Ravinor

by Travis Peck

  Each time she thought of her father, the image of his scraggly beard and his kind eyes would send her into another spiral of anguish. Thinking of Daeris, Evin, or Prayg falling at the hands of the ravinors threatened to consume her whenever her mind touched upon them. This is what the victims she had seen for so long in the ravinor dream—in these reapings the Shadowman had called them—must have been feeling. She quailed at the thought that she had finally discovered how to free souls in the dream and she was now powerless to do anything for her loved ones who might appear here.

  Moira wailed into the confines of her stone-walled cell. Her screams of heartache and torment echoed in the small chamber so loudly that she thought it would deafen her.

  “STOP. I WILL LET YOU OUT NOW.”

  Moira’s sobs gradually slowed. She willed her tears away, and they vanished, but the raw emotion would never leave her.

  “DO NOT THINK TO LEAVE HERE. IF YOU DO, YOU WILL AWAKEN SURROUNDED BY RAVINORS. THEY WILL KILL YOU IF YOU RETURN TO YOUR BODY.”

  Moira nodded. She had no desire to enter the physical world that no longer held the people she loved. If any had survived, though, she intended to get them out of the reaping. That was her purpose now.

  “I will stay here. Let me out.” She agreed to the Shadowman’s demands.

  The walls vanished, and more important, the black barrier was no more. She stood up in tall green grass that held no sign of her prison’s walls. The only mark that showed where she had been was the hole in the ground with the blue barrier shining through underneath.

  She turned to look at the Shadowman who was still wreathed in darkness but now assumed a normal man’s height. His cowl still blocked any light that would reveal his face despite the high-noon sun of the ravinor dream. She should have been elated to be out of the cell at last, but she only felt numb from the knowledge of the deaths of her family and friends.

  “Why is the hole still there?” she asked woodenly.

  “TO REMIND YOU.”

  “I doubt I would forget that.” Moira’s voice was bitter and laced with sarcasm.

  “DO NOT TAKE YOUR GRIEF OUT ON ME. I SAVED YOU.”

  “I asked you to save them!” Moira shrieked, ignoring the complete reliance she had on the Shadowman’s power over her continued existence, both here and in the physical realm.

  “AH YES. I FORGET HOW EMOTIONAL YOU HUMANS ARE. IT HAS BEEN LONG SINCE I HAVE SPOKEN TO ONE OF YOUR KIND.”

  “Emotional? My parents are dead! My friends are dead!” Moira screamed at him, unable to temper her anger.

  “AS ARE MINE.”

  That brought her up short. She had read one of Mon Lyzink’s earlier publication about ravinors, and the scholar was certain that ravinors did not remember their old lives. She asked as much of the Shadowman.

  He laughed. “PERHAPS THE REAPED DO NOT REMEMBER. I AM NOT ONE OF THE REAPED,” he answered. His voice was full of disdain at her presumption.

  “So, what happened to your loved ones then?”

  The Shadowman stood still, but the inky tendrils about him twisted and turned faster even as he remained silent. The silence stretched. Moira decided to ask another question but her captor answered before she could utter a word.

  “THEY DIED. THEY WERE NOT REAPED. SHE WOULD NOT ALLOW IT.”

  “Would it have been better if they had been reaped?” Moira asked, aware of her own ignorance on the matter.

  “OF COURSE IT WOULD HAVE!” The Shadowman had been calm up until he had mentioned the queen. Now his shadows writhed and danced around him faster and faster. Darkness began to pulse from him as his figure grew in stature.

  “I’m sorry! I do not know these things. None of us do,” Moira said, trying to placate her mad, would-be tutor.

  “I FORGET HOW LITTLE HUMANS KNOW OF US.” The Shadowman calmed himself and shrunk back down to a normal man’s size. His inky tendrils slowed to a gentle wave. “THE REAPED ARE AS A…CATERPILLER? NO. PERHAPS THEY ARE LIKE INFANTS…SOME MAKE IT TO ADULTHOOD; OTHERS DO NOT. MY PARENTS AND FAMILY WOULD HAVE HAD A CHANCE TO LIVE AGAIN.”

  “But—” Moira began to speak.

  “ENOUGH.”

  Moira quieted, resisting the urge to keep pressing him. For just a moment, she had forgotten about her grief as she conversed with the Shadowman. She knew she had discovered details that even Mon Lyzink did not know.

  The Shadowman cocked his cowl-covered head for a moment as if he sensed something. His wisps of darkness froze. Moira nearly called out to him but decided to hold her tongue. It was as if the Shadowman had been turned to stone before her. She noticed the strange creaking noise again that she just could not seem to place. It was the barest of whispers, and she had to train all her attention on the noise to make it out. There was definitely something familiar to her about that sound.

  Moira startled as the Shadowman and his cloak of shifting darkness came to life again. She swore that he was feeling agitated by the way the tendrils shot back and forth, but she could not rely upon any emotion she thought she felt from the figure before her, so conflicted and mercurial they seemed. But what could possibly agitate him so? she asked herself. The manor was destroyed and the Shadowman and the ravinors were the victors. What could have gone wrong? She flared with sudden hope that perhaps there had been survivors from the attack.

  As if the Shadowman had read her thoughts, he responded. “THERE WILL BE NO REAPING OF YOUR FAMILY. THEY ARE ALL DEAD,” the specter informed her, neither gloating nor ashamed by his pronouncement.

  No! She refused to believe him. Ravinor attacks often resulted in many deaths but there should still be some people who had survived the initial attack. She would free them during the reaping. I will! Once more, as if her thoughts were cast about in the ether for the Shadowman’s perusal, he spoke again.

  “YOU DO NOT BELIEVE ME. THAT IS FINE. YOU SHALL SEE DURING THE REAPING THAT YOUR DEAREST ONES ARE NOT THERE. IF I AM WRONG AND THEY APPEAR, I WILL LET YOU FREE THEM IF YOU CAN.”

  Moira stood shocked. She felt hope that maybe, just maybe, her parents and friends had survived. But the Shadowman’s offer gave her doubts. Surely if they lived, he would not want her to be able to save them. Of course, with this obviously disturbed creature before her, she could not count on rational decisions. She decided to believe him for now, but she would only know for certain at the next reaping. She gathered herself. Any thoughts of her loved ones tied her head and stomach into knots and she could scarcely think. She did not think it was wise to be vulnerable in front of the Shadowman.

  “Very well,” Moira conceded in as strong a voice as she could muster. “Now what?”

  The Shadowman laughed and the sound reverberated through her head and throughout the dream.

  “NOW YOU LEARN.”

  ***

  Time passed, or seemed to pass, in the ravinor dream. The too-large sun and equally large moon traded off suddenly before her with no in-between position for either of the heavenly bodies. It was either midday or midnight.

  Moira wondered whether the instant that the sun or moon suddenly appeared high in the sky coincided with the same time in the waking world; or, in this place, did time matter at all? She counted each time she saw the sun as a new day. For what that was worth here. It was her tenth day in the ravinor dream—or her tenth sun since she was released from her stone cell.

  Her stomach no longer felt empty, so she assumed she had been fed by her captors wherever her body now resided. Had only a day passed in the waking world compared to the ten she had counted here? Wouldn’t she have been fed a few times by now in the physical realm if she had been in this place that long? Too many questions…

  The Shadowman came and went, but she could not discern whether or not the interval he was gone had been the same each time. The mind wandered in this place, and whenever her awareness returned to the present, she could not tell how much time had passed. Much like when she was immersed in a good book and lost herself for candles on end until a knock on her bedroom door
would startle her back to her surroundings. Except that here, there would be no knock on her door to bring her back.

  The mysterious apparition that was the Shadowman, for all that he had said that he would teach her the ravinor dream, had only spoken with her a handful of times since she was released from her cell. During one such time, he had raved at her for no apparent reason. The next, he would be kind and sympathetic to her grief of losing her loved ones. More important than his erratic behavior, the last time he had spoken to her, he had told her that there would be a reaping when the moon rose again. Moira prayed to the Giver that she would see her family and friends appear in the grass field of the ravinor dream and save them from their grim futures. At least with her stuck in this place, they had the chance of escaping the horror of becoming a ravinor.

  Now that she was free from her cell, Moira used her power, or ability, or whatever it was that had allowed her to best the Shadowman, with great caution. She had no wish for falling out of this place into an eternal plummet through nothingness. The thought made her shiver, as it had since her host had told her of it. Not only that, but Moira did not want to waste her strength on anything other than the reaping where the casualties from the battle at the Geryn estate would appear. Nor did she know how much she could use her power before it drained away when she might need it the most. Was there a finite supply of power she could draw on, or was it like an inexhaustible, vast sea of energy that she could call upon at need? She would ask the Shadowman when next she saw him. Or so she intended. With the Shadowman’s erratic behavior, it was impossible to count on his cooperation.

  One moment, the sun was at its apex; the next, the bright yellow orb was gone, replaced by the softer glow of the moon in a dark sky. Any questions vanished from her mind. The reaping was beginning.

  She felt, rather than saw, the Shadowman arrive with the coming of the full moon. Perhaps his ethereal self only haunted the corridors but his presence felt like it was all around her and the grassy fields below. Figures flashed into view. More and more of them. The ravinors in the physical world had been busy, and the humans had not fared well if the numbers she saw were any indication.

  More people than had ever been on the Geryn estate were here. Moira knew well enough what that meant, and she had the unpleasant feeling that this would become the norm in the days to come. The ravinors must be raiding throughout the empire, and at a more furious—and much more devastating—pace than any other time that she could recall.

  Moira gasped. The blacksmith from the estate—Master Hennith—ran his hand over the tops of the grass with a look of bewilderment on his face. She knew that look would soon be replaced by terror. As she gathered up her power, the Shadowman’s voice rang out in her head.

  “I WILL ALLOW YOU TO SAVE ONE WHO IS NOT OF YOUR FAMILY. ONLY ONE.”

  She hesitated, then allowed the build up of power to fade away, unused and harmless. She felt terrible. Moira dared not risk the Shadowman’s wrath if she went against his instructions. Her survival depended on her erratic host. She was at his mercy in every possible way. She had no wish to be shut away again in a cell, nor did she have any desire to go back to her body—if she even could—surrounded by ravinors who would set upon her without a moment’s hesitation. She asked forgiveness from the Giver for her selfishness in abandoning Master Hennith, but even if the Giver forgave her, she would never forgive herself.

  More people she recognized appeared in the field. More people she did not dare to help lest she lose her chance of saving those closest to her. Each familiar face would haunt her, and if she could dream in this place, they would certainly fill her nightmares. Some vanished from the field, adding to the ranks of ravinors. Master Hennith was one of those unlucky souls, but she supposed it was better to go before experiencing the terror of the Shadowman.

  All the people were gone from the field now. She waited for the dream to change to the corridor but the scene before her remained as it was. Then, suddenly, the moon changed back to the midday sun and daylight flashed into being. The once-moonlit field of grass was verdant under the bright golden sun. Moira was baffled by the sudden change in time during a reaping, but she was baffled by many things in the ravinor dream.

  She called out to the Shadowman but there was no answer. No doubt he was busy reaping in the corridor. Moira almost attempted to leave the dream then and there. She did not know if she could allow herself to be taught by such a monster as the Shadowman. Despite his moments of sympathy and sanity, he was still responsible for turning countless humans against their will, and she would never forget that.

  His madness reminded her of a dog they had kept when she was younger. The dog had turned rabid after a run-in with a fox that carried the fatal disease. Old memories of the kind and gentle dog she had known and loved had made the bloodshot eyes, and frothing, snarling mouth all the more difficult to bear. Was the Shadowman, as her dog had been, driven mad by something that he had had no control over? Moira knew whatever had happened to the Shadowman to make him this way was the queen’s doing. Although she had nothing other than instinct that told her so.

  Moira’s mind was jerked backed to the dream as the fields were suddenly teeming with people. Not dozens; not hundreds, but thousands. These figures seemed less bemused by the fields stretching infinitely into the distance. It was as if they had never seen so much land before. Then Moira noticed the strange clothing they wore.

  The majority of the figures wore loose-fitting robes that folded around their bodies in such a way that did not even require a belt to keep them on. The men and women were all shorter than Styrics and had darker complexions, not nearly as dark as those from Abin-Lin, but perhaps a little paler than the peoples of Zhurak. Their eyes were striking with their narrow slits, almost as if they were squinting in the sunlight.

  Rhyllians! Moira realized. From the archipelago far to the east. But she had never heard that ravinors lived anywhere else but Styr. With the great number of humans in the dream, she feared that the ravinors had done terrible damage to the islander’s home. Moira knew that Rhyllia was sparsely populated and, judging from the tally of people here in the field, a great percentage of the population had been infected.

  Moira tried to think back to her journal and recalled a handful of Rhyllians being present in the dream before, but that had been years ago. It was their strange eyes that had prompted her to search through her books for descriptions of peoples with that specific trait. Her previous search had allowed her to identity them now. If the Rhyllians were being infected at this rate, Moira did not think that the archipelago had long before it was entirely cleared of any humans. She wondered how it could have happened.

  Moira had heard that other nations quarantined any vessels from the empire to make sure there was no ravinor infection aboard that could spread to their own lands. And Rhyllia had long had a trading relationship with Styr, so they knew the importance of keeping the islands free from the ravinor curse.

  This development terrified her and made her have a horrible vision of the future. She imagined her unconscious body, poised between life and death, still and unmoving, lying on a pallet that was being conveyed around the empire as a prize to celebrate the ravinors’ triumph over their now-extinct enemies. Only ravinors remained, and they kept her alive for an eternity in the ravinor dream as they paraded her body in front of the throngs of reveling ravinors. Her ethereal self trembled at the chilling picture in her mind, though she knew it could not be true. Yet.

  Desperate to stop her mind from fixating on her horrible vision, Moira turned her attention back to the fields. The islanders were much more frightened than the Styrics had been during this first phase of the dream. It must have been especially odd for the victims being pulled from whatever fever dreams they were having only to be thrust into lands that stretched farther than they had ever seen. The largest island, Moira recalled, was only a few days’ ride in diameter and these fields were never ending.

  The people teeming in the
grass became increasingly frantic as they sought an end to this unfamiliar expanse of land before them. As the frightened souls ran to and fro, Moira still half-expected them to collide with one another in the crowded area, but none did. Somehow the ravinor dream kept them separated, and even though she could see the other people in the dream, each soul was alone here. A sad thought, but one that would become bleaker when the souls vanished from the dream and returned back to their bodies as a ravinor.

  She could not tolerate another moment of this. Remembering what the Shadowman had done to her, she felt the power build within her and released it to fashion walls around her that obscured her view of the great number of terrified islanders running through the tall grass beneath her. The walls popped into being around her. She left the space above her clear and filled with sky. Moira did not want to inadvertently imprison herself.

  Tears rolled down her cheeks, and as quickly as they came, she willed them away, but the flow continued. She was sorely tempted to return to her body, even though she knew it would be her end. Moira knew that the world was in great peril, and she could do nothing to stop it. Or perhaps she could? Stricken with grief and shame, she promised herself that she would endure the madness of the Shadowman and learn whatever she could so that one day she could end these reapings for good—before humanity was no more. She would sacrifice herself to free as many souls as she could, but she knew she would only have one chance to do so, and she did not yet have the knowledge to carry out her new plan. I will, though.

  Epilogue

  FIRST DAUGHTER OF THE Ravinor Queen stood at the entrance to the sea cave, the waves lapping just shy of her bare feet as if the ocean did not dare to presume to trespass where she stood. She loved the sand and walked barefoot whenever she could at her new home—something she had never been able to do back in her birthplace. Zhurak was much different from Styr, blistering hot during the day and cool in the evenings. First Daughter loved the extremes each day. More than anything, she loved the freedom.