet, her eyes grew wide, and she was able to run once again. It only took her a few seconds to get back up to speed, sprinting alongside her compatriot.
"Dhaulmyrr fuck you with his ever-burning flames!" Wynnol's voice was strained and filled with as much anger as exasperation. She began to pump her feet harder to cover the growing ground between HIldger and Maenthrai. "I'll make you pay for that in blood you-" Wynnol's voice broke from lack of air, yet her anger blazed through into the next breath. "Demon-gifted harlot!"
"Nope!" Hildger took three thunderous strides to close the ground between himself and Wynnol. He reached out one of his hulking hands and seized Wynnol by the back of her tunic, now. As soon as his meaty fingers clenched into the fabric of her tunic, the young woman began to assault his wrist with her thin elbows. He gave her a hard tug and sent her careening back to his side. Her body went limp like a feather-weighted doll being seized by a giant child. Wynnol continued her assault as her feet skidded on the stone beneath her. Hildger gave a smile, ignoring the temperamental assaults as she moved. "You'll do no such thing, lass." He held her in place for a few moments, to make sure she couldn't sprint ahead once more. "You were acting like a wretch. I told you to stop. You didn't. Maenthrai put you in your place." Wynnol shot the large man a look filled to the brim with icy daggers that would make even the cold-hearted assassins of the Issautha shiver. "Now, like I said." Hildger gave a long sigh in between puffs of air. "Stop-" Puff. "Being-" Another puff. "A-" A wheeze. "Wretch."
Maenthrai, now nearing a set of stairs near the off-ramp of the high road gave one quick look over her shoulder towards the two Azhemyra following after. She could see HIldger, arms, and legs pumping at his sides, a mess of metal plates clanging around his form like giant scales from a furious lochal drake. His beard was few on the air, trailing over his right shoulder along with his metal-tipped ponytail. His face was crimson with strain as he kept his mighty form moving forward and aimed in a straight line. Wynnol was in the midst of turning her gaze back from him to Maenthrai, no doubt to scowl her renewed hatred at her impotently. Wynnol's thin and short form focused most of her rage into her run. The fingers of her hands were gripped into white-knuckled fists and the all the muscles in her arms and legs were strained, as wiry as they were.
Maenthrai turned her eyes back to the ramp ahead of her. She attempted to preserve her momentum as she raised her legs up and to her left in a sideways lunge. She narrowly lifted herself over the rusted metal of the railing on the edge of the high road. Her long-coat snapped and furled in the wind behind her like dragon's tails. She let herself fall, preparing for her descent to the first landing of the stairwell below. She focused all of the guilt and hate she had for herself into the crackling telekinetic energies she used to keep moving ahead of the two younger artificers. Once her feet impacted heavily on the stone below, the force of her will sent her flying forward onto the street further down. She hit the road below with even more energy, sending her running at an almost inhuman speed. Each footfall she took covered entire yards of distance and each impact was like heat lightning bursting and crackling through a hot night's sky.
It would be another twenty minutes of hard running through narrow streets before she made it to the entrance of the Hestumarch. Every moment was as precious as the last living moments a criminal might have right before their execution. She'd be damned to Gehemol if her mother would rob her of her last chance to find out what happened all those years ago; to finally understand what could drive one of the best of the Sharr-vhult — vowed to protect the world and it's people at all costs — into an inhuman abomination that wished to destroy everything she once held sacred. For the sake of children; for the sake of her brother; for the sake of herself; for the sake of what remained of the world around her; she had to know.
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