In Search of Auria Read online

  “Warrior, something wrong?” I heard someone asking from behind. I turned on my seat to see who asked, and laying my eyes on him, I instantly knew he wasn’t from this part of the land. He was slightly younger than me, short, with long black hair, high cheek bones and almond-shaped eyes. He spoke with an accent that I had never heard before. The blue robe he fashioned seemed like something to sleep with.

  “Greetings!” he said, “My name is Yang. I be wayfarer, traveler of far east. You?”

  I froze, thinking on the pronunciation of his name. I had never seen anyone with his type of features; exotic and unknown. And yet I didn’t sense him to be a dangerous man. Actually, he looked a bit fragile. “Um, my name is Erik.”

  We started talking; about the bar, the weather, the roads on our maps, of how good it is to have a drink, etc. Sometimes he had trouble pronouncing some words, but I understood him well overall. He seemed to be a decent guy, and entirely out of place. He explained that he had come with a group of merchants to trade goods in the western countries. Seeing the great diversity of people and cultures other than his own, he decided to leave the group of merchants and travel farther west. He wanted to see more.

  “My country not know much of this world. From far, far east it is. I made the mission to learn and then teach my people. Been away too long, but I learn the language. Language is important. And you, warrior, why are you here?”

  I stayed in silence for an instant. I didn’t want to say the real reason I was there, in a country not my own. But, I didn’t want to lie to the humble man, either.

  “Like you, I too imposed myself a mission. Only that it doesn’t have to do with learning or teaching, but with recovering what is precious to me…”

  “Oh, be very personal mission. Well, I must continue my journey. May our paths cross again. Zaijian! That means good bye.” When Yang extended his arm to pay for his drinks, I saw the design of a bird on his robe. I hadn’t noticed it before. It had many colors with an imposing outline.

  “Yang, what is that bird?” I asked.

  “This? It be legend bird of my country, the Fenghuang.”

  “Feng who?”

  “Not fengwho, Fenghuang! The ruler of all birds, with the most beautiful of songs. Its voice can bring you fortune.” After the explanation, he turned to go on his way. But I had one more question.

  “Yang, one more thing. Have you seen a carriage hauling a covered cage around here?”

  “Not here,” he said, rubbing his chin. “Maybe pass already.” With that he departed through the tavern door. I looked at the corner where the lovers were, but they had left, too. I dropped some lorins on the bar counter and took my leave. If the carriage and cage had passed through here already, I needed to exit the village as soon as possible and catch up.

  I feared I wasted too much time at the pub. I walked around in search of a store to buy provisions. Instead, I found trouble. I took a left turn at the end of the street and there were two balorian soldiers walking towards me. With a shocked face I spun on my heel and went the other way. The soldiers saw my withdrawal as a dubious one and pursued me.

  Why did I turn in such a way? I should have just passed them without a glance just like the soldiers at the entrance of the village. I walked faster, but that just made me even more suspicious. Damn it, why did I get so nervous when I saw them? A couple of days ago I was undercover among them, and now I saw two and lost my backbone!

  The soldiers ordered me to stop, but I acted as if the command was not directed to me. The villagers on the street sensed the quarrel that was about to take place and started to skim away. When that happened, I realized that one way or another the soldiers were going to catch up to me. I had no choice but to confront them and try one of my sloppy lies.

  “Hey, who are you?” asked one of the two soldiers. His blue plated armor was shiny and unscratched. Had he ever fought in it?

  “Well, I am a traveler… a wayfarer.”

  “A wayfarer? Where do you come from?”

  “I come… from the south.”

  “Which town?”

  “Well…” I put the image of the balorian map on my mind and tried to remember the names of the southern towns. I just shot out the first thing that came to mind, “Borleng. I’m from Borleng.”

  “Oh, really?” said the other soldier, “It’s been some time I don’t pass by there. That’s really south. Tell me, is the tavern of the old hunchback still open?”

  “Of course! The tavern is open; the man, older; and the back… hunchier.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I had to play along. Maybe they would leave me be.

  “I see you are also well armed with sword and shield, traveler.”

  “Well, I want to protect myself during my journey. And in Borleng beasts are appearing lately. Everyone is armed.” They stayed in silence and I nodded to walk away. But just before I turned, they asked me one more question.

  “Since it has been such a long time I visited Borleng, can you tell me if there are still a lot of liars there?”

  “Well, uh, I couldn’t tell…”

  The soldier took out his sword and raised its tip to my neck. “Liar! You’ve lied from the very beginning. Borleng is on the north, the old hunchback doesn’t exist and there is an outpost right beside the town. There is no need for people to be worried of beasts. Now, tell us who you really are!”

  At the commotion, the villagers around us scrambled in a hurry. I exhaled in dismay, admitting the lie. The soldier held the sword loosely, totally confident that his ugly mug would intimidate me into confession. I smacked the sword away with my gauntlets and kicked him in the groin. Before the other could react, I hooked a punch to his temple. The moment he touched the ground I ran away. But I only took a few strides before hearing the soldiers cry for help, “After him!” “He’s a spy!”

  Dodging and pushing people away, I glanced over my shoulder to see three new soldiers chasing me. At the end of the street was a food market. Merchants stood behind their fruit, vegetable and meat stands. Passing through I knocked down tables, produce stalls and any other thing to impede the path of my pursuers. After the market, I turned right to a narrow alley between the carpenter and shoemaker shops. I almost jumped over an elderly man that was in the way, but he spread himself against the wall to let me pass. On the other side of the alley was a tiny flower shop, bustling with flora. It had a myriad of flowers placed in pottery of different shapes; the flowers with round pots were hanging from the edge of the roof, and the ones on the floor were in cylindrical vases. When the soldiers finally got there, their pulsing eyes weren’t able to see me.

  “I’ll alert the others about this scoundrel,” I heard one of them say. “You two keep looking.”

  I kept still until the noise of their footsteps faded into nothing. I was well hidden. I put daisies over my shoulders and squatted behind a big vase with a great sunflower. I shook off the daisies and trotted around the shop. There was an exit just behind it; a hole on the stone wall that led to the flower garden on the east of the village. It had to be a quick-access the gardeners used between the garden and their humble shop. I bent and went through the hole. Once outside, I didn’t dare to stand and expose myself. I kept close to the dirt and continued to the edge of the fields. There, I escaped into the forest.

  It had been a close call. If I were in a similar situation in the future, I couldn’t let it happen again. I either had to completely avoid soldiers, or, as bad as it may sound, become a better liar. I circled around the village by the copse of trees and continued northwest. This part of the woods was rocky and thick with sapling. If the balorian soldiers were still searching for me, the rugged vegetation would make it difficult to find me.

  The map wasn’t helping me much; no routes in the area except for the one coming from Vieris. But, if I kept going northwest I would come upon a series of streams. From there the map was more detailed.

  #

  In the following hours of my hike, I constantl
y veered my sight to the evening sun. It dropped faster than I would’ve hoped, and soon enough it got dark. I wasn’t expecting to find any shelter in the area, so I took out my blanket and prepared for another cold night. But luckily, I discovered a tall, hollow stump. It seemed lightning had broken it in half. There was a hole at its base and I managed to crawl through it. The inside wasn’t dirty… it was completely nasty. It had become a moist home for worms, snails, beetles and spiders. I was not afraid of bugs, but I didn’t like sleeping with them, either. I brushed out the creepy-crawlies and cleaned the most comfortable spot. To make sure a wolf or a fox did not enter the shelter, I wedged my shield on the hole.

  I sat against the hollow bark, waiting for sleep to bring me rest. In the meantime, I grasped a necklace I wore hidden beneath my clothes. It was a wood chip held by thin, woven vines. The chip had a delicate carving of trees at the bottom, the sun at the top, and four dragonfly wings in between. Touching and feeling the carving brought back memories of the day I first met Auria.

  4- Forest Slumber

  Second Memory

  I could see the sky through the top of the hollow stump. Stars shone bright and intermittently, and the night breeze gently fell upon me. I covered my body with the blanket and leaned my head back. I clutched the vine necklace I wore, feeling the carving on the woodchip. The past resurfaced, and I remembered the first time I met her…

  *

  “Kill him!” yelled the commander wearing the multiple horned helmet, as balorian soldiers flocked Tally’s plaza. Sebastien, The Beast, laid on the ground wounded; his moans muted by the stampede of his fellow men. Fearing that the enemy might overtake him, Erik ran for the edge of the cliff and jumped. The balorians abruptly stopped on the edge. They weren’t as crazy, or brave, as Erik. The river below was harsh and merciless. He kept his eyes on it as it got closer and closer. And finally, with a big splash, his body stabbed through the waters. He tried to swim to the surface, but the strong current made it impossible. He sank deeper, losing his air and his hope of surviving. His sight blurred, his body stiffened, and the echo of the cold waters sloshed in his ears. Suddenly, he felt his arm being yanked, like if something had wrapped around it. With the rush of the moment, Erik thought it as a rope. One pull brought his body up to the surface. Upon reaching the bank, Erik realized he wasn’t being rescued; he was being dragged as food. What had wrapped around his arm was the tongue of an enormous frog. The amphibian had hair all over its back, three small horns on its forehead, and it was pulling Erik into his wide, enormous mouth. Erik grabbed hold of a rock, resisting the pull.

  “You stupid frog, I’m not letting you eat me!” he yelled. The tension on his arm loosened when the frog stopped pulling and began walking towards him. Then, from above, an arrow fell right on the frog’s tongue. The fiend let go of Erik’s arm with a whelp and hopped into the river. Above on the cliff, the horned helmet commander punched an archer in the face.

  “I said I wanted the arrow through his skull, not the frog’s tongue!”

  Erik rose up and ran downstream as balorian archers fired arrows from atop the cliff. He ran and ran until finally he was far and safe from the enemy’s range. He walked on the east bank southward, following the current. He got to the point where the upland evened out with the bottom, but there was present another obstacle. The miaflorians called it the Forest of Agony. It was a vast and gloomy forest that no man dared enter. With enormous trees rising hundreds of feet to the sky, and mysterious creatures lurking within, everyone knew better than to go in. Since the trees were so high and wide, they blocked out the rays of the sun, leaving only a dim atmosphere that left foolish wonderers lost forever.

  Erik’s main camp was on a grassy plain situated right on the other side of this forest. He had to make a choice; either take a five day walk downriver to reach Pollen City, or go through the forest to reach the camp in one. He had to think about it. He removed his chainmail armor and rested on the ground, meditating on his options. And after a drink of fresh river water, he took his sword and shield and entered the feared forest. The sunlight made the edge of the woods appear lucid, but as Erik continued, visibility quickly toned down. He wasn’t even thirty meters in and it had already turned into a bleak nature. It was like if the darkness in the forest radiated more than the light of the sun.

  #

  After hours of walking in the forest, Erik had lost his sense of direction.

  “Yep, Erik,” he said to himself, “To go through a pitch black forest that no one has ever come out of. That was the obvious choice.”

  He had passed upon beds of mushrooms, a family of deer, and even a glowing pond. But, it appeared he was nowhere near the other side.

  “Man, what is it with this forest? There’s still supposed to be daylight and it looks like dusk.”

  In front of him was one of the giant trees that made the forest famous. The trunk rose to the darkness above. The roots were dark brown and as tall as a cottage. Erik took a break from all the walking and sat on a rock. The giant roots were shrouded with moss and toadstools, but he noticed something strange where the root met the trunk. There was a curtain of ivy hanging near the bottom of the trunk, but in the most perfect way. It didn’t seem natural. Erik went and inspected it. It was a perfect square of climbing plant, just as high as Erik. He pulled it to the side to reveal a staircase behind. It went up all around the tree like a spiral.

  “A staircase?” Erik questioned. “A monster couldn’t have created something so precise. Did a person make it? If so, maybe they can point me to the right direction.”

  With caution, Erik proceeded up the stairs. The wall against the bark had holes in different segments to let the air flow. Erik climbed for ten minutes, but he still hadn’t reached the end. He had to rest a couple of times since his thighs burned with exhaustion. He noticed that the higher he went the more clear it became outside through the air holes. He kept going until finally there was a door at the top end. It was decorated with carvings of butterflies sitting on mushrooms. But, the door had no knob. There was light seeping through the frame, though. Could it be from a lantern or was it rays from the sun? Had the stairs brought him to the top of the forest? He wouldn’t know until he opened it. He gently pushed to have the sun blind him. He raised his arm to block the light. When his sight regained focus, he saw there was a big chunk of the trunk missing, creating a landing. It was open without a railing or anything. One could walk over the edge and fall to the bottom. Erik walked out, the wind pushing him back and rustling his clothes. The stairs had brought him up to the canopy. The branches of the trees were long and strong, intertwining with each other. They were so verdant that they actually blocked the sun for the forest floor. Upwards the tree would still go on, but at least now Erik could see the sky. It was so clear he took a moment to admire it. Then, a strong gust threw him back against the trunk. That made him remember he was still in a very high place. The wind opened another door opposite to the one of the staircase.

  That could be the entrance to a house, thought Erik. He dashed to the door and entered. This new room, like the staircase, had been carved into the tree. Everything inside was made out of wood or plants. In the center there was a round dining table with four chairs. The carpet had been made from red and green bindweeds weaved together. In the left corner, behind a vine curtain, was a hole in the floor which I guessed was a latrine, and beside it a wooden container filled with water. On the opposite corner was growing a giant white mushroom. It had a pillow on top and a blanket made out of leaves. Lastly, on the wall of the bark there was a painting frame that reached from the floor to the ceiling. At the top, the painting showed birds and butterflies floating with the sun. At the bottom, trees and flowers grew and bloomed. And in between, four dragonfly wings shone in a myriad of colors.

  “Who would do all of this?” Erik asked himself, “To carve stairs and a whole room? It would just be easier to build a wooden house at the bottom. Anyway, I guess no one’s home.”

/>   He wondered inside and sat on one of the chairs. At that moment his stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten anything since before the battle at Tally Village. Frustrated and tired, he hugged his stomach and let the side of his head drop on the table. And there, looking at the mushroom bed, he noticed there was a stool with a bunch of nuts and berries on top. Erik jumped to the stool and gobbled the berries and nuts without thinking it twice. It was a lifesaver. He munched like a dog that hadn’t eaten for days.

  All of a sudden, there was a noise from the bark, a creaking. His military instinct turned on and he grabbed the handle of his sword. The noise came from the painting frame. It was slowly being lifted outwards. The frame had hinges on the top that made it open upward. But, Erik couldn’t see who or what was opening it from the outside.

  The frame creaked up until it revealed a small balcony. The outward frame functioned as an awning. Erik walked towards the balcony, unsheathing his sword just a bit.

  Something had to have opened it, he thought. The balcony was decorated with a beautiful oak railing. On it were wooden pots, each one holding the most beautiful orchids. Their petals were blue with thin yellow lines. The sun behind them made them look like if they were small fairies.

  Erik took another step, when out of the blue a woman descended from above. Her back was towards Erik, so she didn’t notice him. But Erik wasn’t looking at her, either. He was staring at the four radiant wings that sprouted from her back. She wasn’t just a woman; she was what the orchids looked like, a fairy. Her wings were long, thin, and reflected the light of the sun as if they were made of glass. Each one had segments of lines and shapes, like dragonfly wings. But unlike the dragonfly’s, each segment shone in different colors. One second they were shining red, then the color would flow into yellow, and then blue. She also had lines that ran from her back to her extremities. They too flowed with colors.