by Aaron D. Key
Ahead of us, also standing by the side of the road, was the figure of a man, almost indistinguishable except for the white sign he was carrying.
“Do you know why we are here?” Maone asked, surprisingly good-natured considering the conditions.
“I’m not sure,” I had to admit.
“Well, perhaps I should return us home.”
“We need to wait,” I said urgently. I didn’t know why, and then I saw the sleek grey car slowing and pulling to the verge.
“He mustn’t get in that car,” I said, panic rising in my voice. I did not understand why but I felt scared: a physical fear that affected my skin and halted my breathing.
“Don’t worry,” Maone said, sounding more surprised than amused. “I will make sure he can’t see the car.”
We stepped back as the car purred slowly by. The front window was rolled down and the driver looked straight at me and then Maone with malevolence. I did not understand why. Maone said that no one would be able to see us. The car rolled on and stopped in front of the man, who carried on looking hopefully into the oncoming traffic. The passenger door opened.
“Hey! Are you blind? If you want a lift, get in.”
The driver slammed on his horn and revved the engine louder. He said something that I did not hear because Maone put her hands over my ears. The waiting man looked miserably but hopefully down the road as the car eventually screeched away.
“You were right about that driver,” Maone said. “Did you notice? He could see us. Only the really mad or those with power can see us when we do not wish to be seen. You should be aware of that and be wary. I don’t know why it is so. Are they able to see us because they are mad? Or are they mad because they’re able to see us? It is a rare thing that you might never encounter again.”
* * *
Now I was confused. That had been a double memory. I remembered being that child, feeling that sense of fear that had hung around for days and entered my dreams. I also remembered standing by the roadside waiting for a lift; I was fairly sure the figure in the rain had been me. Of course, I had seen nothing else except for the car that eventually picked me up in that other life … what had my guardian angel saved me from?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Explanations
I stopped remembering and found myself halfway up the grassy circle. So that was how I had done it before, I mused. It seemed easy enough if a child of eight or nine had managed it without training or hardship. If that was the case, then what was to stop anyone going anywhere? Was it just the fear of never coming back? There must have been some other trick I did not know, or surely countless heedless children would be scattered across the universe. I was nervous now about going inside the trees. What if I had a sudden impulse that transported me far, far away? I turned and made my way back home, at least now knowing where my home was and what it really looked like.
I had a degree of hope that perhaps with Rael or Maone’s help I could go back into the past and stop some of Aeth’s worst excesses, perhaps even stop Koa and Herai dying. Nothing was fixed, although it was hard to twist my brain around that.
Before I passed the stone bridge I saw Maone walking towards me. I stopped by the edge of the bridge, pretending to look at the view, waiting for her.
“Hello, Damon Ich.” She smiled shyly. “I hear you are one of us now.”
“I don’t think I would go that far,” I replied, remembering the panic I had felt last night. “I don’t remember everything but I do remember who you are now. You do a very good impression of someone from what I thought was my world.”
“I think we all did well,” she said wistfully. “It was fun while it lasted. It made me forget things I did not wish to remember.”
“So can you actually drive?” I asked, remembering our trip to Scotland.
“Of course I can,” she said in outrage. “The number of times you made me go to that strange world with cars! Just not very well. Anyway, Rael has sent me along to see if you’re coming to breakfast. He has this strange idea that you might want to avoid him this morning but he has promised to say nothing more about the future unless you ask him to.”
I knew it was unlikely I would have been able to have felt that much fear without Rael knowing about it but I was still embarrassed.
“Do you think I have disappointed him?” I asked my fellow sufferer.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “None of us know what happened to you in between losing your body and becoming the person you are now. If it was only half as bad as Rael suspects, it would be very odd for you to feel nothing.”
“I have remembered some of it. I know that Koa and Herai are dead and Aeth is completely mad,” I said sadly.
“I’m sorry, Damon Ich,” Maone said and took my hand, which made me feel like a child again. I’m over seventy, I thought to myself in annoyance, not the child she knew anymore.
After a little pause, I said, “Shall we go to breakfast?”
When we got there Rael was breakfasting alone with Yan and he smiled warmly at us both as we came in.
“I’ll make some fresh tea,” he said.
“Moyan, I forgot to introduce you two properly. This is your brother, Damon Ich,” Rael said over his shoulder as he put the kettle on.
“Like on the water bowl?” Yan, or properly Moyan, said obscurely.
“Yes.”
“Why has he got so old? He was smaller than me when he left.”
“He went to a place where you get older. He is supposed to be your older brother, after all.”
This strange logic seemed to satisfy Moyan and he smiled at me as he pushed some toast across the table. I wondered where Elena was. Her part in everything seemed inexplicable but it was odd that she had disappeared.
We had a normal breakfast just like any other day, but there was definitely something not normal about Rael. He seemed restless, like the time before in England in the snow when he had too many worries to think logically.
“So what’s he up to?” I said to Maone as we left together down the winding steps.
“He’s pretending to be cheerful for you, of course. He’s scared you’re going to go pear-shaped on him, so he is treating you as the child you are to him.”
I gave a look expressing my disapproval of her casual reference to my cowardice and we parted for the day. It seemed strange to settle back into the old routine after such significant revelations but I did not know what else to do. It was a comfort to pretend this was a day last week when my greatest care had been to see to the planting of the moat. Today I made a start in the area of the lion’s head, just to settle a niggling question. I put my hand on the golden stone expecting it to be warm, but it was cold like the granite of underground tombs. Only two days ago I had thought this was a new feature bought in to meet my design but now I knew it had always been there for hundreds, possibly thousands of years. It gave the impression, along with the tower that it backed into, of having been carved from the earth rather than built. On the solid stone base beneath the bowl there was writing. Carved into what seemed to be a soft stone, the writing still seemed clear and only a little faded. It read:
Damon Ich Navios
Salum Triesta, Finum
Savum, Sivum, Schnona Esta
Dracos, Dracum Lemnot Moyan
I knew this had also always been there as long as I could remember. I had always wondered about it, and yet found no one who could tell me why my name had been carved into stone that was older than Rael. Now I wondered too why Moyan’s name was there. The only logical explanation I could think of was that Rael had named us both after the one remaining link to the old Herron.
It was only a small thing but it made me feel like I belonged to this one small place in the universe. It was this fact that supported me under the sudden realisation that everything I had worked on in the garden would have de
cayed by the time I returned to Herron in my time, but at least there were all those years in between for my efforts to be appreciated.
I concentrated, with help, on a combination of grasses and astilbe on the edge of this part of the moat, interspersed with dwarf willow trees and red elder. When I stepped back to view the finished job, I could almost see the full effect as it would be and I was satisfied. Also I realised, as I should have before, that my planting was being helped along by the power.
* * *
Throughout the day, new memories appeared: odd snatches from different places and different times. It appeared that I had been educated in many styles and eras. There were no more of the other memories, the ones after I was a formless creature watching my own body carry out distasteful deeds, for which I was truly grateful. By the end of the workday, I had almost begun to stop referring to Damon Ich as “him”. Another strange thing was that I recognised my current self a few times in the journeys that Damon Ich had made when younger. Nearly always accompanied by Maone, who invariably looked on the verge of being scandalised, and in some cases with good reason, my younger self had interfered with my life so often it was as if he were the guardian angel I had jokingly called him.
It didn’t seem right, in a way, that I had spent so much of my life looking after myself. Why had it been so necessary? Had there ever been anyone else who had needed so much saving?
Every moment, I felt a little more like Damon Ich, but with this awareness came a terrible burden. I was responsible for this terrible situation, I was beginning to realise, with a sense of overpowering guilt. I had thought I could waltz across the desert and solve everyone’s problems with some worthy words and a smile, but I had bought death and devastation to everyone I had ever cared for. Perhaps I was unworthy to bear Rael’s power, assuming it was his plan to restore the power to me, and Monta’s opinion of my worth was right.
When dinner time came I had the inclination to avoid Rael, who had stopped his habit of disappearing for work, and find a more public place in which to eat, but I did not want to add to his doubts of me. So I returned to the place where we had our breakfast. Rael, Moyan, and Maone were also there but Elena was still missing. I had intended to rely on Rael’s promise not to bring up the subject of the future until I asked him to, but later when we were walking by the lake, Moyan and Maone running on ahead, I started to feel guilty and tried to broach the subject.
“I hope you don’t think I’m sticking my head in the sand completely,” I said. “It’s just that I can’t remember everything yet and I feel that I should before I try to make some sense out of what has happened. It’s all coming back in dribs and drabs. I would like to talk about what you think I need to do when I feel more complete, and I will try to be more stoical about it.”
“Don’t imagine that I’m desperate to get you out of here,” Rael said. “When you are ready to talk, just tell me. I like what you did today with the moat, by the way. It will look as if we are on a floating island in the clouds when everything has settled in.”
I liked this idea but it more closely resembled to me the other place – Maone’s structured lake in the shape of an eight-sided star, where dreams could come true and ideas take shape. Was this what my mind had been hankering for, even in its incomplete form? Rael took Moyan home to bed, and Maone and I followed more slowly, chatting in an unfocused way.
“I think I will be ready to leave here soon,” Maone said. “Rael’s going to talk to me later about the job he’s found for me to do. I’m just going to wait until you’re ready, to help with dealing with Aeth first. I think it would be safer if I were there, just in case Elena changes sides for whatever reason.”
“Do you think she would?” I asked, puzzled.
“I don’t really think so but I would not risk my life on that certainty,” Maone said.
“Do you know where she is? I haven’t seen her recently.”
“They’ve had an argument, and while Rael carries on pretending nothing has happened, she is hiding in her room. It seems that she’s admitted something else. He hasn’t calmed down enough to tell me what it is, and perhaps it wouldn’t even be suitable to share. I think he knows really that Elena is not to blame. It’s just that she’s waited until now to tell him this latest fact that made him blow his top. I suppose that whatever it is will complicate our lives in some way.
“So now she’s sitting upstairs feeling wretched and Rael’s still seething with a mixture of anger and guilt because he lost his temper, although he knows he should go and talk to her. I would go and see her, except that she hates me and it would only add to her wretchedness.”
“Are you hinting that you think I should go?” I said warily.
“I think I am,” Maone said thoughtfully. “I’m pretty certain Rael promised to put Moyan to bed himself and then he said he would tell me more about this city, so you would have time, if you think you’re up to it?”
This was said in the way of a challenge. I sighed and turned towards her. Maone gave me a mischievous grin and waved her hand casually as she carried on away from the tower. I made my way inside and upstairs with a heavy heart. I was nervous about meeting Elena again, this time knowing she was my mother. I was uncertain what she would expect from me and I already knew she was in an emotional state. Wondering if Elena really hated Maone to the extent Maone suggested or if Maone had made it up to get out of an unpleasant duty, I went quietly past the floor where we had eaten dinner and heard Rael talking, reading a bedtime story, and then higher. This was where I imagined their bedrooms were, from what Rael had told me when I first arrived, but this floor looked unused and deserted. The stairs carried on up and I came to a very familiar place. This was the entrance to my bedroom. I surprised myself with this assertion. I had a strong sense of coming home: a strong sense that I was Damon Ich.
“Hello,” I shouted, aware that there were no doors in this room. “Is it OK to come up?”
“Is that you, Damon Ich? Yes, come in.” The voice that answered me sounded dispirited.
As I emerged from the top of the stairs, Elena rose from the window seat she had been sitting on. “Do you feel enough my son to consider giving me a hug?” she asked.
“I think I could,” I replied, surprised to find that I did not need to be insincere. “Maone seemed to think you needed company.”
“That was kind of her,” Elena said in a pleasant tone that convinced me Maone was completely right when she thought that she was hated. Elena looked at me appraisingly.
“It was not that long ago that you were a young man. I feel like I’m talking to someone in a mask. Yet I’m glad you have changed your looks. I have grown to greatly dislike your old body, I’m afraid.”
I couldn’t object to this. I had never learned to love Damon Ich’s body and it was forever spoilt for me now.
“Can you tell me what happened to me?” I asked as we sat down.
“It must seem such a long time ago to you, a lifetime away, but for me it’s been just a few months. Do you remember how I was overjoyed to think everything was back to rights, everyone in their right place and time? I hadn’t known, had no conception at all, that Aeth was still lurking in my head: really cleverly, waiting for the right moment. Rael and I were sleeping. I felt a sensation as if my brain were dribbling out through cracks in my skull and I was not me again.”
“I thought I had killed him. I thought you had reassured me I had killed him.”
“I wasn’t there, Damon Ich. I can only think he made himself look like me to persuade you to believe him.”
I thought back to the image of Elena. It had been a good illusion, I conceded. It had fooled me.
“I made our way to Rael’s Hill again and Aeth explained what he wanted. It was revenge on Rael that most motivated him, and yet in many ways he was stopped from getting what he wanted by the consequences of his actions as they unravelled through time
. He could not kill Rael. He could not kill me because he had to leave the past just as it was so that you would carry on and do all the things you did to ensure the world carried on. The main way he could be avenged would be to attack Rael’s son: you, I mean. To torture you only because that would cause Rael torment: to destroy your world from the moment I had left it because that would destroy all of Rael’s hopes.
“I took him freely to see you because I thought if it was you and I fighting against Aeth, we would be stronger than him. We appeared behind you, but before I realised the fight had begun, it was over.
“When you turned round to greet me, I could tell from the expression on your face that you had already left. Aeth was separate from me again. He mocked that you had left a loophole that you thought would allow you to keep an eye on him but that he had been able to use it to plough through your defences as if they had not been there.
“I thought he had killed you, and I was prepared to fight him then and there, although I knew what could happen if two people with equal power fought. Rael told me about the history of the people who used to live here. How the land was scarred, the desert created, and life destroyed.
“He saw my intent, I think, and quickly told me you were not dead but sheltered inside his brain, unconscious but safe. If I killed him you would die too and there would be no hope of recovery. He promised me if I did not interfere with his plans, he would find you another body, give you another chance of life, and I agreed.”
I was struggling to understand. I took in a sudden breath as if I had forgotten to breathe while listening. I had been proud of that loophole, I remembered. How stupid to have underrated the enemy. I saw now Aeth had always been careful to only show me that part of Glant that was occupied by Elena, otherwise I might have been less trusting, more prepared. I had been stupid.
“Then he moved you into Monta’s head, without Monta knowing anything about it. Aeth said you gave him a headache, always fighting to be free. I stayed, watched, and did not interfere, as I had promised, to keep you safe. Then at the end when Aeth thought he had done as much damage as was possible, he returned me to my bed so it seemed that I had never been gone. He moved your mind into the body of a sleeping baby on earth, one that would have died, he said, but he saved the body just for you. Then I imagine he sat down to wait for Rael to return and deal with him.