by Ross Turner
They were hundreds, if not thousands of metres up in the air, looking down at four tiny islands beneath their feet. Their stomachs turned queasy and they looked to Isabel who still held the exact same position she had done in the graveyard, staring out into the open air dotted with an array of soft, white clouds. But before they could force their mouths open Isabel answered their flurries of questions.
“This is where I imagine the tear being.” She said calmly. A cloud drifted past harmlessly in the intense winds. “This isn’t where it is, it’s ridiculous to think that it would just be a rip in the sky, but still, that’s a simple way to think of it, so that’s my easiest option to use as a route.”
Ayva still didn’t understand exactly what she meant and Zanriath wasn’t sure if he did either. It just seemed like she was changing the rules to everything they had ever known.
“I’m not.” She assured him. “I’m just seeing them in a different light - bringing my imagination into play. Trust me; it’s the simplest way to get where we want to go since we can’t go by sea. We’re already in my thoughts, so why not imagine the path on my terms?”
The way she explained it to her friends seemed to make perfect sense, and it was apparent that Isabel knew exactly why and how to manipulate her imagination to lead them to Depozi, but it still just all seemed very unreal.
Then to their left the blue expanse of sky ripped in two, opening a gap a few metres tall and a metre wide, like the slit of an eye turned on its side. Through the tear there was a familiarly daunting blackness. Zanriath imagined that again the literal tear was only a figment of Isabel’s imagination, and couldn’t possibly have existed physically, as was the blackness beyond it.
Oddly, as they unconsciously floated towards the rip, gradually picking up speed, he wondered how Isabel imagined the demonic realm, that he was certain lay on the other side of the rip in the sky. What did it actually look like? Did she know?
“No I don’t know.” She answered his question, looking calmly at him, as his eyes grew wide.
“I do wish you would stop doing that…” Zanriath said honestly. She smiled.
“Again it’s only in my imagination, so I’m using a memory again, something I need to see one more time.” For some reason neither he nor Ayva dared pursue the question that burned so obviously and Isabel chose not to answer it.
They reached the tear and Isabel boldly stepped through, leaving the other two hovering thousands of feet in the air. They panicked and dove through after her, and the rip silently sealing shut behind them, healing the wound in the sky above Tamarack.
It was cold once more where they now stood, and it took some time for their eyes to adjust to the eerie blackness. Rocky walls rose up on either side of the three and the ground was littered with dirt and rocks, all melting together in the inky dark, merging into almost one single shape. The breeze that made the night feel ever colder picked its way methodically through the rocky pass.
The Vale of Shadows.
There were no demons here though, just darkness. That confused Ayva at first, but then she realised, of course, that the demons were all in Tamarack. If they were still in Isabel’s imagination, which she was fairly sure was the case, surely she would be imagining the demonic realm to be empty, and so this place must be meaningful in some way to Isabel for her to have related it to the demons’ home. But why did she need to see this again?
Zanriath looked across at her behind Isabel and his expression confirmed that his thoughts were one and the same. And then, out of the shadows, they both saw the reason.
Though Ayva had never seen the man before in her life, she knew in an instant that it was Isabel’s father, or at least Isabel’s memory of her father, in just the same way Isabel had remembered her mother’s grave.
“My dear Isabel.” The old man said, smiling kindly, his grey features touched with age and compassion.
“I’m sorry.” She whispered quietly, falling, as she had wanted to for so long now since leaving home, into her father’s protective hold.
“It was not your doing my sweet. And you already know it was meant to be this way.”
“Yes.” She replied, fighting to hold her composure.
Suddenly, Ayva felt compelled to go to Isabel, to help comfort her. She wanted to tell her father how far Isabel had brought them, and how without her, their Kingdom and everyone in it would be doomed. She raised a heavy foot, feeling as though something was resisting her movement, and began towards Isabel. But before she could even plant her first step, Zanriath grabbed her by the arm.
“No Ayva.” He hissed between clenched teeth, his eyes alight with shocked realisation, keeping his feet solidly planted exactly where they had landed after stepping through the tear. “Don’t move.”
“What?” She whispered back, not wanting to disturb the moment between Isabel and her imaginary father. He just held her now, not saying anything.
“Look at your feet.” Zanriath whispered back. She did so, and saw nothing, just the dark, dirty and pebbled floor that she saw all around. She began to say something to question Zanriath, until she realised his concern as her eyes focused more closely. The floor she saw all around her was not dirt and earth and rock at all. It was an illusion. The only solid footing for them was that which lay directly beneath their feet; Isabel’s hold on their reality in this strange place. Everything else was imaginary and slowly began to fade away, if anything in this place was actually real at all.
‘The rules are simple - don’t step off.’ Isabel’s words echoed in Ayva’s mind. Isabel had cemented them in this figment of her imagination, maybe even in a memory, but she was still spiritually in the demonic realm, and if they fell from her thoughts, from her mind, there was no going back.
The strangeness of their situation made Ayva’s head throb and Zanriath too looked bewildered. In these quiet moments while Isabel was preoccupied, his forehead creased with intense thought, attempting to comprehend everything that was happening all at once in this place that did not exist, and appeared to be unrestrained by the boundaries of neither time nor space.
Then all of a sudden Isabel wept a single breath aloud as her father released her from his tender hold, kissed her gently on the forehead and stepped backward. He kept moving backward and began to rise up above them and fade away into the sky.
It was only when Zanriath and Ayva’s stomachs both churned that they realised he wasn’t floating, but they were sinking, faster and faster through the darkness. They fell further and further and faster and faster, and Isabel’s father disappeared from view.
Soon they were plummeting down, gaining terrifying speed. The blackness all around dissipated and they were falling through the sky once more, hurtling through thick grey clouds weighed down heavily with water.
Ayva screamed. Zanriath cried out to Isabel. But she said nothing as they fell and the tears she had just been weeping were swept from her face in the gushing wind of their downfall. They were above the four islands once again, falling down towards them.
Their velocity seemed only to increase and Ayva and Zanriath’s initial fear was replaced by sheer terror as Isabel did nothing to stop them and the ground became all of a sudden very near. Ayva screamed again.
So many times, at one point or another, the same thoughts had engulfed their minds, and this was no different. They were going to die.
“ISABEL!!!” Ayva’s voice rang shrilly in Isabel’s ears, but the sound was dragged away swiftly through the air, lost to the sheer speed of their descent.
Her imagination was going wild. The ground was too close and all three of them closed their eyes.
They smashed into the ground with the sickening sound of crunching bone and splintering joints. Their bodies thundered against the cold, hard rock and, unable to stop themselves in any way due to the sheer force of the impact, their feeble frames smashed against the solid stone floor with a resounding crack.
And so there they lay, broken and ruined as the clouds above the
m sensed the coming of Isabel and Depozi’s confrontation, and opened their flooding waterfall gates to mark it in its wake.
40
Cold drops of water splashed Isabel’s face, stirring her slightly from where she lay on the cold, rocky ground. Soon the splashes turned into hammering icicles pounding down, waking her and her two companions. She pulled herself slowly to a sitting position, drawing in breath sharply as she did so, her hands and elbows grazing along the jagged stone floor. Clearly they were back in the physical realm, she thought, as she looked at the small drops of blood mixing with the water on her palm.
“Isabel?” Zanriath’s voice sounded over the now loud sound of the hammering rain. “Ahh” He gasped as he tried to sit up, clutching his ribs; his expression flitted through confusion, comprehension and understanding, all in a matter of seconds. “I guess we’re back?” Isabel nodded.
“Let’s find some shelter.” She said. He and Ayva hastily agreed, Ayva clutching at her injuries too, and followed her lead. Looking around as she stood up Isabel saw they were on another, quite small island: Lair of the Demonic. They had made it.
It reminded her of the Black Cliffs on the west coast of Land. The whole island was built up of sharp, jutting rocks stabbed into the ground at every angle, equalled only by the angry waves crashing noisily against the grey shores.
Still the same thick mist hung over the water, but it didn’t dare encroach too close to the rocks. In the centre the island rose up to a peak. It wasn’t as big as Dragon’s Peak, but nevertheless it loomed above them menacingly, the way most significant landmarks have a habit of doing.
As they regained their bearing and tenderly realised how much pain they had been relieved from in Isabel’s thoughts, they were soaked by rain and spray from the rocks as the waves thundered in unwavering hostility against the stone grey battlements.
Circling the peak, exploring the small island, the three found little in the way of shelter, vegetation, or anything else for that matter, just rocks.
“So do we have to climb it?” Ayva asked, squinting against the falling raindrops as she looked up to the top of the small mountain. They were all drenched by now and the still plummeting raindrops no longer bothered them, the chill already well set.
“I suppose so…” Zanriath filled the silence left by Isabel, seemingly ignoring the question directed at her. She remained silent for a few moments.
“No.” She said with quiet confidence. “Ormath was inside Dragon’s Peak, not on top of it. That was for a reason.” Zanriath looked a little startled.
“So we go inside it?” He asked. “How?”
“How did you find your way inside Dragon’s peak?” Zanriath thought for a moment, clearly stuck for an immediate answer.
“I just…did.” He seemed less than convinced with his own words. “I suppose I was just drawn to it…probably with a lot of encouragement…” He added submissively. Ayva looked across at Isabel and they had the same thought.
“Let’s find some encouragement then!” Ayva chirped her spirits restored with her feet back on solid ground again.
For almost an hour they combed the base of the peak, certain that it held what they were searching for. The cold crept in as they searched and eventually, shivering violently by now, it was Zanriath who found what they needed.
A stone spike protruded from the ground, almost fully concealing a small opening beneath it, hidden amidst the rock. The opening was lined with thick and twisting vines that had buried themselves deep into the stones and protruded above the spike. It was the vines that had drawn Zanriath’s attention, giving him the notion that there was something behind the concealing stone, as they appeared to be virtually the only greenery on the entire bleak and dreary rock.
Isabel looked at the opening pensively for a moment and examined the vines growing from just within its mouth. The knowledge she attained in that instant permitted her a small smile of understanding.
“Nice one Zan.” Ayva congratulated him, eyeing the opening warily. “So…we go in?” She asked uneasily.
“You were expecting something more inviting?” Isabel asked, throwing a raised eyebrow in Ayva’s direction. “This is the home of the Demon-Lord.”
“Well…no, I suppose not.” She replied with a sigh and a shrug. “But a girl can hope.” Before anyone could say any more Isabel crouched down to her hands and knees and crawled into the dark gap between the threatening rocks.
Isabel heard the scuffling of Zanriath and Ayva following closely behind her and pushed on through the blackness. It was clammy, cold and damp in the small tunnel. She crawled with quickening speed, searching more and more desperately for an opening in the rocky maze. She eventually found it and emerged gratefully from the tunnel, standing and stretching her back before guiding Ayva and Zanriath to join her.
The jagged walls of the rock were sharp and her hands and knees were grazed and bleeding. Ayva appeared after Zanriath from the awkward passageway and grunted unceremoniously as she scraped her shoulder on a protruding claw of rock as she clambered out.
They stood up and examined the cavern they’d come out in, large and rounded, similar to Ormath’s, though the atmosphere was altogether different and much more threatening.
They stood at one end of a narrow rocky walkway which extended across the cavern and met the flat, grey wall on the other side, stopping the path dead. Either side of the walkway, several hundreds of metres below them, they could clearly see water seething furiously. Isabel drew a sharp breath and Ayva and Zanriath looked to her questioningly. She stared down at the abyss below them.
“Do you remember I said the souls of the demons killed in Tamarack are sent back to Depozi? Because he was the one who allowed them here from their realm…”
“Yes…” Zanriath said worriedly. “That’s how we found the way here wasn’t it…?”
“Hmmm.” Isabel mumbled. “This is where he puts them.”
“What?” Ayva asked nervously, but almost in answer to her confusion the water below them surged and slammed its weight against the stone walls encasing it.
They could clearly see amidst the churning foam the silvery images of demons and men battling each other, slashing and biting and clawing murderously, inflicting horrific and fatal wounds on each other, but as both were already dead, neither faltered. Even from their safe viewpoint Isabel felt the anger radiating from the Lost Souls and their unearthly will to possess touched her for the briefest moment, reminding her of when she had felt their thoughts in Compii Tower. She shuddered unwillingly.
“This is madness.” Isabel said quietly under her breath, only just loud enough for her friends to hear. They watched in silence as the water hammered the stone helplessly and the demonic souls fought endlessly against the Souls of the Ocean in a battle that would never cease to rage on.
“What do we do?” Zanriath asked looking to Isabel, tearing his eyes from the disturbing spectacle fuming before their eyes. But Isabel was no longer watching the souls. Instead her gaze was fixed forward, focused on the demon now stood at the opposite end of the thin bridge.
It stood on two relatively short legs in comparison to its body and arms, and was very muscular, though little taller than Isabel herself. The look in its green eyes showed not just hatred, but traces of intelligence, clouded by apparent confusion.
But regardless of all that, looking deep past those shallow emotions Isabel sensed something much deeper and even innate. She saw rich green emeralds of envy, a jealousy that was impossible to hide.
Then, through its pointed teeth, a hoarse and rasping voice growled at Isabel and her friends.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” The demon spat its words across the cavern with despise flowing freely on each syllable.
“Yes we are.” Isabel responded coolly. Zanriath was confused by the sudden change in circumstances and stood tense. Ayva for some strange reason felt sorry for the demon, being trapped here in this place with the awful souls, and now they had com
e along and were threatening it. She still held her bow firmly in hand. She drew an arrow and sat it gently on the cord, lightly touching her forearm.
“No you are not!” The demon almost screamed harshly at Isabel. She didn’t flinch. “You cannot be here!”
“You know that nothing you do can stop me from being here.” Isabel said, again with complete calm and control. “You’ve always known it.” Zanriath and Ayva began to understand.
“NO!” The helpless beast screamed now, wanting to advance but seemingly unable to. “You will not!”
“I’d say I already have.” Isabel replied confidently, pushing as far as she could, testing the limits.
“Enough!” The demon barked, clearly irritated. Its voice was suddenly much clearer, and angry. It advanced.
Zanriath’s hands burst into flame but Isabel grabbed his arm firmly and shook her head without even looking at him. He had thought his efforts might have been futile. Ayva however, had not had second thoughts so quickly, and in an instant her arm was drawn back and her bow was aimed, feeling ridiculous for having pitied the evil God in the first place. Her emotions switched and turned full circle almost instantly, but then, it is easy for a God to play havoc with a human’s fragile emotions.
“No Ayva!” Isabel’s voice cracked. But it was too late. She leased her arrow, which burst into searing flame immediately, and sent it soaring towards the advancing demon. It shrieked as the arrow smashed into its temple with pinpoint precision and the demon exploded into a raging and shrieking firestorm. The three shielded their eyes from the light and the heat, only looking back once it had begun to dim.
All at once they realised Ayva’s error.
Where the demon stood alone the stone was blackened from the sudden intense heat and now, in its place, stood a figure that Ayva recognised immediately.
Demon-Lord Depozi stood before them in his true form. He was a glorious angel, shining golden rays across the faces of the three onlookers, illuminating the never-ending onslaught that He had heartlessly created hundreds of metres below them in the steaming waters.