Chapter Four

Ellora kept her eyes focused on the river beside her as she walked. They had discovered it soon after stepping through the low-overhanging branches of the tree that had encircled them when they climbed out of the tunnels and Athan had suggested that they follow it. The water would lead them through these open sections of Uoria and back to the kingdom. Stars sparkled on the surface of the dark water, shimmering through the blackness to create pricks of blue that danced and wavered as the river moved. It felt like they were so far removed from the kingdom that they would never find their way back. She had never seen this portion of the planet before or even heard something like this described. It was almost as though they had left Uoria all together and were now crossing through some unknown land. As they continued, though, Athan reassured her that this was certainly Uoria, that this was a section that he had seen before, though many years before, and that it would take time for them to get back.

The thought of walking across the planet for what might be more than a day was frightening for Ellora. They were fully exposed, completely vulnerable to the Order or to anyone else who might not wish for them to be passing this way. She wished that they were more armed, that she had brought some of the weapons from Aegeus’s war room down into the tunnels with her, or that either of the men had been more prepared. Their weapons were paltry, their supplies even more so, and she worried about what that would mean for their mission. She couldn’t imagine going much further without food or anything with which to make a shelter. As soon as that thought went through her mind, she felt ashamed of herself. She knew that there were countless times when her husband would leave home thinking that he was only going to be gone a short time and found himself in a far more serious and pressing situation than he expected. Those situations had put him in circumstances that were much more difficult than the ones in which she found herself now. He would have had little to eat and only the most basic of supplies. There were times when he returned home and said that he never wanted to leave the bed because of the nights that he had spent sleeping on the ground with nothing between him and the dirt but the grass and nothing over top of him but the stars.

Using these memories to strengthen her, Ellora quickened her pace, putting more energy into her feet to bring her up so that she walked alongside Athan.

“Will we arrive back to the kingdom tonight?” she asked.

Athan shook his head, not turning to look at her.

“No,” he said. “It will likely be tomorrow afternoon, maybe even tomorrow evening before we get there.”

Ellora shook her head, not knowing what to make out of his answer.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “We didn’t go that far in the tunnels. We didn’t run through them for an entire day. How could we possibly be that far away from the kingdom now?”

She noticed Athan glance back over his shoulder at Mhavrych, who had been walking along behind them since they had climbed out of the tunnels.

“There are things about the Order that no one understands,” Mhavrych answered. “That includes their surroundings and the things that they have within them as much as the people.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Ellora argued. “We could only be as far away from the kingdom as we traveled inside of the tunnels.”

“And yet we aren’t.”

She didn’t like the answer or the way that it made her feel, but she knew that there was no point in arguing any further. They weren’t going to tell her anything. Aegeus had been clear with her about the secretiveness of the Order. He told her far more than he was permitted to tell, and even that had been only the most basic of details. She had the feeling that there was much about it that even those within its most sacred of circles didn’t know and didn’t understand, and even if they did, they weren’t going to share it with her. She would just have to trust that they were going to do what was best and ensure that she could do for her husband what she should have done so long before.

“How much longer are we going to go tonight?” she asked after several long moments of silence.

“Until our legs can’t carry us any further,” Athan said. “As soon as we stop, we are in more danger. The faster that we can get back to the kingdom and find Creia, the better chances we have to survive this and get to Penthos.”

****

The sun was hot overhead by the time that they could see the kingdom ahead of them the next day. Ellora felt a wave of relief as she saw the stone wall that surrounded the kingdom, feeling as though they were finally nearing home and the protection that awaited there, but she could see the two men tensing.

“The Order is going to be looking for us,” Athan said. “By now they would have scoured the tunnels. They know that we got out. They will have people scattered across the planet searching for us, and even more around the border of the kingdom looking for any sign of our return. Getting inside and to Creia is going to be the most dangerous part of this journey. If they capture us, we’ll wish that we died getting out of the tunnels.”

Ellora’s mind was swimming and her body felt weak. They had found some berries and a few nuts when they were walking, but she was still hungry and the lack of adequate food was making it difficult to concentrate. She knew what Athan had said was extremely important, but she couldn’t process it, almost as though her mind wouldn’t allow her to.

“What are we going to do?” she finally asked.

“Mhavrych,” Athan said. “How did you get back here from Penthos? Did you ride in the ship with the others?”

“No,” the other man said. “I have my own ways of traveling.”

“What are they?” Athan asked. Mhavrych looked hesitant, as if reluctant to share with them how he was able to move from planet to planet quickly and without the benefit of a ship to bring him. “You need to tell us,” Athan said, recognizing the hesitation.

“I can’t,” Mhavrych said. “I’ve been sworn.”

Ellora saw Athan take a threatening step toward the man.

“I don’t know who you are or what you are doing here, but I do know that you need to start cooperating with us. The only reason that I trust you at all is that you say that you knew Aegeus.”

“I do know Aegeus,” Mhavrych said forcefully. “I have known him since before he left Uoria.”

“Yet you won’t tell us how.”

“I can’t,” he repeated. “There are things that can’t be said. I’ve been sworn to protect them.”

“Loyalties no longer apply, Mhavrych,” Athan said. “We have betrayed the Order and the oaths that we once made. All that matters now is survival. If you know a way that we can get into that kingdom and find Creia without the Order finding us, you have to tell us. Whatever it is that you are protecting is not going to be any good if we don’t even make it across this field alive. Even if most of them don’t know who you are or what you are doing here, you aren’t safe. They were going to kill Ellora without a second thought. Don’t think that they would hesitate to do the same to you.”

Mhavrych stared back at Athan. The look in his eyes was fierce, almost threatening. Ellora could see in them that this man was not afraid, not even of the threat of death. Whatever it was that he was defending was far more important to him than his own life and he would be ready and willing to lay down his life in order to ensure that it was guarded properly. His eyes flickered over to Ellora and she saw something more in them. There was a pull, a lingering draw of emotion that seemed to be inspired by looking at her.

“For Aegeus,” Mhavrych said. “Only for Aegeus. He trusted me and I will do what I can for him.”

“Thank you,” Ellora said.

“Come with me,” Mhavrych told them without acknowledging her.

There was no fondness for her in his agreement to help them get inside the kingdom. He only cared about protecting what he had taken out of the tunnel and honoring Aegeus.

Ellora and Athan fell into step behind Mhavrych as he moved quickly away from where they had been standing. Rather than moving toward the kingdom, he seemed to be walking along in front of it, heading past it as quickly as he could go. When they were beyond it, he turned sharply and headed away from it, his back toward the stone wall that had been the only promise of hope for Ellora.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

Mhavrych ignored her and continued forward, leaving her with no other option but to follow along with him or turn back, attempting to enter the kingdom on her own and without even the modicum of protection that was offered by having the men with her. She glanced up at Athan and knew that there really wasn’t a choice. Without the men, she was far more vulnerable. She didn’t understand the Order the way that they did, she didn’t know what they were going to do or what they were capable of should they find her, especially on her own. She had to go along with Mhavrych, even if she didn’t know where they were going or what he might expect them to do. She had to believe that if this man knew her husband and had gained his trust, she could trust him as well.

They continued on for what felt like hours, stopping only to drink water from a small creek that they found and to eat from a grove of trees. Finally Mhavrych led them through a thicket of trees to a larger part of the same creek. The trees around them were so thick that they blocked out the evening sun until it was nearly dark. He walked out onto a large boulder and turned to face them.

“Come here,” he said.

They walked out onto the rock with him, Ellora stepping up as close to Athan as she could out of fear of falling into the water beneath. When they were standing close to him, Mhavrych looked at both for a few seconds. Without saying anything or giving any warning, he reached down and grabbed onto their wrists. Ellora gasped as she felt Mhavrych drag them both forward and jumped into the water. His grip was firm and tight, preventing her from fighting away from him beneath the cold water.

Ellora expected the water to be shallow at this portion of the creek and was shocked when she felt them continuing to sink. She thrashed against his grip again, but he only held her more tightly, forcing her closer to his side as he kicked through the water so that they moved backwards. Ellora tried to see the surface, but they had gone so far beneath the water that she couldn’t even see the slight amount of light that had been available to them before they went below the water. Her lungs were starting to burn with the small amount of breath that she was able to catch in them before they broke through the surface and she worried that she was not going to be able to survive long enough to break free of Mhavrych’s grasp and get out of the water. She could feel herself slipping away and was nearly giving up when she felt her head emerge from the water.

Though it was still dark around her, she could feel the air touching her skin and she dragged it into her lungs eagerly. She could hear Athan gasping for breath the way that she was and knew that he hadn’t expected the dive off of the boulder into the creek, either. Mhavrych was still gripping their wrists and she felt his fingers tighten down into her skin even harder as he pulled her arm up out of the water. An instant later she felt her hand touch a slick, cold rock surface and her fingertips graze across small sections that felt rougher than the rest.

“What…” she started to protest, but before she could get the rest of the words out, she felt like she was being dragged forward toward the stones.

Ellora tried to resist the pull as she had with Mhavrych’s grip, but there was nothing that she could do. She noticed that it wasn’t Mhavrych that was pulling her, but something else, like an unseen force that was dragging her away from where they were still partly submerged in the water. In what could have been several minutes or just a matter of seconds, she felt the water around her disappear and pressure close in around her. Ellora didn’t know what was happening and she fought to swallow down the fear that was filling her. Finally her body hit something solid. Disoriented, she didn’t know if she had come into contact with the same stone that she had been touching or if she had fallen back through the water and was now on the bottom of the creek. She couldn’t feel any water near her though and after a few moments she realized that she was breathing comfortably and easily.

“We need to keep going,” Mhavrych said from beside her.

Ellora noticed that he wasn’t holding onto her any longer and she opened her eyes. It seemed far later in the night now and she became aware of a biting cold as she looked around and saw that they were now standing in what looked like an open field. The grass wasn’t tall and waving, but rather scrubby and a pale color that seemed to glow in the moonlight. Athan was still pulling himself off of the ground and Mhavrych reached down to take him by his elbow and drag him up to his feet.

“How much further to the kingdom?” Ellora asked.

Mhavrych looked at her and gave a short, almost mocking laugh.

“Much farther than you could understand,” he said.

He started walking, not looking back as if he simply expected that the other two would follow him. They continued along, the terrain becoming less and less familiar as they walked. Massive rocks seemed to grow up out of the grass and then dipped down into sand that led to another deep pool of water. Ellora braced herself to jump into the water again, but Mhavrych led them around the edge and to a row of scraggly trees at the edge of the water. When they reached one of them, he crouched down and brushed sand away from the base. In one fast movement he grabbed onto their wrists again and pulled their hands forward to touch the damp bark. She expected to feel only the cold softness of the tree, but instead she felt something hard, like a stone embedded in it. Before she could ask what was happening, she felt the same pulling, dragging feeling that she had felt when they were in the water, and then the pressure closing in around her.

Ellora tried to relax into the feeling this time. She knew that there was nothing else that she could do. She couldn’t fight the pulling feeling and there was nothing that she could do to stop whatever was happening to her. The feeling lasted longer this time and blackness started to press down on her. She didn’t want to let it take over. She wanted to stay in control, but soon she couldn’t resist it any longer.

She didn’t know how long she had been lying in the grass when awareness finally returned to her. She could feel someone’s hand patting her cheek, trying to rouse her, and she willed her eyes to open. Athan’s face was close to hers when her eyes opened and she felt relieved to see him. To one side she could see Mhavrych pacing, his steps tight and small as his eyes scanned their surroundings.

“Can you get up?” Athan asked.

“How long have I been here?” Ellora asked.

“A few minutes.”

“We need to go,” Mhavrych said, his voice sounding tighter and more anxious than it had before.

She didn’t like him compelling them forward again. She didn’t want to go through that feeling again and feel like she was getting further and further from what she knew. At this point, though, there was nothing else that she could do but what he said. She didn’t know where they were or how far they had gone, and would have no means of survival if she was alone.

Athan helped her to her feet and Ellora looked around. Everything looked familiar and she felt a sense of calm come over her as she realized that they were in the orchard of the kingdom, just within the barrier of the stone wall. While they were still a distance from the village, this was an area of the kingdom that was rarely used by anyone, particularly now that Idella was gone and it was only Lila who had any use for the home there. Most of the rest who lived in the kingdom either went to the far side of the orchard to gather food or waited until it was gathered by others and purchased or traded for it. This meant that it was far less likely that the Order would have people patrolling this area in as thick a concentration as they would in other areas, giving them much more opportunity to slip through the kingdom and into the village undetected.

“How did we do that?” Athan asked as they started forward through the orchard. “I didn’t recognize either of those places.”

“We did it because we had to,” Mhavrych answered. “There was no other way.”

“I don’t understand,” Ellora said. “We barely went anywhere, how could we possibly have traveled as far as we just did? Where were we?”

Mhavrych stopped and turned to look at Ellora sharply. There was an intensity on his face that told Ellora that he was done listening to her questions and wasn’t going to go any further in his explanation of how they just traveled than he thought he needed to. She nearly took a step back from him, but held her ground.

“We traveled in the way that we had to travel,” Mhavrych told her. “It is the way that I get around when I have to, and the way that I got from Penthos back here to Uoria without detection. That’s what was asked of me, wasn’t it?”

“But don’t you think that if we traveled that way, we should know how we did it? That we should know where we’ve been?” Athan asked.

“Would it be of any consequence to you if you did know?” Mhavrych asked, turning his attention to Athan. “Would it, in any way, change where we are now or what we have left ahead of us to accomplish?” Athan stared at him blankly, visibly unable to come up with an answer that he thought was appropriate. Mhavrych gave a slight nod. “Exactly. There are things that you do not need to understand to follow. Every day you do things because you think or know that you should do them without ever asking why. As a member of the Order, that applies more to you than to anyone else. This is one of those things. Either you continue to trust me and come with me the rest of the way to the village, or you are on your own. If you choose to be on your own, that is final. I will not protect you or help you in any way. You will be as the rest of the Order are to me. If you come along with me, you are to tell no one about how we traveled back to the kingdom. Nothing. Until I have decided who can be trusted to know anything that has happened, you are not to speak of it to anyone. Do you understand?”

Ellora wanted to resist. It was her instinct to push back against the aggression in the man’s voice and demand to know more about what was happening, but just as it had in the tunnels, Aegeus’s voice came to her, calming her. It told her to remain faithful to the promise that she had made him, to fulfill what he had started and protect the planet and their kind with everything that was in her. In her mind her husband soothed her and told her to be still in her strength and her determination, and trust Mhavrych as she would trust him. All would be made clear if she could only reach within herself and find the drive and the faith that he had within him when he walked into battle. She reminded herself that it was Mhavrych that had rescued her from the tunnel, even though he didn’t have to. He could have allowed her to run through them until she tired and collapsed, or until she found her way back into the snare of the Order members who were pursuing her so violently. It would have been a distraction that could have benefitted him, making it easier for him to get out of the tunnels rather than having to help her and then Athan. Yet he didn’t. He offered his help to her without question, and it was up to her to offer her trust to him in the same way.