Chapter Two #2
At her nod, he turned and walked out, starting to weave his way through the various tunnels, absently greeting his people as he went. Night had fallen, so they prepared to hunt, to gather, to bring water back. He stepped to the side, letting them pass as they went about their chores.
At the lodge entrance, he passed through the series of hanging hides. The ramp to the surface was still warm from the heat of the sun. The Liam paused to talk to the posted guard. An older warrior, crippled with the bone ache but well able to sit, watch, and give warning.
“The Singer?” he asked.
The guard nodded out the doorway. “Said she would be out watching the Heart this night, from the highest rise, the one to the south.”
“I will be there as well, should any need,” the Liam said, and ascended the ramp.
The night air was cooling, the sun almost set past the horizon. The stars were just starting to appear. Various groups of marcusi were vanishing in the distance. The Liam started to walk, the familiar crunch of the sand and rock under his shoes.
His people had been scratching a living from the Wastes for generations.
The Plains of the past were gone, swept bare when the elements had lashed out during the Betrayal.
He couldn’t imagine the land of the stories, a land of green grasses, flowing water, and herds and plants enough to feed the People.
He’d seen the pictures, all through the lodges of old, heard the tales, listened to the songs, but he didn’t believe.
And all his hope had died with Vren.
He kept walking through the dried brush, avoiding the sticker plants and the worst of the rock. There’d been deaths before, losses. But this one hit hard, bit deep, and he wasn’t sure why. The weight of it all was burning his shoulders like the sun at its height.
Even at this distance from the Heart, he felt the heat on his face and the scent of sulfur in the air. He walked on, listening to the soft sounds of the Wastes stirring around him.
The Singer sat on a blanket, her face glistening in the glow of the setting sun and the molten lava. She grunted as he sat, shifting to make more room for him, but said nothing.
The Liam took a breath as a breeze carried a wave of heat into his face and made his eyes water.
From here, he had a good view of the Heart and could watch the molten rock spurt and flow, black rock and red lava ever churning in a roiling boil.
The heat, the burning redness, felt like the earth’s sullen anger and pain made manifest.
“It never spills over,” The Singer didn’t face him as she spoke. “Never fully cools. Just a perfect circle, ever restless, ever angry.”
“We betrayed the elements,” the Liam recited. “In their wrath, they lashed out, and the Plains of old became the Firelands in truth.” The pain knotted in his chest. “The land remembers and waits for our amends.”
“Just so,” The Singer said. “But in all of our songs, in all of our stories, we do not speak of how we can amend the actions of our ancestors, who have long since gone to the snows.” She looked at him then. “How long must we be punished?”
“I have no answer,” the Liam responded. “And no Liam before me found one either.”
“Just so,” the Singer nodded. “Nor can you expect to do so. You serve as the Liam, who uses his truth to guide us.”
“Even if I am no longer sure of my truths?” the Liam looked down at his hands, browned and wrinkled and tired. “I am the Liam, they look to me for answers, and yet, I have no answers and no hope.” He rubbed his face, feeling the grit on his skin. “Vren told me of the Warborn,
Xylara, Daughter of the Blood, Daughter of Xywellan and Queen Kara.
” He looked out, over Heart, as the lava leaped in the air as if to burn the stars.
“Vern left her with Orval, but then Orval was exiled to the Black Hills, where I have no eyes and no ears. I have no information and no answers and no hope.” His eyes stung, at the heat and the sulfur and the tears.
“I do not know what to make of any of this.”
“We are sworn to the Blood,” the Singer started softly. “We struggled after the Betrayal. We tried to walk a middle path between. The Wyverns rejected us long ago. The Airions trust us, to a degree. Yet here we are.” She gave him a side glance. “How do our guests?”
“Jillia tends them. She says that the healing will be long and difficult.” The Liam sighed. “Jillia questions my choices.” He winced at the whine in his voice. “Jillia also says our people do not thrive.”
The Singer snorted. “Jillia predicts that the sun will not rise, yet it does and it will.”
She rose and brushed off her trous. “Jillia questions your decisions, and yet, the elements preserved Dust and the blood memories. And yet, the Heart writhes in heat and fury, but does not spill beyond. And yet, none have cried ‘challenge,’ to fight you for your position.”
“And I sit here, the fount of wisdom and authority, and I am uncertain and lost.” The Liam looked back down at his hands.
“Answers I have none,” The Singer said above him. “Answers, like the winds, they will come when they come. For now—” she stopped.
The Liam looked up at her.
She put her hands on her hips. “Get off your ass and out of your own head. We will hunt until we are weary, eat until we are full, then we will sleep through the hot of the day.”
The Liam opened his mouth to argue but the Singer shook her head. “The Singer has spoken.”
The Liam obeyed.