The Oasis Stone - Chapter One
Shortcuts and Promises
“What are the people of Devar like? First you must ask, what is the Devaros River like? Is it strong? While the River is mighty, there are plenty stronger. Is it lucky? No, for there are many rivers lucky enough to never flow into the desert at all. It is, in fact, defiance that lets the Devaros flow from the Azrak Mountains to the Drowned Tundra. The defiance to avoid evaporation from not one, but three Scorch Vents. The defiance to still gurgle after ceaseless days under the desert sun. The Devaros is defiant, and so is the city built on its shores. Whether sun or sandstorm, flood or famine, Vent beast or Legion sword, Devar will stand defiant. Devar will thrive.”
—sketch of Devar from aboard a coreskiff, taken from the journal of Oswal Briggin, cavernfolk explorer
Water thundered onto the distant rocks below, drowning out the faint voice in Mayve’s head that told her she was in trouble.
Determined to ignore it, she dug her fingers harder into the cliff face, clawing at the rocks slick with condensation. Finding familiar footing, she propelled herself upward, catching an edge and heaving herself up onto an outcrop—nothing more than a bare ledge, jutting from the sheer cliff over a hundred feet of open air.
Mayve pushed her back against the cliff face, feeling the wet stone dig into her through her soaked shirt. Legs dangling over thin air, she paused to catch her breath, letting the burning ache fade from her arms. Far below, the waterfall churned the river into roiling gray clouds, darkened by the shadow of the cliff.
There must have been a storm upriver, the Falls are strong today. Wiping the stinging water out of her green eyes with the damp collar of her sleeveless shirt, Mayve muttered to herself, “All you had to do was look at the Falls before starting your climb. That was all you had to do.”
The mighty Devaros Falls crashed past her—an entire river, plunging into midair far above. Mayve was in no danger of being swept away by the waters. It was the mist, settling on the rocks like a film of ice, wet and slippery, that would kill her The roar of the Falls deafened her thoughts, and she doubted anyone would hear her if she called for help. Not that Mayve would ever do so.
She futilely tried to wring out her dark hair before letting it mat over her shoulders again. “Too late now, I suppose.” Her words were lost in the roar of the Falls. She usually avoided her shortcuts when the river was this strong.
Peering upward, she searched for the top edge of the cliff through the stinging fog. “About sixty feet to go, looks like. I need to get farther away from the waterfall.”
The raging waters had made her favorite path up far too dangerous, but Mayve knew others. She had long since memorized as many ways up the cliff as possible—anything to bypass the long, dry desert road that wound from Darkmist to Silt Row. It was worth any risk, in Mayve’s opinion. Ma would disagree, but she doesn’t need to know where I am. The next path up would hopefully be drier, but it would be a leap through open air to reach the adjacent ledge.
Carefully rising to her feet, one arm on the cliff face and the other keeping her balance, Mayve prepared to jump. She had made farther leaps before, but in the shadow of the cliff, it was impossible to tell if the distant ledge was damp or not.
She took a deep breath and checked that her coin purse was properly secured to her belt. It held just enough coin to buy a few packets of sandpepper seeds, requested by her mother for the garden. It probably took Ma weeks to save this coin—can’t have it going off the cliff. The leather purse was safely cinched. The only way that’s falling down is if I’m falling with it.
Mayve had promised her mother she would not take any of her shortcuts today. The worst part about dying here would be her mother finding out she lied through her teeth. Bracing herself, she studied the far ledge, planning each meticulous movement in her mind. The wind chilled her soaked clothes as it whipped across the cliffs, stirring the waterfall mist. The Devaros Falls roared behind her like an endless stampede. She only had room for one step forward—all her strength needed to be in one step.
Mayve leapt. For a second, she hung in the air, her arms stretched toward safety. Her palms reached the ledge first, her fingers locking on the rough surface. Dry rock. The friction scraped her skin as the rest of her body slammed into the cliff, turning her sigh of relief into a forced exhale. Catching a foothold, she heaved herself onto the dry ledge, her wet palms gritty with sand and pebbles.
She glanced back at the ledge she leapt from, and was surprised to see just how obscured it was by the waterfall’s mist. Mayve made a mental note to take the dreary long way home, and began the final stretch of her climb. The path up the cliff from here was easier, relatively speaking, for Mayve. She could climb the Devaros Falls blindfolded if she wanted to. She almost did before, on a dare from Ingo, but she cheated halfway up.
It was not long before Mayve cleared the top of the cliff and stopped again to catch her breath. Warm, southerly wind filled her lungs. Dry, dusty air, cooled slightly from the river. Mayve was just glad it was free of ash. A northerly or westerly wind was often tainted by ash from the Okanos or Cavotros Vents.
No longer in the shadow of the waterfall, the harsh desert sun offered a brief respite from the chilled mists. Mayve knew in a matter of minutes she would be dry and the glare would become insufferable. Looking downriver, she saw the distant stairs that staggered up the cliff side from Darkmist. From there, a sandy road wound back through the dunes toward the rest of Devar. An uncomfortably long walk, especially in the searing heat.
Beyond thrilled with her shortcut, Mayve put the climb out of mind, quickly forgetting any regrets she may have had about it. With a running start, she bounded up a nearby boulder to see her favorite view of Devar, the greatest city in the Ralveran Desert.
The grand Devaros River, named after the city it flowed through, sprawled out before her, churning sluggishly toward the precipitous cliffside. Mayve only heard the water, though. Built across the entire river—like a vast wooden blanket of bridges, stilts, and floating dwellings—was Silt Row, the largest borough of Devar. The wooden sprawl was so dense, the only visible part of the river was in one central canal, bisecting the borough.
Above her, the Devar Arch dominated the sky, a gargantuan mesa arch of reddish-tan sandstone spanning the entire length of the Devaros Falls like a bridge built by gods. Standing beneath it, Mayve could not see the opulent manors and lush gardens of the merchant guild masters and Citadel heirs that adorned the top of the Arch, but she knew well enough what they looked like. She had been up there many times—uninvited, of course—to sneak through their homes and pilfer their extravagant belongings. It was surprisingly easy, if you could climb up the Arch from the outside. They never saw her coming, and rightly so. After all, who would be reckless enough to make that climb?
While she could not see the manors, Mayve did see a coreskiff moored off the side of the Arch, swaying in midair with the wind like a boat bobbing over waves at the dock. She rolled her eyes and made a mental note to pay that manor a visit. If they can afford a coreskiff, they can afford to part ways with some other belongings.
The blast of horns rumbled over the noise of the Falls, and Mayve quickly forgot her disdain. Far down at the bottom of the Falls, the long silhouette of a boat was pulling into Darkmist Pool, and that meant it was time for the Lockworkers to go to work.
The Locks—a tangled web of ropes and plank bridges that dangled from the underside of the Arch—exploded with activity. Like a wake of vultures descending on a fresh corpse, the Lockworkers spiraled toward their prey from the ropes above, swiftly lowered hundreds of feet by practiced hands.
Each worker landed on the hull of the vessel, six on each side, and attached hefty chains to the special anchor points that all boats traveling on the Devaros were equipped with. Chains secured, a raptor on the hull removed a horn from his belt and sounded the all clear.
The call erupted from the depths of Darkmist, and other horns responded throughout the Locks. As the echoes faded, the Lockworkers yelled out in unison.
“Heave!” The chains snapped taut.
“Heave!” With a groan, the ship lifted from the water, dark figures on board furling sails and stowing oars.
“Heave!” Mayve saw raptors and humans, maybe even some Torn, swinging like jungle monkeys throughout the Locks, attaching ropes to pulleys and pulleys to anchors and anchors to chains.
Slowly and surely, the Lockworkers lifted the ship well above the lip of the waterfall. They swarmed over the hull like spiders, the boat securely tangled in a web of ropes and chains. Even higher, on the underside of the Arch, Lockworkers were carefully attaching the chains to different anchor points, getting ready to swing the boat over the top of the Falls and into the Silt Row canal.
As the boat tilted dangerously forward on its new tethers, several Lockworkers disconnected ropes from the stern of the vessel, and it began to swing with careful precision toward Silt Row. The creaks and groans of the wood always gave Mayve the impression that the boat itself was screaming for help, and now she saw the sailors on the vessel clinging to the railings and ropes for dear life.
An ear-piercing snap, like a tree breaking clean in half, cut through the blaring horns. A faint scream faded to nothing as a Lockworker hurtled down into the depths of Darkmist. One of the chains on the starboard bow had snapped, and the boat was now swinging toward Silt Row at a dangerous angle. Several Lockworkers on the boat scrambled to attach new tethers to the anchor point, but it was too late.
The boat picked up speed, swinging toward the wooden homes at the edge of the waterfall. Warning cries from the boat and screams from Silt Row rang out, followed by the sickening sound of wood splintering against wood. Mayve vaulted off the rock and sprinted between the riverside homes onto the wooden walkways of Silt Row, the river rushing underneath.
Reaching the edge of the canal, Mayve saw the damage was done. The boat was safely righted in the canal, with a fresh gash ripped into the stern, luckily above the waterline. However, the swinging vessel had cleaved through a forest of supporting stilts like a sharp axe, the buildings atop them starting to tilt toward the rushing river.
As Mayve looked on, the houses gave out under the weight. The occupants, who instinctively evacuated at the first sound of snapping wood, watched helplessly as their houses were swept over the edge, the sounds of impact far below mercilessly drowned by the waterfall.
To Mayve’s surprise, a single home caught on the edge of the waterfall, digging into the rocky shallows. One support, lodged under a submerged rock at the edge of the waterfall, in the luckiest, most precise way, was all that remained between the house and a swift one-way trip into the Darkmist Pool. It vaguely reminded Mayve of how she had been clinging to the side of a cliff not too long ago.
Safely secured against the river’s current, the boat was pulled into the docking area of the canal, the Lockworkers unlatching and swinging back into the sky. Pale-faced passengers began to depart, the flow of passengers giving a wide berth to a tall figure at the bottom of the boarding ramp. There, several merchant officials were trying to calm down the enraged boat captain.
Wearing a suit of worn iron plate armor with a tattered, hooded cloak draped over the pauldrons, the captain stood at least a foot taller than the groveling merchants, staring down as one of the dock officials explained—what Mayve could only guess—was extremely unsavory news.
Unfortunately for the official, his decree was cut short as the captain’s gauntleted fingers clutched his throat, and he lifted the struggling merchant well off his feet. As the merchant flailed, he desperately grasped at the captain’s hood and yanked it down.
A bleached skull, carved with intricate patterns and an inset iron circlet, grimaced in the sun. Glowing red lights set deep in its eye sockets fixated on the merchant.
“Now that I can hear you better, explain to me again how I am responsible for the damages to my boat.” The captain’s booming voice carried unnaturally over the crowd, the jaws of his skull moving with no muscles to form the disembodied words.
The dock official’s sniveling reply did not carry over the crowd like the skeleton’s voice. Mayve took a closer look at the crew, noticing most of the sailors donned similar hooded armor. They’re all Ul’Varin…that must be Captain Vulinor and his Ferrymen!
To see a lone Ul’Varin on occasion what not unheard of, but to see a vessel full of the fiery skeletons? Only the Ferry boasted such a crew. Mayve had heard plenty of tales of the Ul’Varins’ unnatural strength, and the poor merchant who dangled from the captain’s grasp like wet laundry was getting a perfect demonstration.
Captain Vulinor’s booming voice rang out again. “Perhaps your associates will own up to their mistakes better than you.”
With the ease of tossing back a small fish, the captain hurled the merchant upriver. “Kinglor.” He motioned to one of his skeletal underlings. “Fish him out. Don’t be gentle.”
Vulinor turned back to the remaining officials. “We will depart as scheduled in two days, and my boat will be repaired by the end of tomorrow. It is in your best interest to not discuss this further.” With that, he turned away, cloak billowing as his heavy armored boots thumped up the gangplank of the Ferry.
Mayve wished she could follow him aboard. Ma and I will take the Ferry one day. Get out to a Verdant city, leave Darkmist and Devar behind. The Ferry was the only boat that traveled the Devaros that they had any chance of affording.
She took a brief second to plan a route to the Silt Row Market in her mind, avoiding the traffic of the main canal-side pathways, then set out. Confident and sure-footed, Mayve often got lost in her own thoughts as she leapt between bridges and stepped across canals. Navigating the twisting bridges and alleys of Silt Row was second nature for Mayve at this point, and as she traveled she replayed the events of the past hour in her mind’s eye, deciding which details were important enough to tell her mother.
The Ul’Varin are always a sight to behold, and her mother would love to know that the Ferry was in town. Travelers and small merchants not affluent enough to afford travel with the merchant guilds usually bought passage on the Ferry. That meant the passengers also lacked the money to rent a good stall in Archtown or Silt Row, and ended up peddling their wares in Darkmist.
The Ferry would be off to Port Wenstnor next, down in the foothills of the Azrak Mountains, then it would pass back through Devar and north to Tyrak Pass. Mayve would move to either in a heartbeat. Cool breezes, lush scenery. The Verdants were entirely different worlds than the massive desert that separated them. Port Wenstnor might be too posh for us, but perhaps Ma would move to Tyrak Pass.
The white noise of the river was starting to get drowned out by the endless chatter and yells of the marketplace, now only a few streets away. She cut into another alleyway and was rudely pulled out of her thoughts by a gruff reptilian voice. “Go on now and empty all those precious coins into this pouch right here.”
Mayve’s hand shot to her coin purse, but she relaxed as she glanced down the alleyway. Two identical raptors stood side by side, each sporting green scales with a smattering of blood-red feathers. They had cornered a young Oaken Legion soldier against the plank wall of a nearby house, and one had the blade of an axe pressed against the tree’s throat.
The Oaken Legion soldier was armored in full timbersteel plate, the jagged edges biting into the plank wall. Greenish-yellow eyes, burning with rage, glared from his bark-clad face. His timbersteel sword and shield were still locked in their sheaths—the poor tree likely had no time to draw his weapons before the raptors ambushed him.
A fully clad Oaken Legion soldier would have been a menacing sight, if it was not for the bloodthirsty raptors that pinned him to the wall. One lizard had a clawed foot pressed onto the tree’s chest and an axe at his throat. The other raptor had the tree’s head wrenched backward by his hair-like branches, exposing his throat to the blade.
Red blood ran down the soldier’s armor, dripping onto the alley’s planks—raptor blood, from where the sharp timbersteel armor dug into the lizard’s foot. If it bothered the raptor, he did not show it. Instead, he seemed to relish it, tongue hungrily running over his sharp teeth.
The tree spat, “How dare you threaten a soldier of the Oaken Legion! I will have my superiors-” The rest of his sentence was expelled with his breath as the second raptor dug his claws into the tree’s face and slammed it into the wall.
“Shut your green-cursed mouth and give us the coin. Consider it a travel expense for your stay here in the desert,” one of the raptors snarled. The young Oaken Legion soldier looked around for help and locked eyes with Mayve. Both raptors followed his gaze, and suddenly all attention was on her.
She raised both hands and addressed the raptors. “Ingo. Spotch. How is business today?”
The tree’s eyes lowered with resignation as he realized no help was coming, and Ingo’s mouth widened into the approximation of a human smile, sharp raptor teeth catching the sunlight. “Imayva, how nice to see you out of the Darkmist hole. Funny, Spotch and I were just talking about you.”
Spotch ripped the tree’s coin purse off his belt and tossed it to Ingo, who jingled it in the air in front of Mayve. “As you can see, the Coinclaws are thriving. You’re welcome to join in, of course. Open invitation.”
“Can’t today, sorry. Helping my mother.” Mayve had known Ingo and Spotch for many years. They grew up on the Devar streets together. It was easy—maybe too easy—to make some quick coin running with them, but as they all got older, the twins had grown a little more vicious each year. Still, the money was hard to resist sometimes.
The two brothers turned back to the tree and landed several more vicious blows each, until the unfortunate soldier was on his knees, gasping. Ingo spat into the tree’s leaves. “Get out of my face, kindling.”
Spotch snarled, “Be sure to thank Imayva here. We were going to kill you, but we’d hate for your pathetic whimpers to sour her morning.”
The tree shot one more glance of anger and shame at Mayve, then dropped his gaze and fled the alleyway. Mayve felt a pang of guilt, but she knew better than to get involved with matters involving the raptors and the Oaken Legion, especially with Ingo and Spotch on one side.
She turned to the raptor twins. “Are you offering me a job?”
“Perhaps.” Spotch slunk closer, his tail gently swaying side to side like an eerie pendulum. “Would you be interested?”
“Might be. Like I said, I’m busy today.” Mayve held her ground. She knew Ingo and Spotch were harmless, at the moment, and refused to let herself be intimidated.
“Nothing out of the usual, other than the pay.” Ingo looked around, then stepped in close to form a huddle with Spotch and Mayve. “That tree is part of a larger Oaken Legion convoy. They come through town, rarely, traveling between the Verdants, but this one is different.”
Spotch chimed in, “King Coinclaw’s informants say that those trees were digging around in the desert, out in some old ruins in the Eastriver Dunes, and we suspect they found something. It’s the largest force we’ve seen pass through in a while, and they’ve rented out every room in the Hangman’s Swing.”
“So it’s almost certainly something out of the usual.” Mayve crossed her arms and glared at Ingo, but she was undeniably curious. “How would I play into this, exactly?”
Ingo sheathed his axe and motioned a clawed hand toward Mayve. “We need your particular knack for climbing, and since the Oaken Legion are involved, they’ll be immediately suspect of us scaled scum.” Ingo dropped his voice to mimic the stereotypical, self-righteous attitude of the Oaken Legion. “And less likely to notice a boring human like you.”
“Thanks, Ingo, very persuasive of you. What are they even guarding?”
“No idea, but if they’ve been diving in the ruins, it’s probably something very rare and very expensive. Buried treasure or a Lost Eon artifact, something Fae maybe. Spotch and I will make sure King Coinclaw gives you a fine cut of the profit.”
Imayva shrugged and couldn’t help but say, “He’s not even a real king.”
Both Spotch’s and Ingo’s smiles dropped away, then Ingo snarled, “And you’re a poor wretch from Darkmist. You know, this job alone, you’d make enough to get your mother out of that cave hole you call home. Maybe you won’t even need to work with us Coinclaws anymore to get by.”
Everyone stood in silence for a moment, each with a struck nerve. Mayve spoke first. “Do you have an actual number for me?” Ingo and Spotch looked at each other, making mute expressions with an occasional hissed word and motions toward Mayve. A language only two close twins could possibly understand.
Eventually they turned back and said, “You’ll make five, maybe six hundred teirs easy, if the Legion have something truly valuable.”
Mayve failed to hide her shock, and both Ingo and Spotch grinned in unison as they watched her jaw fall open.
“I'll take it you’re interested then,” Ingo snarled. Mayve recovered quickly. Five hundred teirs! What could the trees possibly be carrying that my cut is five hundred teirs? Mayve knew that was more than enough to take her mother wherever she wanted. It was also enough to get murdered in the street by the Coinclaws, but that voice in her mind was just a faint whisper. She tried to feign calmness. “Fine, I’m interested. Where do I meet?”
The same false smile played across Ingo’s maw. “Meet us in the Outer Sands tomorrow at sunset. Three dwellings down and across from the Hangman’s Swing, in the direction of the river. Do you have a weapon?” Mayve nodded and revealed her small pocketknife. Both Spotch and Ingo threw their heads back in laughter, feathers ruffling with each breath.
“What about a real weapon? We’re going against the Oaken Legion, you’ve seen their armor.” He glanced at Mayve’s coin pouch. “That should be enough for a solid dagger.”
Mayve grabbed her coin purse and tucked the money out of sight. “How dangerous is this job exactly? I’ve never needed a weapon before, and I’m not looking to die on a timbersteel blade for your false king.”
Spotch finished counting the coin from the Oaken Legion’s stolen purse. “If all goes well, you won’t have to fight. But it’s your funeral if you end up fighting with that butter knife. Think about it. What are you going to do against timbersteel with that?”
The way Spotch spat out the word timbersteel dripped with utter malice. He scooped a handful of coins and dropped it in Ingo’s waiting claws, then flipped a gold teir to Mayve. “Tomorrow. Sunset.” The two brothers slunk out of the alley, looked left and right for any sign of trouble, and disappeared into the city.
“Nothing out of the usual…” Mayve mocked the twin’s snarls. “Sand-cursed raptors.”
Five hundred teirs…Ma and I can go wherever we want. The voice of reason in the back of her mind screamed that something felt off, but she forced it down. For that kind of money, it’s worth it, no matter what the job is.
Sunset tomorrow, in the Outer Sands, and I need a real weapon. What have I gotten myself into?