The Witchling of Alsira

Chapter One - Old King Stohll

The air whipping past carried the crisp and dry scent of the desert dunes clinging to the horizon in the south. Sprinklings of fine white sand and the rich smell of blossoming tolsen weed were kicked up, trailing on breezes, reaching high up into the Whendan Mesas. As pleasant and soothing as these breezes were, they were also the first sign of the clear weather turning quickly into a sandstorm.

Ghelta reached up with her right arm, feeling the sharp rocks above her with her chalk-covered fingers. She probed the crevices and peaks of the rock, using only tactile senses to gauge if the area could hold her weight. Once she found a suitable shelf of rock she gave it one hard upward push with the leather-wrapped palm of her hand, and quickly pivoted her weight to that hand.

She let her other arm dangle and rest for a few moments while she shoved the right toe of her leather climbing shoes onto another jutting shelf of rock. She closed her eyes for a few moments, taking in the breeze, letting the kicked up sand grains caress her face and blow through the bangs and wild sides of her auburn hair.

The tolsen weed she could smell only bloomed during severe dust storms, sending their seeds out on the winds to take hold in new areas, and take hold deeply they did, in the shadowed dips of sand dunes that comprised the land her people called the Jolash Duenr. Tolsen weed has always been one of the most important stable foods used by the tribe that Ghelta belonged to, the Alsi-Kavi of the Jolash Plateau. Used by warriors to strengthen their bones, by seers as smudging incense in rituals of power, and by the broden-mothers who watched after the children of the tribe.

The rich smell of the tolsen blooms were broken by an acrid smell of smoke, soon starting as a faint trace, but growing heavily as the wind picked up. Ghelta opened her eyes, and leaned hard to her left, straining her right hand and right foot holding her to the side of the mesa. She looked southward, squinting her eyes due to the glow of the setting suns. Before her, a few inches below the horizon, where the rocky Jolash Plateau gave way to the canyon that encompassed the Jol River, were plumes of black smoke winding their way up above faintly glowing embers.

A smile spread across Ghelta’s face as she soon realized what the source was. The raiding party that her mentor, Ylethus, had taken to Haaken Vaulthaen to the south, earlier that morning, had been successful. They had taken the city, known as Gullcrest City in the lesser tongue, and were no doubt making merry sport of that merchant’s hub at this very moment. The blackened smoke trails were fires set to many of the sulchwood buildings that made up the common quarters, merchant stalls, and lesser temples. Where the perverted members of the Haakuenth tribe gathered in cults and worshiped their usurper gods from distant lands.

She was happy for her mentor and for the bounty that his party would bring back to her tribe. Many of the warrior caste would earn stories of honor this evening, and the skaldts would be busy for weeks hearing the boasting cries in the leiggen-skappfs as the tired warriors ate and drank their fill. As happy as she was for Ylethus and her fellow caste members, she was also filled with a deep sense of sadness.

She wanted for all the world to be out there with them, to prove her worth against the Veshkoldan Delathi that comprised the army that secured the city. The clash of steel, the spray of blood, the cries of the dying, the warmth of the fires, the thrill of the hunt. Running through those streets, every turn and step being a razor’s edge between life and death. It would be glorious, if not for the fact that she had yet to pass the rite of Kollishi Thaulp to prove she was an adult.

She had tried several times to get into her mentor’s raiding party. At first, she had tried asking Ylethus calmly after an intense day of training before he was to leave. He declined her and ruffled her hair as he often did when she stepped out of line.

She had tried dressing up in her warrior’s kit, sword freshly sharpened, leather armor oiled to a slick polish, her furs newly cleaned in glacial water and fluffed up to vhulkovyr standard, during the evening. He commended her work on pretending to seem like an adult member of the warrior caste, giving a long belly laugh at her expense, and again, declining.

She had even tried to sneak into his raiding party as they assembled their weapons and prepared to leave at daybreak. He declined more sternly that time and took the time to remind her that she had not gone through the necessary rite and could not take any honor for herself until she had done so.

Finally, he declined the fourth and final time, with his own blood covering his face, as she had ambushed him on the Tarenhulf Rise after leaving their home. She had put up a valiant fight against him, and she had shouted hard into his face, amidst crashes of sword on sword, that if she must prove herself to attain glory, she would gladly do so with his blood. She could see the rage in his eyes then, but when the fighting had settled and he had eventually bested her, she also saw the pride he had for her.

The pride he had, despite the words telling her she had disgraced herself in her over-zealousness and would be dealt with when he got back. She knew he was proud of her, but he could not show it to his men, they needed to see him strong and full of fury. It was in his eyes, Ylethus could hide his emotions behind boasts, bluster, fury and rage, but he could not hide what shone behind his eyes.

It was after that fight in the morning hours that Ghelta had run off from her home. She had a rage in her that needed to be satisfied, and if she could not have the taste of her foe’s blood on her lips, then perhaps she could have her own. She decided to do something reckless then and had committed to that recklessness all the rest of the day.

She decided to climb, wearing nothing but her daily clothes, leather gloves, and boots, without any safeguards, the tallest of the Whendan Mesas she could run to. This cliff she was on, was called Auhl-Keignfel Stohll, or Old King Stohll. It was a sacred site to many seers of her tribe, used in auguries and tests of fortitude. It was said that only a few dozen of her tribe had ever succeeded in climbing this mesa, and over a hundred had lost their lives trying. Those who succeeded were seen as great seers and inducted into a very elite group of warrior-oracles. Those who died got to meet Olthenna, the goddess of death, face-to-face, and in that were of honored standing as well.

The wind was beginning to pick up in staggered, hard gusts. Ghelta could feel it tugging at the tattered and worn tunic she wore. The grains of sand began to take a bite to them, no longer content to lightly sprinkle her skin. A more experienced climber would abandon the cliff-side and try to make their way down to shelter before the winds became unbearable. Ghelta, however, decided to press higher towards the mount.

She was only a few dozen feet away from the top and the hardest part of her journey was just beginning. Below her feet, as she looked down, was a drop of slightly less than a thousand feet. It was an entire day’s climb, starting after she had been spurned by her mentor at daybreak, and then coming to her current point.

She could make out some of the skappfs of her people, far below on the rocky shelf of the Jolash Plateau. The land she knew as home was in a seemingly narrow crevasse behind her, an hour’s stride from the mesas. The city she was from was called Alsira Thaenat, or the City of Veils. It was a large conclave of her people, who built their home within the sides of that great crack in the earth. Lights lit up from the sentry towers along the edge of the split, some overflow living areas on the rocky surface of the plateau, and hermit’s skappfs trailing towards the mesas began to light up as well. All lit with candles, torches, and bonfires for the night. A few faint traces of burning meats and rich stews began to creep up in between the gusts of wind.

The twin suns, the burning god Dhaulm and his passionately aflame lover Tralt, were quickly descending towards the horizon, filling the sky with the shades of spilled blood and lingering bruises. Less than an hour and the world around her would be plunged into darkness. That alone was enough to make the climb precarious and deadly, the oncoming dust storm guaranteed her death on the jagged rocks immediately below.

She let the rest of her reminisces trail away on the wind, and then returned to the matter at hand. She quickly and gracefully pushed herself sideways and upwards with her right arm and foot, grabbing hold of a new rock shelf just above her by a few foot’s distance. She let her legs dangle for a moment, then scratching the side of the rock face with the inside of her left foot, she found hold again, pushing herself up further.

Those that she had talked to on the way to the mesa, wizened hermits and decrepit seers, all warned her of the perilousness of her goal. With each press upwards, she realized there might, in fact, be truth to some of their bold claims. Ghelta was not a novice at the art of climbing, few in her tribe were, but this climb was one of the most exhausting, taxing and dangerous she had ever performed. She loved every minute of it.

Every rock that had come loose, every painful slide down the rock face with just a few second’s reaction time to grab hold or die, every scream of every muscle in her body sent her electric with the feeling of life. If she could not fight men this day, she would fight nature. If she could not stare Olthenna in the eyes on the fields of battle, she would find her here, behind a slip, and a quick fall into her embrace.

The edge of the rock began to bow out in all directions, a sort of bowl near to the top. She had to spend several minutes for each movement now, hunting for any juts or gaps in the rock she could grab hold of and that could carry all of her weight. Her legs were becoming more and more useless as she had to hold herself by her fingertips, over a dizzying drop onto the same leering jagged rocks, the sizes of several men atop one another, below.

The wind had lost most of its gentleness now and cascades of sand began to whirl around the sides of the mesa. Ghelta had to use her tactile senses all the more now, trying to keep her eyes shut to avoid the sting of the sand. The rock face began to become slick in areas, the sand clinging to the gaps and cracks, filling them quickly.

A hastened look upwards, a bit of an indentation off to her right that would allow her to use her legs and rest her hands. That area was filled with cracks and shelves that she could use, and the dip in the rock might shield her some from the wind. All she had to do was move across a hard and bowed out section of sheer rock. The rock itself shimmered slightly in the crimson, dying sunlight. She thought that perhaps it was made of some type of quartz, traversing it might be painful and dangerous, but it was the best path upwards.

She reached up, making sure her handholds were secure along a gripping edge. She let her legs go from the rock face and began to shimmy rightwards towards the sheer rock. She swung her legs hard to give herself momentum, but her right leg held cautiously pointed to her right, so as to grasp any rock she could if she lost her grip.

A few quick moments and she had begun mounting the bottom edge of the rock she needed to traverse. The rock was becoming far more dense and sharp in areas here. She ended up cutting the tips of two of her fingers. The pain was startling for a few brief moments, the chalk and sand stinging at her wounds, but she let it slide away. A slight discomfort was far more preferable to death, after all.

She managed to find two small shelves of rock below her and she planted her feet onto them to take her weight. She had to grapple the sides of the rock in front of her as if hugging it with all the surface area her slight body could cover. She looked upwards and saw that if she could just get over this bow, she could use the top angle of the rock as leverage.

This was a very risky maneuver, but she had to commit to it at this point. She pushed away and upwards on the sides of the rock face before her and gave a hard kick downwards with both of her legs. For a few moments, she was in mid-air, just the tips of her fingers gliding across the jagged crystals in front of her. Her instincts flared up, a part of her mind was screaming in fear, the rest was doused in exhilaration.

She managed to get a bit higher on the rock and that is when she had to grab and drop herself downwards. She slid a few inches, jagged bits of rock cutting into portions of her arms and exposed stomach, some more of her tunic started to tear. She had to press with all her arm’s strength against the rock. She eventually stopped moving and began to kick with her legs to get some forward momentum, slowly wiggling forward over the rock face.

A few more inches forwards and she could get herself over the ridge of the rock and take a moment to rest. She continued moving forwards, every shift felt like she was sliding forwards on broken glass. The skin of her stomach was raw, her arms had started to shake under her strain, and the muscles of her thighs were ringing with exhaustion.

As she finally got over the ridge, she had to stop for a moment. She could feel the hair on her head and on her arms go rigid. The teasing sensation of static building up around her body. She enjoyed the feeling, as when she was a small child, many in her broden would put out a wool mat and run across it in a game to shock the other children. This was not a game, however, and she knew the sensation meant immediate danger.

The flash of lightning tore through the skies above, faster than the eye could see and struck an edge of rock face just above and to the left of her, two person’s height away. Her eyes were filled with a brilliant flash of red and white light, blinding and for a split second lighting the world around her as if it were day. She could feel the immense heat coming from the bolt as if she had stepped right to the edge of a roaring bonfire.

Before the rest of her body could react to the shock of the bolt, she was already flinching and seizing as her body was wracked with the immense boom of thunder. The air in her lungs was sucked right out of her. The whole world she knew shook for a few moments, as the voices of the gods descended from the celestial void above, down to the human world below.

It took a few moments before Ghelta was able to breathe again, and she took several greedy gulps of air as soon as she could. The thunder continued to roll, dissipating slowly into echoes that resounded throughout the mesas. For her, however, the cliff-side she was still on did not cease its shaking.

She could feel the rock beneath her give away under some strain or force. It began with a slightly uneasy feeling, then turned to a jolting cracking sensation, followed by a low rumble. She looked upwards before her and saw a split forming between where the red rock of the mesa met with the boulder of quartz she was clinging to. She had only a moment before the entire piece would take her to the bottom.

She used every ounce of her strength to lift her feet up and underneath her, her thighs and hips straining as she bent them in ways they weren’t accustomed to. She managed to get a grip with her feet, and using all the power of her body, she pushed up and away from the rock, leaping into the air.

One more shudder and the boulder broke free, slowly scraping the cliff-side and then plummeting to join the rocks below. She had only a moment, suspended in the air, and she reached out, her left hand extending as far as she could to grab onto whatever jut of rock that she could slide down towards.

She slid a few feet downwards, her arm grasping and being buffeted and battered between rocks. Eventually, she took hold, with only three fingers on a bottom half of a deepened and angular crack in the rock. She dangled there, feet and other arm exposed to open air. She took a single breath to calm herself, then grappled with the rock face once more to get a better hold.

It took a few minutes, and the strain on her left hand was immense, but she found her leverage once again. She lifted herself up, using the angle of the crack to press forward. The jagged areas from where the boulder had fallen, fortunately, had made the area easier to pass. A few minutes more and she had reached the depression above that she had sought.

The area she reached had hard sides to it and a shelf the size of her foot across the bottom. She turned on her heels there, allowing her back to press against the rock, her arms stretched to either side. She waited there for a moment, to reclaim her strength.

She took this time, to look out at the world around and below her. The suns had finally set and the first stars were beginning to appear on the farthest horizon. Most of the sky was dark, with thick and roiling clouds above that cascaded across the sky, hungry to blot out the starlight. The winds were filled with sand, flowing like rivers of glittering crystals suspended in the air. One more quick flash of light, far off to the south, was met a dozen heart beats later with the rolling sound of thunder.

The hermit skappfs and sentry towers below her were harder to see now. Their wane light was being drowned out by the sand on the wind. The soothing smells of prepared evening meals were gone now, replaced only with the dryness of the desert winds. To the right, to the south, she could no longer see the blackened pillars of smoke or the glimmering embers of Haaken Vaulthaen. The world felt like it was closing in, like Olthenna herself was drawing a veil down, to grow closer to Ghelta. To snuff the flame of her life in a choking cloud of bleached sand and darkness.

Her impatience was mounting, even though her body still needed more time to recuperate, she needed to press onward. She was only a few feet from the summit. She examined the area around her, deciding which way to go. She settled on a pull to her right, where several areas of the rock had been split and shattered by old erosion.

She spun her heels again, pushing upwards and to the side. The rock was softer as this altitude and may shelves or cracks needed to have sand wiped away before she could trust them. This added time to the journey, but the worst was now behind her.

Two dozen minutes more and she could feel her hand on the final edge of the rock face. She began to pull herself up, slowly, her arms and legs shaking. She got her head up and took a brief look over the edge. The wind was fierce now, she had to squint and look quickly then shut her eyes before looking again.

Ahead of her, crouched and taking shelter behind a pillar of rock shaped like a hounds-tooth, was a dark figure. Ribbons and currents of whipping sand flew over the rock the figure was before, like wisping tendrils. With the first glimpse, she could only make out the figure’s silhouette. With a second, she could make out a drawn cloak of tattered robes in a sickly black and green color. Sections of the tattered edges streamed like long scarves on the winds. A hood was drawn over the figure’s head, and what could be seen of the face was hidden beneath stark, white cloth. A third glimpse revealed the figure lifting itself to its feet, using a large and gnarled wooden staff to do so.

Ghelta continued to strain against the rock, lifting herself up so she could get one knee under her. Her hands gripping tightly to the rock, and her muscles tensing in case this figure might try to push her back the way she had come. She lifted her eyes again, one more glimpse, and found the figure was now a few feet away looking down at her.

“The children of Nesharr do not want you here, child.” The figure’s voice was male, calm, deep and raspy. He stood for a moment while Ghelta got both feet under her and moved forward away from the mesa’s edge. “You see their displeasure around us, do you not. That bolt from the heavens was not an idle threat.”

Ghelta got into a crouch, keeping low to avoid the winds. She lifted her left hand to her face, trying to shield her eyes from the sand blowing directly at her. The figure before her raised his arms to his sides, gesturing to the horizons. He brought them down quickly, striking his staff on the rock before her. He leaned forward, his stark blue eyes now being seen above the white cloth that concealed and framed the top and bottom of his face.

“You have not passed the rite of Kollishi Authrak.” He blinked, and looked her from foot to brow. “You haven’t even passed the right of Kollishi Thaulp, to become an adult!” He turned on his feet, and the torn trailings of his cloak battered Ghelta in the face for a moment. “This is a sacred place to our tribe, girl, and you have no place here. You taint it with your very presence.”

She was beginning to grow angry with this man. She knew he would have to be one of the authrakallin, the warrior-oracles that used this place as a testing ground for new members, and as a place of augury. Perhaps she would test his skill and see if he was worth his station.

The figure remained with his back towards her and snapped out his staff to his side at an angle. “Still your bloodthirsty heart, young one. You may try if you wish, but understand, where you may cause me injury, I am in my rights to take your life. You climbed far, and I can take that achievement away from you with a single push.”

Ghelta grit her teeth down hard and gave a low growl under her breath. Her posture changing from a kneel to that of a predatory crouch, legs and arms bent, ready to attack. She was sick of being told by these arrogant old men that she was not permitted to do as she pleased, simply because she hadn’t satisfied some pointless old tradition.

“I see you aren’t one to learn from words and reason.” The figure turned towards her and bent its knees, holding its staff before it at an angle, between both hands. “Perhaps you will learn better through action and consequence.”

She gave a guttural howl, most of her voice being swept up and carried away on the howling winds. The grains of sand peppered her face and eyes, stinging as they embedded or sheared into her skin. She took a step forward and pushed with her legs to lunge at the figure before her.

With her howl still carrying out of her, she was sent back by a hard impact to the right side of her head, just below her ear. Her feet staggered for a moment, and she was soon sent reeling by another hard impact to the left side of her head at the same place. She began to fall forwards, a sense of vertigo overtaking her. It was hard to focus, she felt lightheaded, her vision began to distort.

Another impact took her, this one being the end of the staff striking her in the upper gut, just below her ribs. The impact was carried through and took her off her feet, reeling backward. She could see the distance from where she was previously standing, now grow larger, as the figure ran forward with his staff still pressed into her body. She could feel the wind whipping up as she was carried over the edge of the mesa cliff.

Her mind quickly returned to her, adrenaline and instinct taking hold. She grasped the staff at her middle with all her strength. She was suspended, several feet back, over nothing but the dizzying drop she had just climbed up. She couldn’t breathe, as the staff pressed in on her diaphragm, but she struggled and seized to keep her energy up.

The wind and sand pelted at her, now feeling like an endless stream of razors tearing into her skin. The howls of the weather were like winged demons screeching their fury at the world of humankind, wanting to tear it asunder. She continued to gasp, to draw in air, her mouth agape, but she could not. Her eyes stung, her nostrils and mouth filled with sand, choking at her throat even more.

“My threat was not idle, child.” The figure held her aloft, still pinned to his staff. His voice was calm and his breathing was still regular. This entire action seemed to not strain him at all. “Understand well, that you are bested. Continue your fury, and I will dispatch you to Olthenna, not as an honored warrior, but as a coward to be damned for all eternity.”

She had heard many times as a child, as all of her broden had, of the damnation that a coward would suffer in the after-world. To be stricken as a thaekkuz was to be forsaken by Olthenna and all the gods. Those who ran from battle, those that brought disgrace to their tribe, those that worshiped usurper gods for the vain gifts they would offer. A thaekkuz would be turned into a monster in the after-world, treated as a slave by their betters, and if they gave in further to their cowardly spirits, would come back to the world of the living as a revenant corpse to feed upon the living.

She would never suffer such a fate, she knew inside of her that she had bravery and courage. She fought hard against not just others, but also her very nature. She desperately wanted to prove herself, to attain honor and glory, not just for herself but for her people. To ride into battle, like one of the mythical authumokra phoenixes on the winds of a storm, to clash in battle and fury. Her only limitation was the simpering fools around her, slowing her down from her fate.

She looked up to meet the eyes of the figure before her, her vision was growing dark from lack of air. She could feel her lungs burning with desire to take in breaths once again. The skin on her neck and face was flush with hungry blood, yearning for that same air. She reached out a hand and tapped at the side of the figure’s staff, letting him know that she was bested.

With a graceful swipe, as if she were nothing more than a feather in the air, he lifted her up and back to the ground beside him. He let her drop hard to the ground, pulling his staff into his person, half-hidden beneath his cloak and taking two cautionary steps back.

She gasped hard, drawing air in like she was a dying nomad in the desert, taking the last gulp of water in an oasis. The first gasp was followed by several others, as she laid, sprawled out on the rock. Most of the gasps of air were filled with bitter sand that tore and parched her mouth and throat, she did not care, all she wanted was air.

“I have heard of you, whelp.” The figure walked away slowly, returning to its crouching place behind the hounds-tooth rock. “You are the one who Ylethus has been training for the last four years. I now know that the words spoken of you are true. Reckless, brash and full of rage.” The figure let its staff fall in its hands towards the rocky ground, hammering hard near where Ghelta was. “You have promise and passion, that is certain. It is no mere feat to climb up here. I know, I did so, myself.”

She slid over onto her side and crawled her way behind the cover of a smaller, nearby boulder. Her chest and stomach still felt like she had been stomped on by a herdsmoll. She looked over to the covered figure with a glare of anger and frustration. Her glare was met with the same piercing, blue eyes she had seen before.

“As I said, you have promise and passion, but those mean nothing if they are not tested to their limit.” The figure propped his staff against his knee and using both hands, withdrew the white cloth wrappings from the bottom of his face. His face was angular, covered in several days worth of stubble. He was a handsome and young man, not usual for those of the warrior-oracles. He gave a piercing whistle, using just his lips and his teeth, followed by a very strange throat sound that seemed to vibrate the very rock of the mesa itself.

“I… Have always… Pushed myself to the edge.” Ghelta’s words were halting from the dryness in her throat and the continued gulps of air.

“Yes.” The figure stated calmly. “And despite it all, you have yet to know and acknowledge your limits. That is where true wisdom lies.” He lifted the wrappings back over his face and took up his staff, again.

“I… Have… None.” Ghelta pushed herself up to a sitting position against the rock. She turned away from the man for a moment, and then returned her gaze to him. He was already standing up now and taking a few steps towards the mesa’s edge. The wind whipped his cloak around him, like the snapping tails of the great ghellornth beasts that lived far north in the Loch of Flame.

“I hope your confidence bears fruit then, young one.” The man continued to stare out to the horizon. “If you manage to survive this ordeal, and if you survive the rage of your mentor when he returns, you may have a strong future with our tribe. Once you finally pass the rite of adulthood, and the test of the seers, if you ever live to see them, I will put in a good word with the elder circle for you.” The man turned on his heels yet again, to face her. “I would even be willing to take you as a pupil in the disciplines of the authrakallin. First, though, as I said, you need to survive the mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“You seem to be… In the same mess… As I.” Ghelta gave a short smile. The wind was a torrent now, and every crevice of the mesa was filling with sand. Several more cracks of thunder went off in the distance.

The figure gave out a short chuckle and crouched to his knees. “No, dear girl. You climbed up here, knowing the mortal risk. You displeased the children of Nesharr with your imprudence. And now you must survive what you have wrought.” The man gave another throaty sound that shook the ground. “Alone.” With a graceful jump, the figure leaped backward, head over feet into the air, gliding effortlessly on the winds, and over the edge of the cliff.

Ghelta scrambled to her feet and ran to the edge, dropping to her knees and scrapping them harshly on the rock. She looked over the edge to where the figure had leaped. She saw his shadow falling down the rock face, those same tattered bits of robe catching the wind and whipping in a frenzy. His arms were spread to his sides, his staff put away into a leather loop on his back.

She was filled with incredulity, the drop was a thousand feet to sharp rocks below, surely this madman would perish. She then saw another shadow on the wind, emerging out of the darkness. It was the shadow of a great bird, its wings spread into a dive as it moved forwards and downwards to catch up with the man. With a single swift motion, both shadows became one, the man took hold of the great bird and rode it off into the darkness below.

It took a few moments for the entire situation to sink into her. Here she was atop the highest mesa in all of the Jolash Plateau, alone, in one of the worst sandstorms she had seen in her life. She got back up to her feet, stepping back from the edge and turning to meet the winds before her. The sky was filled with sand and every grain blasted at her like shards of glass ripping away at her skin. Bolts of lightning tore through the sky on all sides and the roar of their thunder was like the howl of beasts closing in on her.

She would need more shelter than just a rock to hide behind. Even if she could manage to have found a skappf to hide in, at this altitude and in these winds, it would be torn to shreds in a matter of hours. She would be dead by morning, the skin flayed away from her glistening bones. She had wanted to stare into the eyes of Olthenna, and the goddess was willing to grant her desire.

She lowered herself into a crouch, trying to not expose too much of her body to the sand and winds. She only had her daily clothes to protect herself, and she realized she would have to choose between protecting her body, or protecting her face. She took off her tunic readily, slipping it over her arms. She tied it tight and secured it around her face and head, leaving only her eyes exposed.

She laid down for a moment, tugging at her belt and leggings. She took them off and set her leggings on the ground next to her, they were leather and would not tear easily. She looked around for a sharp piece of rock and found one readily. She then began to score and shear away strips from the sides of her leggings to make wrappings for herself. Soon putting the tattered leggings back onto herself and securing some of the wrappings around her middle with her belt. It was crude, but it would provide some temporary respite from the flaying winds.

Two more flashes of heat lightning went off around her. One was distant and burned across the sky in an arch. The second struck a large rock on the other side of the mesa, setting aflame a small batch of withered scrub.

She crawled across the rock of the mesa, stopping behind some rocks and boulders for cover, then slowly pondering around. There had to be something she could use for shelter, even if she had to lift and pile rocks around her to cover herself. The area at the top of the Stohll mesa wasn’t as large as she had thought, seeing it on the ground. One could run from one cliff edge to the other in only about a dozen minutes.

The area she had climbed up from was a narrow area filled with jagged rock boulders. It was the lowest area of the top, and the most exposed to the winds. In front of her, she could see a slope rising to the northwest. The area of the top widened out there, with sections of it covered in dried out brush.

She made her way forward, climbing some knee-high elevations in the rock. The pieces of her exposed skin felt raw and stung with every new blast of sand. Her knees and legs dragging on the elevations as she used her hands to keep the sand from her eyes. Her body screamed with every nerve firing at once.

As she mounted the new elevations, she found a sheer rock face to her right, a half a man’s height above her head. To her left was an open area that filled the rest of the mesa’s top. Nothing existed there but rock and brush. It was hopeless, the wind could attack her from all directions here, no place would provide enough cover for her to survive.

She dropped to her knees, which cried out again as her raw skin met with the hard and sandy ground. She looked up to the heavens, holding her left hand, fingertips now bloody from her wounds, to shield her eyes. She looked up to the darkness, the sand and the sweeping clouds above, waiting to see Olthenna’s face gaze back down to her. Instead, she was met with a crackling bolt of lightning and the boom of thunder.

She lowered her eyes and stared forward for a moment. The cloaked Authrakallin was correct, her master Ylethus was correct, all of the nay-sayers she had endured in her life were right. She was brash, she was reckless, and now her behavior would now cost her own mortal existence.

One more bolt of lightning struck off in the distance, the light was but a strobing glimmer of white. Before the thunder could reach her, another bolt struck much closer, and with its more intense reddish glow, it illuminated the rock face before her.

She would never have seen it in the dark, nor with the sand whipping at her eyes, but there was a crevice in the rock, just large enough for a person to squeeze through. Perhaps that could be enough to provide shelter if it was deep enough, or if there was a cave beyond it.

Ghelta got to her feet, her legs screaming with pain from soreness and bleeding wounds. She walked, slowly, towards the crevice and began to squeeze her way through. It was tight, but she could feel the wind whipping by her as she entered. The further she continued, the more the wind began to whistle. This was a good sign, there was a cave system within this area, and the ground beneath her feet began to slope downwards.

As she pressed forwards, downwards, the walls on either side began to open up to a passageway large enough for a grown man to walk comfortably. She continued following the passage until she came to a small room, no larger than four persons laying down, to a side. At the center of this room was a hole, lit up by flickering flames below.

The wind coming in from the entrance was whining to a higher pitch, and causing a tremendous vibration within this room. She could see in the flickering light from below that the room was decorated with paintings on the walls. Some of them were identifiable as animals of the region, with a few hunters chasing after them with spears drawn. Other paintings were of mythical creatures, like the great authumokra phoenixes she had been told about as a child.

One painting at the far end of the room was truly alien. It was a picture of some sort of great city, only instead of buildings or skappfs, there were huge, jagged towers reaching to the celestial void. Along the edges of these towers were orange and green runes that she could not make sense of. Here and there on the wall were images of greyish people, some holding flaming swords, others harnessing bolts of lightning as spears. She had never heard of such a thing growing up, and this was no doubt some dream-fueled work of a mad oracle, long ago.

She turned her gaze now to the hole in the bottom of the room. She knelt down and moved slowly towards the hole’s edge. Below her, she could see a few flat-topped pieces of rock, their edges worn down by traffic, and with salt deposits, like icicles hanging from their edges. These boulders served as some sort of stairway, as each after the other, from the center of the hole, trailing to her left, dropped down in height. Further to her left, in some unseen area, she could see the flickering of light casting the area in a yellow and orange glow.

She lowered her leg into the hole, taking a step down onto the first segment of rock. She pushed herself forwards and had to lower her head to avoid the roof in this new room. She continued forward, dropping down to each new segment until her feet rested on the floor of another room entirely.

Before her, trailing to her left slightly, was an archway carved from the very rock of the mesa. Most of the details and reliefs were worn away with age, but a few images remained. At the apex of the arch was the head of a man with a long, serpentine tongue, coming upwards from his mouth to cover half of his face. On either side were reliefs of birds, like hawks or ravens. On the sides of the archway were pillars, one being pushed into place by a man in robes, another by a woman in robes.

Beyond that threshold was a room filled with candlelight. She could smell the smoldering wicks and smoldering wax. She could also feel the clinging moisture of cool water as well, flowing into this room from the next. There was a sound, like water trickling over stone.

She heedlessly ran through the doorway and into this new room. Her nostrils were flaring with the scent of moisture, her parched throat screamed out for respite, and the dehydrated delirium scorching her mind made her care for only one thing. Water.

She quickly glanced around the new room as she rushed in. Waxen candles filled the room with illumination, some merely guttering stumps, others being newly lit towers of wax almost as high as a man’s hip. All of them strewn around the room, erratically.

The room itself was a large circular area with a high roof. Around the outside, other archways trailed off into other rooms, some open and revealing scant, blurred and darkened details behind, others covered over with threadbare, dyed cloth. The roof was alive with murals and reliefs, all moving around organically in the flickering of the candlelight. Coming out from the western-most wall, and trailing out into the center of the room, a large fountain with water spilling over rounded rocks into a great shining pool. This is where Ghelta ran to, barely aware of any other details she had taken in.

She hurriedly pulled at the fabric covering her face, first picking at the fabric to undo any of the knots and wrapping she had done earlier, finally giving in to impatience and ripping the fabric apart like a wild animal. Once her face was clear she knelt by the edge of the fountain, sticking her face as close to the water as she could, the tip of her nose lightly touching the water’s shimmering surface. She took a long sniff, to make sure the water wasn’t stagnant or sulfurous. As she did this, she wiped her hand on what remained of her leggings, trying to get all of the blood-tinged sand off of her skin. She dipped the edge of her left hand in the water, lifting it up and quickly licking her hand. The water was clean.

She threw her whole head in beneath the surface of the water and began gulping like a choked minnow, caught and newly released by a fisher. The water was crisp, clear and cool, tasting like the glacial runoffs she was accustomed to. The waters of life for her people, that wound their way through the lowest cracks and breaks of the Jolash Plateau from the great ice fields of the north.

She held her head beneath the water some more, gulping hard until she was dizzy. She began splashing the water over her head, down her chest, the raw flesh of her stomach and over the sores of her back. The water felt amazing, cold and soothing like every droplet washed away the pain in her body and seeped into every gash, cut, and blister she had.

A few moments longer, her dizziness reaching a fevered pitch, she had to pull back from the water. She slumped herself against the side of the fountain. Her body sore, her mind reeling, her eyes feeling like lead weights. The candles of the room began to swim around her, like cloaked strangers with crowns and headdresses of flame. The figures and reliefs on the roof began to bow out of their limitations, reaching toward her, dragging her limp body up into their slithering dance above. A dance of forgotten memories and mad visions.