4. The Caravan

> “What was once the planet Aeserus is no longer spherical. It is a large, flat plane, Wasteland stretching in all directions with the one surviving citadel, Jashard, at its centre” - Aeseri Historical Text

The three walked at a rapid pace and Athena often stumbled behind them, falling occasionally as her bound hands affected her balance. At first the Engella was patient, but as time went on he would simply pull her to her feet by the end of the rope, the pain of her wrists adding to that of her hands hitting rocky ground. She was beginning to think that being immortal was not necessarily a boon.

They were headed to something they called the caravan. As they walked she had time to study her three captors from behind.

The Engella, apparently called Aguel, was the leader of the group. He was unlike any Engella Athena had ever seen. His wings had been cropped, as they always were when their masters fell, but his body was much older than it should be. Gael, the Engella that had been sworn to Athena, had never aged, not in the millenia that he had been in her service. Yet here was Aguel, somewhere in the middle of his life, with scars and stretched, sinewy muscles that demonstrated wear and tear that should be impossible. The stumps that remained of his wings had long healed with rough scars but served as a constant reminder of the life that he had lived since before he had been banished to the Wasteland with his master.

The woman, the Aeseri, was named Sekardi, Athena learned from listening to their conversation. She was a similar height but a more slender build than Athena yet she had no difficulty in traversing the rough ground at high speed. Indeed, it seemed as if she barely left a trace as she stepped from rock to rock while Athena shuffled and stumbled behind. Occasionally she would stop and crouch, her dusky grey clothing almost disappearing into the landscape, and then she would alter the direction of the group by a few degrees. Somehow, in this featureless landscape, she knew exactly where she was going.

Finally the Aeseri man, that for some reason Athena thought of as young, despite all Aeseri being of the same young adult physical appearance. Yet some seemed to look young, and some seemed to look old, Athena thought, which had nothing to do with appearance and everything to do with demeanour. His name was Vegdar. There was something familiar about him, and she wondered if their paths had ever crossed. With the millenia that had passed there were many encounters with minor species that she had forgotten, but meetings with other Aeseri were usually memorable. They would often end in a relationship of subservience, mutual distrust or, at worst, conflict, and she had no recollection of any such dealings with Vegdar.

“How much further do you think?” Aguel asked Sekdardi.

“Not long. Look,” she pointed. On the horizon were tiny shapes moving, and a lot of dust being thrown into the air. Athena wondered just how big this caravan was.

It wasn’t until they were much closer that she began to discern the cause of the dust cloud. It wasn’t the numbers in the caravan that disturbed the ground so much as the size of some of its constituents . Huge creatures, lizard-like, with thick legs, thick necks, and apparently thick skin to match.

They appeared to walk slowly, but as she saw individual figures walking alongside them she realised that although their movements were slow their size gave them a greater speed than she had judged. They were perhaps three or four times her height, and atop many of them were structures bound around their bodies like giant saddles. Many seemed to be carrying cargo, but atop others were wooden cabins with individuals seated inside.

Yet again, here was something that, according to Aeseri common knowledge, simply should not exist within the Wastelands. The creatures resembled the rokkars that had existed on Aeserus before the Ascension, things she had once seen pictures of, except these were much larger. Those had been desert-dwelling lizards known for their resilience, but drawings showed them smaller than a humanoid. If these were in some way related to rokkars they had grown some ten or twenty times in size.

There were maybe a dozen of the large creatures and twenty or thirty humanoids walking alongside. Before today Athena would have assumed they would be either Aeseri or Engella, but she was beginning to realise that there was much more to the Wastelands than she had believed. Whether the information was deliberately kept from many of the Aeseri or whether nobody really knew wasn’t as important right now, but if they had been wrong about this then there was hope: perhaps they were wrong about the Wastelands in other ways. Perhaps there could be a way back to the mortal plane, to begin to build her power.

If only I wasn’t a prisoner, she thought, looking at the ties around her wrist and the rope that Aguel was pulling her along by.

As the group neared the caravan a man on top of one of the beasts at the head of the line waved.

“Did you catch them?” a male voice asked. Athena peered through the dusty haze. He appeared to be another Engella, his face even more worn by age than Aguel’s.

“Yes!” Aguel called back, “You were right. She’s Aeseri.” So they knew she was out there and the three had been sent to catch her? This was more concerning than if it had been a chance encounter.

“And it’s a female? Hm.” The man stroked his chin in thought. “And her name?”

“‘Greysky’,” Aguel shouted, and then laughed, “But I’m sure we can work out her real name soon enough.”

Athena hung her head. There were maybe forty or fifty individuals in the caravan, which was forty or fifty people who might possibly recognise her.

Aguel lifted his hand into the air and drew a circling motion and the caravan obliged by forming itself into a large circle. It appeared that he might even be the leader of the group. Aguel pulled Athena towards one of the lizard beasts and tied her rope to the harness around its body. It was unnerving to be so close to such a giant beast but it showed no sign of aggression, and in fact no sign of much movement at all despite not being tethered in place.

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The caravan became a throng of activity. People climbed from the tops of the giant beasts and others opened up the boxes on their back, and in front of Athena’s eyes a camp began to form. Tents were constructed from posts that fixed onto each other and ropes holding them to the ground and giant canvas sheets cladding them. They were arranged in a ring inside the lizard creatures, leaving a central clearing free.

The structure of the camp appeared complete when Vegdar, the Aeseri male among her captors, approached her and untied the rope which attached her to the giant beast.

“Come,” he said, leading her towards the centre of the camp. She considered trying to break free, feeling like Vegdar might be among the weaker members and she would have a chance of overpowering him, but it had already been demonstrated that she lacked the speed to make any kind of escape.

Instead she followed him placidly, although her steps faltered as she saw what must be the intended destination. A cage, made out of wood but sturdy nonetheless. She pulled back on the rope and Vegdar stopped. She was right about one thing: he was much weaker than Aguel, for all the good it would do her.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he said, meeting her gaze for the first time, “They just don’t want someone making trouble in the night.”

“I won’t make any trouble,” she replied.

“It’s not up to me.” He tugged on the rope and she resisted with ease. “Or if you like we can put a stake in the ground outside the caravan? Leave you for the Wichts to find in the night?”

“Wichts?” she queried.

“You saw one last night, I think. Thin shrouded figures that take to the air. The screeching noise. That’s how we knew you were out here.”

“Oh,” she said, putting a few pieces of the puzzle together. So they had heard those things, Wichts, he had called them, and that was why they had gone hunting for her.

“They can sense a newcomer. Your power must be freshly gone.” Athena nodded before catching herself. “It would have been quite a feast for one of them.”

“A feast? They eat us?”

“Oh, no. Not your body. Only your energy. I was told they’re searching for their souls, although whether that’s true or not I can’t say. There are enough strange things out here that anything could be true. Anyway, you’d mostly recover, over time, but it can be months, and sometimes longer. I’ve heard the state of waking powerlessness is very unpleasant. I’ve seen some who’d fallen prey to them and they’re never quite the same again. There’s a look in their eyes…” Vegdar tailed off with a shudder.

It did not sound like a good prospect. Vegdar opened the cage and Athena walked in, reluctantly but voluntarily.

Thankfully it was high enough for her to stand, although she would have to curl up to sleep. More than that was the ignominy of allowing herself to be caged at all. She had recently been at the head of armies of followers, billions of believers, and one of the most powerful Aeseri that had ever lived, and now she was to be locked in a cage.

“Why don’t the Wichts attack the caravan?” she asked Vegdar as he unfastened her wrist restraints. She rubbed her skin to try to ease the pain of chafing that left no mark.

“Large groups scare them off,” he replied, “So don’t worry: you’ll be safe tonight.”

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“I can’t say for sure, but you’ll probably end up at the Market. The price they get for you might depend on discerning your real identity. Aeseri are worth a lot more to those they have wronged.”

It seemed very much as if being a god on the mortal plane resulted in a lot of enemies on the astral plane.

“It’s okay. I don’t think anyone else knows you, Athena,” he said.

She stared at him for a second.

“What did you just call me?”

“I recognised you right away,” Vegdar said, “But don’t worry: I think I’m the only one.”

Athena looked around nervously, still not entirely sure why being recognised was so bad but feeling there was weight in the advice from the old woman who sat with her back to the rock.

“I’m not going to tell anybody. I owe you that,” Vegdar continued.

Owe me that? Athena thought. She still couldn’t place where she might know Vegdar from, but he obviously knew her. Before she could question him further he turned and walked away.

Dusk was beginning to fall and the members of the caravan increasingly congregated in the central area. Metal spikes with what looked like bowls moulded into the top were placed around the circle and an Aeseri moved between them pouring liquid and lighting a fire in each. One was near enough to Athena to provide light and just a tantalising amount of heat.

Aguel, the lead Engella in the group that had trapped her, walked over to the cage and folded his arms across his bare chest. His arms were as scarred as his torso and sinewy muscles lined with veins bulged as he pressed his arms together.

“How do you like it out in the Wastelands, Greysky?” he asked, obviously teasing. Athena ignored him and took it as an opportunity to gain more information.

“I thought Engella didn’t age?” she said. Aguel snorted a laugh.

“Questions, questions… You Aeseri are always the same when you first arrive. Think everyone still owes you an answer for everything. Here you are, cast into the Wastelands because your followers abandoned you, or died, or whatever, and still not a hint of self-doubt.”

“You can enlighten me.”

“You’ll pick things up. Eventually,” he replied, frustrating her efforts to find anything useful about this strange place.

As night fell Athena felt increasingly cold and found herself huddling in the bottom of her cage with her arms around her knees. Knowing that cold couldn’t harm her wasn’t the same as not feeling it. So she was grateful when Vegdar approached carrying a blanket. He handed it through the bars and she wrapped it around her shoulders.

“How do you know me?” she asked quietly. It would be obvious to Vegdar that she had no recollection of meeting him and there was no point pretending otherwise.

“We’ve never met,” Vegdar said, to Athena’s relief, “But I marched under your banner against Lucathar. A long time ago. I pledged myself and my followers to your cause. Unfortunately, we were defeated. And now I’m here.”

“I’m sorry,” Athena told him, feeling slightly guilty: he was in the Wasteland because of her.

“It’s not your fault. I believed in your cause. I still do. I’d do it again, not that we have a choice now you’re here too.”

“I don’t believe what they say. There has to be a way back. All I thought I knew about the Wasteland seems to be wrong, so why not that? I’m not going to rest until I’ve tried everything.”

Vegdar thought for a second.

“I hope you’re right. I’ll try to help,” he said, “If I can. But if I were you I’d think more about how to make the best of your life here, for as long as it lasts. Without followers, we’ve no powers.”