Enigma: Awakening

by Damien Taylor

  Tell that to the orb.

  He slipped, nearly falling. Fearing for his life, Sergio hollered and flattened against the mountain. Irvina pointed to another alcove. We’d made it. Sergio rested on his back and closed his eyes, his breaths loud and chest heaving. “Oh, thank you, Ultima, Superiors, and all the powers that be!”

  “Your grumbling and climbing don’t mix well—or rather, your grumbling while trying to concentrate,” Irvina amended. “This way. Enflamos den malia.” The diamond-shaped stones embedded in the walls lit the dark alcove, revealing a tunnel. Fluttering bats fled from the light. “This path is called the Rise to Ievengrind. Welcome. This is the reason why those who climb this mountain cannot find the top. Without the permission of the naiads, or the power to deactivate our wards, it is impossible to gain passage.”

  We traversed the caves, passing leopards and mountain lions, and other lesser wildlife taking refuge from the weather. The Emerald endowed Sergio with the ability to speak with animals. His powers allowed him to be bigger and stronger while mirroring their form. He warded off the leopards’ truculent instinct with mere communication but to tame the lions, he had to become one.

  The road was an assortment of tunnels and outside trails. The snow came down harder as we went further up, and wintery white fog blanketed the distance. We had only to climb the wall twice more, but each was worse than the last because the weather had grown harsher with altitude. The winds fought ferociously. “Maybe I should become a bird, eh? Fly to the top and wait for you all to meet me,” said Sergio as he shook his hair and redid his ponytail.

  I grunted. “Why don’t you? I’d rather that instead of having to endure your grousing like an old hag."

  He laughed.

  The day had passed and by noon the next day after, we reached the summit, coming from a tunnel out onto the mountaintop. It was just as Irvina had described. Ievengrind Lake was beyond us, and there was only a single wood bridge that carried leagues onward to the Island of Dros’Mera. The subzero air struck hard. A massive tornado shrouded Dros’Mera. Irvina stood amazed and, for a moment, speechless at the spectacle ahead. There seemed to be confusion in her eyes, yet a drop of hope. “Dros’Mera,” she whispered. “What is going on?”

  I started for the bridge. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  With nothing but the clothes on our backs, water, and satchels of food, we walked. We had only gone a mile before Sergio started complaining again. “Winn, why are we going in this direction?”

  I was shivering, and my teeth chattered, lips chapped, and face stinging in the wind. I didn’t respond. I hoped and trusted the Amethyst to beckon when we arrived where we needed to be. It remained a dark violet hue. After another mile of walking, I could no longer feel my feet or hands. I was angry.

  “This is madness! We’re walking toward the blizzard. Who in their right mind would do this? Winn, seriously, we’re gonna’ die of frostbite if we don’t turn back.”

  I stopped. If I hadn’t been freezing, I would have ripped my clothes. Sergio was right. It was only getting colder, and if we kept going, we would soon be ice sculptures. “Let’s go back,” I decided as plainly and calmly as I could. This was a complete waste of time.

  When we turned behind us, a youthful voice sprung from the water suddenly. “You would give up so easily? Did the Amethyst really choose you as its master? I hope it knew what it was doing.” A translucent creature sprouted its head out of the dark water, placing its elbows on the bridge. Its form was of liquid and light, and it resembled a small girl. A swoop of hair moved behind it like a writhing tentacle.

  I turned in relief, and the others stared with blank expressions. “Who are you?” I asked, disgruntled.

  “My name is Aqua,” she answered.

  Irvina knelt, pressing her bosom against her knees and rubbing her biceps. The cold was getting to her finally. Sergio danced around and blew his breath into cupped hands to warm himself. “Is this what you were looking for?” he asked.

  “Come. Let us leave this bitter cold. We’ll go to the shrine.” Aqua swam in wide circles, stirring the lake. At an instant, water burst high as if something of enormous size had crashed into the surface. In a blinding flash, it froze into an iceberg. Like a ship, it sailed toward us, and we boarded, going between the narrow opening of two tall and broad spires into an enclosed space.

  The spire walls rose far above the circular shelter where we dwelled. Aqua awaited us. Sergio shook and grunted. “That’s loads better. At least these walls protect us from the wind. This is like a sauna, compared to out there.”

  “It’ll protect you from the storm while we go to the island,” said Aqua. Her alien liquid form glowed coolly.

  I went to Irvina who looked troubled and apprehensive. “Do you feel any of the naiads on the island?”

  She hesitated to answer. “I don’t know. I feel an incredible life form, but its spirit energy is too powerful for a body to contain. It’s similar, yet somehow it isn’t. I can’t be sure.” She turned to Aqua with sudden movement. “What of Dros’Mera, elemental?” she asked frantically. “I am Irvina Til’ Cordelia, a naiad from the Kor’Curta Queendom.”

  Aqua waved her hand, and a large sphere of water trailed off and floated. A reverie manifested within it. It was civilization—a screaming village—a village that drove Irvina to gasp. The blackness of the Abyssian Horde covered it. Screaming naiads fell to their deaths as they plunged into fiery pits from high, grand structures built above them. In an instant, the water evaporated, and the reverie was gone. Irvina sank to her knees. “I am truly sorry,” said Aqua. Irvina tucked her head in her lap and didn’t say another word.

  Sergio cast his eagle gaze through the narrow gap of the iceberg. “Winn, look.” Not ten minutes had passed, and we were at the shore of Dros’Mera. “That didn’t take long at all, barely felt like we were moving. Crossing the bridge would’ve diminished at least a quarter of the day.”

  Dros’Mera was covered in ice and snow, but the winds were calm. It looked nothing like it did in my dream. The sky was blue and cloudless. When we all stepped from the iceberg, it melted. Behind us, I saw nothing but a wall of white mist. The blizzard had formed around the island, but the island itself was clear and frozen.

  A quarter mile ahead, the shrine stood. That too looked different than in my dream. It was a glacier cave with a jagged top and wrought with an archway entrance. If there was ever a village of naiads there, there was surely no longer any trace of it. There was only the shrine on an empty stretch of land.

  We entered. What was identical from my dream was the blue light that lit the entrance and the ancient runes that illuminated the walls and floor of icy stone. A tunnel led to a chamber scattered with stalagmites and a cluster of coiling ice pillars that reached from the ground to the high pinnacle. Great ice formations were everywhere—the foremost impressive was an arch going over the crystal bed and pedestal like a curved dagger. The platform leading to the pedestal was of frozen cave water.

  Like in my shrine, three pages hovered over the central pedestal. But the orb I expected was nowhere to be found.

  Aqua reappeared and started to the foot of a staircase on a bed of ice formations. “I’ve been waiting for this day for many centuries, awaiting the Orbed Ones to find me. I’ve been lonely and frightened. But I’m happy to see the Amethyst and the Emerald again.” She turned to us. Our orbs lit and flickered. A blue light sparked in the center of her chest and grew in radiance. “I’m glad that we can be together again.” Then Aqua’s body burst into water, and what remained was an ice-pale orb emanating with cold smoke. It floated to the pedestal where it hovered.

  “The Aquamarine,” said the Amethyst. I approached the steps. The Aquamarine glimmered. “I must be bound to someone, as you and the Amethyst are bound. Only the Chosen One can take me from the shrine.”

  Sergio smacked his lips. “Dammit. If you think we’re gonna’ go back out into that wretched storm, find your bloody favorite, and br
ave that awful wind again, then you’re going to be lonely for another century—or three!”

  I found Irvina who stood with a blank stare. Maybe not. The Amethyst brightened at the thought—confirmation.

  “And what if you don’t like the person we choose?” Sergio asked.

  “I trust the Amethyst and the Emerald’s judgment.”

  “I believe we both know full well why we happened upon this place,” I said, turning to Irvina. Solemnly, I asked, “You want retribution for what happened to your kind, do you not?”

  It took a moment for Irvina to realize that I was talking to her. She had still been off in her thoughts and emotions. “Now’s your chance to fight for your people’s redemption, the best chance you’ll probably have, and your best chance of survival. Look, I don’t know too much of anything about all of this, but, what I do know, is that if it weren’t for the Amethyst, I would’ve died fighting that necrein in Lucreris.” The Amethyst had spoken through me. I knew this because what I’d said to her had surprised even me. It didn’t sound like me at all. Yet, it was the truth.

  Green brightness burned in Sergio’s vest. “Well, naiad looks like you’ve gotten another vote. That’s two out of three, which means you no longer have a choice. Go on. Get it over with. And try not to scream.”

  Irvina took a deep breath and remained in fixed contemplation for a long while. She looked up to the ceiling of the shrine and spoke. “Is this what you ask of me?” When the Aquamarine shined with a steady glow, she took it as a sign, and made her decision. Her steps were unhurried yet confident. She cupped the stone in her palms.

  “I sense hurt and sorrow in you. Together, perhaps time and I can heal it,” said the stone. A single tear ran Irvina’s face, and then the orb’s light engulfed her.

  When the binding was complete, she barely made it to the bottom of the stairs before stumbling unconscious. Sergio caught her. “Whoa! Easy there.”

  The pages came toward me, and I started my eyes across them.

  Everything was finished now. She came gliding down the staircase. Crows and death filled the air. Before them all, she came running with tear streaming into her mouth. The prolonged battle had ended in victory. But another would begin; this she knew as she watched Airius as he fell to his death in the deep of Belthla Harica’s End.

  It was one of the years that the War of the Gaping Black came upon Vail. The dark entity ascended and it, which was made without a moniker, was born. It came first with the power of day quickly becoming night, birthing Abyssians that marked a time of reckoning. The Arkangels and king’s army fought against it with all their greatest magic and skill. But it brought a dark power that turned their dead into its monstrous slaves. It ascended from the unknown and took Belthla Harica with all malevolence—conquered it so, and the King of Angels and the Council of Arkangels seemed lost to the darkest army ever to ascend.

  The lost pages. The world of Vail was yet still unknowing of their presence. They stood in an eye, minds bewildered in the dark. But what was unknown kept them innocent and ignorant of the immensity of their fates for the time being while it yawned and often moved in its confinement.

  The pages shriveled. The shrine rumbled, breaking the ice formations and stalactites. I nearly lost my footing. “It’s time to move!” blared Sergio, Irvina in his arms. We bolted for the exit. By the time we made it out, the shrine was no more. It crumbled and melted.

  The blizzard was gone, and there was no trace of snow or winter’s bitter cold. The summer air had returned. “So that’s what this foul weather’s been about,” said Sergio. “Sheesh, glad that’s over. So, what did the pages say this time?” Before I could answer, Irvina regained consciousness. She stood upright, and we gave her space. She emanated with frigid air, and her breath turned to cold mist.

  “How do you feel?” I asked.

  The Aquamarine filled her navel, similar in size to the Amethyst. “Different,” she answered, “Strong... Invincible.”

  “That was fast,” said Sergio, tapping the Emerald. “I felt like crap after this thing had its way with me.”

  “I did not resist our union,” she said. “The Aquamarine told me it would be unpleasant if I were not submissive.”

  Sergio scratched his head. “Figures.”

  There was another quake. We bore down our footing. From Lake Ievengrind, a vast serpent shot upward, freeing a dragon’s roar as its arrow-shaped head spiraled into the air. Finding us, it leaned across the quarter-mile gap between us and bore its indigo eyes into the shore where we stood. The beast’s sharp and ridged head flared with long, sprawling, tentacle-whiskers beside its mouth. Its blue-and-silver body was lined with frills and scales and three-pronged fins. Its roar shook Dros’Mera. It stood still, both majestic and watchful. It was the beast’s whose eye I’d seen behind the naiad quartz in the first alcove.

  Terror struck us as we struggled to keep our balance. “It’s upset,” said Sergio with playful despair. Irvina stormed forward, sparked with sudden anger.

  “Why are you alive?” An odd query.

  A profound grumble emanated from the serpent. Sergio and Irvina moved in exaggerated expressions and gestures. His face whitened, and hers reddened with peaking fury. I stayed vigilant, keeping my head on a nervous swivel.

  “It’s definitely angry,” said Sergio. “Irvina, I don’t think that tone of voice is very gratifying.”

  She growled and ignored Sergio. “You should be dead!” she barked at the serpent.

  What’s going on? Suddenly I could feel its thoughts. It was communicating, but I couldn’t comprehend its words. Sergio’s ability to speak with animals struck me, and by the horrified expression on my friend’s face, I knew that he heard something.

  “What’s it saying?” I had asked three more times before Sergio responded. I thumped him on the shoulder. “Sergio?”

  “It’s one of the leviathans, a colossus of the naiads,” he answered, trembling.

  The serpent moved cautiously, wrapping a ropy tentacle around Irvina’s body, and lifting her before its narrow snout. I moved into attack stance, Rahginor appearing from thin air. “That’s not what I asked you!”

  Sergio’s eyes bulged, and he stiffened. “It wants to know about our business on Dros’Mera. It’s not too satisfied with our little visit.”

  I yelled to Irvina, who in turn bade me to stay out of it. “I am Irvina Til’ Cordelia, a naiad of Kor’Curta,” she said as she looked the leviathan square in the eyes. The monster’s head leaned into a roar and belched a torrent of blue flames.

  “Irvina, I don’t think it believes you,” said Sergio faint-heartedly.

  She lifted her hand, and it burned before the mighty beast. “I demand an explanation! My kin are no more, and yet, you remain. Why?” The leviathan was silent as it examined her glowing ring. After a long moment of swelling tension, it set Irvina down and lowered its head into something like a humble bow. Irvina cleared her throat, commanding an answer.

  “Sergio, translate now,” I barked.

  The halfling looked dumbfounded. “I, along with my brothers and sister, failed to protect Dros’Mera. We lost two of our kind in the destruction of Om’Hala, and four while trying to protect Dros’Mera. I fled from the Abyssians after watching the citadel of Velmica burn and topple to the ground. I could no longer bear the smell of my siblings’ blood wavering in Joanae. I returned to Ievengrind where at least the isle was intact. Shamed as I was of our failure, I could at least watch over it.”

  Irvina drew her chakram. “You left the naiads for dead?”

  “They were destroyed before I fled. I fought to their end, but that cannot sate my guilt, nor can it repay the debt I owe to you. I have failed as a protector, and I owe my life. So, if it is repayment you require, then I would gladly give it in atonement,” the colossus said.

  She ordered the leviathan’s head to the ground, walked before it, and pressed the point of a chakram to its snout. For a long time, she was still, paralyzed, battling
her wild rage—sorrow and fury swelling to its boiling point. And then she released it. Exhaling slowly, she stowed away her weapon and gently rubbed the colossus’s snout as she found its eyes. “Your depthless sorrow is as potent as my own. Though the pain is tremendous, our loss is mutual. Your defeat was beyond your helping. It hurts to live with such a truth, but to die without redemption is to be lost.”

  “I am indebted to you, naiad queen. Whatever you wish of me, I shall honor it,” Sergio translated.

  Irvina signaled to me. “He will do whatever I order him. Tell him where we need to go, and he shall take us there.”

  The leviathan found me, gazing deeply; his head still as stone. “We go to the Kingdom of Arkhades, to a city called Ortiz nearly three hundred leagues south of the lone mountain.”

  “Is this your request?” he asked, swiveling to Irvina. I could hear him this time. It was a deep, elder voice, both serene and comforting.

  “Yes,” she confirmed.

  With a tentacle, the leviathan set us upon its back. Rahginor escaped once more from my grasp. The beast swam away from the island and pierced the air with a healthy roar.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sergio screeched.

  I shook. “What is it?”

  Irvina grinned. “Better hold your breath.”

  Sergio yelled at the top of his lungs. “Blast.”

  Leviathan swung and dove. Rushing water struck my face and, for a moment, there was only froth until a light flashed, and we disappeared.

  Line of Carnage