by James Erich
The Taaweh hadn’t taught him how to make the connection—not specifically —but after his experience at the pond, feeding energy to the Iinu Shaa, Koreh found he knew how. Perhaps that day had been his instruction, the Taaweh teaching his body without his conscious mind being involved. Now all he had to do was reach out to the Iinu Shavi with his thoughts and the connection was made.
There was a strong jolt as the energy was suddenly yanked from his body, and he staggered a bit. He felt Sael’s hand grip his arm, but he shook it off. He didn’t know what might happen to Sael if they were in contact during the exchange.
It was painful this time. Koreh doubted whether the Iinu Shavi was even aware of it in her deep slumber, but she was pulling so strongly from him that he felt his body begin to weaken immediately. He slumped to his knees, still keeping his hand against the side of the sarcophagus. When he opened his eyes, he was no longer able to focus clearly. How much of his life energy would a god need? Possibly more than was contained in a single mortal man, he thought. He wasn’t afraid of dying, necessarily, but what if it was all for nothing? What if the Iinu Shavi took everything he had and it still wasn’t enough for her to break free?
SAEL watched in horror as Koreh crumpled to the floor, unable to hold his hand up any longer. He lay back with his head and shoulders pressed against the side of the marble sarcophagus, still allowing the goddess to draw the life out of him through the contact.
A nightmarish change was beginning to come over Koreh. His body and face were beginning to wither, as if he were aging years with every passing moment. His jet-black hair paled and turned an ashen gray; his eyes that had often seemed as crystal clear as water to Sael were rapidly growing milky, as if cataracts were forming in them. Within moments, he seemed to have aged far more than humanly possible, and his breath was coming in shallow, wheezing gasps.
The Iinu Shaa had told Sael this would happen, that Koreh wouldn’t have the strength to wake the Iinu Shavi—no single human could. But two humans linked together might succeed, if the link was strong enough.
This was the true reason Sael had to be here. Koreh couldn’t do this alone, despite his insistence that he could. He’d been so stubborn about it that the Taaweh had kept this part from him, confiding to Sael alone that they were both necessary—that they both had to be willing to give up all their life energy to the Iinu Shavi. Only then could she break the bonds that held her.
So even after seeing what the link was doing to Koreh’s body, Sael reached down and took one of Koreh’s gnarled, shriveled hands in his own and held it tightly, even when Koreh tried to pull away. He heard Koreh make a small noise in his throat, as if in protest, but he was too weak to articulate anything clearly.
Sael closed his eyes and reached deep into himself, as the Taaweh had taught him, opening a channel between him and Koreh. He felt the jolt as the connection between him and his lover was established and the energy began to flow. It felt as if he were a bottle that had become uncorked and now his life was gushing out of him, filling Koreh up, only to be drained again into the sarcophagus. Sael felt himself weakening and knelt beside Koreh.
For a brief time, the connection seemed to strengthen Koreh. His eyes grew clearer and he was able to lift his face to meet Sael’s gaze. “He said… only one of us would die,” Koreh croaked in a voice barely above a whisper.
Sael used what little strength he had left to lift Koreh’s hand to his mouth and kiss it gently. His own hand now looked like that of a very old man and his vision was growing blurry. “Why would we want that?”
Koreh looked as if he wanted to say something more, but suddenly something behind Sael caught his attention and his eyes widened. Sael turned and saw that one of the torches on the wall was burning.
There had been no light at all when they’d come in. Was this a sign that the Iinu Shavi was awakening? But no. This didn’t feel like Taaweh magic—for one thing, the flame wasn’t blue. It was the typical yellow flame of a reed torch soaked in tallow. Sael had been studying most of his life to be a vönan. He knew Stronni magic when he saw it. They’d discovered the rescue attempt.
And they were coming. As Sael watched, more torches burst into flame along the walls, one by one, until the entire hall was ablaze with light. Then Koreh suddenly gasped, “Look out!”
There wasn’t time to hide or even really to duck. Sael barely had the strength to move, at any rate. He turned his head and saw a ball of white-hot flame burst through the door of the hall, bearing down upon them. His eyes squeezed shut reflexively and he flinched as he heard the ball explode. But there was no heat and he felt nothing burning him. Sael opened his eyes to see Koreh, still withered with age, opening his eyes too. Koreh blinked up at him, appearing confused, before turning to look at where the fireball had been just a moment before. Sael followed his gaze.
The floor was freshly scorched just a few feet from where they sat, as were the pillars near them. But the scorch marks ended in a sharp curved line, on the other side of which the floor was untouched. It was as if the fireball had exploded against some kind of invisible barrier.
“Interesting,” said a voice, female and as smooth as silk. A woman was walking slowly toward them from the far end of the hall. Like the male they’d seen early that evening, there was no doubt she was one of the Stronni. Her stature was taller than that of any human woman, yet she was perfectly proportioned. Unlike the man, she wasn’t naked—the Stronni did not allow strangers to look upon their women, according to the sacred texts Sael had studied in the archives. But her elaborately embroidered silver-and-blue silks were draped in such a way as to suggest flawless curves and large, firm breasts. Her beauty was somehow darker, worldlier than that of the Iinu Shavi, but she was strikingly beautiful nonetheless, with raven-colored hair cascading down her shoulders, interwoven with threads of silver. She wore a silver diadem, and Sael knew without being told that this was Imen, the queen of the Stronni.
“Two mortal men,” Imen observed, her voice a soft purr. “And old men, at that….”
She hesitated a moment, regarding them shrewdly. “No. I think not. Boys… made to look old. I recognize you now. The reluctant dekan of Harleh and his nimen.” Imen saw everything, more so than the ömem who devoted themselves to her, and it was no surprise that she knew them. “You’ve managed to come farther than the Taaweh could in a thousand years.” She laughed softly. “Though of course they put you up to it. What could they possibly have promised you that would be worth sacrificing your lives for?”
When Sael and Koreh remained silent, she said, “I know what you’re trying to do, but even if it were possible to wake her from this sleep, you would both die in the process. You’re nearly dead already.”
“It doesn’t matter what happens to us,” Sael said, finding his voice at last. Imen drew near the place where the scorch marks ended and stopped, looking down at the line on the floor with curiosity. “It doesn’t matter, Sael of Harleh? Not even if it costs the lives of all your people and the people of Worlen as well?”
Sael bit back an angry response. After what had happened to the temple in Worlen, he had no doubt she could be that cruel. Had he really worshipped the Stronni just a few weeks ago, worshipped her?
Imen reached out a tentative hand and slid her fingers through the air as if stroking the surface of a glass wall. “You can’t possibly be powerful enough to generate this barrier. Is it possible…?”
She glanced at the motionless body in the sarcophagus, and suddenly the entire hall was shaken as if by a massive earthquake. A moment later, the floor lurched and tilted sickeningly. Imen seemed unaffected by it, merely looking around herself in curiosity, not even bothering to adjust her balance. “Oh… you clever bitch…,” the goddess muttered, smiling as if amused.
Sael gripped Koreh’s hand tightly as he felt the floor incline. Unlike the goddess, he and Korehwere affected by it. He began to slide along the smooth marble, falling toward Imen and the yawning open door of the hall.
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Koreh couldn’t help but tumble after him as the hall continued to tilt. They cried out in terror, clutching each other as they slid along the marble floor. Imen watched them curiously, laughing as if they were court fools acting out some kind of farce for her amusement. She made no move to stop them as they slid through whatever barrier had stopped the fireball and then on past her. They gathered speed until Koreh’s body swung around and landed heavily against the base of a pillar, stopping his momentum.
But it didn’t stop Sael. He was falling too fast, and his hand yanked free of Koreh’s. As he slid out the massive open doorway, clawing futilely at the floor with weak, old man’s hands, he heard Koreh screaming, “Sael!”
Then Sael fell into the chasm.
KOREH’Sworld ended in that moment.
His body too weak to do anything but clutch reflexively at the air between him and the blackness that swallowed Sael, unable even to find the breath to scream again, he was only dimly aware of Imen’s cruel laughter and a thunderous noise like fireworks echoing in the cavernous space, as the massive stone pillars cracked under the strain of being upended.
Dust and debris rained down upon his head and shoulders, as he watched Imen drop down through the doorway below them and take flight. She was leaving him there to die, while the hall shook itself to pieces or fell into the chasm, but it hardly mattered. Koreh was already dead.
He was simply waiting for his body to realize it.
Chapter 14
SAELcould see little as he fell, just great swaths of darkness alternating with the lighter gray of the cloud-covered sky. Terror blotted out all rational thought as he tumbled through the air. His heart was pounding with fear in his chest, and his ears were full of the sound of his screams and the fluttering of the wind that buffeted his body. His stomach seemed to be spinning inside him, threatening to spill its contents.
But he didn’t vomit. Instead, what began to spill forth from his lips was chanting—chanting his terrified mind could barely comprehend. It was only when he felt his fall slowing that Sael realized he’d been reciting the flying spell. Rapidly, almost incoherently… yet somehow effectively. It was working. At least in part. He was no longer falling out of control.
He landed badly, feeling one of his shin bones snap as he struck the ground with his foot. He tumbled through the dirt on an outcropping partway down the side of the chasm, his bones breaking in several places and his skin tearing. He finally came to rest on his back, so much pain searing through him that he could no longer identify where it was coming from.
Sael looked up into the sky from where he lay and saw the hall suspended high above him, out over the center of the chasm. It was off-kilter, dangling from one end as if by a thread, and rotating slowly. For a moment, Sael held onto the desperate thought that Koreh was still alive up there, clinging to the pillar that had stopped his fall….
Then the thread seemed to snap and the building fell straight down into the void, while tears stung Sael’s eyes and he sobbed, “Koreh….”
Chapter 15
SAELmust have passed out from the pain, because the next thing he was aware of was the sound of distant explosions. He opened his eyes to find the air around him full of smoke. The Iinu Shavi was kneeling beside him, her long golden tresses brushing against his body and her soft green eyes gazing down at him, full of compassion. She had one hand on his chest, and warmth seemed to radiate out from the contact, easing the pain in his body.
“Your body can be healed,” she told him, “but it will take some time.” “Koreh…,” Sael said, unable to formulate anything more coherent. “He has sacrificed himself for the Taaweh and for your people. He will be greatly honored.”
“No,” Sael sobbed, “Save him! You can heal him!” The goddess smiled sadly as she looked directly into his eyes. “The energy you sacrificed was used to break the spell that suspended the hall above the chasm. Iinyeh Koreh was still inside when it fell. His body is beyond healing.”
Refusing to believe her, Sael struggled to turn his head and look down into the chasm. The pain was excruciating, but he managed it. Then his eyes grew wide in horror. Though he couldn’t see much beyond the ledge he was lying on, he could see that the entire chasm was full of smoke and flame. As he watched, another fireball fell from the sky and exploded in its depths. The Stronni were venting their fury over the rescue of the Iinu Shavi, perhaps hoping they could destroy her body before she escaped from the chasm. Most likely they knew it was futile. But they had turned the entire valley into a massive furnace. If there had been anything left of Koreh after the hall fell, there couldn’t possibly be anything left now.
“It is time to go, iinyeh,” the Iinu Shavi told Sael as he gave in to painful, body-wracking sobs. “They will find you if you remain here any longer.”
Without waiting for him to respond, she touched his forehead gently and they both sank into the earth.
Epilogue
KOREHwoke to find himself lying on a soft bed of dead leaves in the forest. It was night, though he was unable to judge the hour. A heavy mist blanketed the ground, making it impossible to see more than twenty or thirty feet in any direction, and the silence was oppressive. As he sat up, the only sound was the crackle of the leaves under his body.
Where am I?
The last thing he remembered was… falling… but before that…. Sael! It came rushing at him all at once—Sael sliding away from him along the stone floor of the Great Hall and slipping out the door, while Koreh watched helplessly.
“Sael!” His shout seemed to be absorbed by the silence all around him. There was no answer, not even an echo. “Sael!”
“Oh gods,” Koreh gasped, “oh gods….” After everything Koreh had done to protect him, Sael had died anyway. Just as the Taaweh had predicted. And all for nothing. They’d failed to free the Iinu Shavi. And now they’d angered the Stronni. How long would the Taaweh be able to hold out against them with the goddess still imprisoned? Even if they survived, it seemed unlikely the humans would survive the coming battle.
All for nothing…. Koreh couldn’t stop the tears from coming. He hadn’t dared love anyone since watching his family wither away in agony during the plague years. Why had he been foolish enough to fall in love with a young man hunted by both assassins and the emperor’s army? Hadn’t it been just a matter of time before death caught up with Sael dönz Menaük?
But he saw Sael’s face in his mind’s eye and knew there was no way it could have been avoided. Sael had not only been beautiful, but full of intriguing contradictions—both innocent and worldly, both vulnerable and strong. Koreh had secretly admired him, though he could never have admitted it. And now he had no idea how he could possibly survive without him.
He cried until his chest ached and his throat felt raw and his tears seemed to be exhausted. Only then did he look up to notice the boy sitting nearby.
Koreh was too exhausted to be startled. He wiped his eyes to clear them and recognized the boy as the same Taaweh who’d taken him to the lake in the Dead Forest. The boy was squatting just a few feet away from him, watching him patiently.
“What do you want?” Koreh asked miserably. He no longer cared what the Taaweh or anybody else wanted of him. He just wanted to be left alone.
“Why are you crying, iinyeh?” the boy asked. Koreh was enraged. “Why do you think I’m crying? Because Sael’s dead! And we failed! We didn’t rescue her. It was all pointless.” He had to stop as the tears threatened to spill over once again.
The boy tilted his head like a bewildered dog and asked, “Your tyehiinyeh?”
“Yes, damn it!”
“He is not here. He is still in his body.” Koreh looked at him for a long time, unable to understand. “What do you mean?”
“His spirit has not left his body— what your people call ‘death’.”
Koreh scrambled to his feet. “He fell! I saw him fall!”
“He fell,” the boy agreed, “but he did not die. He is in great pain and
will require much care, but he will live.” The relief Koreh felt was so great that he couldn’t stop himself from laughing aloud. But he sobered quickly. “You said he was in pain?”
“He is very broken.”
“Take me to him! Please!”
But the boy shook his head sadly. “I’m sorry, iinyeh. But that isn’t possible.”
“Why not?” The boy stood and looked thoughtful, as he glanced around the misty clearing. “Come.”
He began to walk into the mist. Koreh groaned in frustration but he fell into step behind the Taaweh, knowing it would do no good to argue. They didn’t walk far before the mist began to clear and stars became visible overhead through the canopy of leaves. A short time later, the trees came to an end, and Koreh followed the boy through a natural hedge of hazelnut into a field of alfalfa and long grass. The wind was strong here and tugged against Koreh’s tunic as they climbed up a steep slope and stopped on the edge of a sheer drop.
The view was dizzying, with a vast starry sky above them and a deep valley below, stretching away in all directions, as far as Koreh could see.
“Something’s not right,” Koreh said, panting as he searched the landscape for Harleh or anything familiar. He looked up at the stars and was disturbed to realize he didn’t recognize any of the constellations he’d become so familiar with when he lived all those years in the fields and forests near gü-Khemed. “I don’t know where we are.”
“This is the other side of the mist, iinyeh. No living man has ever seen this place.”
Then Koreh remembered—clinging to the pillar, screaming hopelessly for Sael, too weak to move as the floor gave a shudder and rotated until he was draped across the pillar, the door of the hall gaping open directly below him. He remembered a momentary pause and looking down in terror into the gaping black chasm. And then he and the hall had fallen together. Koreh’s body had drifted away from the pillar as though he weighed no more than a mote of dust, wind rushing through the door and buffeting him….