Damon Ich (The Wheel of Eight Book 2)

by Aaron D. Key

  “I’m not tired at all,” Koa said. “You must do this a lot.”

  “Every day I am home, unless there is a storm.”

  “I will learn to swim properly.” Koa sounded determined.

  “I suspect that you will not need to now. Your body will remember how to do it because of this memory.”

  We eventually reached the edge of the lake, where I found my clothes and a towel. The form of my memory dressed itself and Koa’s outline appeared to do the same.

  “I think I went on a tour next. Do you want to carry on or travel to a memory of your own?”

  “I’d like to see this place you live in.”

  First, we walked along the edge of the lake towards the river that separated Herron from Rael’s Hill. We crossed the stone bridge, Koa stopping to look at the clear river and my memory racing on to climb up to the top of Rael’s Hill. I waited outside the barrier of the blood berry trees until Koa caught up again, believing that unless we passed it together we would occupy a different space once inside. I forgot that he was not really there. Just trapped in my memory.

  “This is where Rael is buried,” I explained as we entered the quiet place inside the encircling branches of the trees. “I come here a lot. A long time ago another race of people lived here in Herron, and they used this hill as I still use it. I sit and think here, seeking guidance as to what I should do next. On this day I’m fairly sure that I just sat and thought – deciding against any further action.”

  We made ourselves comfortable. Koa lay on his stomach, his chin supported on his hands as he surveyed the scene.

  “I don’t think I’ve really ever thought what it would be like to live Outside. I never appreciated how large the sky is when you can see it all and how much of your thought it seems to consume. It would be very different indeed to live in a place like this.”

  He seemed to have forgotten his earlier fears that I would fail and die and to be preparing himself for a more promising outcome. Strangely enough this made me feel more nervous, as if the fear of dying were less than the fear of disappointing the hopes of Koa and others like him.

  “Did you get chance to talk to Monta before the guard turned up about what happened to us in the desert?” I asked, my thoughts returning to Rael and the mystery of his wife.

  “Yes, briefly. He didn’t say much more than you told me before. He said that you met Elena too.”

  “Yes. In the story you said you thought Elena was destroyed by Glant. Do you think it likely she may have been sent to this tower by him instead? Although she just vanished, in the end, which was how we escaped so easily. How could she do that unless she and Glant were working together?”

  “In the story, it is said that Elena was lost assumed destroyed by Glant. I have always suspected something else – something I do not even know is possible.” He paused. I waited, sensing a reluctance to talk: a reluctance, perhaps, to remember the thoughts that had led to his suspicions.

  “I think that the conversation we heard earlier supports my belief that there never was and never has been a man called Glant.” Koa paused again. I looked up to his outline in bewilderment to see a blurred hand stroking a blurred forehead as if trying to ease the thoughts out.

  “There is the body of a man walking around that we call Glant, but what inhabits the mind is more uncertain. It may be Elena and Aeth together, merged somehow.”

  I could tell from his tone that he expected a protest of denial or disbelief to follow so I endeavoured not to speak – just to think about the possibility of his suggestion.

  I remembered the savage introduction I’d had of the wild turmoil that existed in Elena’s head. It was similar to the brutal pain I had found inhabiting Monta’s head that was supposed to be coming from Glant. Was this what a mind might feel like ripped from its body and existing in an artificial shell for hundreds of years? Something traumatic had happened to Elena, I was sure of that.

  “It’s time to leave,” I said, feeling the energy of the memory change. I gave him my hand to help him up.

  We left Rael’s Hill and headed back to Herron. Through the golden archway of ancient sandstone into the gardens we walked: first by lawns and orchards, then vegetables and ponds, finally herbs and flowers.

  I felt completely at home, even more so because Koa was walking beside me. It seemed so real, and every moment I had to remind myself that our bodies still lay in a dark storeroom far from home.

  I wanted Koa to love Herron as I did so that if ever I returned he would want to return with me, but as we approached the central tower I began to think that my next visit would be to the shower, as this was my normal practice before breakfast. In this case I thought I should suggest travelling to a memory of his. It did not seem an appropriate memory to share and it would be boring for him to have to sit and wait, perhaps even embarrassing. Then I remembered that on this day, because I had been awake early and because I had been thinking deeply, I had decided to grab breakfast and eat it in my room rather than the Great Hall. It was safe to linger in the memory a little longer.

  I was right. Instead of heading straight up the stairs, I curved round to the kitchen where the smell of fresh-baked bread hung in the air invitingly. I grabbed some food, more than usual, thinking of Koa beside me yet not knowing whether he would be able to enjoy the food. I strangely enough had regained my appetite as if it really was morning and I had been twelve hours without food.

  We wound our way up the glowing circular staircase, round and round, right to the top and out into the even brighter space of my octagonal room. I chose the window seat with the most sun and sat down to enjoy our breakfast. Koa seemed subdued again. I passed him some food, saying, “Are you hungry after your swim?”

  “I’m starving,” Koa admitted. “Do you think I will be able to eat?” He took a bite as he said this and then took another, so I assumed the memory of the food was real enough for him.

  “Is this your room?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “My room is as big as this window area,” Koa said, “and I thought I was lucky to have that.”

  “It is a bit excessive,” I agreed, “but when Rael moved in the whole place was deserted. He just picked the room he felt safest in – the highest point. Everyone who has been in here since has just accepted the room, whether they were alone or with a huge family.”

  “It’s not very cosy,” Koa criticised.

  Not cosy was in fact a most accurate description of this room – and of my bed – but this was something I had never really considered before. I had moved into this room when I was fourteen, straight after the death of my guardian, the previous incumbent. Too old to be scared of monsters hiding in the dark shadows but too young to be critical of my own space, I had grown still in awe of the history of the place and of my unworthy part in that history. I had had no time and no concept of the need to carve myself my own space. Perhaps nothing seemed inadequate until viewed through the eyes of others making comparisons from their own lives. I decided that if I returned I would make more of an effort in this direction, and if I did not return it was too late to worry about it.

  It was edging closer to shower time and so I asked, “Do you feel ready to return now?”

  “I suppose we had better,” Koa said reluctantly.

  “I hope I can convince Glant to let you leave the city,” I said, remembering Koa walking beside me up Rael’s Hill.

  “I have always dreamed of living in the sunshine,” Koa agreed. “I have wanted it so much it feels like I have spent many lifetimes with the same ambition. You have shown me that I might attain the life I want. Now I crave it so much that it hurts to think of it, but what am I without my current life? What makes me who I am? In my city, I am sure who I am. In your world with sunshine, sky, and freedom, I could be anyone. Would I like myself?”

  Those were difficult questions, I thought after
an initial reaction of disbelief. How could he be anything other than the person I saw before me? I could see that in Glant’s city Koa had a role, status, and purpose. Could a man be the same man without these things, perhaps after a period of searching? Did the same thing apply to me – out of place as I was?

  The outcome of my meeting with Glant was very much an unknown quantity. It was unfair to talk to Koa about something he wanted so much and might never get.

  I felt a pang as the sunlight-brushed stone faded and was replaced by cold, dead blackness. For a second it felt as though I had died and all sensory contact had gone but then gradually I felt the pounding of my heart, a red pulse of comfort, and other senses began to sift back in. The damp air from the storeroom, the smell I could not identify other than some stored food. Stranger still, I saw Koa’s face leaning over my chest and felt his fingers on my neck.

  “What’s happening?” I asked groggily.

  “Thank the power! I thought you’d died!” Koa moved away quickly, seeming embarrassed, as if I had brought his medical skills into question by being alive. He sounded relieved. “You were lying there stone cold, with no hint of breathing.”

  “I don’t think I wanted to leave,” I said, half joking, half dreaming – and then as I became more focused, “It’s fine. I had to send you back first. It is the easiest way. You would have looked like me a moment ago too. It was as well no one else stumbled across us or they would have had the shock of their lives as their two corpses got up and walked away.”

  “As I just did.” Koa smiled. “At least my shock was tempered with relief.”

  “So where are we going next? Have you decided on a suitable memory for me to take us to? It need not be anything special as long as you do not mind sharing it.”

  “Are you sure you are recovered enough?”

  “How do you feel?” I replied, resenting a little the implication that because I had looked like a corpse, I was near to death. I was preparing to delve into Koa’s memory when—

  “Koa,” a harsh voice burst from the darkness. “Glant has summoned you and your companion.”

  Koa was roughly handled by the intruders and, scuffling, I was dragged to my feet.

  “This way!”

  This meeting had become a vague eventuality in the new world I had been inhabiting. Reality had seemed so far away, so unimportant, but now it crashed around me like waves of a winter storm. For a while, lost in memories, I had forgotten the real purpose of my visit.

  I wished now that Koa was not with me. I felt more fear because he was there. I felt fear for him and fear for the pain he would feel if I failed. Everything was so much more complicated than I had imagined when I set out from Herron just a few days, but a lifetime, ago.

  “It’s not far now,” Koa said unhappily. “I’m sorry that it is sooner than you expected.”

  “It’s alright,” I answered. “It was only cowardice, not prudence, that made me wish for a delay. At least this way I do not need to struggle to get admission.”

  “Quiet!” a harsh voice growled, and a hand flicked across the back of my neck.

  Koa hissed, “Glant will not like it if you injure his visitor!”

  He and the guard exchanged aggressive stares and the guard backed down, which surprised me.

  Then we progressed again. We reached a corridor, in which sunlight flooded in, and made our way up steps carved out of the rock.

  I looked around the room. There was light in here. Glant was not at all what I had expected, though my expectations were vague. He looked old and tired in the unforgiving sunlight. When we first entered, he was looking out of a window-like hole at the view of endless trees outside, but on hearing the guards he turned to face us with defences up.

  “Well? Leave themj7.” Glant spoke with testy anger. “Let him walk this way.”

  I was pushed forward with more force than I expected. I stumbled and hit my knees on the stone floor. My anger turned to confusion when I felt Elena’s presence, though she was not visible. Perhaps Monta’s theory was correct: she worked for Glant and was hiding out of sight. Or perhaps Koa was right and she was Glant. But would Glant have felt pity? I could feel her pity like a cloak of shame covering me as I fell. I was indignant that such a small hurt should bring forth reservoirs of that stony emotion. It was nothing, falling. It had made me look like a fool perhaps but that meant nothing because I knew I was not a fool, except in my desire not to be pitied.

  Glant walked towards me swiftly. His eyes bore into me as I struggled to my feet. There was the clink of metal against metal and I waited for a blow to fall but the guards left the room quietly.

  “Come, Damon Ich.” It was Glant’s voice and he led me to the stone window ledge softened with cushions in an almost tender way. I felt as if we had met before, as if he knew me. Nearing the ledge, I saw Monta slumped on the floor, unconscious.

  “You need not have made my messenger unconscious,” Glant complained mildly, noticing where I looked.

  “He didn’t!” Koa jumped in. “I did it because I thought you would torture information out of Monta.”

  Glant smiled. He was acting like a saint. It felt like an act.

  “A kindly thought, Koa, but not necessary. I know everything Monta has done. Everything that he knows … You may leave now,” he said in a different tone of voice. “You have fulfilled your purpose, for which I thank you.”

  I knew I might have been expected to seek answers for worrying suspicions after this statement, but I could tell that Glant meant nothing more than a dismissal of an irrelevancy. Koa’s bewilderment reassured me that there had been no plotting between them. I was glad that he was leaving although sorry to see the last friendly face disappear.

  “Wait!” Glant said, presumably to Koa on his way out. Then I felt a glorious sensation, like that of all noise being eliminated from the world and replaced with pure thought that sounded like the pouring of honey. You look different, Koa. Unbowed, worried but excited. You look happy! I hope this is not just because you think I might die and you will escape from this life.

  The next thoughts I heard sounded more like rushing water over smooth stone …

  Don’t think anything. Don’t think about … anyone. Do I feel happy? I think Glant is right. He knows me better than I know myself sometimes. Don’t think why I am happy. Think about the patch on Glant’s elbow, a patch of wine, perhaps. I could tell if I could smell it. Or perhaps blood, but there’s no reason for blood to be there.

  Honey, with a hint of warm heather …

  What are you hiding from me?

  And soft water …

  Should I check on my garden later? Probably I should, but I can’t settle to anything constructive with these thoughts in my head. Why am I afraid? But I am afraid. The outcome of this meeting could change the lives of everyone in this city for ever but that doesn’t mean I would be happy to see Glant die. Just to see him out of my head. Yes, I did think that, and I would think it again a thousand times. It is not an offence to think that your own thoughts should remain your own. It should be a right!

  Then because I could not stay out of it, viscous cream … Don’t be afraid! … cream mingling in rivulets with the beautiful clear water, replacing and doubling the protection that Glant had broken through once he had seen how I had arranged it.

  The honey set into amber stone. The water froze instantly, still with its marbling of soft cream in place. Sound returned with the harshness of a solid punch.

  Glant muttered under his breath to Koa, “You should go now.”

  Koa brushed by me, in friendship, I thought, not contempt, as he left the room. I felt him go. The room lost life, returned to the greyness of stone.

  “I didn’t think that we would meet in this way,” Glant continued after a pause. “I imagined, I suppose, that you would have greeted me when you arrived. I’m sorry about that. I
have been looking forward to your arrival.”

  The enemy was wilier than I had imagined, although I remembered that I had acknowledged that before. It was as though he knew I had no will to fight a reasonable man and that I had harboured all along a doubt that his depravity was beyond recall.

  Yet tolerance might prove to be my weakness, just as anger might be the weakness of the strong. It was my duty to remember the his crimes before I decided how to act.

  “Were you expecting me?”

  “Why do you think I arranged to bring Rael here and for you to find him? I have waited a long time for this meeting,” Glant said with a subtle smile, which I found disconcerting. I endeavoured to be calm and waited for him to explain himself.

  “Have you come here to destroy me?” he asked in a tone of sadness.

  There was something about the way in which he asked the question that disturbed me: the implication that if destruction was what I wanted that I would get it. As if he pandered to my hopes with his falsely assumed humility or was just amusing himself at my expense.

  “I have no desire to destroy anyone,” I answered honestly.

  “Are you here to destroy this city?”

  “We have heard stories that crimes have taken place here,” I said guardedly. I was uncomfortable since it was evident that he had no need to talk civilly to me. I expected at any moment his true nature to show.

  “I have longed for it to come to an end,” he said unexpectedly after another pause.

  I was on my guard. He said what I would have expected a sane man to say. Perhaps he humoured me to weaken any anger?

  He was lying, I thought, though I was not convinced. I thought there could be something in Koa’s theory. There was something in their exchange that suggested they had been closer than a normal tyrant and subject. I didn’t want to speculate any further than that. Glant sounded like Elena now.

  “Why did you long? Why didn’t you make it happen?” I asked.