Bertan`s quest - Michelle Tarynne (best beach reads of all time txt) 📗

she said as a slight nausea gripped her, she started to suspect the untold truth that was buried beneath the Sword hatred towards their slaves and enemies.

"It was us- the non-Axes. I am the last of a peaceful tribe we used to be. I still remember the times of the great hunt, and the time when I used to be the prey… Trust me Bertan. They will never stop paying for that… As long as we live to remember what really happened." The Old Sword King sipped his Juice slowly, drowning in his memories. "Some of the people went to seek out to where the light disappeared to never be seen again. The rest of us had to run, as fast as possible, to avoid capture and death but the hunting seemed to have no end. My friends and I ran for the mountains and the maze of caves within to stay alive, maybe for a few more days, but free and in one piece. We tried to prepare for the time of the real hunger. You can't imagine what the real hunger is unless you experience it yourself. It makes you cry with the pain it brings to your body, and when those tears become your sole sustenance. I have to admit, there was a kind of conscious decision we made to kill our bodies, to stop the unending suffering. We could do it one by one, or everyone at once. It's a weird place to be, a weird plan to make. Just before we did anything final, when there was no possibility to be saved at the last moment… It was when our cores screamed at us so loud to stay alive, not to give up. That inner voice couldn’t be unheard, nor ignored, our link to it couldn’t be undone and cut away." He closed his eyes and took deep, wheezing breaths, clearly back in time within his mind, recalling the source of their current life.

"You didn’t have the courage to do it." Bertan did not know whether she should sneer or be thankful for that. Was the life for the courageous and death for the weak? Or was it the other way round? She knew she wasn’t the most qualified person to search for that answer. After all, every Sword deemed her an eternal runaway for her weakness, but in her head, it was the most courageous thing she could have done. Who was to decide what weakness and courage really meant?

"No. None of us really wanted to die when the biggest bravery was to live and die slowly, aware of each passing second, aware of the pain to come. We decided to walk a little farther instead, to take one of the narrow tunnels where no adult person would fit into. Inside the tunnel was the most intoxicating sweet scent I'd ever met. Water dripped down, so we licked the walls to quench the unimaginable thirst. Wild vines climbed its walls with the tiny green Nante berries that we ate… until the Madness took us deep beneath that mountain range, almost to the edge of the fire-rivers at its base core. There, rooted to still warm rock and ashes, grew the Oranges full of juice that we ate too. So, the visions joined our Madness. We were gone in a way only a sane mind can be gone. We died there to be born into a different kind of life down below the surface. It was a place where rocks had a glow to them and water dripped down the walls constantly. We died mentally, emotionally, and physically just as we found new and edible, but still poisonous to our bodies plants. To wake up, was to witness something beyond our understanding, There was something unreal that joined us in creating a stronghold, which we only dreamt of. So much more was there, underground, at the line between the solid and liquid rocks. Some design was taken straight out of our dreams to become a solid structure. We were mad, but we created bliss within hell."

"You created the Anaerthers Stronghold," Bertan whispered in awe once she realized what the King was describing.

"No, Bertan. It's how my insane mind perceived things down there. It's how I recall it now. I think, it was not just us down there, for it felt that something much bigger was waiting for the creation to take place too. Something linked to us its creative force. We were truly mad back then, and probably, everything had been already in place when we arrived, but each discovery felt like a creation. It was just so empty of life. Nothing was a reason for awe, as we started to feel very lonely, thinking of the people and families we left behind, of the beasts we could now hide from, of the light in the sky we missed and hoped to see once again. We tried to recreate everything we knew from above. We could not recreate life to be the way we wished it to be. The loneliness tortured us into picking up all the fruit we could find and saving it for the way back up to the surface. Pure chance had it that water had seeped through the rocks to one of the vases. The fruit had ripened, opened and mashed before we realized, and it was unusable for travel, so we drank it. The fog of Madness lifted not much later for all of us at once. Except for Sylt, my First Daughter, her sanity left her completely, though she received a gift of a kind. A gift we were all too late to recognize. She refused to go with to the surface and decided to cross over, beyond the molten fire-rivers, for the refuge, even closer to the core. We could not and would not join her in that journey. She was the first of the Oracles to foretell your current actions and everything that will happen soon after. There are no people that could elude the Fates."

"Is that the reason of your calling?" Bertan asked with growing apprehension.

"In a way, yes… And in a way it's a choice, I was destined to take. I could have picked any other subject. I could have called the most obedient and vicious male, twice your size and strength," he said.

"Why have you decided to choose me then?" she asked, uneasy in her suspicions.

"Because, that is the one thing I would never do in any situation. Trust has become a rare commodity among our kind as you have surely noticed. You loathe me, and I'm one of the few who know that you are not of our kind by blood, but by your Mother's actions and choices. It had nothing to do with her will and everything to do with your destiny, and the future of everyone on and under the surface."

"But you don't trust me at all," she said bewildered that he would still entrust her something so vital to the survival of his race.

"No, I don't… Of course, I don't… I wouldn't be a King as long as I have been if I trusted any living soul." He cackled trying to laugh while breathing almost failed his lungs.

"You would rather see me dead," she concluded, still unable to see the reason behind his words.

"Yes," his answer was short, "Instead, I'm sending you out to retrieve my First Daughter Sylt and bring her here."

"Why?" she asked, "How can you be sure she is still alive?"

"She is to take my position in my Line House," he ignored her questions.

"That would exclude your house from contending for the Ruling House position. No house led by a female can contend," she was beyond being shocked by his request at that point.

"Ruling forever was never my intention. It just happened that I grew slower than the others, and it's only now that it kills me, while whole generations are gone already," the King said sadly as if he could remember every member of the past generations he survived.

"There are no males as the Head of Houses anymore," Bertan whispered, amazed by the sadness in his words, "That's why you are sending me out. To be sure my Line House would not contend either, for we are supposed to stay out of it too."

"You are supposed to stay alive just a little bit longer, You wouldn’t survive here otherwise as you don't really want your position anyway," he slowly whispered, “It’s very important, you must live, so whatever happens don’t let yourself to cross over. No matter what happens. Stay within your body.”

"There is something you aren't sharing with me." Bertan could feel something huge was left out, something that touched her fate directly in ways she could only dread, as all her hair seemed to quiver in warning.

"But of course child. Some things should stay hidden, some should be found only by certain individuals. Whole eons of our history since we have left the Stronghold are shrouded and hidden to hopefully never see the light again. Those generations are already gone anyway… Knowledge is not always the best of the options, Bertan, and knowing future events beforehand breaks our cores."

"Ignorance sure isn't a good option either," she muttered, "It's still my choice whether to go or not, on your orders, isn't it?"

"It always is someone's conscious choice. It's up to you to pick up that path or die soon, not by my hand. We both know it's not my place to pick up on your choices."

"I could run away." Her mind whispered, tempting her with her favorite way out of troubles.

"You clearly don't even realize, yet again, how many daggers, arrows, and bullets will be directed at you the moment you leave this room." He chuckled, though sadness never left his eyes. “Though be sure that you will die anyway, we all will.”

Bertan hated the idea of dying soon, just as she loathed being maneuvered so blatantly. Million thoughts thundered through her mind, all at once, alerting her of the trap this could be. "Still, I would like to have some more time to think this through and decide."

"As you wish, Bertan, the new Head of the Third Line House. If you decide on your travel plans, you should already know where to start your quest." His tone was of a final dismissal, so Bertan left the unimaginably comfortable high sofa. “Just don’t wait too long.”

"Yes, my King." She grimaced, for she knew exactly where to start. She bowed with an unknown before respect for the dying royal.

 

 

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The tribe of the Seekinglanders left Palome soon after they buried their dwellings deeply with the sand of nearby dunes. Their way back into the First Homeland was the only one they planned to take. Coming back to Palome has never been taken seriously.

Cressy felt the grim mood that gripped them. It blanketed everyone present and ready to leave. They were born ready to go back, she mused, but once the moment they have been waiting for all their lives actually arrived, there was no excitement, no drive to leave. They were filled with the grim awareness of the end that neared instead, for it was the final moment of the lives they knew. The pain of slowly burying each and every of their dwellings with sand-grains felt like a funeral pyre where sand stole fires’ place.

She was getting a bit detached while watching the whole process. Knowing that her own children were somewhere out there, on their way to a real safety brought no comfort. It was only for the sakes of Brine, Pam and Coope that she forced her feet to move towards the Wall. She dragged herself through the sand and away from her Core of her buried dwelling, deep inside she was moved in an unexpected way, making her feel more uneasy than it should. It should have never taken place, she knew right then.

'The Trek of the Final Steps' as it was