by A. R. Knight
“Seems like a lot of trouble, but I can’t put it past her.” I ran a finger along one of the paintings. To see if it would flake off, but the columns were sturdy. Hard brick. “From what Mali said, it sounded like she made all of these places.”
We made it to the warring scenes. Where the dark figures with the blue fire attacked the spirits. Drove them into the Cycle. Without Mali pushing the story along, we took some time to examine the figures. The paintings that brought them to life.
“Do you think these are the guides?” I said the Selena. “Wrangling the spirits and sending them back to the Cycle?”
“Can’t think of anything else they’d be,” Selena said. “Which would make that third figure the reason we exist.”
“We?”
“Feel like I’ve earned it, Carver.” Selena folded her arms. “Keeping you alive has to be worth something.”
“The pleasure of my company isn’t payment enough?”
“If only.” Selena gave me a slight grin. “I know I shouldn’t care. That it’s pointless, given that we’re spirits, but I never belonged to anything. Not once.”
“Until now,” I said, earning the full smile this time. “Of course, that means you can’t walk away. Can’t retreat to the far corner of Riven when things get dangerous.”
“Because that’s so like me.”
“Just saying that the guides don’t take freeloaders.”
“They took you, so I think I’m good,” Selena replied.
“Good point.”
The next column held a picture of the three figures, standing apart and split by thick green bars. Mali had hinted that this had been when the three of them had locked each other away. But she never explained the prisons. Nara said she couldn’t leave the field, but why? How?
“Do you think she couldn’t leave the canyons?” I said.
“I think Mali was as trapped as Nara,” Selena said. “And Dolan, he’s trapped here.”
“I hope he knows how to free himself,” I said. “If we’re going all this way as a waste of time...”
I went to the next column, the last. Like the first, it stood in the center of the path. The other columns fanned out on either side, regaling us through painted pictures the story of the three spirits and how they had made Riven into what it was today. This one, on three of its four sides, showed one spirit. Mali, Dolan, and Nara. Each one painted with green circle around the figure. The circle seemed to extend the line from one to the next. Mali, her hand outstretched, appeared to push the circle around Dolan. Who did the same to Nara, who brought the arc to completion around Mali.
Nara’s reach cut across the blank side of the column, the entirety of that side a single green line lancing through the stones. As though something could’ve been there that was left off at the last. I felt a hand land on my shoulder, heavy. At first I thought it was Selena, and then I looked.
The wide, lost eyes of a spirit new to Riven stared back at me.
Chapter 31
Young, a boy not much older than twelve or thirteen. No marks of disease, no mortal wounds. The boy had the presence of mind to turn his spirit into who he wanted to be, rather than what he was.
“Carver, I have him,” Selena said from behind the kid, her voice tight. Her cleaver no doubt ready to strike.
“Wait,” I said. “Spirits shouldn’t be showing up here. He should be pulled to a breach, or one of the other places in the city.”
“The city?” the boy said. “Do you know where I am?”
I started to answer, but the boys eyes drifted away and, in the middle of my sentence, he began walking back behind the column. Further into the desert. Not unusual. Spirits had a lot on their minds, and their minds weren’t exactly whole to begin with.
“Should we wrangle him?” Selena asked, coming up beside me.
“No,” I said. “I didn’t see any fire. Let’s follow.”
We paced the spirit deeper into the desert. Past the columns and into what seemed like a small village. Single-story houses, their pale adobe-style bricks rising up from the white sand in square shapes. They felt old, but also pristine. A set constructed by a historian, or someone making a model in a museum. The spirit moved past the houses, didn’t bother checking or looking in any of them.
“Who are you?” I asked the spirit, called ahead to it. Sometimes, pushing a spirit to remember who it was could give it a measure of sanity. Bring it back from the brink. The boy glanced back at me.
“My parents called me Turner,” the boy said. “You don’t suppose they’re here, do you?”
Again, when I started to answer, the boy turned away and walked. Further into the town.
“He’s not going towards the Cycle,” Selena said.
“Which means he’s taking us to where he came from,” I replied. “We’ll wrangle him there.”
After a few more twists and turns through the desert streets, we came to a large courtyard. Stones paved across the center, and the wide square stood surrounded on all sides by more of the brick buildings. Several of these pushing two stories and one, across from us, standing a full four. The large building looked designed with a fine hand, its doorway bordered by twin columns culminating in an arch. Mali’s temple, in desert form.
“There’s a breach,” Selena said, pointing. In the center of the courtyard the wide shimmering pool of a breach stared back at us. More spirits hovered around the edges. Looking around, curious. It must’ve formed only moments ago. The spirits not yet angry, not yet vicious and intent on tearing us apart.
“Turner,” I said. “Is this where you wanted to take us?”
“I thought you could help my friends,” Turner said. “We’re all lost, you see.”
My hand drifted to my great sword. There was only one direction for these spirits.
Chapter 32
I unsheathed the great sword from behind my back, leveled it out towards the boy. Selena drew her cleaver and long knife beside me. The two of us hadn’t taken a breach solo, but this one wasn’t burning. Not yet anyway.
“Carver,” Selena said. “We don’t have a tablet.”
“Then we clean it up as best we can,” I said. Without a sapphire tablet I wasn’t sure how we’d close the breach, but leaving spirits around would, eventually, create an angry swarm. The breach would grow. Swallow the desert town and start pouring spirits north. Delaying that as much as possible still mattered.
Turner didn’t move as I went up to him, as I twisted the hilt, as the blue fire burned up and over him. The other spirits turned to watch, gawking as I made my way around, sharing slashes with Selena. Wiping what was left of the spirits out of Riven so that their mindless souls could start on their last walk to the Cycle. Within a minute we’d cleared most of the courtyard. Or at least, that’s what I thought.
I almost jumped at the first howl, so at odds with the silence of the place. The rustle of the wind on the sand, the occasional whisper of the breeze looping through a nearby house. Otherwise, the only noises came from the swishing of our blades. Until the newcomers made their presence known. They crawled from the breach without us noticing, one hand at a time. Hauling themselves out, looking like soldiers. Or natives from a land I didn’t know. Breaches didn’t discriminate.
A pair of spirits stood up from the pool, looking around. Their eyes flickered with the pale blue fire that meant all shred of sanity had left their souls.
“And just when I was getting bored,” I said to them, waving the sword their way. The spirits hissed and charged towards me, their arms outstretched and clawing for my face.
I stepped forward with my left leg, leading into a wide swing that bisected both of the spirits and sent them burning away to the ground. Behind them, though, four more sets of arms appeared through the breach, pulling the spirits through.
“Finish up the rest,” I said to Selena. “I’ll handle the newcomers.”
I ran over to the spirit arms as they appeared, and swiped down. First one, then another, and ano
ther with consecutive slashes. Burning them away as they crossed through into Riven.
Something snatched up my ankle, and I fell flat on my back. The breach spread up beneath me, a window into a ruined mountain town. That accounted for the variance. A war-torn village in a country I didn’t know, soldiers and townspeople crossing through as shelling continued.
Not that I had time to appreciate it. The same spirit that had knocked my ankle aside clamored out of the breach on top of me. Clawing my coat as he climbed up towards my face. With my left hand, I grabbed my long knife off my belt, and jabbed it into the spirit’s chest, twisted the hilt and burned him away. Only those seconds had already cost me too much time.
I pulled up to my feet, and two more spirits hit me from behind. I managed to move with the push, using the my jacket’s loose skin to tear away from them. Left them holding shreds of leather. The two spirits continued coming for me, joined by another three to my right. Behind me, I could hear Selena hacking away at the others outside the courtyard.
“Guess I deserve this for being cocky,” I said. Not that the spirits listened, or cared. Their burning blue eyes were interested in only one thing. Me.
I sidestepped left, and the two groups of spirits ran into each other as they turned to follow. Slipped the long knife back in my belt and gripped the great sword, went for a wide slash. One that should’ve chopped clean through all of the spirits. That would have, except the first spirit dove at me in a frantic tackle. Caught my arm before my swing could build momentum. Knocked away the great sword with his scrabbling hands. The rest followed in.
I raised my arms, tried to knock away the fists and claws, the teeth. “Selena!” I shouted. If nobody came in a second, I’d be torn to pieces. No idea if my spirit could recover from something like that, and I didn’t want to find out.
Selena didn’t answer, but I heard plenty of growling rage from her side of the courtyard. We were outnumbered, and we were losing. As a spirit bit at my face, I jutted my head forward, bashing into it and knocking the spirit back even if it made the world blur. I reached for the long knife, and when I jabbed it forward, I felt it bite, saw the flames take hold. Then the next spirit swatted the knife away. The lash wasn’t any good here, too close.
A pair of hands grabbed my shoulders from behind and threw me to the ground. Another spirit, leering down at me with a smile full of rotten teeth. Wild eyes and frayed eyebrows. A wrinkled, splotchy face that suggested more than one encounter with the disease. The spirit leaned in towards me, his mouth opening to reveal craggy teeth sinking towards my face.
Chapter 33
Pale fire erupted from his chest, as though the spirit had been stabbed through. Then something lifted the spirit up into the air and launched him away. Threw it to the other side of the breach. The other spirits reaching for me paused. A fatal mistake. A man, wearing a tan cloth shirt and pants, stepped over me and swung his arms, stabbing in through the air. Instead of weapons, every time his leather-wrapped hands came close to a spirit, wrangling fire would shoot out from his knuckles, spreading forward and catching the souls in its cleansing burn.
As the man swept the spirits away from me, I heard his laughter; bright, free-flowing joy.
The man, for I didn’t know what else to call him, cleared out the breach with smooth strokes. Punches and kicks, mainly, but in the manner of one exercising. Testing his muscles, his reach. Several times the man glanced back at me, apparently making sure another spirit hadn’t caught me unawares. He didn’t wear a helmet, and his dark head was hairless, his eyes bright and burning around the edges with the same fire as the angry spirits. His teeth were as white as the desert sand, bared in a fierce smile. Before I could say anything, he bent down and picked my great sword off of the ground. Strode to the center of the breach, jammed the blade into it, the point cutting down into the stone. Twisted the hilt.
Blue flame poured out of the sword, spreading and covering the breach like an oil lake lit in flame. Everywhere the fire touched, the image of Earth, the ruined town disappeared. Crinkled away and revealed the white stones beneath. I searched for Selena and saw her at the edge, banishing a remaining pair of spirits with synchronized swipes and slashes from her cleaver and knife. In a minute it was over.
“Been a long time since I’ve seen this sword,” the man said as I stood up, his voice tinged with ash and fire. “Like meeting an old friend. One you never thought you’d see again.”
“Dolan?” I said, because who else could it be?
“Seems you know I am,” the man replied. “Now I’d ask the same of you? Who comes to play out here, in these desolate ruins?”
“People who come to find you,” I said.
Now Dolan’s grin faltered. Sank into a line. He glanced at the sword, still held in his hands. “Not much use coming for me,” Dolan said. “I had my time, and this isn’t it.”
“Not sure that’s your decision to make,” Selena said. “Riven needs you, Dolan. Whether you like it or not.”
The spirit laughed, a loud grumbling thing that bounced off the walls of the houses around us. “A bold announcement. And you may not be wrong, as I haven’t seen a breach in this ruin for a thousand years or more. Unfortunate then, that I cannot leave it.”
“Are you sure? Nara sent us,” I said. “She wouldn’t have, if you couldn’t come with.”
When I said the name, Dolan’s eyes flared, and his teeth bared into a snarl. Before I could move, before I even knew what was happening, Dolan darted forward with my sword and stabbed me with it. Blue fire ran up and around me, and burned my world away.
When I died, I mean when Piotr had me killed back on Earth, it’d felt like falling down an infinite well. Bits of me disappearing as my soul untethered itself from my body. This, this was more vicious. Whereas before my physical body fell away, now my mind dissolved. My memories, my sense of who I was, where I was, what I was vanished. I would say that everything went black, but that’s not true. It didn’t go anywhere, didn’t become anything.
Just ended.
I came back on the edge of the courtyard. Dolan stood in front of me, his hand on my forehead. His eyes still burned, not in the pupil’s center as with the angry spirits, but more as though the edges glimmered with that pale flickering flame.
“I’m sorry,” Dolan said. He stared at my eyes, apparently searching to see if I was really there.
“Yeah, you can back off now,” I said, pushing him away. “What did you do to me?”
“I brought you back,” Dolan said. “Something I haven’t done in centuries.”
I’d done it before. With a binding, you could restore a spirit to some semblance of their former self. Rescue their mind. I’d brought Selena back after the ghoul on the way to the Mountain demolished her. I hadn’t known what it felt like to be torn away and put back together. I didn’t want it to happen again.
“Well that’s lovely,” I said. “Mind explaining why you decided to torch me in the first place?”
“You said Nara sent you,” Dolan said. “That alone is reason enough.”
“They don’t like each other,” Selena added.
“Got that, thanks,” I replied. “Mali told us the Nara wasn’t exactly your best friend. You have to look past it. If you don’t, then everything falls apart.”
Dolan glanced at the courtyard, where the breach had been. “I believe you. Except, there is a difference. You do not release a river to extinguish a candle.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Whatever she said to you,” Dolan said. “Nara will doom Riven more surely than anything you could ever imagine. You are a spirit, and you would be in her chains. She would rule over all of you without a second thought, and you will have no say in the matter.”
“Do you have a better idea?” I said. “Because if our options are to die horribly as Riven tears itself apart, or be ruled by a power-hungry spirit, then we might as well torch ourselves here and now.”
Dolan stared back at me, then
let his eyes cast around the ruins. “You mentioned Mali. I assume Nara sent you to her first?”
“She’s gone,” Selena said. Before I could speak up, Selena launched into the story.
Dolan took the speech in stride and, by the end of it, nodded as Selena wrapped up with our return to Nara. “Then you have happened on a stroke of luck,” Dolan said. “You won’t need Nara anymore, because I can do it better.”
“Do what better?” I said.
“You are staring at the founder of the guides,” Dolan said. “If anyone can lead you to victory against a horde of angry spirits, can cleanse Riven of the foul stench of the dead, it is I. And with Mali gone, at last I am free.”
Oh, good.
Chapter 34
Dolan decided our instruction in Riven’s history at Mali’s hand hadn’t been good enough. As we began the long walk back towards Riven’s city out of the desert ruins, the ancient spirit began to tell us his version of the tale.
“If you want to know how Riven came to be, it starts with the three of us,” Dolan said as we went through the sand. His eyes wandered the distance, floating back through memories. “We came into Riven within moments of each other. Each of us, all of us, victims of an attack on our village by a neighboring one. All of us were young, barely fifteen years old. That didn’t matter. The attackers came in fast, slaughtered everyone and presumably took everything that was ours. The next thing I knew, we were standing here, on a flat piece of rock fifty or sixty yards across.”
“How do you know what a yard is?” I asked him, and Dolan blinked at me, annoyed that I’d broken his recitation.
“If you want to jump ahead,” Dolan said. “I’m happy to do so.”
I shook my head, as it was obvious that Dolan was not, would not, in fact be happy to do so. After a moment, the spirit turned back to his story.
“If you’ve seen what Riven looks like now, it shares nothing with the Riven that I knew when I came here. There were no trees. No mountains. No walls. No city. The dead were our only companions. They came to the one spot they could. An endless river of spirits and souls dropping onto our little patch and stepping off into the great blue ocean of the Cycle. I watched them. I don’t know for how long.