by Jeffrey Hall
“She still alive?”
Dash looked up at him, her eyes full, and nodded. He could just see beneath the bandage. There was a red wound beneath. Deep and bloody. A vicious thing to look at, as he was sure was his own face.
She looked back down.
“You okay?”
Dash shrugged. She opened her mouth like she was trying to speak and then shook her head.
“I know.”
She reached into a pouch on her hip and produced a stone. She held it up and shook her head again.
“I know.” Without being able to speak she couldn’t cast a spell. Without being able to cast a spell, what was she then? “They did you bad, didn’t they?”
She lifted her head and looked away from him.
“I did you worse, though, by getting you involved. By screwing up my side of the deal.”
She shook her head and pointed down at the girl. Dash tried to speak, but what came out was only a throaty grumble that looked painful.
“Yeah, we both did her wrong.”
Just then Garp stood up, threw his hands to the sky, and yelled, “I surrender!” before falling back down.
Dash raised her eyebrow.
“Did him wrong too. Made him think he was a hero. Made him think he could go dashing off to save us from a davlish, when it was poisoning us with its own kin’s bones.”
They both watched him roll down the hill into the high grass, where he lay, pulling at the strands like he planned on doing it to the entire plain.
She tilted her head at Requiem as if asking a question.
“Davlish have eldium in their frame. They bite that of their dead and release it into the air—”
Dash stood suddenly, a look of shock on her face.
“What?” said Requiem.
She stormed across the grass and snatched Garp by the wrist, pulling him upright like he was a youngling refusing to listen. The man came to his feet, giggling, but allowed himself to be pulled across the plain.
When she returned, she kept holding him by the wrist as she fished into her pouch.
“What are you doing?” said Requiem.
She pulled out a brown nugget of stone.
“What is that?”
She pointed down to the girl.
“Dadaline,” said Requiem, remembering his stones. “What are you going to do with that?”
She put the stone in Garp’s hand and put his fingers tight around it. The man didn’t even acknowledge that it was there. Yet she took his other arm and brought it into her own.
She closed her eyes and put her other hand around his stump. If he was in pain because of it he didn’t show it. Dash grumbled with her lost voice, and suddenly Garp’s own eyes shot open. He looked up into the sky, and through it said the words.
“Alagram mardula fanshara pa alagram mardun.”
The dadaline flared and its essence visibly gathered into Garp’s arms. But as the brown glow rose, it was quickly pulled back, taken by Dash into her own hands.
“What’s happening?” said Sasha breathlessly as she and the others arrived to watch the same phenomena occur.
“The eldium in him… She’s treating with him,” said Requiem. “Geochanneling.”
Dashinora released Garp and pointed down at the girl. The essence of dadaline left her finger in a twirling brown loop of light and fell into the sleeping girl like a phantom was invading her.
Requiem watched on, waiting as the rest of the magic poured into the girl, hoping that it would finally purge the silent stone from her body. The last tendril of light left Dash’s finger. The girl inhaled and Requiem expected her eyes to open then and there. But all she did was exhale. When the long, exaggerated breath was completed, she continued with rhythmic, slow breathing.
Dash released her grip on Garp. The man fell to his hands and knees as if the treating and being a conduit had physically drained him. The Geomage kept standing, looking down at the girl, putting her hands to her head.
She mouthed, “I don’t understand.”
But Requiem had no answer, just disbelief. Shouldn’t the spell have worked? Was it because she’d used a madman as a conduit? Was it because she was an unfit Geomage after all? The questions ran through his head as he stepped away, already searching the horizon for answers. There must be some other Geomage out there that could help her. There must be something he could do to wake her before it was too late.
“What now?” said Sasha, overlooking the same sad scene as the others.
“We reach the king.” Glassius stood with his arms folded near the remaining Glimmerian soldiers.
“Tell him what?” said Requiem.
“There’s a fight brewing. That his brother has raised the banner of war once more.”
“A banner we forced him into,” said Requiem.
“A banner you forced him into. His hand would have stayed if you didn’t trip up and expose yourself.”
“A job you forced me into.”
“Children,” said Sasha. “You’re acting like children, pointing fingers when all that matters is that when we tell the king what happened he’ll be pointing his finger back at us.”
Requiem and Glassius glanced at each other and then away, both scolded for their regression and bickering. Sasha was right. It didn’t do any good to cast blame. All that mattered was fixing what was going to come of it.
Suddenly he felt a hand on his wrist. It was Dash and she was holding him, shaking her head, wagging her finger in his face.
“What? What is it?”
She tried to speak, but only hoarse grunts emerged from her mouth.
“Don’t understand,” said Requiem.
She grimaced, but then fell to the ground, pulling apart the grass to expose the soil beneath. She took a stone from the pouch at her hip and carved a picture in the ground. When she pulled away, there was a rudimentary picture of a bald man with scars and a circle around it. She kept pointing to it.
“That looks like the Elder,” said Glassius.
“So? What’s she saying?”
Glassius and Sasha both shrugged.
Dash grunted with frustration and kept drawing, tearing away stalks of grass that stood in her way. She drew a line in the dirt and then smaller circles above it with small X’s drawn underneath.
“What are those?” said Requiem, scratching his head.
And to their surprise, it was Garp that answered. “Eggs. She’s drawing eggs.” He picked up his head from where he still lay on his hands and knees, breathing heavily, pointing to his head. “I saw them when she did... did whatever she did to me.”
“What do eggs have to do with anything?” said Requiem.
“They’re not just any eggs. They’re brimling eggs.” Garp coughed and winced, as if something they couldn’t see was attacking him.
“Can’t be brimling eggs. They were all eradicated.”
“Then why did the Elder have them?” said Garp. “That’s what was in the trunks you were trying to steal.”
Requiem, Glassius, and Sasha all exchanged looks.
“How do you know what brimling eggs look like?” said Glassius to Garp.
Garp sputtered and spat, opening his mouth and closing it. “My uncle told me of the wars. Told me what they look like.”
“And how do we know to believe you? Aren’t you mad?” said Glassius.
“She took it away. For a little while. She took it away, but it’s coming back. I can feel it. I can still see them.”
Glassius shook his head. “By the Abyss, what does the Elder want with brimlings?”
“Do some easy mining to meet your king’s needs?” Requiem kept having to turn to look at people with his eye missing.
Dash clapped to grab their attention and pointed back down to the line.
“There’s a tunnel. Goes on forever. It’s filled with them. Grrrr. They’re coming back. Don’t let them come back,” said Garp, snapping, trying to fight the coming return of his insanity.
Requie
m knelt beside him, putting his hand on the man’s back. “Fight it. Fight back if you can.”
“I... I can’t.”
“Still doesn’t answer my question,” said Glassius, referring to Garp’s previous comment and ignoring the man’s predicament as if it were nothing.
But it answered Requiem’s. He remembered what the Elder said to him when he confronted him about the Benglar…
I will give them a world that even my brother can’t touch.
“He’s not using them for stone.” Requiem turned back to Dash. “Which direction was that tunnel?”
She scrunched her eyebrows and then drew the letter “E” in the dirt.
“East,” said Sasha.
“East,” repeated Requiem.
“What does that matter?” said Glassius.
“Because it’s the direction of Glimmer.”
Glassius frowned, thinking he was still making up a riddle.
“He’s not using the brimlings to mine the ground, he’s using them to break it.” The realization struck Requiem as he looked down at Dash’s drawing. The Elder didn’t want to start another war. He didn’t want his brother’s kingdom. He wanted his own. “He wants to snap Moonsland in two.”
“No. That’s impossible,” said Sasha. “He would need thousands of brimlings to be able to pull that off.”
“Abysmal weed to feed them. To point them in the right direction,” said Requiem, hoping that they were wrong.
But Dash pointed down at the X’s beneath the eggs and he knew what she was referencing.
“He’s grown the weed,” said Requiem, the pit in his stomach growing.
“They need the Abyss, though, too,” said Glassius.
Glassius was right. Brimling hatchlings only thrived on the Edge where the Abysmal gas coaxed them out of their shells. He looked down to Dash to see if she had any answer to that, but she put up her hands.
“I’m sure he’s trying to expose it to them,” said Requiem, looking out over the horizon. “Somewhere.”
“Then we must find it. We must stop him. We must tell the king,” said Glassius.
“Might not be enough time to tell the king,” said Requiem.
“What would happen to the world if it broke? Would it fall into the Abyss? Would it even break clean?” said Sasha.
All Requiem could think of was a cataclysmic event. An apocalypse in the making. The brimling wars returned tenfold. An event a hundred times worse than the Shamble.
Silence stood between them as the weight of the situation settled fully on their heads. The only thing that eventually broke their dumbfounded muteness was a nearby cough.
At first Requiem thought it was only Garp returning to the grip of the davlish’s sickness, but when it sounded again it sounded too soft. Too weak.
Dash once more grabbed his wrist, this grasping so tight he thought her fingernails might draw blood, but he barely noticed her touch for he was already looking in the same direction she was. Beside her, still lying in the grass, the girl coughed and twitched, her entire thin frame trembling as she came to life.
Requiem fell to his knees at her side, sliding his hand beneath her hair as if he meant to help her climb back to reality by propping her upright. She felt hot. Sick, but there was a tremble within her as if life was stirring inside of her. Dash scrambled to the other side of her, holding the girl’s tiny hand in her own. They both crowded around her like she was some type of religious tome about to divulge its secrets.
Her eyes fluttered open and Requiem saw the color of them for the first time. They were green and rich, like emeralds treated and polished to sparkle on jewelry or armor. The webs of red veins that stained the whites of her eyes only emphasized the color. They swam and blinked, unable to focus until they fell on Requiem.
She winced and recoiled, and he realized how monstrous he must look now, more than ever.
“It’s alright,” he said. “You’re safe.”
The girl once more blinked and then sat upright, her small frame struggling to do even that.
“Where am I?” The girl spoke in a whisper, her vocal cords fighting to force out the words.
Dash shifted. Requiem searched for the words to speak, so astonished by the sound of the girl’s voice.
“Somewhere near the city of Bothane.” He paused. “You’re safe.”
“Bothane?” said the girl, slightly louder than before.
Requiem nodded, and her eyes widened. The girl sat up, pushing away from Requiem’s and Dash’s hands.
“Bothane?” said the girl, looking around her, seeing the others and the grass and the hills. “What am I doing here?”
“You were taken by Dread Cultists. Drugged,” said Requiem. “They were going to cast you into the Abyss, but I stopped them. Took you here to wake you up.”
“No,” she whispered. “No. No. No.” Her hands went to her pouches. “Where are they?”
“Where are what?” said Requiem.
“The knob. The drawing. Where are they?”
He looked to Dash. She grimaced and shook her head.
“We don’t have them right now, but we can—”
“No!” she screamed, putting her hands to her face, as if the words he had just told her was a nightmare come true. She scrambled to come to her feet, falling twice from the weakness in her legs, only to finally rise and spin to look at the world around her. “Where are they? Where are they!”
Dash hurried to the girl’s side, grabbed her wrist, and pointed to her own head, mouthing the words, “I know.”
The girl just stared, her eyes leaking tears, trembling in Dash’s grip.
Requiem watched on, his own heart beating in his chest. “We can get them back. Wherever they are, we can get them back. But first you need to rest. You need food. Water. A change of clothes. Where’s your family?”
The girl glanced at him and then looked away into the hills.
“Where you from, girl?” said Sasha from behind his back.
She shook her head and said something to herself that Requiem thought sounded like, “I’m lost again.”
“We can help you find your way,” said Requiem.
The girl kept staring.
“Said, where are you from?” said Sasha.
“Not here,” she said.
“Then where?” said Sasha.
But she didn’t answer.
Sasha came forward. “Come. Give us a name so we can get you there. Traveston? Gallibard? Glimmer? Red Ridge?”
Still, she said nothing.
“Bent Grove? Shallow Hill? Astibal?”
The girl pulled her hand away from Dash and folded her arms.
“Come,” said Sasha, approaching closer. “Are you going to make me name every town and city in Moonsland?”
“I ain’t from here,” she said softly.
“So you said. So we can cross Bothane off the list. But what—”
“Not Bothane. Moonsland.”
“What do you mean?” said Sasha, laughing to herself, assuming that what the girl said was a joke, but Requiem could see her face. There was not a single jest in it. Her eyes. The steely motion of her lips. Either the girl was fully mad, or what she had just said was true.
Requiem’s heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his head, hear it in his skull like it was a drum meant to commence the coming of something cataclysmic. The silence that strangled the rest of the group only made it stronger, made it louder. He swallowed, his throat tight from the girl and her words, yet still he managed to speak. “There was something hunting you.”
Those words made the girl turn. She dropped her arms to her sides, and Requiem saw how strongly her hands trembled, how wide her eyes had gotten. “How?” she whispered to herself.
“Don’t, don’t worry. It’s dead. Whoever it was. They were crushed.”
She shook her heard. “It doesn’t die. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t get killed.”
And when she spoke, there was only fear. Primal terror,
like an animal cornered by a predator. She kept speaking.
“It kills. It stops. They make worlds die.”
“They?” said Sasha.
And the girl looked to the sky where the clouds and an escaped tendril of the Abyss intertwined to form a violet noose that looked like it was slowly descending, coming for the neck of the land.
Epilogue
Mum Casara traced two straight lines in his hand and then crossed it. He kept his eyes closed, feeling, listening to the words as his palm translated her strokes into a voice in his head.
“Do you know why such an agreement was made with those criminals?” she said when her hands were finished signing.
“To protect the Alley?” said Joran.
She hastily traced back into his open palm. “The Alley is all that matters. It’s a refuge. A bastion from what’s to come overhead.”
“What’s to come overhead?”
She tapped his palm. He opened his eyes, saw the grimace on her face, and closed his eyes again. At last she started tracing again. “Devastation. Horror. Unfathomable pain.”
Joran shifted uncomfortably, sweating in the coolness of their hut. Between her words, the bloody fight he had witnessed hours ago, and the monstrous thing he saw walk through the Alley, it was too much to bear. His nightmares were real. The fears he had on the street before Mum Casara saved him were paltry in comparison to all he had just seen.
“I don’t mean to scare you,” she said, and he was sure that she could sense the dampness of his hands. “But these things I have seen.”
“How? How do you see this? How do you know?”
“There are other ways of seeing besides eyes,” said Mum Casara.
“I don’t understand,” said Joran.
She tapped his head, and he opened his eyes. She pointed over to a box at the bottom of stacked containers filled with various plants and roots gleaned from the walls of the alley.
“Open it,” she said.
He stood and, one by one, moved the containers until only the box remained. It was a simple looking thing, made of unstained, but old and beaten wood. There was no clasp or lock to secure it. He slid it open, and there, inside, was a pile of dark stone with the smallest hint of violet twinkling inside of it.
“What is it?”