The looming conflict was only exacerbated by the lack of provisions. Raimie wished he’d protested the sole use of conjuring to provide food rather than hauling it with them via knapsack or wagon. They should have tried at least a combination of methods because the magical one had convinced the human soldiers that the Esela, the ones in control of supply lines, were holding food back specifically for themselves. As hunger set in from necessarily reduced rations, Raimie couldn’t blame their fear.
All in all, he was beginning to regret suggesting this course of action. He feared the unnatural dread might lead to an armed conflict between the races which might not end so horribly if it took place in the openness of the forest. Within the narrow confines of this dark tunnel, however, such a clash would absolutely end in disaster.
The decision to go through the mountain was in the past. All Raimie could do now was hope his little band of soldiers could get through each day without killing one another.
The unmarked passage of time served as a final stressor to their long list of problems. While under the mountain, there was simply no way to tell whether the sun or moon had taken preeminence in the sky, whether night or day reigned. Those distinctions had been abandoned in Allanovian. Instead, their lives were marked by regulated wake and sleep cycles.
While awake, the march down the monotonous passage consumed the small army, each dragging step taken in the hope that something different might come along. The highest prize the soldiers sought was the rise of a natural incline, some break in the square levelness of the tunnel.
The march never ceased, not even for meals. Soldiers consumed their summoned hardtack or biscuits while on their feet. The pace steadily increased as they moved along, the dread rushing them faster and faster, and after an undetermined number of hours, Eledis would call a halt, allowing the men to gather around improvised campfires to rest and recover.
It was in the lull after an entire army fell victim to sleep that Raimie worked at establishing communication with Bright and Dim. Through trial and error, the three discovered exactly which topics had been forbidden them, and Raimie led the anomalies through a plodding guessing game to work around their impediment.
It was a dauntingly rigorous process. He’d ask an inane yes or no question of the two and based off of the response, extrapolate what to ask next. In two days, he’d learned only three useful bits of information, and of those, two were fairly obvious from the start.
One: the two were not human or Eselan. Two: they were not living, breathing beings at all. Three: they were mortal enemies, each with a bitter animosity so great that they sought only to obliterate one another.
Raimie wasn’t sure why his figments were currently able to remain in one another’s presences without devolving into bitter battle but strongly suspected that it had something to do with him. Without the courage to ask the reason from them, he was resigned to never know.
Eventually, sleep would claim even the young and brave, and when he couldn’t fight it any more, Raimie would fall into dreams.
* * *
“Have you calmed sufficiently?” the stranger asked.
Raimie lifted his free hand and curled each finger inward, deliberately leaving the middle one standing.
“If you require more solitude, I am more than willing to depart,” the stranger said in an amused tone.
Raimie lowered his arm to the black surface and tried to appear chastened. Much as he loved his solitude, he couldn’t take another night in this black hole by himself.
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
It was a pitiful apology, but the stranger seemed mollified. He knelt beside Raimie, but contrary to previous encounters, the stranger didn’t immediately brandish his knife.
“Shall we talk?” he asked uncertainly.
“What would I ever want to say to you?” Raimie asked venomously. “You’re a means to an end. I’ve no desire to be near you, but circumstances being what they are, I can tolerate your unnerving presence for now. Get on with what you’re here to do.”
He was surprised at his audacity and the strength of his hostility. It seemed an unreasonable level to hold for someone who’d only ever helped him.
Normally, he’d keep a much more civil tongue in his head, especially when addressing someone who had both something he wanted and no incentive to stick around. He expected the stranger to abandon him to his bonds, but surprisingly, the other man flicked out his knife and began cutting.
The awkward silence weighed on Raimie, and he spoke despite his previous repugnance to the idea.
“Why can’t I remember this place when I’m awake?”
“You are dreaming. How often do you remember your dreams?” the stranger replied stiffly.
“Pretty regularly in fact, and they’re rarely the same one over and over for nights on end.”
For a long while, the stranger didn’t respond, merely cutting away at whatever invisible force held Raimie down.
With every knife slice in the long process of freeing him, the intense feeling of laceration had become easier to ignore, but without conversation to dull the sensation, it returned full force. Raimie itched for the stranger to say something, anything, but he kept his own mouth shut out of fear of what might emerge from it.
“You have been stuck in this place for almost nine years, and in that time, your mind has avoided it like the plague,” the stranger remarked, relieving Raimie’s discomfort. “I believe the spell slipped with your recent discovery of Shadowsteal, allowing you to peek through that deliberate ignorance.”
“So I’m not dreaming?”
“Your right arm is free,” the stranger said in response.
Indeed, it was. How had he missed it?
“Would you look at that?” he murmured, inspecting his newly liberated hand. “Thank y-“
The stranger was gone, and Raimie was alone. Again. Damn it.
* * *
His head jerking back and forth woke him at the beginning of the third day beneath the mountain. Raimie slapped at the hands gripping his shoulders.
“I’m up, damn it!” he blearily cursed, blinking sleepily at Kheled. “What do you want?” he asked through a mouthful of cotton.
“I need to check your ribs, o mighty king,” the Eselan said with a half-smile creeping over his face.
“Now? In the middle of the night?”
“Eledis will wake any minute and rouse the troops. I thought you’d want to avoid parading half naked in front of your devoted followers,” Kheled explained, blinking innocently at the human.
Raimie groaned and stripped off his tunic. The healer unwound the bandage enveloping the human’s chest, gently prodded at the enormous bruise spreading down his side, and replaced the old bandage with a fresh one. By the time he was finished, the head of the column was beginning to stir. Raimie hastily redressed.
“Happy?” he testily asked the Eselan.
“Exceedingly so.”
“Do you need to check the hands?” Raimie asked.
“Have you been wearing your gloves and changing the bandages?”
“Of course.”
He raised his gloved hands as proof.
“Then, no. Keep those on, and you’ll be in good shape soon. I also brought you some sleeping potions if you need them,” Kheled said teasingly.
Raimie grimaced and snatched the proffered bottles.
“Thank you very much, you evil man.”
Kheled laughed and left him to finish his preparations for the day’s march.
Raimie didn’t want to break the carpet of blisters he’d acquired yesterday, but it was going to happen at some point. He might as well make it now.
He jumped to his feet and jauntily jogged to join Eledis and his father as they received their breakfast. He uttered not one wince.
* * *
Halfway through the wake cycle, the cubed passage broke open into a gigantic cavern. An unknown light source illuminated a space which could have eaten Allanovian whole. The flo
or rolled in hills and valleys of stone with the heights above the average man’s line of sight. A path was clearly carved through the obstructions, leading to a pinhole of black on the far side. That opposing wall seemed miles away from where Raimie stood.
He knew he should feel relief at the sight of those wonderfully curvaceous hills after so long with sharp angles and perfectly smooth walls, but he simply couldn’t bother to muster the energy. Every scrap of mental effort was expended in an attempt to hold back panic. The apprehension breathing down the back of his neck had built during the morning’s march until he swam in a miasma of alarm and dread.
The tear had to be at fault. There was no other logical explanation for such unprovoked anxiety, and sheer panic would account for the rumors of madness associated with the tear beneath the mountain.
As soon as they set foot inside the cavern, Eledis increased the march’s pace to a slow jog, and upon fully emerging into the openness of the cave, the level of dismay jumped to unprecedented heights, sending some isolated soldiers sprinting far ahead of the group.
Raimie laughed shrilly at the terror. His eyes darted left to right to center, searching with the certainty that an ambush awaited them.
Who knew? Maybe another of Doldimar’s minions had anticipated this course of action. It could be lying in wait just around the dip of the next stone hill. Raimie’s father wasn’t his only companion now. Who would fall in his place this time? Eledis? A naïve innocent duped into joining this quest?
In a gap between the hills, a black smear, about the size of a man, caught Raimie’s eye. He slowed, dreading that his fear of ambush was actually valid, but the smear stayed fixed in place. Before he could investigate further, the press of the crowd forced him back into a run.
Very soon after, the leading line reached the halfway point, and as a result of the laws of gravity, Ferin tripped and fell. Raimie was shocked to a stop. He’d been around the woman near constantly in the last two days, and she always moved with grace and poise, more so even than the typical Eselan.
Immediately, a thick band of Zrelnach surrounded the fallen former Councilwoman. Cognizant soldiers halted alongside their leaders, but a good majority of the group kept fleeing toward the safety of the enclosing passageway in the cavern’s opposite side.
The two races instinctively grouped on one side or the other, naturally drawn toward others of their kind. A few of the humans were prescient enough to cautiously rest hands on weapons.
Raimie’s two doppelgangers strode into the space between the races. In his near blind panic while running, his brain had failed to inform him that Dim and Bright had joined him on his jog. Now that Raimie had been shocked somewhat back to normal by Ferin’s mishap, the fact that they were present despite their previous agreement pushed him precipitously close to succumbing to the terror once more.
As usual, Bright and Dim argued with one another, but for some reason, this fight was more pitched than usual. Their faces had turned ugly from the anger, bright red and flustered. Such an expression on his own familiar features made Raimie uncomfortable. Was that what he looked like when he was mad?
They screamed at one another, so loudly that Raimie was concerned that his traveling companions might actually hear them in spite of their normal deafness.
“Which one of you did that?” a Zrelnach asked edgily, drawing Raimie’s attention back to the very real conflict.
Eledis angrily stepped forward.
“She tripped, you moron. The ground’s extremely uneven. I’ve nearly landed on my hands and knees myself a few times.”
“But you see, she’s not like you humans,” the Zrelnach said condescendingly. “She’s not clumsy enough to fall. One of you must have tripped her intentionally.”
“Is she all right?” Raimie asked loudly over the shouting.
He might not like Ferin very much, but he thought ensuring her well-being was more important than assigning blame for the accident, even if the female had only skinned her palms.
“She’ll be better once you humans step back.”
Bright screamed some argumentative point at Dim, threw its arms to either side with disgust, and stalked away. Dim followed, roaring insults at its counterpart’s back. Raimie violently shook his head to dispel the distraction as much as he could.
“Hey!” a skinny human kid shouted. “You can’t talk to Raimie like that!”
He drew his short sword. Immediately, the group’s attitude morphed as more experienced soldiers tensed and fresher recruits half-drew arms in response. Ramie’s own hand crept to Silverblade because of the escalation.
“Oh, look!” the Zrelnach laughed. “It has a steel toothpick! I wonder, does it think it can hurt me with that pathetic weapon?”
“You…. Hush.”
The kid’s arms trembled, and the Zrelnach warriors all burst out laughing at the sight, guffawing and wiping away tears. Some even doubled over.
“All right, human,” one said as his laughter subsided. “Give it your best shot.”
He spread his arms wide, inviting the kid to take a stab at him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Raimie watched with some amusement as Dim spun Bright around and threw a punch at its head. Fear engulfed him when Bright not only remained visible but rubbed its face and threw its entire body at Dim, driving them both to the stone floor.
Raimie pushed into the empty space between the humans and Esela, Bright and Dim, a cautioning hand to either side.
“I don’t think that w-“
He never got to finish the thought. His unexpected movement had drawn the Eselan’s attention, and the kid took his chance. He shouted and charged the Zrelnach. The more experienced warrior easily dodged the thrust and backhanded the kid, sending him flying. The Zrelnach immediately snatched his hand back, horror written across his face.
The kid landed awkwardly on his neck, rolling several times before coming to a stop. Raimie counted three heartbeats, begging the kid to stand, to sit, to move, but he remained still.
The humans exploded into motion, drawing weapons and charging. The air split with roars as four hundred men and women fell upon the Zrelnach.
Raimie avoided the angry mob even as his blood roared to join them. This thirst for violence surprised him, a relative unknown. He typically saw violence as a necessary evil. To want to inflict harm on another for no reason? Well, that wasn’t him. That was something else.
His hands clenched into fists, and he desperately fought to keep them away from Silverblade. He wanted, no, he needed to hit something. His eyes flicked across the angry faces, searching for a victim, but none of the relative strangers deserved his ire.
Kheled dashed in front of Raimie, attempting to pull combatants apart with little success. The healer’s past had been a distraction while Allanovian’s Council forced him to kill.
In a gap where a Zrelnach had fallen, Raimie spied Ferin only now climbing to her feet, clutching her head. She’d allowed him to become a killer in the first place.
Eledis passed in front of the gap, holding his own surprisingly well against a Zrelnach. He’d precipitated this entire disaster of a quest with his insistence on following prophecy.
No, they were wrong. He needed to attack the instigator.
Oriented, Raimie ran away from the conflict. He sprinted between the hills of stone, shoving aside the millstone of dread that threatened to drag him down. Barreling over a short patch of broken stone, he stumbled toward a black smear a handspan tall, light wisping around its edges, and drove his fist into the tear.
A million images sprang across his vision: people and animals that couldn’t feasibly exist, familiar faces altered in imperceptible ways, objects he’d no hope of understanding. In a microsecond, foreign information saturated Raimie’s brain.
Alouin, he couldn’t keep this up for long.
Behind the noise, two adversaries remained locked in constant conflict: push and pull, yin and yang… Order and Chaos. Their warring raged as a backgrou
nd buzz behind the deluge that assaulted Raimie.
He cried out for what he needed. A thousand ideas jabbered in his ears, yelling nonsense words such as physics and particles and atoms. He didn’t understand. The immense amount of information squeezed him down, and Raimie realized that he’d done something immensely idiotic. He’d never find what he needed in a way he could comprehend! His aggravation spilled into the tear.
As if conjured by magic, there it was, clear as a bell. The solution, described in a way he could comprehend.
Raimie drew in imperceptible threads of Order and Chaos’ energies, gathering them into ever growing bundles. The opposing energies repelled one another, leaving him with the intense perception that his entire being was splitting in two. It took all of his will to keep from losing himself.
Once he held enough, he forcibly joined the opposite energies into one. At once, Raimie was whole. Every contradictory characteristic, every opposing emotion was amalgamated, and for the first time in his life, he truly understood peace.
He could keep this, couldn’t he? Horde this harmony, and never, ever be conflicted again?
Distantly, a teenager screamed in pain and steel clashed against steel. The people wrapped in the conflict outside this place were relative strangers, and the ones that he loved could hold their own in such a fight. He shouldn’t care what happened in that cavern.
He was going to regret this.
Grimacing, he unleashed Unity’s energy into the tear, focusing it specifically on his end. Raimie gasped at the rush of returning strife. He wanted to weep at the loss of harmony, scream at the unfairness, but all of him was occupied by the effort to close the tear in his reality.
As he wrung the last drop of energy from his body, something deep within wrenched, leaving behind an intense sense of wrongness. He fell to his knees, hands grazing stone, and his head lolled listlessly.
There was something he needed to do next. Wasn’t there? He wasn’t sure. His thoughts were as molasses, refusing to emerge from his head without prodding.
The Undying Champions (The Eternal War Book 1) Page 25