Chapter 14: Sky Mountain – part 2

As D’Argen ran, the world around him faded away until it became nothing but grey smudges and blurs. Sky Mountain was a dark silhouette in the background, slowly approaching as if the earth was moving toward him rather than it running toward it.

The closer he got, the darker the shape became, signifying that it was not something he could run through. Because of how dark the mountain’s shape appeared in his eyes though, he could not find the black silhouette that signified another Never Born in his path.

By the time the sun was touching the horizon, they were in the foothills. They stopped twice more for Yaling to listen and give directions, and when the last rays were shining on them, Abbot spotted a fire not too far from the treeline.

They were close enough so there was no need for D’Argen to run once more. He felt tired but the excitement was even more prominent as he made the others walk much faster than usual toward the dancing light.

When they finally came within sight of the camp, D’Argen felt his feet disconnecting from the ground and he ran the last few steps. There were four figures sitting around the fire but it was the one that was standing away from it, near the horses, that was important to him.

Thar.

The wanderer.

Out here, in the wild, helping the mortals for nothing at all except that it was the last part of his thousand-year-long atonement. None of the mortals knew what he was atoning for since one of his punishments was to be erased from their history. It had been a much shorter time since the last time D’Argen had seen the man but still… a few centuries at least.

He looked the same as the last time D’Argen saw him.

The white robes he wore were made by Lemysire, obvious by the fact that they had not a single spec of dirt on them. The underrobe had almost no pattern on it but the vest that hung down to his ankles had snowflakes of all sizes embroidered in silver, shimmering slightly in the fire’s light. Although the sleeves of his robe were wide and hung down past his knees, D’Argen spotted the silver ring clasps that held the long sleeves of his undershirt tight to his body. That same shirt had a collar as high and stiff as his own, revealing that Lemysire must have made the robes not that long ago in the new style she was practicing. Like his robes, his white boots were completely clean, even of the mud that he stood in, and his long white hair was pulled back into a half knot at the back of his head, keeping it from falling in his face.

Thar always looked pale, almost sickly so, but with the full white ensemble, he looked ethereal in the fire’s light.

White eyes widened in surprise but stayed locked on him as D’Argen slid to a stop right in front of the other man.

“Hi,” D’Argen breathed out, unable to keep his lips from stretching into a wide smile.

After a moment, Thar relaxed and his expression softened. It was not a full smile but it was not the cold wall of indifference that he often showed others.

“Hello D’Argen,” Thar finally replied.

“Yes, thank you, D’Argen, so much, for waiting for us,” Yaling gasped out from behind him.

D’Argen refused to look away. All Never Born had unique eyes. In the same way their mahee was unique and the scent that came from it, no other Never Born had the same eyes as another. Darania, the God of Creation and the most powerful of them all, had once explained it as a physical manifestation of their mahee. She had looked right at D’Argen with all the stars from the night sky in her eyes bearing down on him.

And as beautiful and as unique Darania’s eyes were, they did not hold a candle next to Thar’s. Thar’s eyes were white, a single thin black outline of the iris and a black pupil that widened with how close D’Argen was standing in front of the man. D’Argen loved those eyes and the lack of colour in them. He loved the fact that Thar never wore any colour at all, actually. There was something so comforting about it that D’Argen could only explain was due to his inability to see colours at all.

“Hello Yaling, Lilian, Abbot,” Thar said as he looked over D’Argen’s shoulder.

With Thar not looking at him, D’Argen took a moment to look over the man’s body and check for any differences. He looked thinner, though his shoulders were still broader than D’Argen’s. He also looked shorter, but then again, D’Argen had only started wearing a short heel on his boots a century or two back. Without that heel, he knew that Thar was the same height as him.

The man’s sharp jawline and long straight nose were the exact same, though D’Argen did note a thin scar running through one of his white eyebrows. The old wound made him stop smiling and finally look away. It was not often, but Never Born could scar from a wound. Due to this one’s location, it must have been left untreated by choice, rather than due to being so serious.

“And so, we decided to come here.”

D’Argen tuned into the conversation just as Yaling was finished talking.

“Pardon the intrusion,” Abbot added but when D’Argen turned to look at him, he was facing the four mortals around the fire.

“Ah yes, good evening!” D’Argen greeted them with a wide smile and open arms as he turned to face them. They were all standing, mouths agape and eyes wide, staring at them in wonder. Thar was probably the first god they had ever met in person and now there were four more among them.

“What a pleasant surprise!” D’Argen continued and then turned to look at Thar with a small smile.

Thar gave him a pointed look that looked almost chiding as he circled him and went back to the fire. D’Argen followed him with his eyes.

“Thar! We don’t see each other for centuries and now I find you out in the middle of nowhere on the way to our own destination. What a coincidence!”

Thar hummed out a quiet response and then sat down on a log right in front of the fire. It was not enough to calm the mortals though.

“You know,” Abbot spoke to one of the mortal women, trying to sound secretive though his voice was still loud, “it really is a coincidence, yet the way he says it, it sounds almost intentional, does it not?”

The woman snorted out a laugh in response and nodded. It broke the tension as all four mortals finally regained themselves.

“You wound me!” D’Argen called out loudly with a hand clutching his chest. “I am wounded! Thar, my friend, you see how they treat me? Please, save me!” D’Argen practically threw himself at the other man but when Thar shifted, the runner took the opportunity to sit on the open space on the log as if that was his intention all along.

“Sit, sit,” Abbot said again, motioning down with his hands. “I hope you do not mind sharing your fire with us. We come with news. The coincidence was actually back at your village, not here.”

“Our village?” one of the women asked. She was the first to take a seat and the other three followed her example. “You come from there?”

“Yes, and we bring good news. Which one of you is Isme?”

The man in question looked nervous as he slowly raised his hand.

“Congratulations!” Abbot shouted loudly. “You have a young son waiting for you on your return!”

The news made all four of them immediately brighten and jump up to standing once more.

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D’Argen ignored the commotion as Abbot went to explain the entire story to them and only turned to face Thar, resting his chin on his hand. It took a while, the other man obviously ignoring him, but then finally Thar turned to face him with a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t know you were so close to home,” D’Argen said quietly.

Thar only hummed in response and turned to face the fire once more.

“How long has it been? Almost four hundred years?”

“Three-fifty,” Thar replied quietly, still not looking at him.

“And two or three?” D’Argen asked with a grin. He knew exactly how many years.

The look that Thar gave him revealed that Thar was aware of this and would not humour him and answer.

D’Argen grinned wider and finally turned to face the fire and look at the others.

“I was in Evadia last winter,” Thar said quietly, continuing the conversation that D’Argen had to wreck his brain to try and maintain.

“Oh? I thought Zetha was very strict about your return there. You have another—” D’Argen interrupted himself, cutting off so sharply that he had to clear his throat.

After a moment, Thar finally spoke, filling in the silence between them. “He is the one who sent for me. Actually, it was Lemysire, but with Zetha’s permission and his spells. He needed to talk to me.”

“How come?” D’Argen asked and turned on the log to face Thar, lifting one leg and then straddling the wood before shifting closer to the other man.

On the other side of the fire, Abbot was telling a more exggerated version of their last night in the village to keep the attention on him. Thar was listening to it with one ear, but his head was tilted closer to D’Argen.

After a moment, of silence again, Thar waiting for a break in Abbot's story probably, D’Argen scented oil in the air. A quick glance at Abbot revealed the man was releasing his mahee and the light from the fire seemed to dance opposite of the flames. Further from the flames, the light seemed to escape and turned into small spheres before they burst and faded away.

“Were you not there yourself, recently?” Thar asked, bringing D’Argen’s attention back to him.

“Only for a bit at the conference. I had to talk to Vain and then we left.”

Thar hummed in response and nodded slowly. “There will be a new expedition. North. I was asked to join it.”

D’Argen’s eyes widened at the news. “A new expedition? Where? With who? Who is going?”

“I do not know all the details,” Thar replied before D’Argen could voice another question. “I am surprised, however, that you were not asked. It is to leave next summer.”

“Next summer? This summer? The coming one?”

Thar nodded slowly.

“And… are you going?”

“I am still thinking on it,” Thar replied slowly.

“Well… if it’s north, I take it… Elese? That’s Olde’s territory. You two get along fine, last I remember, and…” D’Argen trailed off when he saw Thar’s face change. “It’s not to Elese, is it?”

“No,” Thar responded with a shake of his head. “Further.”

“How far is further? There’s nothing north of Elese except waters.”

“Apparently, that may not be the case.”

The thought of new land, new exploration, something new, made D’Argen want to get up and start running north right there and then. A heavy hand landed on his knee, stilling it from bouncing even though he had not noticed it. D’Argen looked down at that hand and noted that the ring holding Thar’s sleeve had a small pattern on it. He took a deep breath and focused on counting the lines of the pattern then moved to the silver thread that kept the sleeve folded at the edge.

“Thanks,” D’Argen whispered when he felt his body calm and then looked over the fire at Abbot as the man waved his pipe around as he spoke. Sometimes, he needed someone to calm him down. The hand remained on his leg as D’Argen closed his eyes to take in Abbot’s pleasant voice.

This is what he was missing the previous night between the blood and the crying and the screaming and the total panic of Isme’s son being born. It was now, the combination of sound and mahee, the familiar scents in the air, and the entire universe shining her lights down on him, that D’Argen felt the dream finally fade away.

“You look tired.” The quiet voice startled him into opening eyes he did not realize he had closed only to see Thar staring right through him. He winced and nodded slowly. His leg started bouncing again but immediately stilled when Thar pressed his hand down a bit harder.

The prayers from the mortal village were deceiving. Now, he felt that energy running through him, begging to be released, even though his body could not support it. It was a strange feeling but not one completely unknown to him. It had happened before, his mahee urging him to run while his legs could barely hold his weight. It was in those moments that he thought back to Darania’s words, claiming their bodies were cages and only their eyes were a physical manifestation of who they really were.

Thar hummed softly, a calming sound that filled his mahee even if it was so quiet. It seemed like that would be that but then the breeze Lilian had produced to play with the fire turned sharp and cold. A clean scent weaved in through the other magic already in the air, one that could only be described as cold. The new scent surrounded the others in the air. It was much stronger and more powerful, so clean and crisp that it allowed Abbot, Yaling, and Lilian to release even more of their own scents without affecting the mortals at all.

That separation through their scents also helped D’Argen as well. It allowed him to focus first on Abbot as he told the mortals around the fire a story, then on Lilian’s complaints at the temperature drop, then back to Abbot, then jumping to Yaling and the woman’s laugh.

With Thar not saying anything more about the expedition and keeping a heavy hand on his knee, and with the scents of magic around him, D’Argen let himself fully relax for the first time since he opened his eyes to battle and blood. He could ask all his questions later.

D’Argen mouthed ‘thank you’ to Thar and the other turned away, not acknowledging it at all. The hand on his knee shifted, moved his leg until he was no longer straddling the log, and then that same hand supported his back as he leaned against a wall of ice. It was comforting and soft though so D’Argen let himself rest his weight against it and then let the cold take him right into sleep.  

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