Back to the Vara

by John Kerry

  “That’s fair,” Hami said. “I won’t ask any of you to put your lives in danger again. For Sammy and I, I think the risk is worth taking. Crossing the lake will allow us to escape the magi and buy us enough time on the opposite side to get to the portal first. Whoever remains here and circles the lake will get tracked down by the magi. They’ll question you, but all you’ve done is follow my orders. Stick to that story and they’ll leave you alone.”

  The group lapsed into silence.

  “Harz and Jokram left us last night,” Hami said. The chariot isn’t able to make the crossing so they’re heading west around the lake. I doubt they’ll make it round in time to be useful, but they’re on their way. Anyone else who wants to continue the fight but doesn’t wish to cross the lake should set off as soon as possible. The rest of us need to make preparations for the crossing.”

  Mehrak sighed. “You can stay on Eggie with Sammy and me, if you like.”

  “Thank you,” Hami said. “That’s very kind. You’re sure Louis can handle it? Carrying us all and doing it all silently? Sound travels quickly through water and it’s possible the cottage may amplify noise.”

  “Louis can be quiet when he needs to.”

  Hami gave a tired smile. “I know he can,” he said. He paused, collected himself. “The distance across isn’t great.” He looked each of them in the eye. “Under normal circumstances it’s possible to make the crossing in half a day, but we’ll take our time and aim to take the full day, hence why I’ve left it until the morning so we’d be well rested. We don’t want to risk making waves or splashing. Strong powerful strokes. No animals panicking. No breaking the surface. All lights need to be extinguished. Not just the head lamps like we’ve been doing, but the internal lights too. Until we make it to the other side.”

  “I’m coming,” Leiss said.

  Hami opened his mouth to speak out but Leiss held up his hand to silence him. “I’m not leaving Sammy’s side until I’ve either sent her home or avenged Borzin’s death. This is my fight now too.”

  “I figured that was probably the case,” Hami said. “Thank you.”

  “I’m coming too,” Eva said.

  “You aren’t obliged to,” Hami said. “You’ve done more than enough for us. You can leave now with your head held high.”

  Eva shook her head. “I’ve come too far to bow out now. I want to see how this ends and you’ll need a decent fighter. Leiss isn’t going to be as handy with his dodgy leg. Not that he’s as good as me even when he is fit. Besides, us ladies have got to stick together eh, Sammy? Why should the men have all the fun?”

  Sammy smiled. Eva was a total legend. Sammy wanted to be like her one day. Confident, strong, feminine and kind.

  Sasan spoke next. “I’m going to sound pathetic after Eva’s display of bravado, but I’m done. I almost lost my life fighting an unnecessary battle. A battle that’s damaged our realm, probably to the point of irreparability. I’ve seen most of my friends die. I’m going home.” He looked to Rougetta.

  Rougetta dipped her head. “Me too.”

  Calven looked to Eva, the guilt plain on his face.

  Eva put her hand on his shoulder. “Go with them,” she said. “You’ve done enough.”

  “My mother hasn’t got anyone else.”

  Eva pulled Calven into a tight hug. “Go,” she said.

  “Yes, go,” Leiss added. “My wife needs more consoling and we don’t need you here.”

  –THIRTY-SEVEN–

  THE SWIM

  Sammy knelt in front of Kimbo. She cupped his muzzle in her hands and lifted it to her face.

  “This is goodbye, big guy. It’s too dangerous for you to come with us.”

  Kimbo tilted his head and whined.

  “I know it’s not fair. But life isn’t fair. Us humans have to fix the damage we made to your realm.”

  Sammy hadn’t spent long enough with Kimbo to get too emotional over his departure, but she’d still miss the big softie. She took several steps back and connected to him mentally. He seemed confused. She planted an image of a human in his head and then fear. Kimbo backed up a little way. Sammy concentrated on the fear and raised it tenfold. She lunged at the animal and screamed.

  Kimbo ran.

  She watched his cowering body scamper away into the dark, feeling the weight of bad karma on her shoulders. She’d probably scared the poor animal away from humans forever. Not necessarily a bad thing. It might keep him alive in the future. She dragged her feet as she walked back towards the campsite that had been partially packed away.

  Mehrak was following Eva as she cleared away her things.

  “Make the crossing in Golden Egg Cottage with us,” Mehrak said. “You’ll be safer on board with us.”

  Leiss heaved a rolled tent onto his shoulder. “I’ve asked her already. You’re wasting your time, Mehrak.”

  “We need to ride the karkadann,” Eva said. “Who else is going to keep them calm during the crossing?”

  “Excuse me?” Calven had been sharpening his sword nearby, but dropped it and came over. “You’re riding your karkadann across the lake? I thought you’d be travelling in the caravan.”

  “We can’t risk the karkadann making waves,” Eva replied.

  “And if the leviathan attacks you?”

  “There’s more chance of it attacking if the karkadann panic and churn up the water.”

  “I’m not leaving now,” Calven said. “I’ll ride your karkadann across.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m not letting you do it, Eva.”

  Leiss dumped the tent he’d been carrying. “You’ve got to be joking,” he said to no one in particular as he marched away towards Eggie.

  Mehrak went after him. “Leiss. Wait up.”

  Calven watched them go. “It wasn’t my fault his wife left him.”

  “I know,” Eva said. “He’s still in a bad place. Give him time.”

  Calven shook his head. “Forget about him. What about you? I don’t want you in the water.”

  “You know how I feel about chivalry. You aren’t taking my place.”

  Calven held his hands up. “This isn’t about chivalry. I know you’re twice … scratch that, three times the fighter I am, but I’m better with animals. I’m a better rider, too. I’ll keep Bludget calm. Better than you could.”

  Eva scowled.

  “You know I’m right. We’ve known each other since we were kids. You know how good I am.” He took hold of her hands. “Do you really think I’m offering so I can prove my masculinity?”

  Sasan and Rougetta said their goodbyes, hugged everyone, then left on the nameless karkadann they’d found on the battlefield. Narok mounted Indomit and Calven climbed onto Bludget.

  “I’ve tightened the back door hatch,” Mehrak said when he joined everyone else on Eggie’s front balcony. “The lights are out in the kitchen and bedroom. And so is the stove, so there won’t be any hot food today. Here’s the rope,” he said as he handed it to Hami. “It’s all we’ve got.”

  “It’ll be perfect,” Hami said. “Thank you.” And he took the rope and carried it into the tower.

  Sammy went after him, feeling her way through the black bedroom, and following him out onto the back balcony.

  Hami tied the rope to the railing and threw the loose end to Narok, who tied the middle to Indomit’s saddle horn before throwing the rest to Calven so he could tie the end to Bludget’s saddle.

  Mehrak was pulling up the oil lanterns when Sammy returned to the front balcony. He’d temporarily lit them while they cleared camp, to help everyone see what they were doing, but now he lifted them over the railing, opened their glass casings and blew out their flames.

  The balcony became dark. Only the faint light from Archipelago City brought any kind of relief from the cloying black, lighting up the horizon and reflecting off the water.

  Sammy could just about see everyone when her eyes
acclimatised. Mostly as black shapes, but that was enough to quell her nervousness from panic to merely being ‘on edge’. The sky wasn’t completely dark, anyway. More slate grey with lighter patches here and there. But no purple. If the smog still existed above them, there was no sign of it.

  “Let’s go, Louis,” whispered Mehrak. “Take it nice and slow.”

  Louis pulled forward, edging down the sandy shore and into the lake. He shivered as he inched into the water and the cottage shuddered.

  Eggie sank further as Louis pulled forward. It seemed for a moment that they would go under, but as the water level neared the kitchen window, they stopped their descent.

  Louis’s head remained above the surface as he slithered snakelike forward, cutting through the water.

  Sammy passed back through the bedroom and onto the back balcony. Below, Louis’s tail swept side to side as he swam. Narok and Indomit were already in the water, and Calven and Bludget entered soon after, trailing behind on the rope.

  As the shoreline shrank into the gloom, Sammy returned to the front of the cottage. She couldn’t keep still. She was terrified but excited too. The water ahead lay still like polished obsidian, rucking up and peeling back as Louis dragged Golden Egg Cottage through it. Her nerves tingled, waiting for something to happen, for the lake monster to burst from the water. But nothing happened and the morning ebbed away with Sammy slumped over the railing.

  Louis swam on. Not only was nothing happening, but there was nothing to do either. At least with the lights off, it wasn’t possible to play Chaturanga.

  Mehrak stood by her, nervously tapping out a rhythm on the balcony railing. Leiss hung back near the curtain, straight and alert as always, even with his injured leg. Eva stood next to him, equally as alert.

  Hami was down in the kitchen. Puking silently in the dark, most likely. Even in the darkness he’d somehow managed to look peaky and had been battling his gag reflex. He’d gone downstairs early into their journey and had not returned.

  “It’s funny how quickly you can become bored when the monster you’re expecting to attack doesn’t show up,” Sammy whispered.

  Mehrak pushed himself off the railing. “I’ve got an idea …”

  “We can’t play Chaturanga,” Sammy said.

  “I wasn’t going to suggest that.” Mehrak left the balcony and returned carrying a handful of pillows and some blankets. He lay the blankets out on the floor and placed the pillows along one edge. Then he lay down with his hands behind his head on top of the pillow, and motioned for Sammy, Leiss and Eva to do the same.

  Sammy wondered if she should fetch Hami to join in. There wasn’t actually enough space, but she didn’t want him to feel left out. Then again, he might not want to be disturbed while he was spewing. Either way, Sammy wasn’t going to creep downstairs in the darkness to find him. She’d let him make his own way up when he was ready.

  Sammy and Eva lay down on either side of Mehrak. Leiss took Eva’s side of the blanket – no surprise there – and shuffled up close to her. He so obviously fancied her, it was ridiculous. It was quite sweet, really. Eva didn’t seem to mind either, and made no move to rebuff his advances.

  “Is this similar to what the sky looks like at night in the Mother World?” Mehrak whispered.

  “On a cloudy night,” Sammy whispered back. “When the stars and moon are hidden. You ever heard of stars?”

  “Describe them to me,” Mehrak said.

  Sammy knew he’d have read about them. He just wanted to hear them described by someone that had actually seen them. He wanted to know what she saw when she looked to the heavens. “They’re like pin pricks of light twinkling against a large black … er … blanket.” She wasn’t exactly doing justice to the staggering majesty of the universe, a spectacle Mehrak would never see in his lifetime, but at least he wouldn’t be disappointed by her description.

  She kept going. “Some stars are spaced out, some are close together. They’re arranged in constellations millions and billions of miles away – or stadia to you guys. Further than anyone can travel in a lifetime.”

  “It sounds beautiful,” Leiss said.

  Really? Sammy didn’t think her description was deserving of the word ‘beautiful’. Perhaps anything sounded beautiful to Leiss when he was lying next to Eva. He was probably trying to sound sensitive.

  “It is beautiful,” Sammy said.

  “Do you miss it?” Mehrak asked.

  “Not really. I live in a city with too much light pollution so I don’t get to see stars often.”

  “I still can’t understand why you’d come back here.”

  Sammy lapsed into silence as pale light from the islands reflected off the lake rippling across Eggie’s golden surface, and a fine breeze carried mist off the water, prickling her skin. The warmth of Mehrak pressed against her. This was why she came back. Life was perfect in that moment. Too perfect. It was a hopeful but naïve glimpse of a reality that she would never enjoy. And a seed of darkness began germinating in her heart.

  “You’re determined to get your wife back, aren’t you?” she said, destroying the moment for herself. If the happiness she’d been enjoying was a sham, then it was better to end it than to let it linger.

  “Of course,” Mehrak said.

  Sammy said nothing else. The breeze off the lake now seemed cold rather than fresh and the sky assumed the murky void of nothingness it had always really been.

  “I mean. I suppose I am,” Mehrak went on.

  “You suppose?” Sammy could almost feel Leiss and Eva cringe in the darkness. They’d gone quiet and were probably wishing they were somewhere else.

  “I want to rescue her and for her to be safe,” Mehrak said. He seemed to be picking his words carefully. “But I don’t want what we have to change. I don’t want you to leave the cottage and become a magus.”

  What did they have? It didn’t seem like an awful lot right then. “But I won’t be able to stay here when your wife comes back.”

  Eva got up. “We should probably go check on Hami,” she said, pulling Leiss up off the blanket. “He’s been alone downstairs for a while.”

  “Er … yeah. He has, hasn’t he?” Leiss said. “See you guys later.”

  And they disappeared into the tower.

  “Gisouie and I,” Mehrak said after they’d gone. “We weren’t always happy. Not all the time. She was my childhood sweetheart and we married early, but she had a terrible temper. She made a lot of enemies back in Dungalor. We would’ve been kicked out of town eventually if we hadn’t left when we did. That was one of the motivations for us leaving to go on the Rule book adventure. I suppose I spoke more fondly of her to you because I felt guilty about not loving her more. Especially after she was captured. Maybe I was overcompensating. I knew we weren’t right for each other.” Mehrak was babbling. He sighed. “This is coming out all wrong. She had moments when she was really thoughtful and she could be a kind person. I care for her, a lot, and want to make sure she’s safe. I love her even, just not in that way …”

  “But you’re still married.”

  “Marriage is just a simple union where I come from. You can annul your marriage quite easily.”

  “What are you trying to say? That you’re going to cancel your marriage and I’m going to move in with you? What are you going to do about your wife? Just drop her off somewhere in the forest? What if you get bored hanging out with me too? Would I get annulled?”

  “That’s not what I meant.” Mehrak tried to take her hand, but she pulled it away. “The way you light up Golden Egg Cottage, just by being here …”

  “So I’m supposed to hang out with you and your wife, lighting up Eggie? Like a lamp?”

  “Sammy –”

  A thud reverberated through the cottage and threw Mehrak against her.

  Then a splash and the balcony pitched forward.

  Sammy pushed Mehrak off and leapt to her feet and to the railing.

&nbs
p; In the distance, three islands were clearly visible now, with huts on their banks and their connecting bridges lit up with hundreds of twinkling lights.

  Below them, Louis was floundering.

  “What is it, buddy?” Mehrak asked as he gained his feet.

  Louis waved his ears.

  Hami came running out onto the balcony. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes were puffy. “Calm down, Louis. Stop splashing.”

  He stumbled over the blankets on the floor on his way to the railing. He glanced down at the wadded bedding, bleary-eyed, then looked up at Sammy and Mehrak in confusion. His guard was down a moment, but he snapped out of it quickly. He leant over the railing, scanning the water below.

  Sammy ducked into the bedroom as Leiss and Eva squeezed past her coming the other way. She fumbled in the dark for her staff, found it near the bedside and brought it out to where everyone had congregated at the railing.

  She lit up the orb.

  The brilliance of it temporarily blinded her, and probably everyone else on board, but it was enough to see what Louis had bumped into.

  Hami shoved her staff down. “Turn it off!”

  “It’s just a boat,” Sammy said, extinguishing the light. “Why didn’t Louis see it coming?”

  “He’s not been using echo location,” Mehrak said. “We don’t know what sounds are audible to the leviathan. It might navigate using a similar frequency to the one Louis uses. To be safe, Louis’s been swimming blind.”

  “Wait …” Hami said.

  They waited. Louis had calmed but he continued to shiver as he floated in the water. In the quiet, smaller sounds were amplified. The water lapping against the cottage, the staccato breathing of those on the balcony.

  After the brightness of the staff light, it took a moment to re-acclimatise to the dark.

  Leiss was the first to see something. “Over there,” he whispered.

  Ahead, a large object rose on a swell of water.