The Book of Terrus: A Land of Sunlight

Chapter 5 - Sea and Stars

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Drip...drip...drip...

            The sound of water on stones was a familiar one to Vinie. She had spent ten years of her life counting those drops. Strange, how a person could come so far and yet still return to the same place.

            Little was changed from the day that Gideo and Bakko had broken her out of this dark, lonely cell, at least on this side of the bars. Utunma's prison was empty now, the former occupants turned loose either by the Third Company or the Undorians in their turns, depending on political allegiances. The silence pressed eerily upon Vinie's ears as she gazed at the carved wall before her.

            Even in the two years since fleeing Utunma, the map of Goran which she had painstakingly etched into the stones of her cell remained untouched. A ruined masterpiece, it seemed somehow flat and lifeless to Vinie now. She remembered how urgently, nearly frenzied her hands had worked to chisel the web of lines across the country's outline. The map had come alive beneath her bony, bloodied fingers; a nation practically crying out to break apart. Inch by grinding inch, driven by a vision of her long-dead love Zaneo calling up the sea to cleave the world from King Mahir's ever-tightening grasp, Vinie had broken apart Goran on the cell wall. It was the birth of a dream, one that had since taken on a life and fire of its own. It also exacted a growing cost in blood from all who dared to dream it.

            Brushing her callused fingertips against the damp stone, Vinie closed her eyes and thought of them. Zaneo, gentle and beautiful, martyred by an executioner's axe in the square just outside. Clever and faithful Sahar, similarly made example of, her head left in the jungle to greet Vinie and the Factionist forces as they arrived to retake Utunma. Dhalad, honest and reliable to the last, killed in the Uprising of Undor, as people were taking to calling the battle that had ensued.

            Undor. That was the south's name now. Not that the capital would ever recognize it, not with Mahir on the throne. The sea-folk had a name and a flag now, two things that just a year ago nobody would have dared to imagine possible. Such simple things, bought at such a high cost. If she closed her eyes, Vinie could still see the fiery ship which had borne hundreds of dead out to sea after the Uprising. And she could hear the serpent's cry.

            A day hadn't gone by yet when the appearance of the sea serpent, the first seen off Goran's shores in nearly a thousand years, wasn't spoken of. Some like Lord Xolani and Lady Oesu, the new Lord and Lady of Undor, were simply too busy to pay it much thought. Others like the apprentice Wise Woman from the mountains could think of nothing but. Lhara would ask anyone with a moment to answer about the serpent and what it meant, but in truth the Undorians could only guess. Most seemed happy to take it as a sign that their cause for independence was fated, since First King Amenthis had not apparently succeeded in his quest to rid the land of the ancient creatures.

            A sudden twinge from the base of her thumb as she brushed the map pulled Vinie from her thoughts. A soft smile flickered across her lips. The marriage knot tattoo was still new, still tender. Lifting her hand away from the wall, she flexed the joint of her palm where the little white circle had been re-inked. The marriage knot itself was not new to Vinie; she had been carrying one since she married Zaneo as a fresh-faced young pearl diver. The bond behind this newly done tattoo was new though. Last time, Gideo had inked a knot for Zaneo into her skin. This time the mark he left on Vinie was his own.

            He would be waiting for her, him and the boys both. Pausing at the cell door, Vinie took one last look behind her. This was where it all started, here in this damp, lonely little room. If it weren't for Gideo and her dad she might have been here still, wasting away. The fractured map of Goran faded behind a beam of sunlight from the window above, floating dust motes obscuring the tiny city markers. This was also the first place Vinie had ever heard Zaneo's voice speaking to her from beyond death. Those memories were safely tucked away in a corner of Vinie's heart which only Bakko and Gideo knew of. The last thing Undor needed was a General reputed to be crazy. Then again...perhaps a little insanity might be useful in the days ahead.