by Helen Church
“Resist,” the same hushed voice advised her, and she summoned all her might to push against the pressure. The effect was immediate as she felt adrenaline coursing through her system. Almost like the energy she tapped into whenever she was fighting with Master Crog, she began to feel as if she could anticipate what would happen next. As soon as she came to this realization, the pressure moved against her again, doubling its effort and moving its location, and once again she pushed against it. All her muscles tensing with the effort it was costing her, and a sheen of sweat broke out on her skin.
Her breath was coming in short gasps now, and spots appeared in her vision as she started to weaken under the strain. As if the birds knew she couldn’t hold out much longer, they flared their wings again, and let out another threatening screech that seemed to treble the pressure against her mind.
She could no longer keep the invading force out, and she felt a white hot pain burn her from the force of pressure, which formed a point of penetration through her skull and all the way along her spine.
The scream she loosed was more powerful than she believed she was capable of, and the fire she could feel inside her seemed to burst out of her along with her scream.
She felt her awareness fading as the world turned white, and the last noise she heard was an alarmed voice crying “Ilsa!”
“Ilsa! Ilsa wake up!”
She recognized her father’s voice, but couldn’t understand why he sounded so alarmed.
“Ilsa please!”
“Let me try something Ellard, step away,” Seer Barey sounded alarmed too. Why were they worried? She felt just fine. She opened her mouth to tell them not to worry, but she found she couldn’t move her lips. Could she feel her lips? No, she couldn’t. She couldn’t feel anything. Was she dead? No, she couldn’t be dead. Surely death would be silent, wouldn’t it?
A sensation began to form, not inside herself, because she could feel no self to be contained within, she almost felt as if she were a gentle breeze, with no physical body. But she could feel something. What was that? Movement? A pulling? She almost felt as though she were being drawn towards something. Or was it that she was being repelled away from something else?
Starting to feel alarmed, she tried to force her voice from her lips once again, tried to scream her alarm. Still she had no lips to command, but she did feel her scream building within her. She could feel the pressure of it and the might she wanted to propel behind it, to communicate her fear, but still she had no mouth, and then another realization came upon her. She couldn’t breathe.
Was that pulling sensation her own body calling her back to it? Was the pressure behind the scream still trapped behind her phantom lips actually air trapped within her lungs?
All at once, the pressure within her formless self, seemed to explode out of her in a scream and a frantic gasping breath. The mouth that she hadn’t felt for that brief eternity opened and drew in the much needed air, which rushed out as quickly as she had drawn it, in the scream she felt she had to release. Her eyes opened as she screamed and both her father and Seer Barey fell back from her in alarm.
Ilsa screamed again. The horror on their faces was nothing compared to the nightmare she had just endured, and it seemed that the depth of her own fear was endless. The screams kept coming, and once she realized she had full possession of her body again she kicked out her legs and thrust both arms out to the ground to push herself upright, intending to run, but there seemed to be no strength in any of her limbs, and she only succeeded in back peddling a few paces before she flopped back down onto her back again.
Ellard recovered from his shock first, and he grabbed Ilsa into his arms to try to restrain her from running, but also to try and calm her. She knew that this was his intention but she still struggled against it with her increasingly weak limbs.
“Ilsa be still, you are safe now,” her father said softly.
Her screams were wilting down to sobs now, and she saw Seer Barey crouch down beside them both where they were huddled together, her hair white again, framing a look of deep concern on her wrinkled face.
Ilsa suddenly recognized that her surroundings were unfamiliar to her. Grass was beneath her, and behind Seer Barey she could see that a scorched patch of earth was smoldering. She looked up and saw blue sky, white clouds, and thankfully no crows. She pushed away from her father and got to her feet, turning in a quick circle to see her surroundings. A few yards away Onur stood beside Glutar, who was tethered to a tree branch on the outskirts of a woodland. She turned again and saw the imposing mountain of Carbom in the far distance.
“Did you bring me here?” Ilsa still felt breathless from her screaming and crying, but now a sudden coldness had crept into her bones. She knew they hadn’t brought her here.
“Ilsa we found you here.” Barey was frowning at her, “why is your nose bleeding? What happened?”
She ran a hand beneath her nose and it came away wet with blood, “I don’t know.”
“Ilsa, we were just collecting eggs for breakfast,” Seer Barey spoke slowly. “We saw you go into the barn, and minutes later it was on fire.”
She felt herself frown.
“Cetar died,” her father said quietly.
Ilsa looked at him, “and the crows?”
Seer Barey nodded, “we found a lot of burned crows in the courtyard. I was able to put the fire out, but it took a lot out of me.”
“I wasn’t in the barn?”
Seer Barey shook her head, “Onur said he saw you burn in this direction. I didn’t understand what he meant at first.”
Ilsa looked down at her clothing and skin, both were untouched by flames. She had a vague memory of burning though, and she looked at the smoldering patch of earth which did look as though it had a human form in its shape now that she was standing, and she guessed that her body would fit inside it perfectly. “I don’t understand,” she looked over at her father again. “How could I get here?”
He looked lost, “I just don’t know Ilsa. When we found you I thought…you were dead.”
Ilsa faced Barey, “was I inside my body?”
The Seer understood her question, and shook her head. “No, you were near, but…”
“You did something to bring me back to it?”
“I reached out to you, but you resisted me at first.”
Ilsa wanted to close her eyes, “I don’t understand any of this.”
Ellard stepped closer and took hold of Ilsa’s arms, “tell us what happened.”
Ilsa took a few breath’s then told them about the crows, the awful pressure that had grown as they had squawked at her. As she described the strain her body had felt she realized that she was genuinely physically exhausted. She felt like she could sleep for days, but knew that they wouldn’t let her until she had given them every detail.
When she mentioned that she had felt the pressure form a spike that pierced through her defenses, and that’s when the burning pain had started, Seer Barey looked alarmed.
“Ilsa, you felt fire inside you?”
“I…think that’s what I felt. It was a pain I hadn’t felt before. Do you think the crows were trying to burn me?”
Barey shook her head, “no.”
Ilsa was so tired she was incapable of asking what the burning had meant. She hung her head and leaned into her father, who asked the question instead. “So what were the crows trying to do?”
“They were trying to break into her mind.”
“So how did the fire start?”
“Ilsa started it,” Barey said reluctantly.
“Impossible,” Ilsa muttered, but she didn’t believe it herself. She knew that somehow she had been responsible for creating the fire and somehow got out of Carbom to this patch of earth, but they why and the how were the true mystery.
Seer Barey gave her a small nod, as if she agreed with Ilsa’s silent thoughts. “We need to hurry back, before Elmington notices we’ve been gone. When you burned his crows hopefully you stunned hi
m a little. If I’m caught outside the city I’ll be put to death.”
Ilsa was dismayed, the thought of entering Carbom again and enduring its dizzying glamour exhausted her all over again.
“We won’t approach the wall, that would trigger the alarm, we’ll have to return the way your father and I left,” Seer Barey frowned at this and looked at Ellard. “Once we are back in the barn you must help me, I shall be weak.”
He agrees with a nod, and both he and Barey help Ilsa to reach the horses. Onur, she saw with interest had pulled the reins of Glutar off the branch they were tethered to and was walking him towards them.
Barey took the reins from him, “thank you Onur. You know what I’ll have to do now, help me all you can.”
He dips his head in assent and steps closer to Ilsa. Ellard puts her hand on his man, holding it down with his own, and she noticed then that his flank looked singed. “I’m sorry if I hurt you Onur,” she said quietly.
Barey pulls Glutar closer, then brings her arm around them all in a very crowded embrace.
8
Ilsa felt as though all the air had been sucked from her lungs, then the ground was pulled out from beneath her feet. What followed was a confusing falling sensation and a heavy landing on the cold stone floor of the now burnt barn.
Her father landed on top of her, his elbow landing painfully against her ribs, and when she gasped for breath she felt a stabbing pain which was made worse by the weight of Onur landing on them both.
Seer Barey was beside her under the weight of Glutar, and Ilsa was shocked by her appearance.
Her whitened hair was now falling out in clumps and her skin seemed to shrink against her skeleton as Ilsa watched, mummifying her. Barey’s eyes widened in shock and pain, but she mouthed ‘water’ over and over again with her cracked lips.
Her father unburdened her as soon as the horses were righted. Onur went straight to his stall, and Glutar stamped his feet in an agitated dance, clearly unhappy with what had just happened.
“Ilsa, settle the horses, I’ll help Barey,” Ellard wheezed, obviously winded by the last few moments.
Ilsa pushed the pain and weariness aside and went immediately to Glutar, trying to calm him down and steer him towards the stall that was now burned, all the hay destroyed by the fire. She looked around the barn, and saw no trace of where Barey had collected hay from the day before. “Onur, where is the hay?”
“Take mine,” he said quietly.
Ilsa saw that the hay was untouched in Onur’s stall, and puzzled over it briefly, but scooped up armfuls and threw it over the dividing wall.
Ellard picked up the husk that was now Seer Barey and carried her through the barn, presumably to the cottage to lay her down, but though Ilsa wanted to follow and care for the woman, she had been given her charge, and so focused on Glutar. She soothed the horse to the best of her ability, but how could he be expected to calm down while Cetar’s corpse was still smoking in the stall beside him. She noticed that the water was depleted in the stall, so she barred Glutar inside and picked up two buckets to draw refreshment from the well. As she hurried she saw her father doing the same.
“Are you injured?” He asked while he cranked the full bucket up.
“My ribs, it’s not bad,” she snatched the full bucket away from him once it arrived, and hurried back to Glutar, who was now eating the hay. As she filled the trough, she looked to Onur. “Are you injured?”
How could a horse convey such a complex look of surprise at her concern?
“I am fine,” he tipped his head towards his own trough, and she saw it was also empty. She ran back to the well and saw a full bucket, but no trace of her father. As she lifted the bucket her ribs protested painfully once more, but she ignored the pain, grinding her teeth together and focusing on moving her feet back to the barn.
“You are bleeding again,” Onur said as she filled his trough, and yes, she could feel moisture from her nose again.
A pain was developing in her head, but not from any external force, it was as if the pain was growing from within. Jocham had once spoken of migraines he used to suffer from when he was younger, and she wondered if that was what she was experiencing.
“I’ll be fine,” she told Onur, once again not believing her own words. What she truly believed was that the events of the morning so far had broken something within her, something that perhaps couldn’t be healed.
“Ilsa!”
She hurried out to the cottage and saw her father by the well again.
“I need you to carry the water to Barey as soon as I draw it, I cannot keep up by myself.”
She was puzzled but took the full bucket and ran to the small washroom she had used earlier. Seer Barey was inside the bathtub, but Ilsa couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. Seer Barey was bloated, and no water was in the tub around her still shrunken form. Ilsa instinctively knew that the water was to be poured over her, so she wasted no time. But as she poured, the water was immediately absorbed into the old woman, who momentarily bloated out again, but instantly started to shrink and shrivel once more.
She ran back to the well, her father exchanged the empty bucket for the full one, and Ilsa ran back again. This continued, and Ilsa was awed by the process the Seer seemed to go through. The bald head slowly began to develop white wispy fuzz, and the tightened mummified skin began to sag and loosen, then to wrinkle.
The only feature unchanged was the woman’s bright blue eyes, which seemed to communicate the exhaustion of the process.
Ilsa herself was agonized too. The pain in her head seemed to throb in time with her racing heartbeat, and she suspected that the wetness she could feel within her ear was also blood. The pain in her ribs seemed laughable compared to the torture going on behind her eyes, and she wondered how long she could run buckets of water to the Seer in this state.
“Start packing earth in the spare bucket,” she told her father when she returned once again.
He was puzzled but did not question her.
When she poured this water over Barey, she saw that the water wasn’t immediately being absorbed and was now settling into the tub as it should. Ilsa instinctively knew that this meant that the worst of the damage to the Seer had been healed, but the process was far from over. The blue eyes had now closed in exhaustion, and Ilsa so wished she could do the same, but raced back to her father. She was pleased to see that he had used the spare bucket to dig a small mound of earth into a heap.
Ilsa didn’t consult him but knelt to pack the dirt into the bucket she held, and was pleased that he followed her lead and filled the other bucket too. Her legs felt as though they were made of jelly when she stood again, but she struggled back to the tub where the Seer was wrinkling again. She poured the earth over Seer Barey’s midsection, then stooped down to pack it tightly against the skin of her arms, and heard her father enter the room behind her.
“Did she tell you to do this?” Ellard copied her ministration, focusing on her legs.
No, she hadn’t been told to do this, but she knew it was right. Somehow, this would help.
Not wanting to explain this to her father, she just hurried outside to gather more water.
They continued silently, pouring water and earth over the Seer until only her face remained clear. Ilsa gently gathered up the muddy mixture and spread it softly against the Seer’s features and scalp, blanketing her closed eyelids, filling the cups of her ears, and sealing the wizened old puckered mouth.
“Ilsa she won’t be able to breathe,” Ellard warned as she worked delicately around her nose and nostrils, careful to leave the airways clear.
“It’s done,” she leaned back, finally satisfied, and completely depleted.
Her father looked down at her with concern, “Ilsa you’re so pale.”
She desperately wanted to say how broken she felt inside, but didn’t want to worry him further. “I’ll be fine,” she lied.
He shook his head, “You need to lie down.”
; The thought of sleep suddenly seemed so alluring she could have given in right there on the washroom floor, but she forced herself to stand and followed her father to the bedroom she had slept in last night, and vacated only a few hours ago. How could so much have happened in such a short space of time?
“Let me check your ribs,” he insisted, and turned his back while she readjusted her shirt to reveal the blackened flesh.
While he tenderly probed the bruise, she ground her teeth together once more, adding a few more degrees of severity to her headache as she did.
“There is definitely a break, we’ll have to bind it,” he told her with regret. “Stay here, I’ll be right back.”
She sat down and listened as her father went to the barn, exchanged a few words with Onur, then came back with his saddlebag, then he left again only to return with a bucket of water and a small washcloth.
Ilsa didn’t have the energy to speak, but she felt a calm settle over her as she began to relax in the knowledge that she could sleep soon. Perhaps this had all been a strange dream? No the pain was all too real, and made worse by the bandage that Ellard wound tightly around her ribcage beneath her arms clutching her shirt close to her chest.
He gave her a pained look, silently apologising for making the pain worse, but continuing anyway until the job was done. He even took the time to stitch the bandage secure so that it wouldn’t slip or unravel, and she had the presence of mind to find it amusing to see such a large an imposing man working with a needle and thread.
“I know it hurts. I had a broken rib once, thanks to Master Crog. I was stupid enough to be glib in his lessons, and he thumped me, just once. I was bound for three weeks after that, and every breath hurt, but I learned not to talk back to Crog,” he smiled at her once he was done.
Ilsa gave him the best smile she could, but only felt the corners of her mouth twitch.