“Wake him!” he exclaimed, his skin a beautiful shade of purple. It would have been so nice for the old man to have a stroke right now. Alas, but he was in a better shape than I had hoped.
I contemplated which rune to choose. Perhaps, all three of them? Poor ar’Gor would literally burst. Shame, but in such a case the oath of Savato wouldn’t activate. That was how it differed from all the other kinds of magic-bound oaths. Savato answered to the spirit of the promise, not the letter. So be it, Kadari, go on living. Anyway, the Abyss would be soon purged from you and your kin.
Choosing the rune of Mee-the, I began drawing it in blood on Stinn’s chest. The blood wasn’t mine, of course. One of the younger Kadaries volunteered as a donor. I was creating beautiful rune curves when an old tune came to my mind. I hummed it quietly, but from the very first sounds the young Kadari trembled and tried to jerk back his cut palm, which I had adapted as a cup for his blood.
“What’s the matter?” I rebuked him, “Don’t you wish to help your leader?”
“It’s the Abyss song you’re singing,” he whispered, scared.
That wouldn’t do. My el’ero could hear such ill-considered words and get upset, he was just a mortal with limited understanding of things.
“You’ve made a mistake,” I said, staring into the Kadari’s eyes and deeper, to the place where all mortals kept their memories and where their Gift lived. It was precious to have a traitor in my power, to be able to destroy him any moment now.
“Riel, what’s going on?” Mervin sounded too suspicious. Did he want to put me to sleep again? No, my dear el’ero, I had not enjoyed the previous time and felt no desire for a repetition.
“I wonder if all the Kadaries are so faint-hearted.” I did my best to sound peeved.
“I am not!” I had made the young Kadari forget the actual reason for him to jerk back, but the memory of the action remained and embarrassment flashed his pale cheeks.
“Rune magic won’t hurt you,” I began. “Your blood is just a conductor for –”
“I know that!” chimed in the Kadari indignantly. I risked a glance at Mervin. The tense set of his shoulders relaxed, the corners of his lips tugged up. Good. The longer I remained free, the more of my memory and true Self would return.
Stinn opened his eyes and glanced around groggily. His eyes settled on me and his forehead creased in confusion as if he was trying to remember who I was.
I swallowed a poisonous reply aimed at him and raised from the snow.
“Are the conditions met?”
The grey-haired Kadari nodded reluctantly. My lips twitched in a tiny smile. I didn’t need his answer to know all the Kadaries, except for Stinn, had just gotten a red spot, the sign of Savato oath, on their right wrists.
“Take your commander and go.” I ordered.
The old Kadari opened the Gate. Others helped Stinn to his feet and led him to the rainbow arch. Stinn looked confused and tried to ask questions, but no one was in a hurry to answer.
“Riel, come here.” Mervin had opened the Gate while I was looking at the Kadaries’ melting trace.
In the constant world I needed twelve more hours to remove all the nets the taheert had woven around me; for a mortal his magic was surprisingly strong. In the Abyss, our destination, I would need only an hour.
I glanced at the guard, a pretty beast with beautiful amber eyes. I would love to take the unicorn with us, but Riel wouldn’t have offered that.
In the constant world, the guard remained silent but in the high layer of Seyat, which I was now strong enough to hear, the beast was weeping.
“What’s the matter?” Mervin frowned at my hesitation.
“Will we do anything about it?” I pointed at the unicorn.
“No.”
The Abyss. Home, sweet home. There was no ground in it, binding the movements and making it hard to fly. There was only the sky, burning with stars. Some said the Abyss was the first thing the Creator had made, yet others argued the Abyss had preceded Him. Perhaps They had come into existence together. I had asked Father once but He had refused to answer. One more mystery among many others.
We were moving through the Abyss, and I felt the binding nets growing weaker. Then we reached our destination, a dead island floating through the empty space. At first, it seemed we were alone there, but a few seconds later I saw them, hurrying to us. Dazzlingly beautiful and fair, they were like my Brothers, yet mortals now, and the source of their power felt different.
They set a cocoon of binding webs around me while I stared at them, mesmerized, with the only thought on my mind, “Father, I have found them, Your Lost Children.”
Chapter 7.
“Do you remember what has happened?” Mervin asked.
I was lying in a bed, staring at the intricately carved ceiling, and tried to figure out the right answer.
Of course, I remembered. I remembered everything, up to the smallest detail of the rune I had drawn with the Kadari’s blood, the rune I had never seen before. I remembered the pitiful weeping of the false unicorn. I remembered my gleeful thoughts about the future annihilation of the whole race of Kadaries. I even remembered the conversation with the Father of She, who had lived in me, whatever or whoever They both were. I remembered but I didn’t want to comprehend.
“Riel, this is important,” Mervin sat down on the side of the bed, took my hand and turned itup, kissing my palm. “Please.”
I jerked my hand back and looked at him with all my indignation. “You can only be gentle if you need to wheedle something out of me!”
Mervin blinked, clearly taken aback. “Riel,” he started, confused, “I’m not going to wheedle anything…” He stopped and shook his head.
“Yes, I remember,” I looked at the ceiling again and sighed. “I remember everything.”
For a while we were both silent.
“That’s odd.” Mervin finally said. “The victims of demonic possessions, those few lucky to survive, don’t remember anything.”
“Could it be because it was a She-demon?” I wondered.
“Do they have genders?” Mervin sounded surprised.
“I think so. Besides, she recalled her Brothers.”
“Other demons?”
“Maybe. Where are we?”
“In the temple I have told you about. The priests will begin the Purification ritual in twelve hours.”
I recalled people with icy eyes and skin so pale it seemed almost transparent.
“Mervin!” I sat up in the bed, captured by a sudden memory. “Why are they ‘Lost Children’?”
“What do you mean?”
“The priests – what race do they belong to?”
“I have told you, I don’t know.”
“She called them ‘His Lost Children’.”
“I don’t know,” Mervin repeated, but something flickered in the depth of his eyes, something, which he chose not to share. I wanted to push further, but another pang of curiosity overcame me.
“I want to see the temple.”
Mervin shook his head. “I am sorry, but the priests forbade you to leave the room.”
Forbade. I bit my lower lip to stop unexpected tears, but it didn’t help and the pressure at the back of my eyes grew stronger.
“They also warned me about your sharp mood swings.” The taheert looked at me with sympathy. “These emotions are not yours; it’s alright, don’t try to fight them.”
Alright… I wasn’t alright at all; one moment I felt hot and the next I was cold; I felt unspeakably happy, then unspeakably sad and lost. Mervin started to get up and I lunged at him, catching firm hold of his arm.
“Don’t go! I don’t want to be alone! Don’t go, ple-e-ease!”
“Riel… Raisha…” Mervin looked at a loss for words and I rushed in.
“You can tell me something… something interesting. Like… How come, you know the Kadari language? Did you visit their islands? When was it? Why?” To make my words more persuasive I tugged at his
sleeves with each question.
“Fine, I’m not leaving.” Mervin looked at the creaking fabric of his shirt regretfully. “There is no need to tear up my clothes.”
I let go of his sleeves but followed his every movement vigilantly in case he tried to flee again.
My el’ero!
“So, what do you want to hear?” he asked soothingly.
“Tell me about the Kadari islands.” I propped my head with one hand, ready to listen.
“As you wish, so be it, Your Highness. Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away…”
I snorted softly. Mervin gave me a tiny smile and began anew.
“Imagine an eternal night, bright with stars. Myriads of lifeless islands float through this night, all of them splinters of a dead world, the former homeland of the el’Kadaries. Don’t wince, Riel, that long ago the Kadaries had the Creator’s blessing and the right to add ‘el’ to their name. How did I get there? I was fifteen when Dark magic woke in me, almost killing my old teacher. I had no idea how to control it. It is too rare a Gift among the el’Tuans and no shyfter could ever wield it. My father, alive at the time, managed to find a new teacher, Gifted in a similar way. That teacher was a half-blood and a son of the clan’s Mother. I suppose you haven’t heard about clan Taor? Not surprising, even other Kadaries know little about them.
“The clan lived in a small town, covered with a transparent dome of power, with the town’s base floating in a lava sea. There were many strange things around: columns of blue fire growing from the lava depths, mirages of flourishing cities, of green woods, and deep blue lakes that sometimes appeared in the dark sky. I saw marvelous creatures there, Specters, who came out of ghostly beautiful Gates and were carried to the town by the lava waves. The Specters couldn’t get inside, they didn’t even try, but the Kadaries were terrified of them.
“I don’t know what made the Specters act, but one morning I woke up to an eerie silence, and then a haunting melody started. First a whisper, it grew louder and louder. It broke something inside of me, urged me to fall on my knees and repent for each and every wrongdoing I had ever committed, to plead with the unknown judges for forgiveness. It was so unbearable I wanted to die.
“My Dark magic saved me then. I cocooned it around myself, desperate for any escape. Many Taorese weren’t that lucky. Some of them went crazy, others killed themselves. Later I was told that only saints and little children can endure the song of Specters unprotected. Fortunately for the Kadaries, that song never lasts long, otherwise the Specters themselves begin dissolving in the Abyss.
“Did I see the Abyss beasts there? Yes, there were a lot of them, tame and obedient. Yellow-eyed worms, too. Dozens of them lived in the lava sea. It seemed the Kadaries bred them for their meat.
“Don’t grow so green, Riel, it’s a joke. The Kadaries don’t eat meat. They prefer disgusting thej-lo-like things. I spent five years living off the same stuff. It is not as bad as it sounds, after the first year you get used to it, almost.
“What do they need in our world? I don’t know, little one, not yet.”
I lay with my eyes closed and my head on Mervin’s lap as his fingertips stroked my forehead, stroked my hair. Maybe he thought I hadn’t noticed the sleep spell he had been weaving during the story. But I didn’t mind, I was too scared to fall asleep here on my own, surrounded by alien walls, alien emotions and alien memories.
Chapter 8.
Everything around me, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, were made out of ice, either transparent or misty. Its bright sparkles laid a diffused blue glow over everything, just enough to prevent the hallway from appearing murky.
On either side of me, two priests moved soundlessly, ethereally beautiful and perfectly cool, making me feel vulgarly warm and human. I wondered if mortal women could give birth to such ideal creatures. No, surely not. Maybe the Creator Himself had made them out of the First Ice.
Unable to fight my curiosity, I touched the hand of the nearest priest.
It was warm.
I stopped in my tracks, the priests stopped, too, and turned to me. “Do you have a question, girl?”
It was the first time I heard any of them speaking. It was a singsong, charming voice with a hint of an unfamiliar accent. Somehow they knew our language.
“I didn’t expect you to have warm flesh,” I admitted. The priests looked at each other with a flicker of emotion on their ideal faces.
“If not of warm flesh, what could we be made of?” One of them asked.
“Of the living ice.”
“Is there such a thing?” Their blue eyes looked at me with a smile-like expression.
I shrugged. “The Abyss has a place for everything.”
A set of dark blue doors in front of us opened, revealing a big hall: empty, calm and quiet, with two long rows of columns. The only moving features were hundreds of tiny rainbows flickering at the curves of icy walls. I raised my head but there was no ceiling, just a bluish mist. I stopped at the threshold, feeling suddenly lost.
“You shall return yourself or you shan’t return,” one of the priests intoned, his voice indifferent, his face emotionless again.
I would return myself… But I didn’t know what my real Self was. When the demon had entered my thoughts I felt no difference, I just became more - more powerful, more knowledgeable, more vicious and ruthless. Only after She had left I had sensed the wrongness of her in my thoughts, emotions and deeds.
Nodding to the priest, I took a step forward and heard the doors closed. I whirled around. There was no door but a smooth wall of bluish stone. I was alone, completely and utterly alone here. I sent out spying threads but they found nothing. Many miles with nothing alive. I briefly wondered when I had gotten to know how to send the tentacles of power so far.
Pillars of whitish mist began growing out of the floor, each of them forming a mirror. My reflection smiled at me, voicing my thoughts.
“Am I not beautiful? Won’t it be the greatest honor for the race of traitors to die from my hand?”
Eighteen years ago, the Kadaries helped me to put on flesh and take my place in the constant world. Soon, very soon, I would help them to leave the constant world behind.
The part of me I had awakened before returned quickly, the rest was still hidden under the icy restraints. The Lost Brothers were not reckless enough to release me fully. Besides, I knew the ritual hall was in another dimension. With my power diminished and the priests’ seals preventing me from opening the Gate, I couldn’t leave. I needed to wait, to replenish my strength.
I was immortal, and little in the known universe could threaten my existence. My Self could leave this place any time but at the expense of losing the mortal body, the prize I had been trying to obtain for a few millennia. That wouldn’t do.
I circled around the hall, waiting for whatever the priests had prepared. I didn’t regret that Mervin had noticed my first awakening and caught me in a trap of my body’s feelings. I had been careless, but a good thing came out of that: the Lost Brothers had been found. As for Mervin, a handsome and proud el’Tuan with a drop of shyfters’ blood, I would come for him after my business with the Kadaries was over and take him to the Abyss. Take him to my home.
I smiled in anticipation, but then my thoughts returned to the Lost Brothers. They, mortals now, hadn’t recognized me. What had happened to them? And how did the Lost Ones plan to exorcise me?
I walked along the mirror corridor until I saw what was in front of me and came to a halt. The Mirror of Truth stood taller than my mortal body. It was magnificent. Father had made it at the dawn of the First Age; after the Divide it had disappeared.
I pressed my palms to the cold surface. Father had created it and a bit of His reflection stayed inside, reminding me of the time when all my existence was filled with His presence.
I smiled dreamily looking at what the mirror showed: me, Riel Shorall, me, Daughter of the Creator, beautiful and ageless, with eyes the color of eternal sky and hot bloo
d running through my veins. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the reflection while the mirror was pulling me into its depth. Soon I stopped seeing myself, and the picture of a future came to me, a future, which I would turn into the present.
A splinter of the dead world floated in the Abyss, home to the damned people, the traitors, sinfully proud of their betrayal. Many centuries had passed but they hadn’t repented.
Clan ar’Gor, old acquaintances.
My Gates opened above the lava sea and I stepped on the nearest wave, foamed with flames. The fire licked my feet gently and murmured something.
This island had a stronghold made by nature, a mountain. The mortals had just dug corridors and rooms in it and erected layers of magical defense around its perimeter.
The defense was good; were I still ethereal, I would have to spend days to break through. And that was the catch. No Specter could stay out of the Abyss that long.
However, being in the mortal body of an el’Tuan, conceived with Kadari magic, I could do it. There was no need to spend nine tenths of my power to hook myself to this dimension, no need to hurry, because in seven temporal points the Abyss, our jealous Mother, would make me leave. There was no need to exhaust myself for many years to come.
No need.
I was here and the Kadaries were defenseless against me.
My presence alarmed the mortals, they hid in the depth of the fortress, secure in the knowledge that no Specter could reach behind the walls of their mountain. I grinned, giddy with anticipation, and called in my power, channeling the Abyss energy through my new body. It felt different, as I knew it would. It felt great.
One by one, all the defenses began disappearing. The tightly rolled layers of reality were the last barrier, but they failed, too. I came up to the iron gates, touched them and fast cracks spread through the surface, the metal falling down in heavy flakes of rust. A few seconds later, I entered.
Deep underground, someone tried to open the Gate. Smiling, I rolled the dimension around the fortress into a tight ball to prevent any escape.
The Last of Her Line Page 10