17. The Lay Of The Wastelands

> “I give up my mortal life to serve, and in doing thus I accept my immortal role as bodyguard, servant and protector, until such a day as my master no longer walks between the two worlds.” - Oath of the Engella

Aguel turned and saw the trio approaching.

“This looks very much like a conspiracy brewing,” he said, folding his muscular arms across his bare chest. Athena wondered if he left his torso bare to remind those around him of how much he’d endured, the story of ordeals written as scars across his body, inviting them to dare to question what he was prepared to do to survive. If that was the reason, it was certainly effective.

“More of an alliance of common interests than a conspiracy,” Athena said, “A common interest that you share, I believe.”

“Oh?”

“Stripping Lucathar of his power.”

Aguel laughed.

“That is your interest, not mine. I am long past that,” he said, then turning to Sekardi, “And so should you be. The Wasteland is no place to bear a grudge.”

“It’s not a grudge,” Athena told him, “It’s about doing what’s right. We have no idea what’s happening in the mortal plane; how many are dying or suffering by his hand. There’s few that can stop him.”

“Few? I’d say zero, and that includes you. Unless you haven’t noticed, your power has gone. You have no way out of here, and even if you did you’d be vanquished, again, and back in the Wasteland before you had time to blink. The D’varsha only sent you on this quest on the slim hope that the experiments of that Elemental… what was her name?... might have succeeded.”

“Igrisil.”

“Yes. Igrisil. Well, the D’varsha don’t believe she achieved anything. They think it a futile quest, otherwise they wouldn’t have sent someone expendable.”

Athena felt Ostri bristle beside her. Aguel noticed and turned to the D’varsha.

“I make no apology, nor is that an insult to your abilities. The alternative was to imprison you for assisting Greysky’s little escapade, and they had no desire to do something that might need explanation outside of the Council. I’m afraid, Ostri, that although you are useful, you are as expendable as she is.” He turned back to Sekardi. “You, however, are not. What is your part in this misadventure?”

“I want to go with them.”

“Out of the question. I need you here.”

“You don’t need me. Vegdar knows the routes by now. And others. Athe- I mean Greysky needs me more.”

“She undoubtedly needs you, but look around. You want to abandon the caravan that has kept you safe for centuries to chase a shadow of a chance which, even if it turned out to be true, is a hopeless quest?”

“I have to try. After all the time here. There’s more to being Aeseri than just surviving.”

Athena felt pride rise within her again; pride at another Aeseri standing up for what was important, and pride in herself for awakening that spark. She felt something else too, that twinge of power, just a little bit of strength from Sekardi’s belief in her. It was too little to be of real consequence and would need to be magnified a thousand-fold to be of use, but it proved it was possible.

“Even after everything you’ve seen here you still think the Aeseri are the ones to control the universe? Without followers that give you power you have nothing. Not speed, not strength, not technical knowledge, and certainly not humility.”

“I evaded you,” she said, “Until I had no other option.”

“Yes, ‘until’,” Aguel said, “There’s always an ‘until’. And after that there’s a ‘since’, and ever ‘since’ you’ve been protected as part of the caravan.”

“I’ve earned my place here.”

“Yes. And that’s why I can’t let you go.”

Sekardi stared at the Engella.

“Remember our promise,” she said. Aguel stared back at her.

“Has it come to that?”

Sekardi nodded. Aguel turned to Athena. “What have you said to her? What have you promised?”

“I haven’t promised anything. Sekardi asked to join. She had to convince me I needed her.”

Aguel laughed.

“Oh, you’d need her. You both would.” His nostrils flared as he looked around, seeking a way out that didn’t involve breaking his promise to Sekardi. “I tell you what. Once we make it to the Market I’ll decide. If you still want to go when we get there, Sekardi. And then, perhaps, Greysky, if one of Lucathar’s parties haven’t taken you by then, or I haven’t changed my mind and traded you away, perhaps I’ll consider it.”

“Agreed,” Athena said, “And how long before we reach the Market?”

“About six months,” Sekardi answered.

“Six months! I thought it would be just a few days!”

Athena’s mind spun, thinking about how much power Lucathar would gain in that time.

“Nothing in the Wasteland takes a few days,” Sekardi told her.

“If it took but a few days the D’varsha would make the trip themselves,” Ostri added.

Athena was still reeling. Six months! In six months time all might be lost, and that was without having any clue as to where Igrisil might be found. What if nobody at the Market had information? It would be six months wasted.

But what other choice did she have?

“Then I have six months to learn everything I can about the Wastelands,” she said, and then turned to Sekardi and said: “And perhaps if you teach me enough you can stay with the caravan after all.”

Aguel laughed.

“If you think you can learn all you need to know about the Wastelands in six months then that will be your first lesson.”

I’m a fast learner, Athena thought to myself, when the stakes are high.

“Sekardi,” she said, “Why don’t you start by showing me the main landmarks across the whole Wasteland? I need a mental map if I’m to find my way at all.”

Aguel was chuckling to himself as he turned and went to talk to a group of Engella. The camp was secure, guards posted, lamps lit around the perimeter, and Athena could see the relaxation in his shoulders. She wondered if it was painful, having wings cut from them as they had been. It must be, she thought, physically painful and emotionally too. The Engella’s wings were part of their identity, although of little practical use on planets with any real gravity, but they gave them a noble appearance that no other species could match. Now only scarred stumps remained.

Shockingly, it was the Engella themselves that performed the ritual cutting. When the Aeseri lost their power they simply vanished from Jashgar to reawaken in the Wasteland. Nobody knew how the process worked, although some theorised that something inside the Tower played a part, exiling those that no longer deserved to be within Jashard’s walls. She had now experienced it herself and still had no idea of what had happened. One minute she was on her knees in front of Lucathar as he stood over her, the Tower behind him, and the next she was in the Wastelands, stunned and confused.

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The Engella, however, were not magically teleported beyond the walls. It was their own kind, Engella pledged to other masters, who were seemingly compelled to inflict this pain on their brothers and sisters. She had heard that the act itself was brutal, a single hatchet stroke on each wing if they were lucky, multiple strokes if the wielder was not accurate enough.

She had never seen an Engella without their wings before she had awoken in the Wastelands, but now she thought about it she wondered if Gael, her own Engella, resented all the times he had performed the task of cutting the wings from one of his own. Because she had overcome plenty of her fellow Aeseri in war, and they had disappeared to the Wastelands, and Gael had been the one to take the hatchet to their Engella’s wings.

Once an Engella’s wings were severed they were cast from the Wall. They were still too strong to be injured by the fall, but they would feel the pain. From there they would have to run, away from the Walls, from the place that had been their home, and if they were lucky they would evade the Horde and, if they kept running fast enough, they would find safety somewhere in the Wastelands. If sleeping with your back to a rock at night to keep watch, keeping quiet to escape the attention of the Wichts, avoiding raiding parties and whatever else might lay out here could be called safety.

She could see why joining a caravan such as Aguel’s felt like safety, in comparison. She was also beginning to understand why many Engella resented their past masters when freed from the bond of servitude into the brutality of exile. Aguel was here because Sekardi had failed him. Her own Engella, Gael, was out here somewhere because she had failed him.

She shuddered again at the thought of encountering Gael, out here, where he was strong and she was weak. What actions had he performed on her behalf that still haunted him, and how might he choose to cleanse his soul? The more she heard about the resentment many Engella bore the more surprising it was that Aguel had not sought retribution against Sekardi, although perhaps she had never asked him to do the things that Athena had asked of Gael.

She was so lost in thought that she hadn’t noticed Sekardi drawing a map on the ground, using rocks to mark locations.

“We’re here,” she said, drawing a circle with her finger, “And we’ve come through the mountains.” She scooped dirt and stones into a pile and then traced a groove through them, stopping halfway. “And this is Kaz’um. Directly east of us now. The mountains stretch north and south. It takes months to get around them.”

“Where is Jashard?”

Sekardi looked up at her and smiled as she picked up a jagged rock and walked five paces away.

“Somewhere over here,” she said, “Much farther east.”

“But… how long would it take to reach it?”

“Three or four years, perhaps, in a straight line. If you can avoid all the trouble along the way, which you can’t, so maybe five years, with all the diversions. And assuming you can go through Kaz’um and not around it.” She looked up at Ostri.

“My people do not let just anybody pass. Not for free.”

“Then where is the Market?”

“Here,” Sekardi said, drawing another circle, “West.” It was perhaps a tenth of the distance that Jashard was from Kaz’um. Sekardi picked up a few stones and placed them a little further west still. “And this is Porttown.”

“Porttown? As in… a port?”

“Yes.” Sekardi drew a snaking line running roughly north to south, “Although I don’t know the shape of the coast.”

“Coast? There’s water.”

“Lots of water. Some say infinite water. Nobody’s ever found an opposite shore, or at least if they have they haven’t returned.”

“So there are boats?” Boats would mean faster travel, she thought. If they had to go north or south it might cut months off a journey.

“Not really. The Elthenians have boats. No-one else.”

“Why not?”

“There’s no reason to make one, as the only useful place you can go is to the Isle of Elthenia, as it’s come to be known. Although it’s more of an archipelago.” She drew a snaking outcrop to the south and put a rock on it to signify the Elthenian settlement. “It’s a lot further by land, and the way from the mainland is guarded by the Elthenians.”

Ostri tutted.

“And they have all manner of traps and devices that we cannot fathom how they get to work here,” he said.

“What do you mean?” Athena asked.

“We D’varsha have created some mechanical contrivances powered by water pressure, but we have not been able to generate electricity and as a consequence lack much automation. The Elthenians seem to have discovered some secret, a secret they will not disclose.”

“Then what is further south?” Athena asked Sekardi.

“Nobody knows.”

“And north?”

Sekardi scooped up a large pile of rocks and dirt, pushing more and more together to make an ever higher ridge.

“Mountains. Mountains that dwarf even those around Kaz’um.” Ostri bristled slightly. “No offence,” Sekardi added with a smile. “And it’s cold, and the higher you get the colder it gets. There’s no snow, because there’s no rain, but I’ve seen ice. It’s so far from Jashard the cold could kill us, if we went too high.”

Athena shuddered, not at the thought of cold, because she had never experienced it, but at being reminded of mortality.

“The mountains rise from the sea,” Sekardi continued, “Tall cliffs all along. The Elthenians told me they had to turn back when they tried to go further as the sea was beginning to freeze, while the cliffs continued to climb higher and higher.”

“Any other surprises up there?” Athena asked. An ocean, cliffs, mountain ranges… what else might there be that nobody had even encountered?

“There are surprises everywhere, Athe-”, Ostri began, and then in a lower voice, “I’m sorry, I should call you Greysky. But there are surprises everywhere. Which is why we D’varsha stay inside our fortresses.”

“There’s the forest, far to the east, to the south.” Sekardi drew another waving line far past Jashard, and below it, “I’ve not seen it. It’s too far. And here.” She put stones down at various points between Kaz’um and the forest. “These are smaller markets. Wood is harvested and transported and traded from caravan to caravan at each market until it reaches Porttown, where the Elthenians buy whatever they can to build their ships.”

“And no-one else does?”

“No-one else is willing to pay as high a price.”

“What do they pay with? I haven’t seen any kind of money.”

“No. The Wastelands are not that organised. Sometimes it’s diamonds, which the Elthenians and D’varshan seem to value despite their lack of obvious practical use, and sometimes it’s just food.”

“Food? Who needs food?” Athena hadn’t heard of anyone eating or drinking on the astral plane. Not ever.

“Everyone needs it, out there. It’s so far from Jashard and whatever power the Citadel emits. We’ll even need some, for the time we’re there, and anyone travelling further north or south will. Then we’ll trade it to another caravan back east as those in the forest will need it too.”

“Where does it come from?”

“Some from the sea. There are creatures close to the shore, and to the south some food is grown. Further south, beyond the Isle of Elthenia, there’s a river.” She traced a thick line in the dirt, snaking east from the ocean and then down to the south. “We know it’s a river as you can see mountains on the other side, but the current is too fast for even the Elthenians to try to cross.

“And then there are the falls.” Just south of the river and from the land to the sea she traced another jagged line. “The ocean just drops off a cliff. Nobody’s been close enough to see on the other side. All that lies beyond is lost in haze. Some think there’s more ocean, and some think there’s nothing at all. Where all the water comes from, nobody knows. Where it goes? The same. But all the same, the land close to the river is fertile, in parts. But those who tried to farm it were raided so often they mostly gave up, so we’re more reliant on the Elthenians for food than anyone else.”

Athena shook her head. The Wastelands were getting more difficult to navigate with each new thing she learned.

“Do you think it was the Elthenians that raided the farms?” she asked, “It would be in their interest to be the main source of food, if it has such value.”

“I would not put it past the Elthenians to do such a thing,” Ostri said, “But proving it is one thing, and even if so, they would say ‘so what’? There are no laws in the Wastelands. Others can choose not to trade with them, if they choose not to eat.”

Athena could see his point: survival of the fittest was the rule of the Wastelands.

“Then what is the caravan carrying?” she asked, “Wood?”

“A little,” Sekardi said, “And seeds. From the forest.”

“Seeds?”

“We believe the Elthenians are trying to create a forest of their own. So they are not so dependent on what little they can buy.”

“And metals,” Ostri added, “It is the thing of value that the D’varsha produce, and the Elthenians and others buy more than we can mine.”

Athena looked down at Sekardi’s map, committing it to memory. There was so much to know, and there was so much that was unknown. Then a question occurred to her.

“Why are you all here?” she asked Ostri, “The D’varsha. The Elthenians. Even an Elemental. We would leave the Wastelands in a second if we could, yet you have chosen to come here? Why?”

Ostri rubbed his chin, not because he didn’t have an answer, but because he was judging how much of the answer he could give.

“There is power here. Power that does not exist on the mortal plane. The Ascension did not happen to the Aeseri because you were special. It happened because there was something unique about the planet you were born to. Something about Aeserus itself.”

“And you think aeserium is the answer?”

“Possibly. Or possibly it is just another clue. Which is why we would like to know what this Elemental, Igrisil, may know, if she knows anything at all.”

Athena looked down at the map in the dirt.

“And if you had to guess, where do you think she could be?”

Ostri shrugged.

“I do not have to guess, and there would be no point in doing so at the moment. But if we find no information at the Market then guessing might be what we have to do.”

The three looked at each other.

“Then let’s hope the Market has something to tell us,” Athena said. The Wasteland was vast and if someone wanted to hide they might never be found. Her hopes were low, but a little hope was better than none at all.