The Thorian Sagas. 2. Insurrection.

This Thorian wanted ‘in’. He wanted access to her mind, and she could not keep him out if he insisted, though he was giving her that choice. It seemed urgent so she didn’t even try to keep him out. She questioned that insistent presence even as she opened up her mind to him.

‘Who are you, Thorian, and why do want to be in my thoughts? What do you want with me?’

He seemed amused at how she addressed him so familiarly.

He chuckled. Her mild aggression may have surprised him.

'Stoker, trained you well.

'Who am I? You will soon find out. Do not be afraid.’

She flashed back an immediate response, as she had learned to do with Stoker.

‘I am not afraid of you. Who are you?’

‘You know who I am. I am Liam. Stoker told me of you.’

She remembered that name. She walked to the very edge of the wall and looked out into the darkness, wondering how far out he was; where he was. He must be close to her for his communication with her to be so clear.

‘Be careful, Monique. It is a long way down and there are still some of the last Frexes around, and other animals always ready to pick off an easy meal.’

He was warning her. Could he see her? How did he know her name?

As though reading her every thought, he answered her in tender tones she had never heard so clearly before.

‘I know all about you, little one. I have waited many years for this, and to meet you.’

It was as though he were touching her face, caressing her as a lover would. She felt everything but could see nothing. Her heart was beating in a way she had never known before.

She believed him, feeling a sudden weakness to be addressed in that way, so tenderly and so familiarly, as though he had grown from childhood with her, and knew everything about her; could see into her innermost thoughts and see all of her secrets, even as deep as her dreams and ambitions, which were even then changing; being reshaped.

’Be patient. You will soon learn about me. If you look carefully, far out, and give your eyes time to adjust, you will notice the glow of a campfire some leagues out. We are there. Waiting.

’We will meet the tributes tomorrow, after they leave the city, and escort them to where they need to be, so you will not need to accompany them. That would be dangerous to do at this time.

There are difficult times approaching. You may not always understand what will happen, but I will ask that you try to understand it. Stoker prepared you for what is beginning, and together, we will finish it.’

The insurrection!

Stoker had mentioned that, and had prepared them to meet it, whatever it would be.

They were strange words that she did not understand, but she accepted what he said.

‘Go back in, where it is warm. Send out those nine in the morning when it warms up. They will be your responsibility until then. The tenth will soon follow. They will all be safe in the wasteland, though I believe you already know that.’

She did know it. How did he know so much that even she didn’t know? Could he sense nine tributes too, but not a tenth? But that must be what those necklaces could do, linking them all together but with some bonds stronger than others. Was this why Stoker had given her that necklace? His necklace.

She knew that it was.

Liam continued in her mind.

‘There is an exit from the city below the council chambers, well-hidden, where those nine will leave in the morning. Seeing them out of the city will be your responsibility.’

There was another voice in the background reminding him of something else.

’We need your help on another matter. If you go down there even now—I will show you the way—there are those who need your help. Small people that Stoker once told you of who shelter under the city wall at night for its warmth. They are another race of desert-dwellers. The first people; the Kelts.

’They built your city and help you in many ways you do not yet know about. They manage the wastelands and look after your gardens at night. They need your hospitality and warm shelter for this evening against the cold. You need to meet them.’

They managed the wastelands? How? Why?

She had so many questions that would need time to answer; but the wastelands were not ‘managed’ in the way that their gardens were. It was a wilderness with no sign of there being any planned strategy for it.

She’d never heard of them until Stoker had mentioned them as they’d been walking on that wall one evening. How much more did she not know?

’Call them in with your thoughts, Monique. They know you are coming. They are waiting. Boril, is their leader. Let them share your fire in the guard house. Feed them, keep them warm, converse with them, ask them what you will. They will repay your kindness in ways you cannot imagine. That is their way. Give them a little of your wine and cider. Listen carefully to what they tell you, and believe it. They will be gone by morning.’

Liam, this unknown Thorian in her head, guided her from the wall and led her across parts of the city even she did not know as well as he seemed to know it.

Nothing in the city was stirring as she passed through the outskirts, and went down, near to where the primary council chambers were, beneath the city. Empty now, of course, with the city sleeping.

She had every right to be where she was, patrolling the city, though not having the proper permission to let anyone or anything into their city. She would be breaking yet another rule.

She was directed along dark corridors by that inner consciousness into areas she had never been before, and was led along tortuous passageways to the outer city wall. There seemed to be a catacomb of underground passages on several levels that headed in all directions; constructed in an earlier time before the city had been more than just a plan in someone’s mind. An underground city, long abandoned. Those passageways were also designed to confuse an invading enemy if ever they entered the city at that level.

How did anyone outside of their city, know of this passage?

Liam, knew. So now, did she.

There were no lights to guide her but she saw everything within her mind, and as though Liam were leading her by her hand. She had a vision of him in her head. He was another one like Stoker but with a less serious turn of mind, and with a mischievous sense of humor, which she liked.

‘Your hand is warm, little one, and your mind is uncluttered with cares, and is just as it should be.’

She pulled back as though he had actually been holding her hand, and then realized that it was only in her mind as he chuckled over her doing that.

She ‘took’ his large and calloused hand again. It gave her confidence, but then this was what Thorians seemed able to do so well.

She came eventually to a doorway, heavily barred, leading to the outside of the city. She had not known of this exit from their city until now, believing that the previous tributes had somehow been lowered down from the wall.

Without hesitation, she unbarred it, holding her sword ready in her hand if it were needed… if there were any Frexes. She already knew that there were none. She put her sword away and pulled the door open. It swung silently on well-greased hinges.

She had no need to say or do anything. She was ready to call out to those she had been told were out there, but was surprised when first one, and then another of these small people, whom she had never seen before, or had even known about, appeared in front of her, wordlessly asking her permission to enter.

She gave it and stepped back as they entered. She’d trusted that voice in her mind; Liam’s voice… whoever Liam was, although she knew already that he was a friend of Stoker and must therefore be her friend, just as Peter had become another friend in such a short time.

‘Come in, friends. We are expecting you. Welcome.’

Liam approved of her words.

The Kelts streamed in, out of the already cold, desert air; twenty, then thirty of them; men, women and children, the tallest of them no more than two feet tall, but perfectly proportioned. She fell back, giving them room. There was no threat here.

She sensed that others like them were already in the city gardens starting the smudge fires that would protect their crops from any freezing temperatures.

The gardeners there, always assumed that others within the city lit those on those few occasions they were needed, but never questioned it or sought to learn their identities. How much of what happened around the inhabitants of Fenn was done by others, like these people that they did not know about? Invisible hands that looked after them in unknown ways.

As each adult male filed by Monique, he gave her a single, rounded pebble; some kind of token.

She accepted each of them gratefully, wordlessly, not understanding their significance, though she knew that she would eventually find out.

When they were all inside, she closed and barred the gate again behind them, and silently led the way out of the corridors back into the upper levels of the city and on to the guard room where they were to spend the night in warmth and comfort around the fire as Liam had requested. No one needed to know they were there.

They would sleep in bear skins around their fire and would eat well, as Monique and her fellow warriors waited upon them, mesmerized by these strangely gentle people that they had not known existed outside of their city until Stoker had told them of them, and that Liam had request that she help.

They were a curious people, not settling immediately, walking around that space they were to spend the night in, sniffing at various things, able to smell food being prepared, touching other places as though reviving old memories. They greeted each one in that space as they looked directly at them, sensing where there was still some angst, focusing upon those last two tributes who were still having difficulty settling. By the time morning came, even those two would be eager to go out.

After the Kelts had eaten and drunk their fill, sitting around the fire, Monique joined them, remembering how Liam had told her that they liked to converse and learn everything.

She began the conversation.

“You live in the wastelands. Are you not afraid of the Frexes? How do you keep them away? They seem to be our biggest threat.”

With them being so small they would have been no match for those savage animals, but she had learned not to be surprised by anything.

The one who had first come into the city, the leader, Boril, spoke.

“Everything has a purpose. The Frexes keep the wastelands clean. They hunt the weak and the unfit. They are scavengers that clean up death. They stay well away from us. They do not hunt us, or seek to injure us, and we do not injure them. There is food enough for all, out there, and everything anyone would ever need, if you know how to recognize it. We can defend ourselves as we need to against any enemy, but not against the cold. That is the most insidious and crippling enemy of all, against which there is little defense. It will be crowded under your wall tonight. Many animals that would normally prey upon each other, learn to share on a night such as this.”

“How do you keep them away?”

“With one of these. If we need to.” He held up a small rod to explain. It was thin and fragile to her eyes. “The young Frexes need a reminder, until they learn what the old ones already know.”

It could not possibly be a weapon.

“The tip is dipped in a plant poison that effects different animals in different ways. It is a derivative of the Somnifera plant, common in the wasteland.”

Stoker had told them of that plant.

“It has no effect on most animals. With the Frexes, it causes a momentary pain, to remind them about us. With other animals it brings on sleep, for a while; sometimes for a long while. We each have one, but we left most of them outside of the gate, down below. We have no need of them in here. This one is for you. It is safe. We will leave others for you beside the gate for when you next go out. They are better than any weapon you could carry and will not attract unneeded attention to you.

“The Frexes will learn very quickly to leave you alone, as they do with us, though they never seem to learn 'that', about Thorians. They are always driven to attack them, and always at great cost to themselves. Though if the Frexes did not do that, they would soon overrun the wastelands, as they breed so quickly.

“For each creature there is at least one enemy. For us, it is the cold.”

For those in Fenn, it was their own illogical fears, and their council.

“How do you manage the wastelands? Everything seems to be so chaotic, and neither planned nor managed.”

For the first time, Boril smiled.

“That is the way it is managed, to keep it chaotic; always changing in one aspect or another; not letting any animal, or any plant, have advantage over others. It is a delicate unbalance.”

Monique thought she understood. She would think about it.

Once the Kelts had eaten and had sampled the wine and the cider, they all retired to the bearskins that Monique and her fellow guards laid by the fire for them. They would sleep in warmth tonight.

The guard house had never been so crowded, or so peaceful. Nor so secure.

Just as Liam had told her, the small people were long gone by morning when she woke up, leaving no trace of having been there other than memory of them; those ten pebbles, and that single stick given as a gift to Monique. No one had seen or heard them go.