by Sean Golden
Mayrie pulled Lirak closer until their faces nearly touched. “Then tell me Lirak… do your dreams tell you that I am not by your side?”
Lirak felt the warmth of Mayrie’s face, and the gentle breeze of her breathing. He searched his memories of his dreams for Mayrie and realized with sudden shock that none of his dreams had shown any sense of Mayrie’s future. “No,” he admitted. “But they do show me pain and suffering that you can’t want to share.”
“And why not?” Mayrie demanded. “Why do you choose my future Lirak? What gives you the right?”
Lirak squeezed hot tears from his eyes and fought back a sob. “Because I couldn’t do that to you.”
Mayrie closed her eyes and squeezed Lirak’s hands. “Lirak, you listen to me. I’m just like any other girl, I want to laugh and talk and walk and run in the forest. I used to do that with you, but that all changed when your dreams came. But one thing hasn’t changed Lirak. I still miss you. And I can’t believe that the gods would want you to face whatever you have to face alone! I have my own dreams Lirak, and I believe they can come true too. If you are god-touched and chosen for a task, then don’t push me away! You will need me Lirak, just as I need you.” Her tears were flowing freely now.
“Mayrie, I….” Lirak began, confused and overwhelmed by what Mayrie was offering.
Mayrie touched his lips with one finger. “Stop. Don’t even say it. I want you to think about what I’ve said for more than a heartbeat before you tell me why I have to leave you alone with the gods. I want you to dream about me first Lirak. Can you do that for me?” Mayrie stood suddenly and without warning, leaned to kiss Lirak. Her full lips made Lirak feel like he was falling into a warm pool of water. Mayrie’s hands found the sides of Lirak’s face, and she pulled him closer, her tongue darting forward to part Lirak’s paralyzed lips. The barrier Lirak had built so carefully came crashing down and he reached for her, pulling her close. Mayrie’s kiss became more insistent and intimate, and Lirak could feel the heat radiating from her face. He heard a rushing sound in his ears and returned the kiss as well as he could, caught up in the intensity of the moment. Then suddenly Mayrie pulled back and stood up. “Dream about that,” she said, and then strode briskly away, leaving Lirak as the last bit of sun vanished behind the mountains.
Lirak watched Mayrie walk away, her hips swaying as her vibrant hair smoldered in the darkening twilight. You should reach for the happiness you can he heard his mother’s voice. What gives you the right? He heard Mayrie’s voice. His dreams gave him no clue of Mayrie’s future. Did he have to walk his path alone? He held his head in his hands as he remembered happier days with Mayrie. Could he yet have happiness again? He searched his mind for any hint of a direction to take, any sense that he should either accept or deny his desires. But his inner voice was silent. This is my own decision to make he realized. Is this part of Kathoias’ test? What should he do? He felt his hard-fought resolve melting away in the face of Mayrie’s firm insistence and his mother’s sincere advice.
Fire
The defeater of death will cheat death four times. Fire, fang, fortune and falseness. Each will leave their mark.
– The Prophecies
In the steadily colder days since he and Mayrie talked and wept beneath the old oak, Lirak had tried to dream of Mayrie’s future. But his dreams would not follow his commands. Instead he had more dreams of the same type, raging fires driving the forest animals mad with fear below an inexorable roiling black cloud, crackling with unnatural lightning which blasted great holes in the forest, leaving nothing but desolation behind. Nothing, that is, except the bodies. Ugly swollen corpses blackened from the flames lay about like so many fallen leaves. Those were not the worst dreams though. At least the dead were beyond pain and suffering.
As the last bloody remnants of such a dream released Lirak from its grip, Lirak woke confused and alarmed. Something was wrong, but the dream memory was too heavy on him still and his mind refused to focus. The warmth of the hut seemed almost oppressive. A sound of running footsteps faded away as the crackling of the fire rose in its place.
Wake! The voice in his mind shouted at him. Lirak smelled the smoke now, a hot, heavy smoke like that of a bonfire when the wind suddenly shifted. The heat was making him sweat heavily. It should be cold. He coughed as the smell of smoke intensified.
“Mother?” he said, then coughed again.
Fire! he suddenly thought. The hut is on fire! Finally his mind threw off the effects of the dream and his eyes snapped into focus. The wooden wall nearest the fire pit was ablaze, flames licked up the wall and into the dry thatch of the roof.
“Mother!” he looked to see Soonya unmoving in her bedding. His mind raced as he looked around the hut. The leather flap over the hut’s main opening was flapping freely in the cold wind revealing newly fallen snow on the ground outside. The leather strap which had bound it tight against the cold lay in two pieces on the floor. Smoke filled the top half of the hut. Seeing his belt and pouches on the floor, he snatched them up and flung them through the open door where they landed in the snow outside.
Crawl, his mind urged. Rolling out of his bedding he crawled to his mother’s side and shook her, but Soonya did not wake. The heat singed the hairs on his right arm as he reached across and dragged Soonya’s limp form out of her bedding and across the floor to the door of the hut.
He tried to shout for help, but his lungs filled with smoke and he started coughing instead. I have to get out of the hut now! Coughing uncontrollably, he grabbed Soonya under her shoulders and dragged her to the door and into the snow outside. After dragging her several feet from the hut, his lungs cleared enough to shout.
“Fire! Help!” he called. Gasping for breath he leaned over Soonya anxiously looking for any signs of life. Relief flooded his mind when she suddenly coughed once, then twice. Her eyes opened.
“Lirak? What?” The confusion and pain was clear in her voice.
“Fire.” Lirak’s throat hurt to talk, but he croaked out the words as he heard feet running in the darkness. “Hut… on fire.” He saw Soonya’s eyes go wide with fear as she understood.
“Lirak,” she coughed, “must get…”
“Too late,” Lirak said.
Panic seemed to grip Soonya and her nails dug into Lirak’s forearm. “No!” she coughed again. “Box… under bedding…” she coughed again. “Must… not leave.”
A sense of sudden urgency flooded Lirak and he rocked back on his heels to look at the burning hut. Go, the voice in his mind echoed. To go back inside that hut seemed pure insanity, but something pushed him forward until he was staggering back toward the flaming wreck. He took the biggest breath he could and ripped the flapping leather cover off the doorway.
“Lirak! No!” he heard as he dove into the burning hut.
The heat was intense, Lirak could feel the snow on his arms and legs melt instantly. He landed prone on the ground, and stretched toward Soonya’s bedding, and then reached under it, ignoring the growing pain from the heat on his back. Desperately he clawed through the smoldering matted reeds and grass while his lungs felt like they were about to burst. Somehow he knew that to breathe inside the inferno of the burning hut would be deadly. Just as he was about to despair of finding anything, his fingers closed on a hard rectangular object. Yes, the voice in his mind sighed. Yanking it free from the bedding, he saw he was holding a small wooden box. Relief flooded through his body.
His head was swimming with the effort of holding his breath, and he began backing to the door. The heat was so intense that he had to close his eyes, and he could feel the hair on his head begin to singe. Clumps of burning thatch were falling all around him. He backed up faster, desperate now to get out of the hut. But where he expected his feet to hit cold snow, instead they met the hard wood of a wall. Where is the door? The smoke was thick now all the way to the floor, and he realized that he could no longer hold his breath. His open eyes stung and watered so much from the smoke that it was no better than having them cl
osed. Panic began to set in. Somewhere he heard Jerok calling his name frantically. Then something landed on his back and neck and his mind was filled with pain like he’d never felt before.
“Lirak! Here! To the door!” But the roaring of the fire made the voice a distant murmur with no firm direction. His breath exploded out of his chest and he desperately covered his nose and mouth with his free hand to try to stop himself from breathing the burning smoke. But his body would not listen, and he felt a searing pain down his throat and into his chest. His head swam and his body cried out for air. The last thing he remembered was a sudden jerk on his ankles.
“Lirak, can you hear me?” Lirak heard the words, but they made no sense to him at first. His throat and lungs burned like fire and it hurt to breathe. His neck and back felt like raw, open wounds.
“He’s breathing again.” Jerok’s voice floated into his mind as if through a long hollow log. “Will he be alright?”
“He will live.” Lirak heard the voice of Hetyl, the village healer.
“But those burns? His hair?” Soonya’s voice carried an anguish that cut through Lirak’s pain. He tried to answer her, but instead his body was wracked with violent coughing which felt like his insides were being ripped apart. He forced his eyes open just enough to see Soonya and Jerok leaning over him. Soonya was tucking something into a robe someone had thrown over her. As his eyes closed again he glimpsed the hard edge of the box in her hand.
“Thank Wyla for snow,” Hetyl said. “Jerok was smart to use snow. Pulled heat out.”
As Lirak’s coughing finally stopped, and the pain in his chest eased somewhat, he felt himself drifting to sleep.
“Mother?” he croaked. Or tried to, but his voice would not work.
“You’re both very lucky to be alive” he heard someone say, but could not place the voice. Lucky? He thought back to the leather cord on the floor of the hut. The cord had been cut cleanly. The realization suddenly hit him, even as consciousness fled. Someone tried to kill us.
For the first time in at least a moon, Lirak woke with no dream memory. No flocks of carrion birds descending on piles of bloody, swollen bodies. No roiling black clouds of evil. No ache in his soul for the dead and dying. But something wasn’t right. He wasn’t in his familiar bedding, and he could not hear the familiar breathing of his mother. There was a strange smell in the hut, like old leather and urine. Where am I?
He began to sit up when the pain hit him. Gasping for air just spread the pain to his throat and chest. He lay back down, trying to slow his breathing. His head and neck landed in a slick, slimy substance that at first repelled him, but he fought the urge to pull away from it, knowing that would just bring back the pain. Then he remembered the fire.
The first thing he thought was that he had lost everything; but then he remembered tossing his belt and pouches out the door and a sigh of relief escaped his lips. His half-shaped knife blade was in the slender leather pouch on his belt. It might have survived.
But his bow, his arrows, his axe… All he had in the world now was his breechcloth, a belt, his old knife and a half-finished blade.
“Ah, awake are we?” he heard Hetyl’s voice as the leather across the door was pulled aside and the bright light of day made him blink.
“Yes.” his voice came out as a tired wheeze, and his throat burned.
“Don’t talk,” Hetyl said. “Can breathe OK?”
Lirak started to reply, then realized Hetyl was exercising his twisted sense of humor, and he nodded briefly, even that small motion sending a wave of pain through his neck and shoulders.
“Don’t nod,” Hetyl smirked.
Lirak sighed and closed his eyes. This wasn’t going to be easy.
Hetyl cackled and Lirak heard him moving around the hut.
“You are lucky,” he said. “But not so lucky too.”
Lirak listened to Hetyl move around the hut muttering to himself.
“How… long?” Lirak managed to force the words out.
“Be quiet!” Hetyl commanded, seeming to ignore the question as he rummaged around his pouches. Lirak heard the sound of Hetyl crushing and mixing herbs in a stone bowl while he hummed tunelessly to himself.
“Two days,” Hetyl said after a few moments, long enough that for a moment Lirak didn’t realize Hetyl was answering his question.
“Soonya fine,” Hetyl continued as Lirak felt fingers lift under his left shoulder so he rolled painfully over on his right side. Soon he felt more of the slick, slimy substance being spread across his neck and shoulders. It felt cool and immediately the pain subsided somewhat.
“The hut is no good,” Hetyl continued. “Found this though.” Lirak opened his eyes just enough to see Hetyl was dangling his belt and pouches in front of his face. He smiled in relief.
“Kodul gives you old Bran’s hut for now.”
Lirak nodded reflexively, sending another wave of pain through his neck and shoulders.
“Did not hear?” Hetyl scolded. “Don’t nod!” Then he stood and left the hut as Lirak felt consciousness fading away again.
Lirak dreamed. Again he found himself eagle-like moving far above the forest. The forest below was dusted with a layer of new-fallen snow. As he looked far to the east the roiling black cloud looked closer than ever. Blasts of unnatural lightning and fires raged in and below the cloud. The nearest point of the cloud was centered directly over the distant ribbon of the Fedon River. Whatever the source of the cloud, Lirak suddenly realized that it was moving up the river. Toward Luh-Yi. He thought grimly.
He moved east, struggling to overcome a sense of dread and panic that surged through him like a sudden wind. The evil of the cloud repulsed him like a physical thing, and he had to fight for every inch. Struggling hard he pushed forward until he was eventually far downriver and approaching the cloud which towered above him like some nightmarish mountain. He could now see shapes moving ahead of the cloud, like great birds moving on both sides of the river. Each shape emanated an evil presence so powerful that Lirak’s breath caught in his throat. The familiar inner voice of his mind warned him not to allow himself to be seen, even as a part of his mind protested it’s just a dream. The voice whispered back, heed my warning.
For all of his life Lirak had followed that inner voice. He waited when it said wait and ran when it said run. Following the voice had become more than a habit; it had become a central part of his self.
But this time something drove him on. There was something odd about those giant birds, and in spite of their aura of fear and power, in direct denial of his inner voice, Lirak struggled further forward.
No! You are not ready! The voice cried.
But it was too late. Just as Lirak realized that the flying beasts were not birds, his entire body lit up with sudden intense pain, far worse than the pain even from the fire in his hut. The beasts suddenly stopped their lazy circling and both accelerated directly toward him, their reptilian features and giant bat-like wings clawing at the air with ferocious strength.
Lirak was frozen with fear and pain. He dimly realized that his eagle body was plummeting directly toward the forest far below. He could feel a sudden crushing presence of awareness casting about around him, as if a hawk were searching for its prey.
Fight your fear! The voice in his mind cut through his panic like an axe. Flee the dragons!
Lirak fought through the panic and slowly regained control of his fall. Then, just as he turned to the west, he was certain he saw the form of a giant, screaming eagle slam into the lead dragon, driving it down to the forest as the second dragon stopped and roared after the falling dragon and eagle. As Lirak turned, a second larger eagle rushed past him, the wind of its passage nearly causing Lirak to lose control of his own flight again. Behind him he heard reptilian roaring and the shrill cries of the eagles. Suddenly he felt the searching awareness vanish and he fled to the west as fast as he could, wondering what was happening behind him, but too terrified to turn and look. The dream faded and he was b
ack in the smelly hut, his neck and shoulders protesting in pain as he felt his body thrashing about in the bedding.
“Lirak! Are you OK?” Soonya’s voice was there, full of concern, and Lirak finally allowed himself to breathe. The dream was over. He was back in Luh-Yi.
“I think so,” Lirak croaked. His throat felt a little better already. He realized that Soonya was holding his left hand as she leaned over the bed. Moving his neck and shoulders as little as possible, Lirak saw they were alone. For a long moment he lay there, recovering his mental equilibrium. Finally his breathing slowed and his muscles relaxed. He squeezed his mother’s hand.
“Mother,” he said, intending to ask about the box, but instead both were suddenly distracted by a loud cry from outside the hut, and then a bedlam of voices.
“What’s happening?” Lirak asked, while Soonya shook her head in confusion. Then Jerok pushed his head into the hut, his face white with shock.
“Kodul is dead,” he said.
Lirak had a sudden vision of a great eagle in his mind. “Kodul? Dead?” he croaked. He felt his hand slide from Soonya’s suddenly limp fingers.
Kodul’s death hit Luh-Yi hard. Hetyl would not let Lirak leave the hut for the sending of Kodul to the arms of Kathoias. But Lirak heard the villagers as they mourned their leader. It’s my fault Lirak thought as he lay in the bed watching the moon shadow of the doorway creep across the wall. My fault. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as he heard the villagers begin the Song of Sending. He mouthed the words himself, wishing he could be there to say his own goodbyes. A shadow crossed the open doorway.
“Lirak?” Mayrie stepped into the hut.
“Mayrie?” Lirak croaked. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Shhhh…” Mayrie said, moving to the side of Lirak’s bedding and kneeling down. She placed a finger on Lirak’s lips. “Don’t talk.”
“But what…?” Lirak started to say when Mayrie’s warm full lips suddenly met his own. Mayrie’s fingers glided across his cheek and he felt a hot tear fall onto the bridge of his nose.