Back to the Vara

by John Kerry

  And perhaps that intimidated him.

  Sammy smiled inside. She left her seat, handed Hami the stone with the shallow concave and moved closer towards the glowing boulder, wrapping the manticore pelt more tightly about her. It was weighty, but warm, and she was glad of it.

  Steam filled the air around the boulder creating a humid atmosphere and she was careful not to allow her clothes to get wet. Damp clothes on top of a frozen mountain would be incredibly dumb.

  Hami had a few shallow stones worth of water, then set about cooking the manticore meat on a hot stone. Sammy wanted to object to eating the tiger’s flesh, even though it had killed White Lightning. There was something wrong about eating giant cat. Yet it wasn’t like they’d gone out with the intent of hunting it like that dentist that killed Cecil the Lion. Their killing had been in self-defence, at least.

  Hami wasn’t one for presentation. Mehrak would’ve found a sprig of some random herb to garnish the meat with. Hami merely slapped it down on top of a dirty rock. Sammy didn’t care, though. She was too hungry. She brushed off the grit and set to devouring it.

  They continued walking when they’d finished. The small circle of Hami’s staff light following them up the mountain. It seemed to contain their entire world. Like nothing else existed but a continuous, inclined and snow-covered treadmill. It could’ve been afternoon, it could’ve been the middle of the night. Time had lost any meaning.

  Sammy was already struggling. Her legs were like someone else’s. No longer part of her body, numb and heavy. She was slowing Hami down. Asking for more breaks and for more water.

  “We have to keep going,” Hami kept saying, but Sammy was done in. She’d used up too much energy on White Lightning and still hadn’t fully recovered. She had nothing left. The thin air was making her light-headed and she kept drifting off into daydream.

  Swirling colours and dancing figures took shape in the darkness ahead. Victa was there. He was walking on his shortened legs carrying a sword. Then she saw Mehrak and a woman. She closed her eyes. Opened them again and the visions had gone. She was back on the mountain. Then the mountain pitched and she stumbled.

  “Thank you, Mehrak,” she murmured as he caught her.

  “It’s Hami,” came the reply, and she flopped to the ground where she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  –FIFTY-ONE–

  ALL ABOARD

  Sammy was pulled, lifted, carried, dropped.

  During the period while this was going on, she was semi-aware of light shining in her eyes and faces crowding around her. Then everything receded and went dark again.

  As she resurfaced from unconsciousness, she found her legs were sore, but overall she was comfortable and more importantly, warm.

  She opened her eyes.

  An open four poster bed canopy framed a small chandelier swaying in the peak of the ceiling where curved blue walls met at the top.

  Eggie.

  She should’ve been shocked to find herself back in Golden Egg Cottage, but she was too tired to register surprise. She accepted it like she accepted that Mehrak was always coming for her. Louis would have sniffed them out, and he would’ve led Mehrak to her. And Mehrak would’ve come willingly. She realised then that he would do anything for her.

  She tried to roll to the side, but something heavy on top of the covers was pinning her down. She coaxed her aching limbs to move her into a position where she could see what the thing was.

  It was Mehrak. Of course. He had his back to her, still fully clothed and turbaned. His chest rose and fell with the peacefulness of sleep.

  Sammy shuffled closer under the covers and put an arm over him.

  Hami stood by the stairs watching them sleep. It almost caused him physical pain seeing them together. And when Sammy put her arm over Mehrak, his heart withered inside him. It was torture, but Hami couldn’t look away. Sammy would never appreciate what he was doing for her and she’d never love him for it.

  The magi wouldn’t take him back now, either. Not now. He’d thrown his life away for this girl. He’d betrayed the memory of Jamileh and he’d betrayed her brother, leaving him at the mercy of his captors.

  He took a deep breath. All wasn’t lost. He’d fallen for this girl, but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was that he was doing the right thing in taking her to the portal. Behnam had virtually said as much before he left the network. They had to get rid of her somehow. That was the priority. He felt guilty for not going after Behnam first, but as always the realm came first.

  Sammy sighed and pouted her lips as she slept. He wondered what or who she was dreaming of. He wanted to reach out and touch her. Just to hold her hand, to make skin contact. Even though she had her arm over another man, even though Hami was nothing to her.

  A calm settled over him. He would still sacrifice his life for the realm. For all the people that cared nothing for him and would accuse him of wrong doing. And for Sammy.

  He forced himself to look at her and Mehrak one last time. To memorise them together, and to feed off the hurt inside. Anything that would give him the strength to do what came next.

  –FIFTY-TWO–

  TOGETHER AND YET APART

  They continued up the mountain the following morning.

  Louis found the snow and scree hard going, and despite a considerable portion of his body being covered in furry feathers, the cold was getting to him and multiple breaks needed to be taken. Each time they stopped, Hami would heat up boulders in the vicinity to thaw him out, and when he’d been warmed sufficiently they’d progress further up the mountain.

  During Louis’s downtime, Narok would patrol the area with Indomit to scare away any threatening wildlife that ventured too close. Over the space of the day, visitors included a manticore and two wild karkadann. All three animals had been white, unlike the rust-red variety that lived further down the slopes and who shared their fur colour with the terrain found at lower altitudes.

  That evening they made camp in the shadow of Dev’s Peak.

  Sammy climbed out of Eggie’s back door hatch, onto Louis’s tail, balanced as he lowered her to the ground, then fumbled through the darkness between his legs and emerged into the light of the fog lanterns that hung from the balcony.

  Hami had already melted most of the snow from a large circular area around them. He looked up, but didn’t acknowledge her and chose to carry on with his melting duties in silence.

  Sammy ignored him, pulled the hood of her fur coat up and joined Eva, Calven and Narok by the steaming boulder Hami had heated for them.

  Eva was packing snow into tin cups and melting it on the rock. Calven was heating a batch of Mehrak’s casserole surprise. The surprise, he’d told her, was mushroom. She could imagine there were worse surprises than mushroom in there, and she was happy to leave them as surprises.

  Hami finished clearing the snow, then wandered off behind Louis. Sammy didn’t hear the back door hatch open, so could only guess that he’d gone to puke up or have a toilet break. She couldn’t tell with Hami anymore. He didn’t appear as ill as he once had. It seemed more like he was sulking. And it was probably because they were back with Mehrak. Whatever it was, Hami no longer wanted to spend any time with her. He clearly didn’t have the feelings she’d assumed he had, but then she’d always been terrible at reading people. She didn’t have that intuition that women were supposed to have. And Hami could block his feelings from her even if she were tempted to use her powers on him.

  Sammy had lost Hami’s respect. That was it. He hadn’t taken her for any training sessions since the whole White Lightning debacle and they’d not even spoken on their secret brain frequency thing.

  She needed to stop thinking about him. He’d been grumpy the last time she was in Perseopia and he’d been grumpy most of the time since she’d returned. Different flavours of grumpy, but essentially the same thing. Once they’d closed down the portal, she and Mehrak would leave and they wouldn’t have to put up
with his moodiness.

  The back door hatch clunked and Mehrak strolled out around the side of Louis. He looked about as cheerful as Sammy had ever seen him. He sidled up beside her and brushed his hand against hers. She couldn’t help smiling back. It was a big toothy grin that no doubt looked goofy, but she didn’t care. She was happier than she would’ve thought possible, shivering on the side of a dark mountain.

  The moody magus didn’t make an appearance until later that night. He ate barely anything and said even less. He stayed long enough to reheat rocks for everyone, then went inside. None of the others seemed to notice a difference in his behaviour so perhaps Sammy was reading too much into it.

  Eva and Calven spent most of the evening chatting animatedly about who they would visit first when they returned to the Keep. Leiss and Narok mostly concentrated on their food.

  Sammy remained beside Mehrak. She wasn’t sure exactly what had changed since she’d been away, but he couldn’t have been more attentive towards her. It was a struggle to stop herself from reaching out with her mental feelers to find out what he was feeling. She’d told herself she wouldn’t do it to any of her friends. And it turned out that she didn’t need to, because despite Sammy’s inadequacies in reading facial cues, Mehrak was making it pretty clear what his intentions were. And they were making her blush.

  She surreptitiously shifted her hand so her fingers touched his. One of his fingers moved on top of hers and stroked up and down. Heat flushed her cheeks. She wanted to be with Mehrak then. Sitting so close, only making finger contact was excruciating.

  After dinner, Sammy helped Mehrak melt snow into buckets for Louis, then they refilled the buckets and brought them inside Eggie to fill the water tanks under the sink.

  The kitchen was quiet. Hami was asleep at the table, his head tucked into the crook of his arm. The Marzban were all still outside.

  Mehrak placed the evening’s dirty plates and cutlery in the sink without washing them, then announced that he was heading up to bed.

  Sammy’s heart was racing as she practically chased him up the stairs.

  Mehrak shook off his shoes and climbed into bed. Sammy did the same. They found each other under the covers and wriggled in close, entwining their arms and legs.

  Sammy pressed her lips into Mehrak’s as lust consumed her with reckless abandon. She pulled herself closer. And for a moment was content. But the act of acknowledging her contentedness diminished its intensity. She began running through the scenarios of what might happen when they found Mehrak’s wife. And she went cold.

  Mehrak’s hand slipped down from her waist and came to rest on her bottom.

  Sammy took his hand off her.

  “Is everything okay?” he whispered.

  She shifted back to look him in the eye. “What’s going to happen when we find your wife?”

  Mehrak sighed. “She might not even be at the portal. Hami probably lied about her being there. Like he did about the Cataclysm.”

  “But what if she is there? And you’re reunited with each other? You’re married.”

  “Marriage is only a simple ceremony performed by a priest. A tradition.”

  “It might be, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  “No one even came to our wedding. The priest that performed it was old at the time. He’s probably passed away by now so there’ll be no remaining witnesses. We can travel back to Dungalor, tear out that page of the marriage register and we’re good. Job done. We don’t have any children together. There’ll be no complications.”

  Sammy said nothing. She watched the chandelier sway in time with Louis’s breathing.

  Mehrak rolled onto his back. “The realm is being destroyed around us and you’re upset about an archaic and outdated ceremony. I went through it because Gisouie asked me to. She wanted our union recognised in the eyes of the Great Ahura Mazda. You know I don’t believe in any of it.”

  “After everything you’ve seen?”

  Mehrak shrugged. “Witnessing demons rise from the netherworld and meeting one of the chosen children from the Mother World changes your perspective somewhat, but I’m still sceptical about organised religion.”

  “You still cared enough about Gisouie to go through with a tradition you didn’t believe in for her. And even if it meant nothing to you, it obviously meant something to her.”

  Mehrak deflated and looked away. “You’re right,” he said. “Gisouie’s out there somewhere, scared and alone. And I’m in bed with another woman.” He turned back to face Sammy. His eyes were glassy with sorrow. “I want her to be safe. Truly. I know I may seem selfish and callous to you, but I never felt the way I feel with you about her. I didn’t think it was possible to … I thought the poets were being dramatic when they spoke of … matters of the heart.”

  Mehrak sounded like he was about to declare his undying love. Fortunately, he stopped himself and climbed out of bed. “I’m glad we’ve talked about this,” he said. He took some blankets out of the wardrobe and began setting up a bed on the floor. “I don’t think we should rush anything until we close down the portal and rescue Gisouie. It’s disrespectful to her and it’s unfair to you. I need to make a clean break and hopefully then I can prove my commitment to you.”

  Sammy wanted to live in his house, and she did fancy him. But commitment? That was a stretch. They should at least spend longer than a couple of weeks together before they got to that point.

  She turned to the side so she could pretend to fall asleep. And to hide her smile. It wasn’t like she wanted to marry Mehrak, but the fact he was so into her was pretty cool. It felt way better than Wayne’s gormless dependency.

  She pulled the covers up over her head and settled into the nest of sheets, rolling with the movements of Louis’s breathing. Warm, safe, desired and hidden. This state needed to be preserved. No expectations to fulfil, nowhere to be and no responsibilities. But that wasn’t entirely true. Sammy’s fleeting contentedness was slipping. The cold, grasping claw of obligation was dragging her from the warmth.

  The portal was looming heavy on the horizon.

  Hami stared at the top of the kitchen stairs, to where they tightened into a corkscrew within the tower. At the hole Sammy had departed through. He’d seen the hunger in her eyes as she pursued Mehrak to the bedroom and this time his heart truly died in his chest. He could picture the look on Sammy’s face even now.

  He wanted to rage at her for choosing Mehrak over him. But he couldn’t summon the anger. He mostly felt empty. Weak. Utterly used up and rejected. Even breathing was giving him difficulty.

  He again committed the feeling to memory. He would use it to numb himself, to give him strength enough to rid Perseopia of her.

  –FIFTY-THREE–

  THERE’S NO BASE LIKE THE SNOW BASE

  The snow base lay on the other side of the mountain, a short climb down from the summit. It was a sprawling network of buildings covering a broad plateau with shear slopes on all sides.

  In the middle, dominating the skyline, an imposing black structure loomed above all the others. It was circular, with twisted spires around its circumference like the tines of a crown, and must’ve pre-dated the surrounding grey stone-block buildings by several centuries. These new additions looked to have been built as extensions to the shadowy cathedral in the centre and resembled military dorms. Light from their windows illuminated the plateau, throwing pools of light on the unblemished snow.

  Hami had taken them to the summit on foot. Not a long journey from where they’d camped the night before, but a steep gradient and thin air had made it a tough one.

  Only Louis, Narok and Indomit remained back at camp, their fall-back position. A shallow cave where they could shelter from the wind and Louis could recover from his days of hard travelling.

  Leiss had joined Sammy so he could fulfil his obligation to Borzin by returning her home, even though he’d already done that. The fact that she didn’t want to go was just a tec
hnicality and hadn’t stopped him coming. Neither did it stop Eva joining him, along with Calven who insisted on coming to accompany Eva.

  They waited, huddled together on the slopes above the base, while Hami worked out a strategy.

  Sammy was fairly confident the portal would be in the shadowy cathedral in the centre. What kind of strategy did they need? Other than to sneak in and destroy everything?

  After a period of silence, Hami led them down the side of the mountain and across the snow to the closest building.

  Inside the dimly lit structure, beds were lined up in rows, and candles on the bedside tables had burned down their wicks leaving deformed lumps of wax.

  The other buildings were similarly empty.

  “Where is everyone?” Mehrak whispered.

  “Probably in that evil building in the centre,” Sammy said. She refrained from adding ‘duh’ at the end.

  “Come on.” Hami led them further into the base to a square, bordered by empty stables. He stopped in the middle and gestured to the ground.

  Hoof prints and wagon tracks led out of the stables and away between the buildings.

  “They’ve left,” Hami said.

  “Ramaask’s dead,” Mehrak said. “No reason for them to stick around. Makes our job of destroying the portal easier.”

  “They wouldn’t know Ramaask’s dead. How would the message reach them here? We’ve only just got here and we took a shortcut across the Kuchak Sea.”

  Hami turned his attention to the ground, to something in the snow. He followed a set of tracks several paces, scanned the ground, then continued across the square to one of the stables. He slid the door open.

  Tied up against the back wall were two greenbuck. They raised their heads when he entered, then went back to eating the bag of feed at their feet.

  “The magi Aegis sent are here,” Hami said. “They’ll know the demon is past the column and will have been instructed to shut the portal down.”