by Brindi Quinn
Pedj perks. “You hear that?”
It was most likely a hopping bullyfrog.
Mael ignores him and spits a clear, pointed bone into her palm. “Techton,” she says, “you’re on your way home, right?”
“I am,” he says, nodding. “Why?”
“Think you can help us cross the Gated Rise?” she says – to which her disinclined cousin chokes upon the fishy flesh between his teeth.
“You need help, after all,” Techton replies, paying the zombie no mind. “I suspected as much.”
“We’re o-KA!” Pedj sputters, sending a tidbit of shark meat from his mouth.
“Apologies, Lady. I don’t think your brother wants me along.”
“Cousin,” corrects Mael. “Doesn’t matter what he thinks.”
Ah. Mael seeks to help her forememory along. Whether such a thing is right or wrong, one thing is certain: Crossing the Gated Rise is no easy task. If anything, we may use this man for his knowledge.
“Awyer,” I say. “Ask him to assist you.”
Flat-out, I am responded:
“No.”
“No?”
“Tell me what is causing you stress;” he says, “then I will.”
“Later. It is important that we obtain the Azurian’s aid. If you wish to reach your homeland – if you wish to be released of this power – you must ask his assistance.”
Awyer releases a defeated grumble. “Techton, I also request your help.”
“Hey!” Pedj cries. “Takin’ their side? Thought you was better than that!”
Awyer is even. “Be realistic, Pedj. We need him.” He nods to Techton. “Will you?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, it doesn’t affect me at all. I have to go that way anyway. I’ll even take you as far as Fetra’s Nerve. My motto is: Heloõs brolee, aquis brolee. ‘Help a brother, gain a brother.’ Keep up with my pace, and I have no problem showing you the secret to crossing the Rise.”
. . . So he says.
But his pace . . .
Is nothing great to speak of.
Leisurely. It is foremost leisurely.
Techton is a pleasure traveler, without time constraint and without life care. He stops frequently to collect things that catch his eye. He takes many breaks, and eats at least three meals in a day. Mael’s dreamy pace is befitting of his.
Together they walk and make comment on the flowers and the birds and the shapes spelled in the clouds.
“That one’s a feline, for sure,” notes Techton. “By the way, Lady, you haven’t mentioned where you got your stripes.” He points to her waist.
“I’m half tiger. Rrrrrr.” Mael forms her hands into claws.
She is rewarded by a laugh and a pat to the head. “Good kitty.”
Pleasant, they are. Annoyed, Pedj is. And indifferent, my ward remains. Only I skim with haste. Though by all right means, I should be the last to do so. I know most what hurrying means.
Why, then, do I run?
So that Awyer will not keep up with me.
So that I may outrun the guilt I feel.
So that I will not fall to temptation again. Temptation that pulls at me in the night when he sleeps with vulnerability; and in the day when he walks with a man’s gait.
I distract myself with Mael and Techton’s jabber that fills the wild air.
“That one’s a chipperpillar,” explains Techton of a worm crawling the trunk of a tree. He points it out with his toad-webbed weapon.
“Chipperpillar,” says Mael. And then, pointing at a low-to-the-ground fowl fleeing our path: “Bird runner.”
Techton chuckles at her.
They carry on this way, over land and stream, into night, and in the morning they rise and start again.
Until, at one point, their jabber changes to excitement.
A gleam in the distance alerts that the Gated Rise draws near, and a change in the air alerts that my Amethyst is stifling.
Troublesome.
“Get ready, all.” Techton stops to throw a piece of advice over his shoulder: “Today will not be counted among your best days.”
Chapter XI: Scarabs
Lakes clutter the terrain, broken by slim crosses of rocky, short-grassed land. It is like a maze, a maze of land strips holding their ground against the water’s will to take over. Mael leads us through the maze toward the gleaming obstacle we are to pass; and the nearer we get, the more slowly the Amethyst runs in my nonexistent veins. Across a river called ‘Sister’ we go. A wide river, too wide to swim, Sister fights alongside her brother for dominance over this land. She passes rapidly beneath our bridge, kicking her spray up at us as if to taunt our dry state.
“Shoo,” Mael bids her. “Shoo, hoo, hoo!”
Techton laughs over her response, though he is the only one to do so.
Into clear view comes the wall. The impasse. The obstruction of obstructions.
“That is the Gated Rise?” When Awyer inspects the wonder for the first time, stopping at the far banks of Sister River where the last of the land bridges has led us, he is not impressed.
Sandwiched between the two bottomless, eastward-flowing rivers, there is a wide strip of land stretching west. Where it leads is a region not many have seen, for separating that strip from the rest of the world is a great wall running north to south, stopping midway through each of the two vast sibling rivers, and rising high into the sky. But it is not just any wall, nor is it one of ordinary construction; it is a wall comprised entirely of chain. Glimmering hot in the midday sun, metal has been sewn through metal to form a massive fence, its purpose to keep the forested region of ‘Reck’ from the rest of civilization. By whom, even I do not know. The Gated Rise is held by magicks old enough to last even without master.
But though it is without master, it is not without guardian.
All along the wall, infant-sized scarabs crawl, the gold of their hard bodies contrasted against the silver of the stiff chain. Their pincers clip any birds unfortunate enough to get too close.
“Aye,” I tell him. “That is the Rise. When I was last here, the northern river was called Brother, and the southern river, that which we just crossed, was called Sister. The land between them, west of the Gated Rise, is the Reck. That is where Mael thinks to lead us.”
Still unimpressed, my ward’s ignorance is about to be made clear. “Why can we not backtrack over the river, tread west along the bank until we are past the Rise, and swim through the water to reach the land beyond?”
The fault is mine, for I have refrained from telling him of the marvels of the world.
Techton releases a laugh. “Well, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? On top of being too wide and fast for a normal man to swim, the waters don’t have bottoms. Both rivers are infested with throngs of merbabes. I’ll tell you right now, you won’t make it more than a few strokes. Their caves are deep underwater, and they’ll pull you all the way down with them before making a meal of you.”
Pedj shudders. “They’ll eat the flesh smack off your bones.”
True, it is a frightening idea, but my ward is not affected. His thoughts move quickly. “Why do we not use enchants to carry us over?” he says.
“Is that an offer?” I jest. “So eagerly you wish to enchant? Might it be that you are beginning to delight in your power?”
It is not the case, of course, and I am answered by a wayward eye roll.
“Like what we did at the Faded Enchants?” says Pedj. “Won’t work.”
“Feel that?” says Mael in agreement. “The air is voided. The rivers keep goin’ and goin’. They go out, out, out through the Eternity Vessel. Enchants don’t work here.”
“They’re erratic at best,” agrees Techton. “It’s actually the water that’s responsible. Corrupted maybe, more than ‘voided’. A spell could get you into the air. But it could also blow off your foot. And even if you were to get into the air, the chances are you’d ticker out halfway through and drop into the current. You just never know, so around here, it’s best not to use the
m at all.”
It is a paradise for my ward. He glances at his wrists, which have undoubtedly cooled in the last hour. “So we climb. All right.” He takes a step toward the gate and is straightaway stopped by two arms: one skeletal, one invisible.
“Hoo! You crazy?” says Pedj.
“See higher on up?” Techton says as he points to one of the golden scarabs. “If the beetles feel the chain jiggle, they’ll scurry down. Those pincers are sharper than the sharpest knives. In fact, I’d like to get my hands on a set . . .” He shakes his head to shake away the impossible notion. “I’ve seen a man’s hand get snipped off.”
“I have seen the same fate befall a man’s head,” I tell Awyer.
It is not a pleasant memory.
Folding his arms, my ward stares down the wall before us as though it is a tangible enemy that would cower under his glare. “What about farther west along the banks of the rivers? Does the land never cross? Has no one ever constructed a bridge?”
Pedj rubs his face, tiring of Awyer’s unawareness. “Sure, they tried to make bridges before. The Reck IS just plopped in the middle of Bloődite territory like a crankin’ blemish. What’s is, is the banks get farther and farther apart – being the rivers get wider – and in the past, whatever they tried buildin’ was done in by the merbabes. There was the First, Second, and Third Waterbridge Massacres.” Pedj counts them on his fingers. “We’ve learned our lesson by now. Twig it?”
“If there are people living beyond this gate, can they not assist in constructing something?” says Awyer.
“Supposedly there’s people livin’ there.” Pedj raises a brow in Techton’s direction to show his doubt. “There’s a bunch of forest on the inside banks of the rivers, so even with a telescope, it’s not like we can see what it’s like in the Reck from across the water. And there ain’t crews of people on the inside wavin’ their hands and offerin’ to grab the other end of a rope or nothin’ – not that a rope would make it past the merbabes, anyhoop.”
Awyer frowns. “The rivers run west forever?”
“S’far as I know,” says Pedj.
“And enchants cannot be safely used along them?”
“Nuh-uh,” says Mael.
“And this is the way we must go?”
The shadow pulls Mael’s wrist directly at the center of the Rise, as it has been since arriving. “Uh-huh,” she says unquestioningly.
“Mm.” A closing sound from the sphinx to alert that he is finished ridiculing their methods.
“Now that that is settled, inquire of the Azurian his technique of passing,” I instruct.
Obedient, Awyer opens his mouth, but Pedj beats him to it. “SO, what’s your big, secret plan, Techie?” he says, arms folded and brow raised in a stance that is both skeptical and annoyed.
“I thought you’d never ask.” Smiling coyly, Techton drops his rucksack onto the ground and sets off undoing the front pocket. “Step one,” he says, pulling from the bag a melon-sized ball. “Tinkers.”
“Tinklers?” says Pedj.
“Tinkers.” Techton pushes a button on the outside of the ball, and the ball responds by splitting in half. I look on with interest. Whatever he is doing, I have never seen it done before.
Within each shell of the ball, there is a winding-key and a two-pronged hook. “First, a demonstration,” says Techton. He begins to wind the key. Once around, twice around, and when he releases, the half-ball responds by vibrating furiously – so much so that it is difficult for the Azurian to hold on to.
“A child’s toy,” coos Mael.
“Yy-y-ou’re c-c-close,” says Techton, arms and voice shaking frantically under the influence of the so-called tinker. “W-w-what’s going to h-happen is this: I’ll wind up this t-t-tinker–” He raises the jiggling half-ball – “And I’ll h-hook it to the R-R-Rise. The m-movement from it will c-cause all of the beetles to come sc-scurrying. While they’re d-d-distracted, we, v-very carefully, will scale the w-wall. The k-k-key is to make steady m-movements. If the tinker j-j-j-jiggles more than us, the b-beetles will leave us alone.”
“How long?” says Mael.
“T-t-tinkers run a m-minute for each time they’re w-wound, up to fifteen t-t-turns. That gives us f-fifteen minutes. P-p-plenty of time to reach the t-top.”
“Oh, really? And the beetles on the other side?” questions Pedj.
“Th-that’s what the other h-half of the b-b-ball is for. When we g-get over to the other s-side, I’ll w-wind it up and throw it d-down. With any l-luck, it’ll hook.”
“WITH ANY LUCK?!” Pedj lashes. “You’re a ripe nut! A loonsie! And full of crank, at that!”
Aye, the plan does not seem sound at all.
“Grim would like to know how many times you have done this,” Awyer voices my concern.
“Um, a d-d-dozen, give or take. K-keep in mind, I usually do this alone, b-but if everyone is quick and l-l-light on their feet, we’ll m-make it just fine.”
He is calm. Both he and Mael. And even Awyer, considering. Though not yet convinced, my ward is collected. Only Pedj shares in my grief. His teeth grind in guarded protest.
“No, no, NO! Not a crankin’ chance I’s crawlin’ up there! Mael, time to abandon your birdie!”
Mael drifts gaze from her cousin to her wrist, where lies the bangle that is the shade bird’s grounding. She gives it a shake. “Won’t come off. See?” She points to the gate. “Gotta go up, Pedj.”
“Right, right, ‘cause the water told you so. ‘Cause a pair of witches gave you a bird and called it a map. We ain’t doing this! It’s a punk plan is what it is! Tell them, Awyer!”
But Awyer is too busy catering to me and my paranoia.
“Then what would you have me do, Grim? Do you know of another way?”
It is fuel for the skeletal boy’s spasms. “SEE! Even the agent doesn’t agree! She knows! Talk some sense into him, Mistress!”
But I am not so sure. I know that my ward does not die here. I know that he cannot. What I do not know is if it is because he makes it over the wall, or because we will find another way around.
It is a moment of consequence.
“Please.” I whisper a prayer to Bloőd and Azure. “Show me.”
Though nothing has been revealed to me in days, now is the time when it must. Our destiny cannot move forward if I do not know for certain. I place my hand to Awyer’s. I wind my fingers through his, ignoring the joy found in the act alone, and slip my thumb to his wrist. There is nothing. Naught but the here and now. But I need there to be more.
I caress his skin with my silvery thumb and attempt to connect to his veins. Meanwhile, he, wondering why I have made contact with him, watches my mouth with peculiarity.
“Please.” A breath, a prayer, a cry. The word is all three.
And it is answered. The future flashes at the front of my mind, hazed like a dream yet certain as death:
“I suppose I should thank you for your role in this act,” I say to the man directly beside me, a man who is able to hear my words even in the absence of my preoccupied pactor.
To be heard and seen by everyone – the Land of Gold is truly a miraculous place.
“Don’t bother. You know why I agreed,” the Azurian responds, stroking his chin. “What can I say? When it comes down to it, there are only a few things a man really cares about.”
I wonder, is the same true of Awyer? There was once a time when I believed he cared for nothing.
But now is not the time to be wondering that. To the Azurian at my side, I bid,
“Whatever your motives, you are appreciated, Techton. You have my gratitude. Were it not for you, we would not even have made it beyond the Rise.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m sure your Amethyst boy would have found a way. Just look at him, Mistress. He is remarkable.”
With that, the smitten one slips away to join his lady.
I turn my attention to the center of the arena, where Awyer stands atop a pillar, encompassed in a
funnel of Amethyst smoke. Soundless, the air around him rises, pushing the cloud higher and higher until there is nothing less than a direct line to the heavens.
From below him, a golden light shines, through which stoic faces are visible. One rises above the rest. Part man, part lion, the being offers a token to the deliverer that is Awyer.
But Awyer does not take the token. Instead, he instructs a person in the shadows to step forth.
I give a start.
That is not how it is meant to be. It is all, ALL wrong! Alas, when I try to cry out to him, a garbled voice at my back interrupts,
“He’s doing it for you, faerie. Just ask the necromancer.”
I look down the wall, where stands a girl of disconnected gaze. Mael, the true necromancer, has been warning me of this all along. Why did I not listen to her!? Now, because of me, Awyer will be . . .
The voice at my back begins to whistle.
I am pulled into the present.
I am dawned by understanding.
It is not by drinking the void that the whistling person at my back is able to see me. In the Golden Lands, it is such that I will be visible to all!
“Grim.” Awyer knows that something has just happened to me, and his jaw is set. “Where did you go?”
“It will be fine.” I draw a deep breath over the excitement the revelation has caused me. “All will be fine.” I give his fingers a squeeze before I release them. “I need you to ask a few more things of the Azurian.”
Awyer is not gladdened by my request. He does not delight in being my mouthpiece. Regardless, I tell my questions to him.
“Techton, why are there no remains of the tinkers you left behind?” he asks.
Techton motions to the wall. “There are, along the ground. For the most part, though, the beetles keep on them until there’s nothing left.”
Awyer continues, “Have any of the scarabs ever come after you?”
“One or two.” Techton wiggles his scythe. “That’s what this is for.”
Not the answer I had hoped for. Again, Pedj shares in my reaction. From the look of it, his soul nearly leaves his body as, hopping rabidly, he begins to tug at his hair and mutter a string of curses at Techton, the wall, and the scarabs.