Amaréya asked Martha to wait outside and to close the door behind her. Corintus tensed, ready for the whizz of two Empyrean blades. Instead, his wife drew close to her daughter and watched her attentively.
“She has a fever, yes?” Corintus nodded. She looked at him. He looked away. “Corintus,” she said softly, “to the Empyreans, a wedding is a miracle, for it is like joining a tree trunk to new roots and seeing them become a living tree. We are a living tree, together, and nothing can set us apart. Now, tell me, what have you been planning?”
Corintus looked at his wife, bewildered. This must have been the longest sentence, the most detailed explanation she had ever spoken. She is really worried. A wave of relief washed over him. She is a half-blooded Empyrean, he thought, she can take it. Still, how did we end up here?
Amaréya gasped. Corintus saw her point to the bed. He turned his gaze and inhaled sharply. Their daughter had vanished.
Aquilina opened her eyes and knew she was no longer in her bed. The twelve-year-old girl also knew she was not dreaming. She was in Tyrulan, the place that is no place. This vast flat plain with an eternal dusk, empty as emptiness itself, was a place with no visual markers, where left, right, back and front meant nothing, and the same thing. A bewildering, maddening space that seemed as tall as the tallest mountain, and as small as a cup of tea.
She had fallen in this strange world six years ago, when she was six years old. She had been in her room jumping rope, eyes closed and trying to reach sixty jumps without fail, but she tripped after the fifty-ninth jump and fell. She heard a distinct popping sound and when she opened her eyes, she was no longer in her room, but in another world. Scared and confused, she screamed, but instead of hearing her own voice, she saw a beam of light issue forth from her mouth and strike the surface in front of her. Immediately, a bright filament sprouted, grew to be as tall as she was, and began swaying gently. The vision delighted her and she laughed, then applauded. Fireworks of the most dazzling colors erupted from her hands and took root so quickly into the strange ground that she soon stood surrounded by a beautiful forest of throbbing, colorful tree-like plants. Entranced, the little girl walked into the midst of this strange land, observing each shrub, each flower, amazed at what she saw. Strangely, she could not hear her own footsteps or her own breath. The silence was complete, but it felt like a friendly presence.
Aquilina beheld dozens of sounds that stood up like twisted filaments. Some were as small as grass, others as tall as giant pine trees. Some were quaint and subdued with shades of deep blue to light gray, and others were flamboyant and ablaze with brilliant colors that lit the place like a herd of tamed stars. The entire space was wrapped into a total and complete silence where she could not even hear her own breathing or the beating of her own heart. Had she been able to look into a mirror, she would have seen a little girl surrounded by a brilliant halo of dazzling colors with bouquets of bright filaments hovering over her heart.
The plant-like objects had sprouted from the gray plain and remained in one spot, much like plants rooted to the ground. They gently swayed as if moved by a breeze. Some were translucent, while others were as thick as walls—impenetrable.
After some time, Aquilina grew tired. She yawned and rubbed her eyes, and when she opened them, she was back in her own room. Excited, she ran to her mother’s bedroom to tell her what she had seen, but her mother did not believe her. She brought the child back to her room and sternly ordered her not to get out of bed again until the rising of the sun. This news confused Aquilina. She did not understand how the sun had disappeared so quickly.
Aquilina had named this strange world Tyrulan, for it reminded her of the game by the same name her mother had taught her. From the first moment, Tyrulan felt like a summer home of a different sort. Just as a bird that falls from the nest instinctively knows how to fly, Aquilina had always known her way around this strange space. Tyrulan, to her, was a rich world where normal, everyday sounds manifested themselves in the guise of incredible shapes—ever-shifting and changing shapes. It was as if she were peering beneath the surface of a sea filled with a brilliance the likes of which she had never known existed. Anyone else in Tyrulan—assuming they could survive—would see nothing but a shocking, maddening emptiness that wrapped around itself, lacking direction and having direction at the same time.
Two years later, when she was eight years old, Aquilina had tried to tell a group of rich girls about Tyrulan, but they had mocked her and jeered at her. Being a half-blooded Empyrean, she challenged them to paranéva. In this duel, one participant would throw a knife at a fixed target while his opponent would try to deflect the flying weapon with a throw of a second blade. After a round of three throws, the player that had the greatest number of hits won. When Aquilina produced her mother’s set of twelve short, lethal blades, her friends—who were not Empyreans— ran away screaming.
When her mother had confronted Aquilina, the young girl ran back to her room and slammed the door.
“You never listen to me,” she shouted, her voice quivering with emotion. “Never.”
Amaréya was not easily flustered by her daughter’s tantrum. Normally, she would have confined Aquilina to her room for the rest of the day and directed her tutor to increase her daughter’s load for a few weeks. She could tell by her tone there was something weighing her down, something that went beyond the usual fickleness that children of men displayed all too easily.
“Very well, Daughter,” she said, “I am now ready to listen. You may speak your mind and I will hear you.”
Silence.
“Really?” The tone was incredulous.
Despite herself, Amaréya smiled. “Yes, Daughter. This is not a trap. I am not on the warpath. We are at peace. Open the door and let me in. I wish to hear now what you have to say.”
Later that day, Amaréya invited Corintus to walk with her in the castle’s garden.
“This garden never ceases to amaze me,” he told her as they walked side-by-side. “Such perfect harmony between these beds of flowers and the green lush grass, cut in geometric shapes, represent the dance of love between Liluv, the god of love, and Heineh the goddess of order. Smack in the center, these hedges form a maze whose intricate structure symbolizes our journey to the abode of the gods. Walking in this garden is like visiting the cosmic order. It soothes the mind and helps us ponder the deeper things of life.”
As the daughter of the royal House of Gordion and heiress to the throne, Amaréya was accustomed to the complicated speeches of the court and the winding discourse of the nobility. Still, her Empyrean side could not fathom the urge men had to explain everything as if their words were collars to subdue a pack of dogs. Her husband was no different.
Whenever he stepped into the garden, he would comment on its natural beauty and launch into a philosophical or religious explanation.
“I wish to speak of Aquilina,” she told him.
“Aquilina?” he said abruptly. “Is something the matter? Is she sick?”
She placed a finger on his lips and smiled.
“All right,” he said sighing. “I will not speak. I am listening.”
She nodded, satisfied. “Our daughter is fit and strong. No physical blemish is upon her.”
Corintus has always found the Empyrean language coarse, cold, and unrefined. Nevertheless, the years spent in his wife’s company taught him how deeply the Empyreans cared for their children. They showed it in ways different from the ways he was accustomed to. When his wife used two separate sentences to say the same thing, as she had just done, it meant that she was worried, for the Empyreans were people of few words. He resisted the urge to ask his wife what was wrong with their daughter for it was rude to interrupt an Empyrean. He waited.
“She told me today that she has been visiting a different world she calls Tyrulan. A barren world where sounds take on shapes. A world where the beginning and end of a thing are one and the same and different at the same time, where up is down and down is up, and left is right
and right is left, and yet they can all be different.”
Corintus was devastated. Aquilina meant the world to him and what his wife described could be the early signs of the vanishing—the bizarre manifestation of Sheit Mot in children. Even though the Vanishing Land was thousands of miles to the northeast of Gordion, it claimed children—and only children—from time to time. The poor victims would be afflicted with hallucinations and would have strange visions until, one day, they would fade away like a shadow before the rising sun.
“I shall take our daughter to my ancestral abode,” Amaréya said, “where I shall consult the Onividia, the Council of Oracles.”
“What will they say?”
“Say?” Amaréya asked, confused. “They shall walk with Aquilina under the Vision Tree and we shall know if she is to vanish or …”
“Or?” had asked Corintus. “Or what?”
“The Onividia will tell.”
The next six months were the longest and the most difficult Corintus experienced. He stayed behind, for no man was allowed to set foot on Empyrean soil. When finally his wife and daughter returned, Amaréya had disturbing, albeit good news.
“The Onividia walked with Aquilina under the Vision Tree,” she told him, “and they passed judgment. She is not vanishing. She is a Méréléna.”
Corintus almost wished that his daughter was dead. “Are you sure?” he asked, even though he knew this would irritate his wife. There was never a doubt when an Empyrean spoke, and to question their statements was to question her honor. “Are you absolutely sure?”
Amaréya could not fathom the emotional attachment humans had toward their children. She appreciated honor, service, and a heroic death. Children were to be reared in courage, sincerity, strength, and generosity. This was the highest mark of an Empyrean’s love. Emotions were to be stayed, and had to remain subdued. Why would such a fearsome and beautiful warrior as Corintus exhibit emotions unfit of his standing was beyond her. Still, she waited for him to finish.
“The Onividia have spoken,” she repeated, unable to say anything else. What was there to add?
“Amaréya, if Baal finds out there is a child who is a Méréléna …” Corintus struggled to find the equivalent word in the common tongue. “A … Seer. Then they will level Gordion. They will destroy every city and every village of Teshub.” She nodded, being well aware of the Temple’s policy. “Aquilina must never speak of this to anyone. I will talk to her.” She waited in silence for her husband to complete his thought. “Let’s wait and see,” he had said after a while. “If this … tendency of hers is a simple fancy, it will pass and all will be well. If it is real then …”
“Do you doubt the Onividia?”
“‘The Silent uses all the facts at hand to distill his own judgment,’ Book of Siril, chapter seven, verse two. I am not an Empyrean, so I am not bound to the wisdom of the Onividia.”
This answer satisfied Amaréya.
Two years had gone by, and Aquilina, now a ten-year-old, had not mentioned Tyrulan once. Apparently, she had lost her ability to fall into the strange world after her return from the Empyrean Kingdom. Her parents breathed a sigh of relief. Well, Corintus did. Amaréya smiled. And Aquilina became a “smacking monkey.” At least, that is what her father called her. Upon her return, Aquilina showed him a slingshot her great-grandmother had given her.
“They call it a raméyél, wind-master. It throws pebbles like nothing else.” Promptly, she had taken a sizeable pebble from a pouch, slid it inside a slit in the slingshot, raised the instrument overhead, twirled it rapidly, and threw her hand forward. The pebble shot out and hit a pumpkin thirty feet away, shattering it.
“I love this raméyél,” exclaimed the little girl.
“I guess I’ll be eating a lot of pumpkin soup,” sighed Corintus.
Simultaneous to her newfound love of the Empyrean slingshot—a lethal weapon by any measure—the young girl developed a dizzying and downright frightening capacity for acrobatics. She could scale walls, dangle from ropes, hang by the tip of her fingers to the edge of tall buildings, and perform mind-bending jumps. With these newfound abilities, the smacking monkey learned to evade the guards and slip quietly out of the castle to explore the city of Gordion. It was not long after that she discovered a group of orphans as she wondered over rooftops in the seediest part of the city. Like a shadow, the young princess would jump from rooftop to rooftop and would observe the streets below. So when she met little Vily, an orphan, sitting on the ledge of a door playing with a doll, Aquilina climbed down—for the first time—to the street below. The two girls became instant friends as only children could. Week after week, Aquilina would come and visit Vily, bringing with her sweets, bread, or fruit she would steal from the royal kitchen. Vily and she would play in the dirty streets of the poorest neighborhood in Gordion.
About a year after they had first met, Aquilina came for her daily visit with Vily, but her friend was not there to greet her. Aquilina ventured inside the building down a dark corridor where she heard children talking softly in adjoining rooms. None of the voices were Vily’s. The corridor smelled of something rancid, yet sweet, triggering a memory of Tyrulan. When the eleven-year-old took the next step, she was once more in that strange land, walking along a crimson bridge whose edges were on fire. Unafraid, she passed her hand over the flames and the same rancid sweet smell returned. This was a novel experience, something she had not felt before. She followed the flames and they led her to a small cluster of brightly colored trees surrounded by a plain of a dark liquid. Aquilina jumped over the liquid and landed next to the trees. She heard a voice within her mind, a whisper, a gentle whisper, and her heart constricted when she recognized the voice. It was sad and alone, bravely trying to stem the flow of fear that drowned it. She would have recognized this voice amid a crowd. It was Vily, and she was wounded.
“Rastoopians are strange folks. They have a great sense of humor, are unassuming, simple, and hospitable. If I did not know better, I would have confused them for simple farmers or servants; inconsequential people of little means. But show them a well-funded purse or make allusions of buying something, anything, and suddenly, the well-meaning, gentle Rastoopians turn into human sharks about to devour your fortune, your name, and your memory. Beware the Rastoopian guile.”
–Memoir of Alkiniöm the Traveler.
Earlier that day, just as Amaréya stepped into Aquilina’s room wanting to know about her husband’s new plan, Ahiram’s sister woke up gasping and sprang to her feet, a dagger in each hand. Tightening her grip on the leather handles, Hoda searched for the assassin that had snatched Ahiram from her, but she was alone in the large tent. A cold wisp blew in her face and she realized the assassin did not exist. She had been, once more, dreaming about Ahiram. And in that dream, Arfaad, a captain of the High Riders, entered her brother’s room holding a bloodied sword. Sighing, she stowed her daggers away and rubbed her eyes. The diffused light of early dawn cast a soft shadow on familiar objects. She fell back on the soft mat and cradled her head in the palms of her hands. “A dream,” she whispered to no one in particular, “it was just a dream.”
Wiping tears away, Hoda lay on her back, closed her eyes, and brought the thick cover over her. With her right hand, she searched for Karadon, even though she knew he would already be up. Her husband woke before the break of day, while she preferred to linger in bed. Snuggled under the blanket, she felt safe for a fleeting moment. In the quiet darkness, she imagined she was back in Baher-Ghafé waiting for the first fishermen’s call. Back then, she too woke with the dawn.
“You’re a late riser,” Karadon had exclaimed, “Why, that’s perfect. You will make a great night watcher. All the Black Robes will be jealous and you’ll need me to protect you.”
Since I met Karadon, he and I have saved so many lives, especially children’s lives, she thought, so many … except for Ahiram.
She turned on her side as tears swelled in her eyes again.
No one had se
en her cry since that fateful day when Karadon and his companions rescued her and her parents from the clutches of the High Riders. She could still remember her mad dash back to the village from the beach where she had left Ahiram. She remembered how Karadon and his companions had appeared at their door.
“Karadon, what are you doing here?”
“There is no time to explain. You must leave now.”
“The High Riders. How did you know?”
“Hoda, do you trust me?” he had asked, his voice pleading. “Do you?”
Looking into his eyes, despite the turmoil and confusion, Hoda trusted him completely. “With my life,” she had whispered.
He grabbed her hand, and she felt him tremble.
“Then come along. There is no time.”
“But the villagers, we must alert them,” she said, barely managing to keep her voice low. “We must!”
“There is no time,” he snapped harshly. “If we alert them, we die. Please, trust me.” She read pain in his eyes, but she could not accept the destruction of her village.
“He is right,” whispered one of his companions. “If you try to save everyone, then you save no one. We all die.”
A fifth man joined them. “They’re almost here,” he said breathlessly. She could see a streak of hatred in his eyes. “You must go now.”
“My parents!”
“They have already left the village and are waiting for you,” Karadon reassured her. “Now come. The four of you,” he said addressing his men, “you know what to do.”
They ran on the beach toward Byblos and crossed the main road at a deserted spot, and kept running until they had reached the forest. There, Karadon had guided her along a winding path to her parents. The forest was dense and dark, but her burning village’s fiery blaze had lit their path. It wasn’t until she embraced her mother that she took notice of Ahiram’s medallion she had been clasping. She had picked it up where her brother had left it on the beach.
Wrath of the Urkuun (Epic of Ahiram Book 2) Page 21