The Banishment of the Thief

Untitled Part 4

"I never asked your name." He had been leading the woman back to the camp for over an hour before he had the thought. "My name is Gylon."

"I am Atyet." She wasn't what he had expected at all. She carried an unstrung bow over her shoulder, wore clothing made entirely of furs and skins, and walked through the woods gracefully and confidently, as though she was at home. Her dark brown hair was tied back into a short, messy braid.

When he had finally arrived at the temple he had at first been devastated to see it in ruins, but when he saw her he knew he was in the right place. He was beginning to wonder though: who was she? Was this Atyet a mage, or some other follower of Lynde? He supposed he only had to ask.

"Who are you?" Gylon watched her visibly contemplate the question and regretted his bluntness. Pain showed unconcealed on her face. "Forgive me! It was rude to ask you that while I remain a stranger." Atyet seemed surprised by his apology, as if she hadn't realized she was wearing her emotions. "You must have already seen that I'm dead. Thank you for trusting me anyway. I died nearly a century ago along with everyone else in the land of the dead, but I have no memory of the time since then. To me it feels like I was alive last year. My friends and I have come from Delith on a journey to. . . rid my old home of a curse."

"Who are your friends?" Atyet asked.

"My friend Ilshi is a living girl and a Seer, and Feddin is a dead man who helped me when I first woke up. They are both missing. We are accompanied by Sarel, a knight of Delith and an experienced warrior." 

 Gylon thought she would be surprised about Ilshi being a Seer, but instead she simply asked, "What does Ilshi look like?"

"She has purple eyes and long white hair. She looks like a princess, but I'm pretty sure she isn't one."

Atyet silently received this information, and the two did not speak for a time. Later, she said, "I do not have a story to tell like yours. I have lived alone in the wilderness for all my life. A hunter is who I am."

Gylon had thought so, but to him this made little sense. The temple still stood, though only partially, and there had been someone there, but this person was no mage. Who was Elevir's box meant for, if not for a fellow mage? "Do you know Elevir?" he asked.

Atyet shook her head.

There was another thing that Gylon had noticed when he looked at the woman. Her lips were covered in healing cuts, a flurry of slashes from tiny blades. Never before had he seen injuries like these. On this topic, he kept his questions to himself.

They traveled for most of the day, stopping periodically to rest. Atyet had noticed that Gylon never rested, though. He would only pace back and forth while she sat and drank. At first, she thought he was going to collapse, but his pace never slowed. Silently, she learned that this was a part of being dead. How strange that a corpse could be so full of vitality, she thought.

They had found little reason to speak to each other during the journey. It had been many years since Atyet had been this close to a person for so long, and she wasn't sure how she felt about it. People were amorphous clouds of unpredictability, concealing endless worlds behind their faces. She could not trust any more than what she saw on the surface. It was also disorienting for her to be following someone else's path, instead of her own navigation.

Later in the day, Gylon started to jog. "We're close!" he cried. Though her stamina was running low, she kept up as well as she could.

He reached a small sunlit clearing, where the corpse stopped and waited for her. Atyet first saw another travel bag on the ground, identical to the one Gylon carried. Nearby was a pile of charred sticks. A rather worryingly sloppy campfire, she thought. Then her eyes fell on the body.