Into the Fold

by Chase Blackwood

  My mind took a while to stitch itself together. Even then it still felt brittle, like a single thread of cotton waiting to snag. The echoing recollections of buzzing pressure as golden leaves scraped out a torturous song, remained foremost in my thoughts.

  The crimson trunk of the Tree of Forgotten Children had carved its way into my awareness. Questions formulated and scattered before me. They were like half-formed clouds on a sunny day.

  One question did linger. It clamored for my attention. It begged to be answered.

  How had Aeden done it? How had he stopped the torment of that mythical tree?

  I glanced back, searching him out, as if simply seeing him would answer my question. Instead, I saw the others in our group.

  Caine trudged along, looking around, puffy eyed and oddly defiant. His chin jutted forward proudly as if he’d just saved Verold. Janto was beside him, strangely quiet.

  Oria looked tired, like a wet cat. Kallon looked no better. They dragged their feet. Their faces were somber. Their postures were slightly bent, haggard, trudging in shape.

  In contrast, Sakhira and Adel looked worn, but not broken. I somehow expected that of Sakhira. He was quiet, calm, and competent.

  Adel, however, surprised me.

  He often came across as a boy waiting to become a man. He enjoyed games. He was clumsy around women. A goofy grin would claim him whenever sweets were mentioned. But these were superficial traits.

  It was upon closer inspection that one might glimpse his underlying maturity. There was a depth to his soul. There was a hidden strength of character. He was a different kind of hero, one that continued to masquerade in Aeden’s shadow.

  It was easy to forget that Adel had been on the pilgrimage with Aeden. A pilgrimage in which Adel had lost a friend, Thomas, as well as a mentor, Odilo. A pilgrimage that had ended in Jal Isa Sha’ril’s service.

  I shook my head, attempting to clear it. I failed.

  Too many thoughts filled me. They were broken. They were circular. They consumed the hours like a ravenous death hound. They ate away at time without a sense of awareness. They were incoherent like the fabric of a dream.

  I lost track of the passing hours. I had become unaware of my surroundings. I was blind to the needs of the group. I was trapped in a hushed cocoon of rumination.

  Slowly the silence fell away, piece by piece.

  It began with Caine’s whispered cursing. It was muffled but angry, like the low growl of a perturbed animal.

  Caine’s utterances were followed by Oria’s complaints. Her words were louder, audibly distinct like the incessant chirping of a newborn bird. Somehow, I found Caine’s complaints more annoying.

  I think I had been influenced by my father and brothers, and more recently by Aeden, that my expectation for what a man should be was in contrast to how Caine behaved. His lack of coherence to the mold of my expectation was vexing.

  Their collective gripes, triggered responses from Janto and Kallon respectively.

  Finally, Garit began to fill the void with questions as Adel wished for sweets.

  It was Adel’s spoken desire that reminded me of my presumed leadership role. We needed food and water. We needed a moment to rest and recover. I had been so caught up in myself that I’d forgotten to pay attention to the group.

  Something my father used to say, came to me, “true leadership is selfless and requires sacrifice.”

  I hadn’t understood what he’d meant until that moment. It’s funny how experience shapes perspective.

  “Anyone hungry?” I asked.

  There was a chorus of responses. I felt like a shepherd, guiding my flock.

  The only voice I hadn’t heard was Aeden. He had once again exiled himself from our small community. He stood apart, looking into the distance. He took a swig of water, wiping away the crumbs of a small snack.

  He turned to look in my direction as if he felt my eyes upon him. Although, he didn’t look at me, I knew he could feel my gaze.

  Social dynamics were an interesting thing. One moment Aeden was the hero, saving our lives. The next, he was the remembered pariah. I too remembered the current social paradigm as I felt the anger, jealousy and insecurity that tore at my thoughts and resided in my gut.

  The group had stopped their dreary march and slowly settled upon the malachite path.

  It was funny, but none of us dared wander far from it. It was like the green stone held some protective power. In reality it was simply a known entity, a thing of comfort in an otherwise foreign place.

  The group naturally divided itself. Janto with Caine, Oria near Kallon, Adel with Aeden, and Sakhira by my side. I could see the stresses of the journey evident on their faces. I ran a hand through my hair, wondering how I must have looked. I took in a shaky breath, thinking on the Aria Plains and the Tree of Forgotten Children. I was reminded at how Aeden had, yet again, saved our lives.

  I looked at each face of our band of students, pausing on Adel and Aeden. They were talking quietly, their voices nothing but a muted whisper upon the wind. I whispered a silent thank you, before I dug into my pack and pulled out some stale bread.

  As we ate, and sat, and socialized, I could see the stress visibly melt away.

  The different conversations became my distraction. They became my conduit to the pulse of the group.

  It started with Garit’s questions.

  “I still don’t understand what happened,” Garit said, chewing week-old bread.

  “It’s simple,” Caine responded, “Aeden almost got us killed, for the umpteenth time.”

  My brow furrowed. Caine had a way of getting under one’s skin. I knew he was scared. I knew he had been humiliated, but I didn’t care. We were all tired. We were all scared.

  Except, perhaps for Aeden.

  I almost shouted in defense of Aeden, but something stopped me. Was it the fear of conflict? Was it jealousy at how he’d saved us, yet again? Was it anger at his lack of affection?

  “I think it was his shout,” Garit said earnestly.

  He either didn’t understand Caine or didn’t care. It was refreshing.

  “But, it doesn’t make any sense,” Garit continued, ignoring Caine’s whispered complaints.

  Sakhira looked up. His eyes paused on each student, as if waiting for their response. When none came, he offered his own.

  “It’s one aspect of the practical arkein,” Sakhira replied. “He likely understood the pitch of the sound, and responded with its antecedent.”

  Oria had become swept up in the conversation. Truthfully, I think we were all curious. How had Aeden done it?

  “What’re you talking about?” Oria questioned.

  Kallon, not one to be left out, stepped in.

  “It’s from Congruent Principles of Harmonic Sympathies,” Kallon said expertly.

  It was a feeble effort at redemption.

  I looked at the student rector. I took note of his handsome features, his tall build. I noticed his flawless skin and sheepish smile. I understood why women found him attractive, yet I did not. He was too soft for me. He lacked the brutal elegance of a real man.

  I don’t think Kallon had ever faced any real hardship. His life had been free of challenge. He had been sheltered. Things had come easily for him. It wasn’t his fault, but it had made him weak.

  “How’d you know that?” Garit asked.

  “I’m a student rector,” Kallon responded.

  I rolled my eyes at his false bravado. His confidence, I had come to realize, was an act.

  Garit seemed to mull this over for a moment, accepting it as a satisfactory answer.

  I was distracted by Janto. He had at this point, stood, and began flexing his muscles. On the surface, things were strangely returning to ordinary.

  “I don’t understand that tree,” Garit continued, his mind still churning out questions, “Why would there be a deadly tree in the middle of a deadly field?”

  Sakhira glanced up.

  “I think it was the Tr
ee of Forgotten Children,” he said, before his voice fell away.

  I looked up. He’d caught my attention. I too had heard that name somewhere before, but at the time, I couldn’t remember where. Was it something I had read? Was it something Aeden had said? Was it upon one of the murals of the Chamber of Light?

  Oria turned away from Kallon. Her attention was once again on Sakhira, much to Kallon’s frustration.

  “How do you know that?” she asked.

  “I’d read about it in the Tower of the Arkein. It’s one of the Thirteen Wonders of the Fold.”

  Garit was leaning forward and nodding with interest.

  Caine and Janto were now listening as well.

  “If you knew about the damned tree,” Caine cut in, “why didn’t you say something?”

  Janto was nodding vigorously, “It could have helped,” Janto replied, “You could have kept Kallon from clawing his way to the tree.”

  Caine chuckled. Kallon turned red in the face, but remained silent.

  “It was hard for all of us,” Garit said simply, “I couldn’t think straight, Oria was on the ground too, and Caine was crying. I don’t think…”

  Caine cut him off, “I wasn’t crying,” he defended, as he thrust his chin forward, as if daring us to contradict him.

  Sakhira continued, knowing that there was little use in arguing with Caine.

  “I didn’t think it was real,” he whispered, partly in shame, “The text stated it was created by Bellas as a shrine of pain to the death of her children. The book, however, is written more like a children’s fable than a factual accounting of the Fold, or so I had presumed.”

  “Some shrine,” Garit stated.

  I looked at them for a moment, my eyes pausing on Sakhira. My mind felt glacial as I thought on the last several days, as I remembered the riddles.

  A thought entered my head.

  “What’s the fourth riddle?” I asked.

  Sakhira struggled for a moment to remember.

  “I remember it,” Garit said excitedly, “Mask your scrutiny from temptation’s own glare, for heaven’s beauty shall cast you in despair.”

  The words rang out in my head like the echoing note of fear. My thoughts were clearer than they had been a few hours ago, but they were thin as fresh-fallen snow.

  “Any thoughts?” I said, looking at Sakhira. “One of the Thirteen Wonders perhaps?”

  Sakhira looked up in thought. I could see his lips move subtly as he repeated the riddle to himself. I had little doubt, his mind felt sluggish too.

  “You guys could help you know,” Oria said loudly to Caine and Janto.

  Caine looked over with mild surprise. Janto just shrugged.

  “What do you need,” Janto asked.

  Oria seemed surprised by his response. I think she had complained just to be heard.

  “The fourth riddle may be related to the Thirteen Wonders of the Fold,” Garit replied, excitement bleeding into his tone.

  It was hard not to smile at his boyish enthusiasm. At least he wasn’t talking about the Inquisition.

  Caine looked to Janto.

  “I don’t remember the riddle,” Janto said.

  I looked up to see where Aeden was. He remained apart. Instead, it was Adel who approached. For Adel, games and riddles were like a light to a moth.

  “Are we solving the fourth riddle?” Adel asked as he approached, a small grin lighting up his face.

  Janto nodded. Caine gestured for Adel to sit beside him. It was odd that Caine accepted Adel while despising Aeden. I knew there had to be a reason for it, but my mind felt too slow to split my attention. We were focusing on the next riddle. We were trying to stay alive.

  Garit repeated the riddle as Sakhira continued to ponder the words.

  “Mask your scrutiny from temptation’s own glare, for heaven’s beauty shall cast you in despair.”

  Adel smiled before he answered, “I think we have to avoid the temptation to look at something.”

  That made sense. My mind turned the words over and reassigned them new meanings. My imagination grasped at endless possibilities as my gaze wandered. I blinked and realized I had been watching Aeden.

  Why wasn’t he involved? He could be so infuriating.

  Adel was whispering aloud as he attempted to solve the puzzle, his fingers twiddling idly upon the map he now held. Oria gazed into the sky and picked stray bits of wax from her ears. Janto had given up solving the puzzle entirely and was mocking Kallon before an attentive Caine.

  Sakhira rubbed at his head.

  “I think I know what our next challenge is,” Sakhira stated somberly.

  He hadn’t spoken loudly, yet his words had penetrated our plodding minds.

  Janto slowly stopped playing. Caine fell silent. Adel lowered the map, a hint of excitement bled away as he realized he wouldn’t be the one solving the puzzle. Oria turned to face the group.

  “And?” I prompted, curiosity tearing me apart.

  Sakhira was shaking his head, as if he didn’t like the answer.

  “Out with it,” Caine said.

  “I want to know,” Oria intoned.

  Garit was nodding fiercely. Janto was staring, unblinkingly at Sakhira. Sakhira took in a breath and answered.

  “The Sculptured Gardens of Sorrow.”

  Chapter 62

  “Life is a journey, in which only a few, struggle to open their eyes.” Understanding the Sight – Tower of the Arkein

  The group stood at a stone archway. Words were etched onto its surface. The flowing script spelled out the fourth riddle: mask your scrutiny from temptation’s own glare, for heaven’s beauty shall cast you in despair.

  I suppressed a shiver as I tore my gaze from the words and stared at the statues supporting the archway. They stood opposing each other. Their eyes were but menacing slits below crowns of stone. Their hidden gaze was cast upon the malachite path.

  The path continued past their scrutiny, winding southeast, toward the ring of mountains that encircled the Fold. The malachite was obscured from view by shadow and stone. A heavy, blue wall stretched as far as the eye could see, to the east and to the west. It formed an undulating wave of rounded peaks that seemed to say: sadness.

  “From here we must go blindfolded,” Sakhira said, “According to Sadon the Wise, the sculptures beyond the walls are so fair and so sorrowful as to constrain one for an eternity. It’s written that Bellas herself had created them in her melancholy.”

  “And the gold chain?” Adel questioned.

  A golden chain hung suspended from metal posts, lining the malachite path. It disappeared into the darkness beyond the guardians of the gardens. The passage forward was obscured by an inky darkness.

  “It was Ansuz who had created the chain of gold to guide seekers through.”

  Adel nodded, swallowing hard.

  Garit was already tying a blindfold over his eyes. Oria stood near Kallon. Janto was receiving help from Caine, applying a fold of cloth over his friend’s eyes.

  “How will we stay together?” Oria questioned, worry inflected in her tone.

  I had been thinking of that.

  “We’ll stay in constant communication,” I said.

  I saw Aeden glance back. He didn’t catch my eye, but I could tell he had a different idea. He didn’t say anything. He knew better.

  A few murmured their agreement.

  Caine finished with Janto and began tying his own blindfold. Oria leaned into Kallon under the pretext of adjusting the strip of cloth covering his eyes.

  Aeden continued to stand apart. He watched over us like a predatory bird.

  Slowly the group shuffled forward. They fell under the shadow of the great statues and the stone archway connecting them.

  One by one we stepped toward the gold chain, forming a line.

  I cast one final glance toward Aeden before I walked to the front and applied my own blindfold. I left a gap between the cloth and my face to be able to peer downward at the path underfoot
. Hopefully Bellas hadn’t sculpted the stonework as well. I didn’t want to fall victim to whatever lay beyond the somber walls.

  “Ready?” I shouted.

  There was an overlapping intonation of assent, as everyone uttered a response simultaneously.

  “We have to do it one by one,” Kallon shouted from the rear, “so we know each person is okay.”

  I asked again if they were ready. This time a line of voices echoed back, one at a time. Sakhira, Garit, Aeden, Adel, Janto, Caine, Oria, and Kallon.

  I gripped the gold chain with my left hand and began to walk forward.

  I could see the stones underfoot darken as we passed under the archway. We ambled past the statues and the walls and entered the Sculptured Gardens of Sorrow.

  The pace was plodding and slow. Each step was carefully placed in front of the next. The urge to remove the blindfold was ever present. The blindfold chaffed at my skin. It rubbed upon my eyes. It cast the world into filtered darkness.

  Walking blindly into the unknown was unnerving. Fear lurked within every shadow. It hid within every sound.

  Initially my thoughts were my greatest distraction. I wondered at what lay beyond the thin cloth veil. What wonders had Bellas carved to drive one to insanity? Where did the malachite path lead?

  My thoughts, ever like the wind, moved in a new direction by unseen hands. What were the others thinking? What was Aeden thinking?

  There was an endless loop of unanswered questions that thread their way through my mind. Rather than bore you with these thoughts, I will instead focus on two conversations.

  One was nothing more than the bare bones of a discussion. It’s an echoing thing, hollow and weak, faded by time.

  It was an argument between Janto and Caine. They had discussed the Hidden Realms of Dimutia and the Gaping Pits of Laman. They had quarreled about the Amevi and the Troglodytes.

  The details are but a blur of tone and message. A broad shape to an amorphous mass. A prelude for the man I loved. A prelude to death.

  It was the second conversation that most clung with me. Perhaps because the participants were closer to me. Perhaps because their discussion stirred painful thoughts and beautiful memories.