Quest, Book Zero: Black Zenith

Chapter One

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One more day’s travel, and she’d be home.

Excitement rippled through her, streaked with only a twinge of trepidation. Would they understand, accept, love? After all, she had been gone thirteen long moons, a full year. She’d even celebrated her sixteenth turn away from home.

Now she was returning, a changed person. A woman. She was a woman now.

Cy walked arm-in-arm with her beloved down the streets of Daeloyn, taking in the sights and sounds and smells so similar to – but not quite the same as – those of her home, Saminien. They had traveled six hot, heavy days, and tomorrow would make seven. But for tonight, they stayed safely within city walls. Danger lurked outside.

“Nervous, love?”

She was. She smiled up at her beloved, determined to put her fear aside. “Only a little.”

He laughed and brushed a kiss over her forehead. “Don’t be.”

But she couldn’t help it. She’d changed since leaving home so long ago, and she knew those changes would be hard for her family to handle. She was bringing home a man…her beloved, her life-mate. And, she was sure, her soul-mate too.

She looked up at him, studied him through bright green eyes shining with whole-hearted love. Innocent love. Belndin Kaiaro was anything and everything she had ever dreamed. Soft, gentle, kind, funny…even sweet. Often sweet, she thought with a smile.

His hair, the color of good, strong ale, was slightly too long and hung into his eyes. Cy sighed and reached up to brush some of it off his forehead, never breaking stride as they strolled companionably down the busy street. But her heart fluttered and her breath caught when he looked down at her and smiled.

It was amazing, she thought as she had so often before, that someone so perfect would ever give her a second glance. But his eyes, stormy grey, shone with love akin to her own.

With another, quieter sigh, she traced her gaze over his sharp cheekbones and strong jawline, down over his broad shoulders. He had slung one arm around her own narrow shoulders, snugging her close beside him. He said it was to protect her from the bustle of the inner city, but the smile in his eyes told her differently.

She turned her eyes to her surroundings, the very ones he claimed to be protecting her from. But she had grown up in a city even bigger than Daeloyn, and the press of people had never caused her fear.

Daeloyn was still not home, and that one fact spoiled the city for her. She found no real charm in the quaint wooden houses down narrow but pretty streets, nor did she see why the people of Daeloyn refused to live above their shops. Instead, they stacked apothecaries atop shops selling clothing, leathergoods shops atop florists. There was disarray and craziness and an almost frantic taste to the air that, had it been any other time, she would have enjoyed.

In Daeloyn, shops were obviously shops, aligned in neat rows on broad avenues. Houses were houses, strung down dead-end streets like beads on a string – multicolored beads, but strung in patterns.

Under the craziness of market was never-ending organization. All roads led somewhere, held some purpose, had some pretty but functional name. The pubs and taverns were confined to one small area so that the ‘filth’ – the dusty travelers passing through – wouldn’t spread through the polished city.

All the areas so important to a city like Daeloyn were scattered about, with the Council House on one end of the city and the Practice Halls for the Blademasters-in-training on the other. She thought of Saminien, of how everything so important was close together, convenient, and found herself wishing desperately for home.

She knew Saminien. She didn’t know Daeloyn, or any of the other cities they’d passed through.

Someone brushed against her and she moved closer to Belndin to let them pass. Even at dusk the market was crowded; from what she had heard from Daeloyn locals, the market wasn’t open often. Once every shift of the moon, they said, only fifty-two times a year.

“Hey!”

The shout nearly went unnoticed, except it was followed by a long, loud curse and a yelp. Cy turned, curious, to see two men engaged in a tussle over a coin pouch. One man was tall, golden, majestic in stature. The two rows of black circles trailing down his right arm told her two things: he was a Blademaster, and he had killed two Evralōn – Evri leaders.

The second man was smaller, darker, and stood like someone accustomed to street tussles. He had to be the thief. He and the Blademaster disengaged and circled each other warily. The thief held the coin pouch in his hand.

The thief made to make an escape but the Blademaster lunged, snatched the coin pouch from his hand, and grabbed him by the shirt collar. Another small tussle ensued and there was the sound of fabric stretching, then ripping, and the thief escaped down the street. The Blademaster watched him go, coin pouch in one large hand. Slowly, the crowd that had gathered drifted away, the entertainment over.

Before she and Belndin could turn, the Blademaster was striding towards them. Belndin said something to her but she didn’t hear, instead thinking of how the Blademaster looked like her father, strong and proud. And then he was standing before her and holding the coin pouch out, smiling, saying something.

“-glad I noticed.”

“What?”

“Cy, he said that’s your pouch.”

Brows furrowed, she placed a hand on her belt, just behind her left hip, where her pouch should have been. She touched empty air instead and, a little incredulously, looked down at the pouch in the man’s hand. It was indeed hers.

“Thank you,” she said, taking it from him and curling her slender fingers around it. Belatedly she thought of being brushed against in the crowd – the thief, no doubt. When she smiled, it was genuine. “Thank you. It might not be much, but it’s all I have.”

The man nodded and smiled again. “I know what it’s like to travel and reach for your coins only to find them missing. Have a prosperous journey,” he added, and gave Belndin a nod before turning and walking away.

-

Home. She could see it, just there in the distance. A gleaming white-pink wall protecting everything inside. They were approaching the South Gate, passing through the fields where Saminien’s farmers grew their various crops. She caught sight of a familiar figure and nearly shouted her delight. “Ghustav!”

An aging man, bent down raking some defenseless weeds from his plot, straightened and dropped his tool – an old, rusted, obsolete tool only farmers knew anything about – and grinned widely. “Cy, my girl!” he exclaimed as she rushed across the land – ever careful to jump over rows – to fall into his arms.

Ghustav may have been aging but he wasn’t frail; he squeezed Cy against him so hard all the breath left her lungs. Dizzy, breathless, she pulled back and grinned at him. He hadn’t changed a bit. The same mix of grey-brown hair sprouted from his scalp, the same brown eyes twinkled as he looked beyond her to the man carefully picking his way over the rows of perfectly aligned, painstakingly planted seeds.

“All grown up, my girl?”

She beamed at him. No matter what she did, she would always be his girl. Part of her, some small, secret part, had feared that would change. “Yes.”

“I see you took my advice, my girl, and found yourself some nice man to love you.”

“I did.”

He feigned a gasp. “Not my tough-as-nails little spitter? You finally listened to an old romantic?”

“I finally listened,” she said as Belndin reached them. “Belndin, this is Ghustav. Ghustav, Belndin…my beloved.”

Ghustav sized Belndin up before hooting with laughter. “Wonderful, wonderful.” And he pulled Belndin, a whole head taller than him, into the same bone-crushing hug he’d given Cy.

Full names were exchanged, relations, intentions. Before she could stop him, Ghustav was weaving tales – memories, really – of her childhood antics. Despite her flaming cheeks she found herself laughing just as much as the other two, even contributing to the stories.

When they finally parted, leaving Ghustav to his plants that were yet to sprout, all of Cy’s fears had fled. Belndin, grinning widely, wrapped his arm around her shoulders as they stepped over rows. “Did I pass?”

She laughed. “Of course. Ghustav’s the one who’s always played romantic.”

“So, let me see, one grandfather fin-”

“No, no, no!” Cy grinned. “Ghustav isn’t a blood relation, just an…adopted grandfather.”

Belndin pretended to groan. “And how many are there?”

She smothered her laughter and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “Only two. And then the rest of my family.”

-

As she led Belndin towards her home – all the way on the other end of the city, closest to the North Gate – she took in all the things she hadn’t known she’d missed until Daeloyn. Their path cut straight through the city, all four parts.

Saminien, like many other cities, was built as a series of concentric circles. Many cities kept the boundaries between sections clearly defined, marked with signs or even low walls. In Saminien, level blended into level.

The outer ring, as Saminien locals called it, was the first ‘level’ of the city. It was here the seven Houses were, each a large, sprawling mass of wood and brick and stone that had seen hundreds of generations. Here there were large open meadows and dense patches of shady forest that served as playgrounds for children of all ages. Nestled just inside the protective barrier wall, the outer ring was the quietest – well, perhaps second quietest – part of the city.

Soon enough the outer ring blended into the inner ring, where most Blademasters, Enchanters and Aerionids lived. The houses were placed haphazardly on streets that twisted and turned and twined around other houses. Though quiet, people could be heard chatting with their neighbors or puttering around the house. Windows and doors were flung open with abandon; laughter raced from house to house.

There were trees here and there for children to climb, fathers to prune and mothers to water. Gardens, some carefully planned and some wildly thrown together, were in abundance. Color splashed in gardens, on houses, in trees. Color, crazy color, patternless color…but comforting in its cheery disorder.

And then even that faded into the outer core. The marketplace, always busy and buzzing with business. It was more crowded here, but not like in Daeloyn. Here, the loudest people were the laughing ones, the biggest crowds were the young children rushing through the streets on some mission or another.

Here, shopkeepers lived above their shops. Families were dreamt of, raised and seen off in a continuous, soothing rhythm from the doorsteps. Laughter was the word of choice and smiles graced the vast majority of faces.

The taverns and pubs were scattered through the outer core. A few sat, isolated, on narrow side streets that wove around other more elegant, more charming buildings to reach the derelict structure at the end. Those places housed the unfriendly travelers and needed no more than ale and soup to continue business.

But as much as Cy loved the market, with its variety of people, she loved the inner core most.

The inner core of Saminien was isolated, an island in the Givine River that cut through the city’s heart. She and Belndin crossed into the inner core by a footbridge made of the same white-pink stone as the outer wall – the stone the cliffs and mountains in the west were made of. Beyond those glistening peaks lay a vast stretch of sea, so storm-tossed and wild only the bravest – or the craziest – dared try to cross. And none of those had ever returned.

A feeling of complete peace settled over Cy as they entered the inner core. The bustle of the market behind them dimmed and then dropped away, leaving them open to the still silence of the inner core.

Very few people loitered here. The atmosphere was too solemn.

On the very edges of the inner core, as she well knew, were the ever noisy Halls. Practice Halls for Blademasters and Enchanters, Instruction Halls for everyone. But between those two hubs of life nestled a small oasis of silence.

The inner core was filled with buildings of unimaginable age. The Council House – the newest building – had been reconstructed after a great fire almost a hundred generations previous. The original walls still stood and held up the new roof, blackened by fire and witness to history. Saminien was the oldest of cities, and so each building had a history of its own.

The seven temples, the very first ones, each held some sacred item specific to that deity. Cy had grown up knowing of and seeing such miracles as the ever-blossoming midnight rose of Jenren’s temple. Each item held a special place in her heart – she had, after all, prayed to them or beside them since birth.

“It’s so quiet,” Belndin whispered. Cy nodded, resenting only a little that he had disrupted the peace of the inner core with words, even quiet ones. But he didn’t know such peace in his own city. Kloin, his home, had been a frantic dance of noise and laughter. Or perhaps that had only been their romance.

Soon enough they passed through the rest of the inner core and over another white-pink footbridge, into and out of the market, and through the inner ring. And before long her feet were treading a path she knew all too well.

Home. She was finally going home.