THE RING OF YUUNY'II

BY LAND

CHAPTER III

“...to walk the earth they oust the night

and win the sunny vale...”

Dynvyi Lannwe Kaedya I

2:3:1:1/5, III:IX

An easy day’s walk from where they’d slept, Larin parted with the nymph elders and followed Lanni through the jungle. She’d jolted awake that morning to three nymphs weaving flowers in her hair, but not a single drop of blood had leaked from her nose. “You’re well adorned, W’elarin! Won’t mind your attire at all. Isn’t like it matters, what you wear.” Though Larin declined the leaf garments of their First Village tradition, the nymphs had spent their stroll crafting fine jewelry for her.

“Thank you.” Barefoot in the dusky bracken, Larin avoided thorns with natural grace, instinctive magic guiding her steps. The larger plants reported movement in the forest ahead, and she confessed, “Before we get there, Lanni... the glade is not going to dance again. It was never meant to dance at all.”

“But – but it’s so empty now!” Faith and disbelief warred within her, and Lanni digested the solemn revelation. Her blue eyes wide and trusting, she managed, “Why’ve you come to us, then?”

Relief washed over Larin, and she explained, “You know how A’lara means grown of us all? Well, five people gathered to form the city, one of each race. They needed the magic to defeat a great evil, and they bound A’lara shut until the next great evil appeared.” She paused to gauge Lanni’s zealous silence. “So... evil has arrived, and we opened the city to use its magic again. But the glade only danced while A’lara was shut. Now, the glade is at rest. As it should be.”

The overwhelmed girl frowned in confusion and reasoned, “If the glade isn’t to dance, then... thank you, W’elarin, for restoring it. As it should be.”

“I... You’re welcome,” consigned Larin, her savior status amended but unrevoked. “The hard part is yet to come. The Dark Master threatens the world, and we lack the power to stop him.”

“And that’s why you seek wisdom, to earn your stripes,” Lanni extrapolated with a sharp nod.

“Yes! This village may have wisdom for me.”

To Larin’s surprise, the nymph scoffed, her smirk fading into a grave frown. “You’re serious? I thought – you’re making village to talk to them?”

Wary now, Larin ventured, “Yes? Why are you making village?”

“There’s only one reason to make village!” exclaimed Lanni with a touch of horror. “Why’d you think they’d help you? They never leave home! Don’t know the forbidden city exists!”

Peering through the foliage at the gap ahead, Larin fought exasperation. “Look, outside the glade, there are ancient troves of wisdom where men and women learn together. If there is history in this glade, it will be sheltered and tended by generations of the wise. Your ring travels too much for such a trove.”

“Never seen one stripe on a man’s hide,” Lanni snorted in clear disagreement. “But good luck, I guess.”

They stepped into a clearing, leafy huts arranged in a broad circle. “Who are they?” blurted Larin, startled to see a steady trickle of women meandering in from the glade.

“Ooh, Ralla’s here!” Lanni clapped her hands. “Their ring is huge. We should join them afterward – they’ll be so thrilled to meet Mother’s daughter!”

Larin winced at the notion and shook her head. “I do not believe I can stay. But thank you for the help, Lanni. Watch over your ring in this dangerous season.”

“Mother’s arms embrace our kind,” she quoted. “She protects us from the outside world.” Draping her arms around Larin’s neck, the girl planted a kiss on her lips. “Mother guide your sprouts to stretch to heaven.”

Flushed and staring, Larin botched the blessing’s response, and the nymph released her. “Well, good luck, W’elarin.” Lanni backed away and skipped toward the huts, waving from an open doorway. Then she drew a curtain of vines and was gone.

Larin milled around the clearing, the domed huts fortified by a high privacy wall. Beyond, a mighty tree rose into the canopy, and Larin pictured a grand courtyard within the circle of homes. Most huts lacked outer exits, and hanging vines swathed many of the doorways. Quiet groans from within spared Larin few details, and minutes after each woman stumbled out, a green curtain swept open to entice a new visitor.

Ghosting up to one hut after a girl’s departure, Larin scraped for courage at the shrouded doorway. The vines rustled open before she could knock, the naked man inside sipping from a carved gourd. Sparse but not spartan, the single room hosted a low bed of moss along the curved wall, a wooden table rooted near a veiled back door. “Uh, hello,” she greeted, mincing inside and waving the vines closed behind her. “I need to talk to someone.”

The man grunted, inspecting his drink and gulping it down in frustration. “And that’s my problem?” He refilled his gourd from a large pitcher on the table, brow furrowed at her strangeness. “Don’t you have like a sister or something?”

Bolstered by the educated lilt of his speech, Larin imparted, “I am the nymph who unbound A’lara, and I seek help with the powers of our race.”

With a skeptical frown, he set his cup on the table and eyed her odd attire. “So you’re blood of the builder, then.”

“Yes! Thank Mother you know what I mean! I asked a ring but they thought I was Mother’s daughter... ”

Her laugh died under his glower. “I’m guessing you’re not from around here, so I’ll make this simple. You, wait here,” he illustrated with a pointing finger. “I’ll go, get Il’non, and come back. Yes?”

“I am not stupid,” she snapped. “Who is Il’non?”

“He knows enough about A’lara to stand talking to a woman about it.” Storming through the vines at his back door, the man crossed the village courtyard in search of him. Larin strangled her aggravation, skulking around the hut and humming to cover the moans from next door.

“I don’t know about this, Rin’o,” she heard through the back curtain. “I mean, a woman? I’ve never talked to a woman in my life!” Larin crept toward the doorway in silence.

“Neither have I! C’mon, Yerron, she’s just there, in my house! I don’t know, escort her out and ditch her if that’s what you want. She said she’s blood of the builder, so I came and got you. You’re the Keeper. She’s your problem!”

“You know damn well I’m not the Keeper yet,” hissed the other man. “I still say we get Il’non. You’re just a sorry lily who won’t interrupt him.”

“So are you! N’ero’s a pulping brute and sticky terrifying. If she weren’t literally in my house, we’d just wait until they’re through. So either you bust them up for some uppity fruit, or,” he wheedled, “master Keeper-in-training, you sprout up, get in there, and do some scholaring like your daddy taught you!”

Amused, Larin brushed the vines aside and folded her arms. “I do not bite,” she smirked at their shocked faces. “And if you want me to leave, just say so.”

“No!” Clad in a long leaf and taller than his friend, the newcomer Yerron waved his pale hands, hopping through the doorway. “No no, don’t leave. Il’non would about flay me alive if I ran off the builder, woman or otherwise. Uh, here, I... I think we’ve bothered Rin’o long enough! Let’s go, come now,” babbled the man, recoiling in alarm when Larin followed him to the front door. “Yes okay, well good then, let’s go! C-carry on, Rin’o.” He ushered Larin outside, leaving the curtain open for the next guest.

“I did not mean to cause trouble,” she offered as they circled the ring of huts.

“Oh no, I’m – sorry, I’m just sticky nervous is all. We saw the flash of the unbinding, and the glade’s at rest now, so we hoped you’d come. We just... figured you’d be a man, that’s all. Heh.” He scrubbed at his cropped blond hair, leading her to a new doorway. “I don’t really know what to do with a woman, outside of a virile’s hut anyway. Well, in you get, I guess.”

With a sweep of magic, he closed the vines behind them, his hut identical to Rin’o’s save for the oil lamp flickering on the wall. “So! Drink? I need a drink. Do you drink? Of course you do, everybody drinks. Ugh, this is so strange! Let’s – I think I’ll just pretend you’re a man, if that’s all right? Feel free to pretend I’m a, uh, woman, if that’ll help you. Here,” he concluded, thrusting a gourd chalice into her hand and filling a second from his pitcher.

“Thanks?” choked Larin, watching Yerron down his whole cup for a refill. She sipped from her gourd, coughing as the thick mead broke sweet and potent across her tongue. “...My name is Larin.”

“I’m Il’nonn Yerron of Alinn Anyale,” he announced, sitting on his bed with forced calm. “And you’re really blood of the builder, aren’t you? You opened A’lara to fight back evil – what, er, why did you come here, then? What do you need us for, when you have all of A’lara at your disposal?”

Grimacing down a fresh sip of mead, Larin articulated, “I want to master my nymph magic and track down my family. The women thought I was a holy savior, and I hoped this village kept more history.”

“I’m not surprised,” he extolled, a proud grin on his handsome face. “Women keep oral traditions, while our scholars can read the ancient books. But... we tried to trace Alin’s line at some point, and it proved impossible. Our men sire many children, and the rings surrender their boys to other villages. We trace our roots in brotherhood, not bloodline. When older men retire from the virile’s hut, they mentor the boys surrendered here. To us, that is family.”

Crestfallen, Larin diverted, “And the Keeper Il’non, he is your mentor?”

“That he is. I’ll take over for him when he rejoins the earth.” Lounging back on the bed, Yerron confronted her sorrow with a cheery snort. “You’d make a sticky good man, I think. And in those clothes, you could flatten your chest and no one would know!”

The foreign word jarred her. Isolated in the glade, nymphs hadn’t heard another language for three centuries. “You know Allanic?”

“Aye. I be the Tenant apprentice, trained in the ways of history and lore, Master of the written word.” His archaic boast earned him a faint smile, and Yerron reverted to A’lari. “It’s just written for us, though. We don’t sit around talking in Allanic. Or Meri, for that matter.”

“You know Meri? How?” According to Kingard, the mers never spoke with landfolk, except in the strange case of her tutors from Dynde.

“The mer builder’s son, Lovynge Njyae, stayed with us for many seasons. His father, the king of Dynde, arrived in the last moments to forge A’lara himself, but not before Lovynge schooled us to read and write in Allanic. He said a fair few prophesies here, and he taught us Meri so we could record his trances. They’re with Il’non. I’ll take you to meet him in the morning.”

“Great, yeah.” Wrought with a heavy sense of import, Larin wrung her hands in contemplation. What future might those old records predict?

Compassion lit Yerron’s moss-green eyes, and he beamed at her. “It seems you’ve been through a lot, Larin. I’d love to hear about your travels, if it’s not too upsetting for you?”

“It’s a very long story,” she warned, her wan grin willing to endure the tale.

“Well, it’s a very long while ‘til morning,” exulted Yerron, snatching up her chalice and refilling it. He sprawled on the ground with unabashed enthusiasm, topping off his cup. “I’m all ears.”