by D. H. Dunn
It didn’t matter now, all that was important was protecting his friends. He pushed down with the blade. Just a little more pressure. You can do this, Val.
Val pushed the knife in before he could lose his nerve. Gritting his teeth, he pulled the blade across his forearm, the skin separating in a long gouge.
The blood was immediate, and the pain was great, higher than any he had experienced. He bit his tongue to keep from crying out, knowing if Zel and Yan ran the beast was sure to chase them.
Now his mouth was filled with blood as well, the two wounds pulsing and competing to see which could be more painful. As his head crystal glowed a brilliant red, he held his arm to the wind and waited to see if the scent of his blood affected the darkeel.
His heart pounded in his chest, the scales on his skin going dry with his fear. The next moments could either be Zel and Yan’s last, or his own.
The clearing in front of him was now empty, the dull hiss of the wind pushing through the brush and the far-off noises of his friends conversation were the only sounds. The growls of the darkeel had vanished along with the creature.
Where? He tried and failed to keep the panic from building.
His arm throbbing, Val focused on calming his mind so he could reach out with his senses.
The exercises his father had taught were hard to recall in the mix of fear and pain that stormed through his mind. It took all of his will power to steady his breathing, as he reached out with his perceptions.
His sense of the area around him was blurred, his pain and fatigue mixing with the eel’s to form a confusing maelstrom in his mind’s eye. Was it behind him? To his left?
Everything was spinning. Val squeezed his eyes shut but still could not focus.
The eel burst through the bushes behind him, landing on Val’s back and knocking them both to the ground.
He felt the scrape of claws digging through his leather shift and into his back, crying out at the pain. Pawing at the damp mass of vegetation, he scrambled forward with the wounded beast still clinging to him.
His heart pounding, he twisted onto his back, hoping to pin the creature to the ground. The eel slid off him, yelping as Val’s movements caused its own wounds to come into contact with the many sharp vines and brambles of the Wood.
A thorn cut a line across Val’s face as he struggled to his feet, searching for somewhere to run. The boundary of where the Wood met the field was dense with all manners of pointed growth, brambles and vines everywhere.
Vines! A thought lit off in his head.
He could hear the ragged pants of the eel as it got back on its feet. With a frantic energy, Val searched around himself, looking for the tell-tale blue illumination of the sleep vines. Out of the corner of his right eye, he spotted a dense bush teeming with the dangerous plant.
He dove for the bushes, the eel directly behind him. He could sense its intense need for him, its hunger and pain was like a second sun in his mind. It would now pursue him until one of them died.
As the first thorn scraped past his flesh, ripping a gouge in his arm, Val said a prayer to the Sea and Sky that he could outlast his pursuer.
A sharp slice at his leg marked the second thorn, a rip at his thigh the third. Val covered his eyes with his arms as he pushed farther into the vast bush, the wounds from the sleepvine thorns now like a hundred wasps as he ran through them.
The heated breath of the eel was ever-present at his back. He could hear the beast’s yelps and hisses as their path through the vines shredded its skin as well.
Through breaks in the bush he could see the golden light of the fields just ahead, only a few steps further.
Yet those steps felt like leagues to his now aching muscles. With each fresh cut and slice from the vines he grew slower, the venom causing his arms and legs to feel like stone.
There was a rush in his ears, a great wind blowing through them though he felt no breeze. His mouth dried, and the world began to blur in front of his eyes, losing focus.
He fell through the final patch of tangled growth, passing out of the boundaries of the Wood as the browns and yellows of the field seemed to rise up to meet him.
Val collapsed upon the grass, his mind having only a moment to remark upon its comfort before a heavy weight crashed into his back.
He could feel the grunt of the darkeel as it landed upon him, one claw digging a fresh groove into his shoulder blade. The pain was distant, like a far-off call. The beast’s breath was as labored as his own, the pair of them wheezing together as the tall grasses swayed back and forth with the wind.
Faint cries reached his ears, though he was not certain if they were his own, or the eel’s. As his thoughts began to swirl like the colors that danced before his eyes, he heard words forming in his mind, a voice he had dreamed of hearing again.
“Avoid?” His father’s tone was scornful, though it sounded too distant to be real. “Appease? Accept? There must be more, Valaen. We must be more! We must rise up!”
Hearing his father’s impassioned pleas, Val braced himself against the ground with his hands and pushed his chest off the dry grasses of the field. His arms shook from the effort, every bone in his body pleading with him to rest.
As he trembled, he felt the weight upon his back release as the heavy darkeel slid off him and fell with a muffled thud onto the earth. Val collapsed as well, his breath pushed out of his lungs from the exertion.
He rolled onto his back, the Sky above him just a blue smudge across his blurred vision, no different to his eyes than the Sea. As unconsciousness approached him like a predator, he wondered if the Sea would claim him in death as he had dreamed, or if his crimes would punish him to fly above the world, drying in the Air’s judgement.
Val blinked as two darker blurs leaned over him, one golden and one blue, both murmuring words he could not hear. Perhaps these were the angels of the Sea, come to guide him. It would be bliss, he had always been told.
Even as the end called to him, a tiny itch pushed against his mind. He had more to do, he was not done. His friends still needed him, and Adda was still out there. Somewhere.
He could sense pressure against his arms and legs as they began to grow damp. He felt someone rubbing them with a wet cloth, pulling the venom of the sleepvines away from his wounds. Another cloth was being pressed upon his head, cool and refreshing against the warmth of his head crystal.
“Val!” The murmurs were growing clearer, the weariness beginning to fade as the hands rubbed away the toxins on his skin. “Val! Can you hear me!”
He blinked, the two faces coming into view. Zelquan and Yanare, each looking at him with matched expressions of fear and concern.
“Val!” Zelquan’s strong arms helped him sit up, while Yanare produced a water flask and held it to his lips. He allowed the cool liquid to fill his mouth, relishing the feeling as some of it dribbled away from his lips and ran with a soothing sensation down his skin and into his scales.
“We’ve been looking for you,” Zel said, clapping Val on the back as a coughing fit seized him.
“How?” He stopped, waiting for a moment for his throat to clear. “How did you know to come after me?”
Zel looked down at the tattered bandage the hung from his knee, a mixture of red blood and green moss paste clumped around the area.
“I cut myself on the nets this morning,” he said, a sheepish smile just grazing his face. “I went to see your mother for healing and found her in a state. She whispered so others would not hear, but she told me you were missing and begged me to look for you.”
Val cast his gaze over at Yanare. Zel’s presence made sense, but it was harder to understand why Yan would be here after yesterday.
“I offered to go with him,” Yan said. “My issues were with your father, not you. At least not until today. But now I see you returning from the Wood, where all are forbidden to go. This is what we came here to prevent.”
She shook her head. “You truly are your father’s son.”
>
“What does that mean?”
“You show no respect for the Elder’s words or lessons. No remorse for the damage your father has done.”
Val could feel his own frustration rising, competing with the emotions he could sense from his friends. Did she really think he agreed with how his father had handled this?
He sat up, taking a deep breath. He could feel the weariness brought on by the sleepvine venom draining out of him, but in its place was a new fatigue.
The same arguments, the same positions. Whether it was his mother and father, arguing in hushed voices they thought were too soft for his ears, or himself and Yanare. It made little difference.
“Yet you both live because of me.” The conviction in his tone surprised Val. He had broken the word of the Elders. Am I this sure I am right?
“I know,” Zel said, kneeling down. The glow of his headcrystal was soft, a soothing blue. “Thank you, Val. For what you did.”
A faint laugh escaped Val’s chest, falling out of his mouth like food he had forgotten to chew. For what he did. He had burst out of the Wood in order to save his friends, thus confirming his crime. Zel might not tell the Elders, but he was not as sure about Yan.
He stared at her, her eyes peering back at his beneath the intense light of the golden crystal in her forehead. So many seasons they had known each other, so many memories.
“You expect me to thank you as well, Valaen?” Her tone was a mirror of hers the day prior, when she had proclaimed his father a traitor to the village.
“I do,” Val said. “We have known each other too long, Yan. What you might say and feel today cannot erase all of that.”
Val watched Yan’s eyes as she glared back at him, the anger and frustration pouring out of her, her headcrystal gleaming a brilliant yellow, like a second sun. Val kept his own emotions in check as best he could, thinking of the times when he and Yan were younger. Running along the beach, skipping shells and digging tiny caves for the sand snails. Better times.
Her eyes began to lose a bit of their fire, the intensity of her light lessening.
“I am sorry, Val.” Her voice was quiet, but she did not look down as he had expected her to. “I give you my thanks. Both Zel and I would have been killed by the eel had you not acted.”
She stopped, turning to look back down the path to Caenola. The clouds passed over the hills like white sails, the wind bringing a faint salty hint of the sea on the air.
“Yet what you did, Val. It goes against everything.”
Val shook his head, unable to control his surprise at doing so. Were his father’s beliefs truly his own as well?
“No, Yan. What I did was try to save my friends. That I entered the Wood only goes against history. Against old words. Maybe it is time for something new.”
Yan took a step back, pointing to the azure sky above them.
“If the Sea and Sky had willed our deaths this day, is it not wrong for you to prevent it?”
Val could sense the confusion running underneath her anger, like a second current raging beneath the surface. Her breathing was shallow, her hand shaking as she held it aloft and pointed above them.
“Are you asking me, Yan? Or yourself?”
Zel took a step forward, trying to place himself between Val and Yanare.
“Both of you, maybe that’s not it.”
Val could feel his friend’s desperation. He was not struggling with the bigger questions as Yan was. Val didn’t need his emotional senses to tell him that. Zel just wanted everyone to get along.
“Maybe the Sea and Sky brought Val to us, Yan? If their will truly rules us all, how could it be anything else?”
Yan took another step backwards from them both, a new emotion threading through her. Tears stood in her eyes, yet within them he also saw anger and confusion.
“No,” she said, her voice breaking. She pointed at Val. “You are the poison, Val. Just as your father was. A sweet venom, honey on the tongue. Yet I will not be seduced by you. My family is charged with protecting our village from threats, and in you I see a danger greater than any darkeel or Thartark. You would rot us from the inside.”
She took another breath, letting it out with slow precision. Val could sense her emotions hardening inside her, chaos giving way to determination and resolve. She blinked her tears away, her eyes now cold.
“I have wasted more time on this than you deserve, Val. We have the anger of the Thartark to consider, now that your father has put us into the position of needing to appease them. He waits for you in the Wood. Go to the trees, the vines and the eels. The poison. They are the village you have chosen.”
She turned, a small cloud of dust gathering at the spin of her boots on the dirt of the path. Her shoulders shook with a sigh, then walked away from them, each step seeming an effort.
“I will wait for you at the gates, Zel. I hope you do not fall sway to this and become his father’s third victim.”
The wind rose, blowing her hair along with the golden stalks of grass around her as she walked. Val could her the faint clinking of the shells she had woven into her locks.
Just a few days earlier the three of them had walked through the center of the village, Yanare and Zel proudly displaying their courtship for all to see. Now, perhaps even that was uncertain.
Val turned to Zelquan, who stood watching as Yanare’s form became lost in the tall grasses.
“I am sorry, Zel, if this causes problems for you. That was never what I wanted.”
“Don’t be,” Zel said with a smile. “She is passionate, and I would not want her to be other than who she is. Should I return to the village, it is my belief she will still be waiting for me.”
“Should you return?” Val felt a spike of panic as he grasped Zel’s meaning. He reached out with both of his hands, gripping the taller man’ shoulders. “Zel, you cannot come with me!”
“I make my own choices,” Zel said, still smiling as he looked away. “I fear for your safety in the Wood, and I did promise your mother you would return. If I can keep you safe while we find your father…”
Val shook his head. The thought of Zel accompanying him was a tempting one, it was hard to imagine life without him. But Adda was Val’s problem, and the words he needed to say to his father were for them alone.
“No, Zel. You need to go back to the village. Go back with Yan.”
“I don’t understand,” Zel said, turning and placing his back to the road. “Why do you not want me with you?”
“For one, they all will starve without you back home. You can outfish half the village!”
He laughed, and Zel quickly joined him. It was a good feeling, one that made his crystal light with a soothing warmth above his eyes. He was not certain when he had last laughed, and wondered how long it would be before he could do so again.
He waited a moment for the euphoric feeling to pass, allowing it to linger like a pleasant scent on the wind. Once it had truly gone, he looked at Zelquan with a sigh.
“No, you must go back,” he said. “They need you Zel. You saw what happened with my father, and what happened between me and Yan. Too many minds are closed, each of us so sure of our correctness. You are willing to listen, to consider.”
Zel frowned, but said nothing.
“I am going back into the Wood after my father. Maybe that means I have come to agree with parts of his view, but he may not be right. I may not be right. Caenola needs people like you, Zel, who are willing to keep their harbors open to new ideas. At least for now, go back to them and be one of those people.”
Zel stood for a moment, clasping his hands together as he often did when he was considering something. He then nodded, and poked Val in the chest with one finger, still smiling.
“Then you promise me, Val. Go and find your father if that is what you must do. But return to the village when you have done so. Let them hear your words, Val. Let them judge if it is poison. Do not exile yourself, make them do it.”
Val nodded, hi
s vision blurring again as he felt tears in the corner of his eyes. He thought of all the moments he and Zel had spent; fishing, shelling along the beach, exploring the cove with a mistwhale. If this friendship was to be over, if he were never to see Zel again, this at least was a good ending.
“When you return to the village Zel, please give a message to my mother.”
He paused, realizing it would be the same words his father had mouthed to her as he walked away from the village in exile.
“Tell her I’m sorry.”
Zel nodded. Val turned away from him, knowing if he looked at his friend longer he might lose his nerve. In front of him was the same wall of trees and vines he had crossed earlier, but now it felt more real. Now he had tested his father’s beliefs, against both the darkeel and his friends.
He took a step forward, one boot leaving the golden grasses of the field and coming to rest on the first damp patch of vines in the Wood. A forbidden act, but now to Val there was more to life than dusty rules built by fear, time, and tradition. There was risk, there was challenge.
There was growth.
Inside the dark depths ahead of him, another who thought the same waited for Val to find him. With his headcrystal blazing crimson light into the shadows, Val walked confidently forward. He would break the words of the Elders and then return. He would show himself and his people that there were other paths that could be followed.
First, he would find Adda and get his answers. Then he would make things better for his people.
He was, after all, his father’s son.
Book Two: Seas of Everest
Chapter 1
The grass on Everest was a lush, verdant green.
Nima lay on her back, hands crossed behind her head, allowing this new world to soak into her. The grass poked through a thin layer of snow, tickling the back of her neck. She laughed at the pure magic of it all, her voice echoing happily down the mountain.
Grass on Everest, even if it was the Everest of another world. Her excitement ran through her like the wind. This was a world made for adventure.