Chapter 3: 3: Tavelle’s Gorge

Tavelle’s Gorge had been etched into the coast many years before the city had grown around it. It had been a Brandroot mine; Vayra knew the resource was necessary for interstellar travel, though she didn’t know what it did. As the city had grown, the mine had been abandoned and filled with houses—now, it was the undercity. 

She and Bremi descended a stairway along the gorge’s rock wall. It was thin, and lit sparsely by lanterns. The moonlight was blocked by the buildings and streets above. She choked on air thick with cigar smoke, and her ears were assaulted by street performers pounding on drums or strumming lutes. But, like the buildings above, it was still a city. Shopfronts lined the cavern’s walls, and houses sprouted from above them. It was all grown in place, just as the rest of Tavelle was. Roofs were still shingled with the pinecone scales as if rain would reach them (it wouldn’t), and chimneys puffed black soot.

Vayra and Bremi kept their heads down and hoods drawn. Gréno’s Helpers clung to every shadow and diffused through the crowds, and while they wouldn’t have any idea what had happened, she feared they would soon find out. Some seemed intent on finding out. One held his pistol to an old man’s chin and demanded information. Vayra forced herself not to stare. 

The fishmarket’s stench was her cue to stop descending and cross over the gorge on a thin wooden bridge. Then, she and Bremi marched north until they reached another set of stairs. The stairs deposited them at the bottom of the gorge, and on the only street of the undercity. It was crowded by pedestrians and wagons, but there was no order to their movement, and Vayra and Bremi kept to the edge of the street. 

At the third intersection, they slipped between two wagons and onto the street adjacent. One deftly-made turn later, and she scuttled into an alley. It was thin enough to block much of the light and noise from the street, but still wide enough to walk down. It was crowded, and there was no excuse to not bump into at least one of them.

But why, why did it have to be wearing a black coat? Why did it have to be wearing a pearlescent mask and carrying a flintlock? Vayra dipped between a pair of wagons and pulled Bremi with her, but it didn’t spare her from the Helper’s gaze. “Insolence! Come back here!”

She clutched Bremi’s hand and ran. A bang chased them, followed by screams. Nothing hit her, and she didn’t feel Bremi didn’t slow down. 

Good enough. Vayra leapt atop a stack of crates, out of the cover of the crowd, then onto the back of an ox-drawn cart. Bremi followed her. The cart’s driver whipped the ox, and the beast dragged them away from the commotion. 

But the Helper still chased them. He ran quickly. If the wagon ever had to slow down, he would catch them. 

“Vayra,” Bremi slurred. “The oil.”

Vayra looked down. The wagon was filled with barrels of Streamwhale oil. She unlatched the wagon’s rear gate and pushed a barrel out. When it hit the flagstones, the barrel burst apart, soaking the Helper and tripping him. She scratched at his mask and wiped his eyes, but it wouldn’t be enough—Streamwhale oil was thick and blue, and would take hours to clean off. 

At Ealney’s Dustshack, Vayra and Bremi leapt off the wagon and turned left, into a crack in the opposite wall barely large enough to fit through. On the other side of the crack, they entered a corridor long-forgotten by most. They ducked under an archway, pushed aside a curtain of rags, and stepped into an abandoned theatre. It had been their home for as long as Vayra could remember, but now, it felt strangely liminal. 

On the stage, child-sized forms were huddled under blankets, and elven nuns strolled across the hay-covered floor. Benches that would have once housed an excited crowd were crowded with stoves, boiling stews for the children. Never before had it felt like an orphanage—today, it did. The volunteers regarded Vayra with caution. Their gray robes swayed as they shifted away from her. 

Vayra tried not to take offense. She was the first and eldest of Old Uckoe’s charity projects, and in couple months she’d be nineteen years old. It wasn’t up to the nuns whether she stayed, though.

“Uckoe’ll know what to do,” Vayra reassured Bremi. They marched up a set of stairs to the theatre’s balcony, where Old Uckoe kept his library. The unoccupied benches acted as bookshelves, and Uckoe was nestled amongst them. His gaunt elven face was rimmed by graying dreadlocks, and his cheeks were indented with coldpox scars. Glasses hung off his nose, threatening to fall into the book in his lap at any movement too harsh. He wasn’t as ancient as his name suggested, but he was old enough to be Vayra’s grandpa. He whispered, “You’re back early, little ones.”

Vayra and Bremi knelt on the seats opposite to Uckoe. She whispered, “Gréno’s man messed up.”

Uckoe pushed his glasses higher up onto his face. “Figures. Something worked Gréno into a fit, and I feared it was you. It’s not safe, and I can’t protect you like I used to.”

Vayra crossed her arms. “I’ll reason with him.”

“You can’t!” Uckoe snapped. “You have to leave.”

“But—”

Standing, Uckoe slammed his book shut. “For your own sake, you two must run. Run as far away as you can, and hope that Gréno has forgotten your debt if he ever catches you. That is all you can do.”

“Sir, we—”

“No.”

“It’s Bremi,” Vayra said, appalled by Uckoe’s bleakness. “He… he got cut.”

Uckoe placed the book down on the shelf. He lowered his arms slowly and nudged his glasses up on his face. “Badly?”

Bremi held out his arm, and, turning his shoulder towards the elf, whispered, “Not bad. But… the shank was rusty.”

Rust was more toxic to arcane races—phoenixes included—than to humans. It didn’t just cause lockjaw, but a complete degradation of the body. Their muscles would wither, their bones would grow thin, and their skin would melt away. 

Uckoe examined the cut closely. He hummed and scowled, then turned away. “It wasn’t terrible, no. He has three months, maybe four.”

“Can you do anything?” Vayra pressed her knees together and clasped the bench tight with her fingers. 

“Please?” Bremi added. “Then we’ll leave!”

“There is no worldly medicine that can heal him,” Uckoe said. “Stay as still as possible, and it will slow the effects. Perhaps a diet high in citrus, but that’s only my conjecture.”

Vayra glanced at her pocket, and at the rigid lump the Seekerstone caused. When her eyes fell upon it, she felt a tug, begging her to touch it again. It had something it wanted to tell her. But it could tell her what it wanted without pulling her into its void again. 

Fine, the stone’s voice replied. He said no worldly medicine. But I know other solutions. 

Vayra scowled. She didn’t know if she could trust it, but so far, it had only helped her. She wrapped her sleeve around her fingers again and retrieved the stone from her pocket, then held it out towards Uckoe. “What’s this?”

Uckoe didn’t hesitate. “That is a Seekerstone. It is a device used by the Order of Balance to locate the Mediator.”

Vayra and Bremi stared at him. She didn’t understand, and she doubted Bremi did either. 

“There hasn’t been a Mediator in my lifetime,” Uckoe continued. His speech turned bitter, and he added, “The Mediator would have stopped the war and given mortals power over their own realm again. Now… if the Order of Balance has sent out Seekerstones, they must have seen a sign.”

Vayra gulped. The stone had called her the same thing: a Mediator. “How… does it search for a Mediator?”

“It calls to the one. It speaks to them in a voice only they can hear.” Uckoe leaned back and ran his finger along the books on his shelf. He stopped on one with a black cover and white lettering. “Ah, yes. That was where I read it. I believe it said that… when the Mediator touches it for the first time, it emits a great flash—in the Mediator’s hand, but also in every Temple of Balance across the galaxy.”

 Vayra sighed and pressed her hand against her forehead. Then, she breathed, “Shit…”

“Since you hold it in your sleeve, I take it you already know this.”

“Sis…” Bremi whispered. “You’re the Mediator.”

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Vayra sighed. Uckoe had seen through her, as always. Mediator, not Mediator—it was all gibberish. She needed to know if the stone’s proposal was valid. She said, “Yeah. It… did everything you said it would. And it told me it knew other solutions to Bremi’s poisoning.”

“Then you should listen to it, little one.”

Vayra nodded. She let her thumb slip out of her sleeve and onto the stone. The moment she felt its smooth surface on her skin, her eyes slammed shut, and the blank white void encircled her. She fell through it, and she couldn’t resist the instinctive spasms and lurch in her gut. When the sensation continued, she allowed calmness to prevail—she had done this before, an hour ago. She held her arms and legs still, and the falling sensation fled. Then, she turned herself in a circle, ready to face the shadow. 

The same woman appeared. Colour bled into her form. Eyes, face, hair… then slowly, into an inky-black dress so dark Vayra couldn’t see the folds that she should have. It was the opposite of the white void—a seamless, perfect shade. Unlike the white, though, it was dotted with miniscule pinpricks that all shone bright. They were stars in a night sky, with varying shades of pale magenta and blue. 

“You said you could help Bremi?” Vayra asked. She stepped towards the young woman, and while she didn’t feel ground shifting beneath her feet, she knew she was advancing. The apparition grew in size. 

“I said… that I, uh, I knew other ways to help him,” the woman replied. She didn’t appear much older than Vayra, and didn’t sound as confident as she had through the Seekerstone. “But you… you won’t understand.”

“Then—”

“Yes, yes. I will make you understand.” The woman began to pace around Vayra, and she sighed. She appeared nearly human, though was more beautiful than anyone Vayra had ever seen before, and she moved in an ethereal way. “I’m sorry… when Mediators inherit their power, they usually know what they’ve been handed. But this is my first time, too, and I—I’m not sure where to start.”

Vayra turned slowly, keeping her eyes on the woman. “Your first time? Who are you?”

“I am Phasoné, the Goddess of Starlight… and you are my vessel.” Quickly, the woman muttered, “Though she’s only a half-phoenix, and it’s rather unfair for me to be stuck with a half-breed for the next sixty years—if we make it that long.”

“I can hear you.”

“Sorry… it’s just that, usually, Gods are placed into a vessel of full arcane blood.” Phasoné stopped circling and shook her head. “Oh… this isn't good.”

“A vessel?”

“The Mediator is a mortal who acts as a vessel for a member of the High Pantheon… and our duty is to work together for a lifetime, keeping balance between the mortal and immortal realms. And we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“That’s neat.” Vayra crossed her arms and stared at Phasoné. “How do I save my brother?”

“Straight to the point, then?” Phasoné scoffed. “Fine. The twelve Mediators before you all sailed the galaxy aboard a ship known as the Harmony. They nurtured a Namola Tree aboard it.”

“A… Namola Tree,” Vayra breathed. She had heard the myth from a sailor once, many years ago. He had spoken of a tree whose fruit could cure any sickness—but only in arcane races, such as phoenixes. “Really? Aboard the ship?”

“The only Namola left in the Galaxy.”

“So where is this ship?”

Phasoné shrugged. “How should I know?”

“ ‘Cause you’re the big fancy Goddess of sparkly shit?”

“I—” Phasoné cut herself off, growled, then paced to the opposite side of Vayra. “Well, I don’t know. The Harmony went missing eighty years ago, along with the previous Mediator. And since then, Karmion has swept into the mortal realm with his armies, killing and conquering without anything to stand in—”

“Wait, Karmion? That old ocean God guy?”

Phasoné scowled. “Yes. Karmion, God of the Planetary Sea and Lord of the High Pantheon. I’m sure he’ll be hunting for you soon enough; you are the only one who can oppose him. The combination of mortal blood and immortal inhabitor make you more powerful than any God, and you are the only threat to his rule.”

“Alright then…” Turning to face Phasoné, Vayra scrunched her eyebrows. “Well, I don’t care. We need to find the Harmony to help my brother, so that’s what we’ll do.” She prepared to open her eyes. First, she concentrated on the knowledge that her eyes were, in fact, sealed.

“Wait!” Phasoné hissed. “Before you go!”

“What?”

“The Seekerstone is powered by water from the Eternal Stream. It’ll run out soon, and when you leave this void, it won’t have enough power to reach you again. But… uh, you’ll need me before long. I’ll be with you still, but it’ll be a little more difficult to reach me without the Seekerstone as a crutch. If you need help, you must call on me.”

Vayra nodded. Then, she willed her eyes open, and the void receded with her eyelids. She looked exactly where she had before she had entered the void—at the Seekerstone in her hand. But as she watched, it decayed. The smooth surface turned to dry sand and crumbled under the slight pressure of her fingertips. She reached out to place it on the seat beside her. It burst apart before she could set it down. Shards of stone stung her hand and scratched the seat. All that remained was dust, pebbles, and a small puddle of iridescent water—water from the Eternal Stream.

 Bremi and Old Uckoe watched her expectantly, and she told them about the Harmony and the Namola Tree—the other details, she kept to herself. 

“The fruit of the Namola can only be picked by a God or someone powerful enough to rival one,” Uckoe said. 

“Then I’ll get more powerful.”

“Sis…” Bremi droned. “You don’t—”

“Yes, I do.” Vayra clasped her brother’s hand. “Ever since your egg hatched, we’ve been by each other’s side. We’ll get through this too, I promise.”

“Thank… you.”

Vayra glanced back at Uckoe. “And… please, don’t try to change my mind.”

The elf raised a finger towards the ceiling, then, as if an important thought had reached him, picked his book back up and etched something in the margins with a quill. It looked like a calculation. “I don’t wish to change your mind, for I already agree with you. Find a ship. Find a captain and crew mad enough to hunt for the Mediator’s ship with you. And be safe.”

“Thank you.” Vayra sighed. “I needed to hear that, from you, especially.”

“You are very welcome, little one.”

“So—”

“No. You two must go now, before you are caught.”

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