Then Ella was past. She chanted as she ran, until she had left the bandits far behind. She doubted they would have the will to chase her at any rate.
The pass opened up again. It became a gorge. The walls of the gorge spread themselves apart to show what they truly were — the sides of mountains.
Ella slowed, constantly looking behind her, only deactivating the runes when she was sure she wasn’t being followed.
Ella was now the same as she had always been — a young woman wearing a green silk dress.
~
IT was hard going, but somehow the knowledge that she was now beginning the descent into Petrya spurred Ella on. There was just as much rubble and loose gravel as there had been on her ascent, but her steps were now more nimble, lighter. Perhaps it had something to do with her supply of food and water, which was running dangerously low, the benefit being that her satchel was the lightest it had ever been. Perhaps it was her sense of satisfaction at besting the brigands who had waylaid her.
One thing was for sure, Ella felt warmer than she had in a long time. While the Alturan side of the range had been cast in perpetual shade by the sun, on the Petryan side, the late morning rays were warming the dry air.
The land below was revealed in the bright light of day, a panoramic vista. Looking to the north, her eyes followed the Elmas behind her as they curved all the way to where the mountains turned into hills in the Gap of Garl. The foothills then became the Emdas, a range that was to the Elmas what a giant was to a tall man. The land of Petrya was a great plain surrounded by mountains on all sides but one; to the south was the great Hazara Desert.
Ella’s main view point though was ahead of her, at the path Killian was taking into the great bowl that was Petrya. It was a harsh land, barren and littered with stones and boulders of all sizes and hues.
Suddenly she stopped. There, at the base of the mountain, still a great distance in front of her, was a man. He was clothed in white. His hair was a fiery dark red.
Then, as quickly as she had seen him, he vanished into a copse of trees.
He was perhaps half a day’s march in front of her.
Killian.
Ella ran through the possibilities one more time. He couldn’t know she was there.
Her steps were more careful now. Ella prepared to hunt down her quarry.
39
The Lexicons may not even be the greatest works of the Evermen. Who knows what other wonders lay deep in the bowels of Stonewater?
— Diary of High Enchantress Maya Pallandor, Page 680, 411 Y.E.
PRIMATE Melovar Aspen could remember the time before the elixir. It was hazy, like a remembrance of childhood.
He could recall feeling tired. Sitting at his desk in Stonewater, high up in the hollowed-out shell of the mountain. The aching cold, deep in his bones. His pen scratching endlessly. The feeling of impotence, of being trapped by his position.
Why had he felt impotent? A memory came to him of a conversation he’d had with an imperial ambassador. A money-grubbing peddler, with jewels on his fingers and rich dark clothes of velvet.
The meeting followed the usual pattern, and then Melovar remembered standing up at his desk, his joints cracking. He had walked to the large window. Without a word he opened it, his thin arms encountering resistance, grunting with effort.
Instantly a stiff breeze gusted into the room. It was always windy at Stonewater, something to do with the mountain’s height.
The Primate leaned against the window frame, gazing out at the city of Salvation below. He beckoned the ambassador forward. After a moment, the man hesitantly joined him.
"Do you see?" the Primate pointed.
The ambassador seemed giddy for a moment, made breathless by the height and the sheer drop below the window. The stone face fell for thousands of paces.
"What is it, Your Grace?"
"On the edge of Salvation, outside the city walls."
The ambassador’s brow furrowed. "Some kind of camp."
"The dispossessed," Melovar said, looking at the ambassador to make his point. "Vagrants. They come from all over, but most of all, they come from Seranthia."
"Really? From the imperial capital? But these are just rabble — what trouble can they cause? They probably aren’t even Tingaran citizens."
"Most are not."
"Then what is the problem? Your templars can’t control them?"
The Primate shook his head. "They are too weak to fight. The system is corrupt, Ambassador, that is the problem. The non-citizens are multiplying faster than the Tingarans. The citizens force them out of work and the Emperor leaves them to starve. The Wall shuts them out of Seranthia, so they come here, to Aynar, to Salvation, because as templars we can at least give them order. We can feed them, and give them work hauling the raw materials for essence manufacture."