by E. Hibbs
There was a bark as one of the guards noticed her from below.
“Who goes there?”
Merrin pulled her hands out from her body so that the Bands were in plainer view. “Only me,” she replied quietly.
The guard instantly relaxed. He was the chief of them: Lachlan. He carried no weapons, because there was no conflict or truly grave danger among the Asræ, not even for the Royal Family. But if there ever was need for combat, then everyone was proficient enough in magic to use it to their advantage. The only noticeable characteristic that marked Lachlan as a guard was the loose reed belt around his hips.
“Oh, Your Highness. I beg your pardon, My Lady.”
“There is no need for apologies,” Merrin said, drawing level with him. “I apologise for startling you.”
Lachlan bowed, and she quickly swallowed her discomfort.
“Your Highness,” he said, “if I may, I humbly suggest that you return to your quarters. The sun shall rise soon.”
Merrin glanced up towards the Surface at the rapidly lightening water, caught somewhere between the night and the day.
Just do not go too high, Merrin, she thought. As though you of all people must be told that.
“I shall in a moment,” she replied steadily. “First I wish to visit my Father’s grave.”
Lachlan flustered, his dorsal fin waving gently. “Would you allow me to accompany you?”
Merrin shook her head politely. “No, thank you. I wish to be alone.”
“Yes, My Lady,” he smiled, and bowed again. Merrin inclined her head in acknowledgement, and then glided away towards the edge of the Palace.
Tracing the weedy walkways alone was wonderful. Hardly anyone was still awake. Most wouldn’t normally slumber so close to day anyway, but the joy of the Rise had stolen everyone’s energy. Lacudomus, silent and encased in itself, faded gently into the distance as Merrin stole through the city, eventually arriving at the Tomb Garden.
It was a place she had always moved away from if she could help it, but now it was the final resting place of her father’s body. Outside the Palace walls, it stood on a steep east hillside, to help those who lay there follow the moon. Even from far off, she could make out the Remembrances. They hung in mid-water above every burial site: shining orbs of light imbued with the memories of the deceased Asræ’s loved ones.
As Merrin entered, the iridescent faces of many passed her by, most of which she didn’t know. The older graves were marked by diminishing lights as those who would remember them gradually joined them; the newer ones shone like stars. In places, they flickered amongst the waving fingers of weeds, all sparkling and pulsating in their tributes to life past.
At the Garden’s summit stood the ancestral tombs of the Monarchy. It jutted out into the water at the highest point, closest of all to the Surface. Merrin gritted her teeth as she gradually ascended, following the incline closely, until the moonlight above came close enough to bounce off her skin.
Finally, her eyes fell upon the face of Zandor: her Grandfather, and the first Monarch of the Asræ. The Kingdom below the Surface was named in his honour, after he unified the people as the Lake was swallowing them from the land. Before that time, the Asræ had little memory, for none still lived who might remember it – but it had signalled an age so great that most didn’t care. Because of Zandor, they had survived the sun when it turned against them, and were able to create a new beginning, safe from the world above. Even in death, all were indebted to him, and so his Remembrance shone the brightest of all ever laid in the Tomb Garden.
Past deceased Consorts, distant Princes and Princess who would not inherit the ruler’s title, Merrin found her father. His face smiled out across the veil of life and death, trapped in shifting light for centuries to come. Although he was a great King, he wasn’t as central to the culture as her Grandfather had been, and so even though his Remembrance would glow for a long while, it would probably dim a little more than Zandor’s.
Merrin reached out and gently touched it, and her mind filled with love. She closed her eyes. She had been present when he was laid in the Lakebed, and when Dramil summoned up the Remembrance. Although she had known it was only his body that was buried at the Resting Ceremony, it had felt so strange and horrendously difficult to leave for the Palace, knowing he wouldn’t be there. Knowing that she was, at long last, completely alone.
CHAPTER V
Silas’ Decision
25th day of Jyune.
T his nighte is surely a strange one. The moon shines large overhead, but it does seem like some kind of unblinking, squinting eye, staring down upon the Elitlande. It sets my teeth on edge in a manner which I cannot find reason for. I do believe that something is not right, but I know not why or how.
Up here in our shelter, I stare out from my tent and over this Valley gash. The strange Wall curls away into the darknesse. The rain has finally stopped and the air is horribly silent. It seems, to me, to be much too silent: I hear no owls or nyhtegales, which would surely be calling and singing. On the other side of the Wall, it is black: the forest has grown sprawling so much that it is such a contrast to the fields and pastures: looking down upon what it hides away from them, I see nothing but treetops, and that mysterie that is forever forced from these people’s minds.
This discomfort is so strange and unknown to me. Something is surely not right.
*
Silas lay quiet and still on his cot, fully clothed save for his boots, which he had kicked off and left in a heap on the floor. He watched a fat spider slowly crawl up the wall beside him, easily finding grip on the rough daub. It began to spin a web over the groove a few feet above his head, and he kept his eyes on it idly, managing to make out its shape against the slightly lighter background of the roof thatch.
Its sound, purposeful movements helped his mind to stray. That night, they had eaten their dinner of rye bread and lamb quietly, before all moving to bed. Everyone had changed into a new set of clothes and left the ones worn to the funeral beside the hearth to dry out. Now, the slow, steady breathing that broke up the silence told Silas that his mother and all of his other siblings were deep in slumber.
Silas had never been so grateful for the nature of his nickname. It had meant that there had been no shock shown by his family when he had returned home, and barely spoken a word to anybody for the remainder of the evening. It would have been the complete opposite had it been Raphael who came back late – or any one of the children, he thought to himself. But not even Raphael had taken note of just how quiet he had seemed – and out of all of them, if anyone was to notice the subtle change in Silas, it would have been him.
The truth behind it was that Father Fortésa’s words still played heavily on Silas’ mind. He couldn’t push the strange flat shine in the priest’s eyes out of his head, or the way he had frantically called upon the blessing of God, and then the mention of Evertodomus.
A chill ran through Silas as he thought of that name and all of its connotations, but it was more out of ingrained habit than a pure fear. He had always been the one not just in his family, but in the whole of Fanchlow it seemed, who actively carried the same wonder about what the Wall concealed that he had felt as a child. He knew better than to openly speak of that forbidden place, even when he was younger, but the conformities of life and the cusp of adulthood hadn’t done enough to make him forget it.
Were there really demons? Had they truly brought the illness – the curse – down upon his family?
The spider dropped towards him slightly on a thin thread of silk before scurrying back up to the web.
“Weargh!”
Silas jumped and his head whipped over towards Uriel’s cot. His brother was sitting bolt upright in the gloom, moving his legs agitatedly under his blanket. Silas could tell, even from across the other side of the room, that he was still asleep.
Uriel mumbled; his eyes misted and unseeing. “There’s a weech in my piwwow... I don’t want it to eat me. It wants to get
me...”
Silas frowned, amazed that the yelp hadn’t woken anybody. Then Uriel gazed at the fire, and his head rolled onto his shoulder.
“Oh, there you are. Don’t tie up my fishing wine... there’s a weech that’ll get over there...”
He fell back heavily against the pillow and began to snore. Silas stared at him for a moment more, and then held a hand to his forehead. Uriel hadn’t had nightmares for a long time, but they were usually restricted to dull thrashing and occasionally kicking his blanket off the bed. Silas, being such a light sleeper, was usually there to tuck him back in and calm him before he could wake himself up. It was very rare indeed that he reacted so violently, but Silas was just relieved that he hadn’t caused too much of a rumpus.
Silas turned onto his side, deciding to try and get another few hours’ sleep. Dawn wouldn’t be far off, and neither was the call of the cockerel to signal the time to wake. He wedged his arm underneath his pillow to give it more lift, and closed his eyes, beginning to softly hum a tune to himself to try and lull himself into slumber. But if anything, it made him feel even more awake, and what he had learned in the shower of rain still dug at him for attention.
As though they drown in the air, he thought. A curse that comes from the bottomless Lake...
“Don’t you wreck my wine...” Uriel mumbled again, thankfully more drowsily.
Silas’ eyes snapped open, and focused immediately on the tangle of fishing nets hanging on the far wall. In a split second, an idea had leapt fully-formed into his mind.
He reached down, grabbed his boots, and pulled them onto his feet. Then he fixed his leather belt around his tunic, fussing the material up so that it gathered at his waist, and quickly tied on his knife. He crept past Selena’s sleeping form and carefully collected the closest net into his arms.
He took one glance at the empty cot beside his mother’s.
You’ve lost your mind, you fool, he thought, before slipping out of the door. The night opened up around him, a breeze sweeping at his hair as he ran through the streets. A fleeting memory rippled in his mind, of when he was younger, and had often sneaked out to view the Elitland at that magical time when daylight didn’t touch it. Back then, he had mastered the ability to move without a sound – and now, he’d never been so thankful for it. The house at the edge of Fanchlow kept a coop of noisy hens, and he was careful to keep well clear as he passed the village lantern, the candle inside flickering gently.
The plain of the valley floor opened up before him and he moved out into the familiar fields, jumping the hedgerows and occasional dry-stone wall until he arrived at the river. Then he saw the Wall rise up in the distance, and stopped still in his tracks. The wooden millwheel twirled in the water at his side, creaking softly.
‘It means home of the demons. And I want you to promise me that you will never go there.’ Raphael whispered to his childhood self. ‘I might not get you back.’
Silas didn’t move. A single bead of sweat ran down the side of his nose and he swallowed shakily. His fingers wove anxiously through the holes in the net twine that lay draped over his shoulder.
Panic suddenly gripped his belly like an iron fist and he let out a small whimper, lost in the chorus of the running river. He almost sank to his knees, and the wariness that he had carried ever since he could remember welled up within him.
Evertodomus. Home of the demons. The very name drew fear. The unknown forbidden place on the other side of the Wall, that was a constant reminder of how some things could not be controlled, and were much better shut away than thought about. Challenging was out of the question: it would spell a horrendous fate. That was the very nature of the sure knowledge passed down through generations, ever since the Wall had been raised centuries before. It was an uncertain and delicate truce, but one which had been – and must be – upheld at all costs.
Silas felt so small and insignificant in the shadow. The Wall itself was still a good half mile away, but the fields came to an end on this side of the river. No-one dared risk farming so close on the other bank, so now the flats before him were a meadow: cornflowers, pansies and wild roses sprung up in an elaborate mosaic across the ground. It was a beautiful expanse that seemed to test him, daring him to cross, and get closer to where nobody had set foot for decades.
A thought of his father swam through Silas’ mind. Back when he was alive, and shared so much in common with Raphael: full of love and joy. Then of the sickness, and how his eyes had rolled in his face, skin paled and blue, eyes glazed. He imagined the final gasp, like the sound of a drowning man.
Silas swallowed down his fear, tightened his grip on the net, and moved forward. The cool water soaked through to his skin as he waded carefully across the river, and then emerged into the meadow. The scent of the wildflowers leapt into the air as he walked through them. Stems and grasses intertwined and clutched at his ankles, as though attempting to hold back every step. But he fought their grasp and bit on down his lips nervously as the Wall loomed up, growing like some great monster.
Eventually, he stood directly before it, and stared at its forbidding face. The dry-stone structure was similar to the smaller walls which laced the fields and pastures, but the slabs seemed darker and jagged, and were fringed with moss and lichen. Ivy had a grip on some areas, and the white blossoms of morning glories stood out starkly against the grey. It seemed a perfect surface to climb, but Silas couldn’t help likening it to a bed of knives.
Before he could convince himself to turn back, he quickly wedged his toes into a gap in the stone, gripped the ivy curtain tightly, and began his ascent. He tried to keep his breath as steady as he could, so that the notion of exactly what he was doing couldn’t make him waver. But in the back of his mind, sanity screamed at him in a breathless stream of silent howling:
What in God’s name are you doing, you fool? This is the Wall! Not just any wall, but the forbidden Wall! Nobody crosses the Wall! Nobody goes to the other side! Nobody!
He reached the top, swung his leg over, and sat straddled for a moment. From twelve feet above the ground, he gazed back towards the only home he had ever known. His keen eyes picked it out easily, and despite his hammering heart and twitching hands, he had to marvel as he looked at the Elitland from an entirely new position. At any other time, Silas would have smiled at the realisation that he was taller than Raphael – or even Mekina – but in that moment, he had eyes only for the distraction that was Fanchlow.
The fading moonlight and faint tinge of coming dawn behind the Eastern Ridge cast a soft glow over the land. The night’s dew caught the light and reflected it away in a million drops of blue. Blackbirds and goldfinches began the dawn chorus and filled the air with their song. A flock of sheep on one of the lower pastures ran around as black spots under the stars. The houses rose up in dark shapes before the backdrop of the Ridge foothills: the crucks as shadowy lines against the paler wattle-and-daub. The slightly larger house on the outskirts, with the small adjoining shelter for a donkey cart, stood out as boldly as though it was emanating its own light.
In his mind, Silas looked through the walls to the sleeping figures of his family. He saw his mother, curled up beside the other, now-empty bed. He imagined her eyes: the only blue ones in the whole family; and her long hair falling down in two pigtails, their blonde colour standing alone amongst all of her redheaded children. He thought of her past: from the Iténo family in Ullswick to marrying Julian when she was Mekina’s age, nineteen years before; spending her time caring for all of their children. He imagined her joy of being the mother of three sons, who could inherit their father’s land amongst themselves and maintain the family’s higher standing.
And then to his siblings: Mekina, her freckled face and upturned nose pressed into her blanket. Selena, not long turned eleven, and her peculiar plump face and stomach that had for some reason retained some baby fat. Beside her, Little Uriel slumbered restlessly on, his hair a bedraggled mess from his endless tossing and turning.
; Silas saw Raphael in the cot closest to his own, so close to the spider’s web. His brother’s face, relaxed under the draw of dreams, lay soft and silent. Many a young lass had cast a hopeful eye in his direction, and Silas had often wondered why Raphael had never thought to return their advances. He was of an age now when he could marry, and begin a family of his own if he wanted. But then Silas remembered how the girls’ fathers had steered them away if they were caught staring. He imagined the daughters being reminded that the handsome young man was a cursed man, and that anyone who dared marry into his family would bring the wrath of Hell down upon all of their sons to come.
Fury burned in Silas’ chest, but he quickly channelled it into determination, and gripped the net so tightly that his knuckles whitened. His father’s face was bright and vivid in his mind, and the water in his eyes as deep as the greatest Lake.
Nay, Silas thought. I shan’t stand for it to ever happen again. Not to Raphael or to Uriel nor I. I will find them, the demons on the other side, and I will have answers. What is it that we have done to deserve this? Is there any way for it to be appeased?
He turned his face away from the home where he was born, swung his body over, and began to shimmy down the far side of the Wall. When he felt his feet meet the ground, he stood there with his torso still pressed against the stone for a moment, gathering himself to turn around and set his eyes on the sight unseen. He took several deep breaths, swallowing to relax his throat. Then he slowly looked over his shoulder, and took in a whole new world.
The trees grew high and mighty all around him – he immediately recognised hazels, willows, and the occasional silver birch extending into the hazy distance – but no oaks or rowans or hollies. They all formed a labyrinth of wood and leaf, rustling loudly with the faintest breath of wind, and a thick mist hung over them like some kind of great white shroud. It seemed as though the wispy cloud had cloaked the unexplored forest ever since the forbidden land had earned its name.