Erin Hoffman - Sword of Fire and Sea

At length she stood and brushed off her robes. Vidarian spoke hastily as she turned to go.

“Lady, I must know. Who are you, who are so-wise?”

Her eyes were alive with secret mischief as she looked back over her shoulder, voice fading as she walked off into the mist. “The gryphons called me Ele'cherath of old. The seridi, my children, who have also been called so many different names, called me San'vidara. But for myself, I call me-”

Vidarian woke, gasping desperately yet finding no comfort in the air that rushed into his lungs. It was thin and cold, sending spangles of black across his vision as he attempted to focus on the blinding glare of the sun that beat down into his eyes. Thrown so suddenly from consciousness to darkness and back again, his body could not keep up, yet from the depths of his soul he clung to the striking sensation of a vast, pulsing rhythm that seemed to come from all around.

Gradually sounds began to separate from the pulsing beat-a flurry of rapid, excited whispers.

Finally his eyes focused, but he blinked again, not quite accepting what he saw. Leaning over him with an expression he guessed to be concern was a sleek face with a narrow nose and a line of golden dots painted above each eyebrow. The eyes below were a warm, almost molten gold, exotically tilted.

“Ah,” his watcher murmured, with a tiny tap to her nose, “he wakes.”

At her words the whispers that surrounded them increased in velocity and volume, though in his dazed state Vidarian could not make out any individual words. Shaking his head, he sat up.

There were fewer whisperers than he had initially thought, but the small handful of priestesses that crowded around him drew back as he moved. Only one among them did not.

“Priestess,” he acknowledged, then winced as pain lanced through his skull, awakened by his own voice.

“Captain Rulorat,” Endera answered, her half-lidded eyes evincing no sympathy for his suffering. “My priestesses found you out cold halfway down the mountain, sprawled on the rocks. Care to explain?”

“I think one of your priestesses knocked me out,” he answered testily, rubbing at his left temple.

“That would be impossible,” Endera answered, folding her ceremonially robed arms. “There were no priestesses on your side of the mountain all night.”

“Perhaps you can be a bit more specific,” the first priestess said gently, placing a hand between his shoulder blades. It was warm. “Did she give you a name?”

“I think she called herself…San'vidara,” Vidarian said, eyes half closed as he attempted to clear his vision. He was looking at the first priestess just long enough to see her eyes do what a human's never would-the pupils rapidly shrunk and flared, pinning like an eagle's. All around him the whispers grew to a furor.

Vidarian turned swiftly to demand what was going on, but found his neck suddenly up against the edge of a dazzlingly shining knife. Endera's eyes were burning.

“So help me, Vidarian, if you dare to mock me at this time and place…” her growling tone promised the torture of a thousand deaths. Slow ones.

“I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, Priestess,” Vidarian grated, being very careful not to move.

“It would explain his appearance, Endera,” the golden-decorated priestess murmured, her voice half an octave lower than it had been, with a harmony like tolling bells. “Among other things.”

Vidarian looked desperately at his strange-eyed supporter. “She said the seridi called her that. And that the gryphons called her…Ella…Ele'chertoth. Or something like that.”

// He speaks the truth , // a new voice rumbled in all of their minds, and the priestesses drew back again. Even Endera lowered her blade. // Even if he had somehow learned the Seridan name for Sharli, the name Ele'cherath is protected among the scholars of gryphonkind. // The speaker stepped forward, a gryphon more massive than any of the three he'd seen before. She was tall and muscular, colored like a goshawk but with an array of golden designs painted on her wings. Fiery red eyes settled like burning coals upon Vidarian. // She gave you her other names, those that we call her by, because to hear her True Name would unmake you , // she explained, with a soft tone that nonetheless gripped his heart with ice. // Our goddess is ever one to toy with our own mortal makings, but still you are lucky to be alive. // The stunned and frightened looks of the younger priestesses confirmed the gryphoness's statement.

“I trust your judgment, as always, Thalnarra,” Endera answered, but kept one hand on the knife and looked as if she'd rather have it in Vidarian's gizzard. Or somewhere worse. But she only sighed, then gestured to two of the other human priestesses. “This will bear some explaining. Bring him.”

The two priestesses closed in around Vidarian and helped him to his feet, not unkindly. They then marched him down a hall that carried a faint aroma of smoke and honey, barely perceptible but daunting to his spirit nonetheless.

At length they passed through a marble hall, but none of the priestesses showed any signs of slowing. At the end of the hall in either direction sat a huge white marble altar topped by a massive gold chalice, squat and crowned with a circle of bright fire. Even with the lengths of cold marble between them, Vidarian could swear he felt heat on his skin.

“Are those…?” Vidarian trailed off, staring wide-eyed at the chalices.

“Yes,” Endera answered shortly, continuing her brisk walk ahead of them and not turning her head. “Those are the Living Flames of Sharli.”

Never in his life did Vidarian think he would see the Flames, revered by all followers of Sharli, no matter how meek. Even as they passed, he caught sight of elaborately robed priestesses attending the twisting flames, their garments in the characteristic wine red but rimmed at cuffs, hem, and collar with white ribbon. The Flames had not gone out in twelve hundred years, and likely longer-twelve hundred years merely marked the point at which the priestesshood began to keep count, nearly four dynasties ago.

Beyond the marble hall was a door, plain by comparison but carved of fine heavy ironwood. A young acolyte garbed in ashen grey rushed to open the door before Endera's sweeping feet, and then they were all inside.

“Now then,” Endera began, settling down at her desk. Her eyes were clear as they looked up at Vidarian. “You've spoken with our goddess. It seems that she wishes you to pursue this quest.”

“I intend to rescue Ariadel, Priestess, no matter what it takes,” Vidarian managed, taking a step forward ahead of his attendants.

“Mm,” the priestess murmured, sliding open the top drawer to her desk and withdrawing a sheet of slick ivory parchment. “If it is the will of Sharli, we will certainly assist you. Even now my priestesses are sending for gryphons to carry you as far as you will go.”

“Sh-Sharli did instruct me to do one other thing,” Vidarian began, then plowed ahead before Endera's abruptly sharpening eyes could stop him. “She told me to retrieve from you the sun emeralds. She seemed to think they would be my key in locating Ariadel.”

For a fire priestess, Endera could pull off an incredible icy glare. Straightening as he would against a torrential wind, Vidarian steeled himself for the worst. In the end, though, Endera only reached once more into her drawer and withdrew a black leather pouch. It clinked softly on the desk when she dropped it.

“Sit down, Captain,” Endera said, so sharply that Vidarian did as he was told before even thinking about it. The priestess glanced up for a moment and the two other priestesses bowed out of the room. When the door clicked shut, Endera spoke again. “You're here now to give me a detailed report of your encounter with our goddess.” When he did not answer, she continued, but her tone slanted upward warningly. “The goddess comes to us in many forms, and, rather than waste her time in speaking, delivers her word on many matters through nuance of her appearance and slightest gesture. You are to recall to me as much as you possibly can.” Suddenly Vidarian became aware of how absolutely strained Endera was-he conjectured that he must have been the first of the uninitiated to give such a report. Maybe even the first man.