by Audrey Auden
Table of Contents
Copyright
Title
Dedication
Opening quote
Chapter 1 - The Underground River
Chapter 2 - Emerald Bridges
Chapter 3 - The Alternet Generation
Chapter 4 - Otaku
Chapter 5 - One Year Later
Chapter 6 - Mementos
Chapter 7 - Bequest
Chapter 8 - A Proposition
Chapter 9 - Caught Off Guard
Chapter 10 - Seeking Counsel
Chapter 11 - The Spliner
Chapter 12 - Lost and Found
Chapter 13 - On the Road
Chapter 14 - The Anonymous Collective
Chapter 15 - Into the Mountains
Chapter 16 - Akdamar
Acknowledgements
We're living in the future!
REALMS UNREEL
Version 1.3.0
Copyright © 2011 by Audrey Auden
All rights reserved
Published by Temen Books,
an imprint of Studio Shah LLC
http://temenbooks.studioshah.com/
[email protected]
Cover design by Sumul Shah
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events described herein are the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, businesses, companies, or events is purely coincidental.
The author thinks digital rights management (DRM) for ebooks is a total pain in the tuckus for the reader, so this ebook does not use DRM. Please respect the author’s rights by refraining from copyright infringement and piracy.
ISBN: 978-1-937262-00-6 (ePub ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-937262-01-3 (Kindle ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-937262-02-0 (PDF ebook)
ISBN: 978-1-937262-03-7 (paperback)
REALMS UNREEL
AUDREY AUDEN
For Sumul, who never gave up on me
Reality is an activity of the most august imagination.
— Wallace Stevens
CHAPTER 1
The Underground River
On the first chill day of autumn, Dom looked up and saw Ava watching him from a distance. He set down his chisel and raised his hand in a hesitant greeting. He did not quite trust his eyes. Ava had been absent for weeks, and whenever she left, whether for a season or a century, he started to find her shape in every shadow.
But this was no shadow. Ava waved to him in answer and began to approach. A breeze off the snow-capped mountains rolled down into the valley, blowing her saffron robes and scarlet mantle before her, carrying her across a plain of tall grasses. She alighted in the clearing where Dom stood and made her way to his side.
Her eyes swept over the twelve carved panels of pale red stone that Dom had arranged in a circle around him. Each panel rendered the graceful form of a single tree designed by Ava’s own hand. Almond, walnut, apple, cherry, persimmon, pomegranate, apricot, pear, plum, fig, chestnut, olive. She reached out and traced her fingers along the lines of each carving in turn.
She settled a warm hand on his dusty arm and smiled up at him. She was a diminutive woman with wide brown eyes framed by a wild tangle of dark curls. Her skin was smooth and golden as a hazelnut shell, untouched by time. She might have been the same girl Dom first met long ago in the cool cedar forest by the sea. But when he looked into her eyes, he saw the accumulated sorrow of ages. He knew that light-hearted child had drifted from the world long ago, lost in visions.
“It is beautifully done,” she said.
Her words would once have thrilled him, but Dom knew that beauty had long since ceased to be Ava’s concern. She had designed these carvings to adorn a shrine to the underground river flowing beneath the valley. Their purpose was to placate the Oracle, nothing more.
A troubled look came over Ava, and her eyes shone with tears.
“What is it?” Dom asked in surprise. In all the years they had spent together, he had never known Ava to cry.
“Serapen,” she said, letting out a shaky breath, “Serapen came to me and delivered my answer from the Oracle.”
A chill of foreboding washed over him. She should have been overjoyed by this long-awaited visit from Serapen, the foremost Mohira among the priestesses of the Mohirai. Ava had toiled for centuries in the hope of receiving this answer.
“What did Serapen say to you?” Dom asked warily.
Ava pushed back the curls from her forehead and recited slowly,
“‘Your answer lies in the tree at the heart of the temple.’”
Her eyes drifted past Dom out toward the lone hill that marked the center of the valley, the heart of the living temple.
“How can that be?” he scoffed, following her gaze, “We must have stood there a thousand times before.”
Ava’s hand trembled on his arm.
“There was something else,” she said softly.
Her tone stopped the breath in him, and a stillness came over the valley as Ava closed her eyes and said,
“Serapen told me the way I seek leads through Death.”
∞
Dom’s faith in Ava’s vision had never wavered since the day she first told him of the land that lay beyond Dulai. Her visions had always proved true. He had believed her that their labors would be rewarded a thousandfold when at last they found their way to that distant country. But surely no place, however wonderful, could merit the risk of passage through Death.
Dom took Ava by the shoulders.
“We cannot go that way,” he said, his voice hoarse with fear.
A tear slipped down her cheek, and she took his hands in her own, tracing the rough callouses formed by his long years of devoted service to her.
“I never imagined … I never thought to ask such a sacrifice of you. But,” she looked up, her eyes searching his, “We were never meant for this world, Dom. There is nothing left for us here.”
“How can you say that?” he cried, sweeping his arm out across the valley. The gesture encompassed a living temple, the work of both their hands, the likes of which had never before been seen on the face of Dulai. Somehow Ava saw it not, so lost was she in longing for another land that lay hidden from her.
Dom now wished Ava had never seen that land. Serapen had warned her — she had warned all the children receiving their calling from the Oracle — not to gaze into the sacred pool. There was no telling what might appear to one who looked upon it unprepared, Serapen had said. But Ava had looked. It was an accident, Ava had said.
Serapen had been delivering the Oracle’s words, calling Ava to join the Mohirai. Ava had looked back unthinkingly to grin at Dom, who stood waiting with the other children to receive his own calling. Her face had shone with delight at the prospect of initiation into the priestesshood. Then her gaze had fallen, just for an instant, upon the reflection of the sacred pool.
In that instant, a vision had unfolded before her. Ava had described it for Dom many times. There was a land, she said, where wise men read the mysteries of the universe in the stars, their gaze pushing ever outward. Great cities spread across the globe, she said, their towers rising into the heavens. Countless voices rose in song, she said, creating a common tongue for the heartbreaking beauty of life. Ava’s words had carried Dom with her into that land, and they had spent many an evening together imagining life in such a place.
Reverie had seemed at first enough to satisfy Ava. Her mind was otherwise occupied with study of the Mohiran mysteries, just as Dom was devoted to learning the craft of the Artifikes, the order of builders to which the Oracle had called him. But as the ages had passed and the novelty of her service to the Mohirai had faded, Ava’s desire to visit that unknown land had
consumed her, pushing out all else from her waking thoughts and sleeping dreams. In the end, despite Dom’s efforts to dissuade her, Ava had returned to the Oracle. She said she would have no peace until she knew what road might lead her to the land she had glimpsed in the waters of the sacred pool.
Ava had known as well as Dom the danger of questioning the Oracle. The price of an answer was a task of the Oracle’s choosing. Such a task, once accepted, could not be set aside.
It was Serapen who had again delivered the Oracle’s words. If Ava would have her answer, said Serapen, she must first build a temple to the sacred mystery of fertility.
Ava had been relieved, even pleased. In her years as a Mohira, she had overseen the construction of many a temple. She had believed this would be a simple task. Even so, Dom had had his doubts. The Oracle had never been known to grant a simple task.
But Dom had never doubted he would follow Ava, even though her task was not his to complete. He too desired to see the land of her vision, and ever since they built their first city of acorns and river-stones together as children, they had relied upon each other in their work. Dom relied on Ava’s expansive imagination, and Ava relied on the meticulous work of Dom’s hands. Together, they could build anything.
And so Dom had journeyed with Ava through the lands of Dulai as she searched for a place to build her temple. He had stood by her side when they first looked down upon this broad valley. He had spent centuries with her here, building monuments, terracing slopes, laying beds of herbs and flowers, cultivating trees and vines. The work might have given them both great pleasure as children, but it had become for Ava a source of sorrow as the years passed by. The Oracle had remained silent.
And now all their toil had led only to this: the Oracle’s emissary bearing words of madness. Dom’s jaw clenched in anger at the injustice of it. Ava pressed her hand to his chest, and he could feel his heart pounding there.
“I too am afraid,” said Ava, her eyes locked on his, “But I know what I saw. I know what awaits us. Will you trust me, Dom? Will you follow me once more?”
Dom drew a shuddery breath. He had followed her so far, in hope of seeing the land of her vision, yes, but also because he could imagine no life without her. He could find no words, so at last he only nodded. That was enough. Ava beamed at him. He felt her small hand slip inside his own, and then they were running.
Ava’s bare feet flew along an unseen path through the gardens, vineyards, and orchards. Dom struggled in his heavy boots to keep up. Startled songbirds darted from bushes, and grazing herds of goats bleated in surprise. When Ava reached the foot of the hill at the center of the valley, she let go of his hand to hike her saffron robes up to her knees. Her scarlet mantle flapped around her shoulders as she scrambled up the grassy slope.
“Ava!” called Dom, now out of breath, “Wait!”
She paused, looking back at him, tossing a curtain of dark hair behind her shoulder and smiling a little as she said,
“Have we not waited long enough?”
And yet she stepped back to take his hand once more. They reached the top of the hill together.
Dom followed as Ava slowly wandered the ancient grove shading the top of the hill. She moved silently from tree to tree, looking up into the branches of each before moving on to the next.
At last, when the sun began to sink beneath the peaks of the western mountains, Dom sat down wearily beneath a gnarled pomegranate tree. Before him, the fountainhead of the spring that fed the underground river bubbled up from a deep pool. Ava came to sit beside him.
“The Oracle said I would find it here,” she said mournfully, pressing her hand to the twisted bark of the pomegranate tree, “Here, in the heart of the valley.”
“Perhaps the Oracle torments us,” he said, his voice hardening as he tried to suppress a surge of fury toward the Oracle, “Perhaps you asked an impossible question.”
Ava hugged her arms to her chest. Dom felt the sting of her disappointment as if it were his own. He reached out to comfort her, but she pulled away, standing so quickly she nearly slipped on the wet stones surrounding the pool. She fell back hard against the trunk of the pomegranate tree.
“Careful,” said Dom, climbing to his feet and lending his arm to steady her.
The branches overhead rustled, and a bright red pomegranate dropped into the pool with a plunk. Dom and Ava turned to watch it bobbing and drifting on the slow-moving surface that concealed a powerful undercurrent. The spring drained into a great crack in the foundation of the hill, and as they watched, the bobbing pomegranate vanished, swallowed up by the underground river that watered the valley.
Ava stepped forward.
“Look,” she breathed, pointing.
The rippling surface of the pool had grown smooth, mirroring the molten sunset. In the reflection, the pomegranate tree seemed to sway in a high wind, its leaves rippling in an unseen current, the flowering tips of its branches writhing and stretching into the reflected heavens. Dom looked up into the branches above him. Not a leaf stirred. He felt an icy chill creep down his spine.
Beside him, Ava was looking up into the branches as well. She stretched up on her toes and plucked a ripe pomegranate from the tree. She regarded it thoughtfully, then broke it open, crushing a few of the seeds in the process. A blood-red trickle ran down her wrist, and the clusters of ruby seeds glittered in her hands.
She looked up at him, her lips parted in amazement.
“The fountainhead, Dom,” she said wonderingly, “This is the way beyond Dulai.”
Dom looked down at the dripping fruit, his stomach churning, his head spinning.
“I do not understand.”
Ava extended her hand to him, one half of the pomegranate cradled in her palm.
“I see the way on from here, Dom. The river passes through Death. Come with me. I will show you.”
There was a slight rumbling in the ground below them, and then all was still. Dom looked at Ava in alarm.
“What was that?”
“The time has come,” she said, looking out at the sun slipping below the western horizon, “We must hurry.”
Dom felt numb as Ava took his hand and led him to the edge of the pool. They stepped in, and the water rose around them, ankle-deep, knee-deep, chest-deep. Ava’s scarlet mantle floated on the surface like a pomegranate blossom. Dom’s boots sank as if made of lead. He took one last breath and closed his eyes as the water closed over his head.
In the stillness beneath the surface, Dom gripped Ava’s hand. The icy undercurrent wrapped around his ankles, pulling him down, down, down. Terrified, he opened his eyes in the clear water, and with blurred vision he saw beneath his feet the dark maw of the underground river, open wide, sucking hungrily.
Fear took over him, and Dom kicked with all his strength against the powerful undercurrent. In his struggle, Ava’s hand slipped from his fingers, and Dom thrashed frantically through the water, searching for her. Seeing her scarlet mantle swirling before him, he grasped the fabric tightly and began to pull her back to him. But the mantle tore from her shoulders.
A silent scream rose in Dom’s throat as he watched Ava disappearing into the darkness below.
A sudden surge carried him upward, spitting him out onto the edge of the pool. He thought his body was convulsing until he realized that the ground was shaking violently beneath him. He heard a great explosion, and to the west he saw a column of smoke rising into the darkening sky.
The stones at the edge of the pool slid around him, and he hauled himself away from the water, scrambling on hands and knees as small pebbles and then great boulders scraped down into the spring. Clenching Ava’s muddied mantle in his hands, he watched in horror as the fountainhead disappeared. He fell prostrate upon the shaking earth.
“Dom.”
A voice cut through the terrible noise of the earthquake. Dom looked up from the ground and saw the edge of a white robe gleaming softly in the twilight. Above him stood Serapen, serene as the moon,
unmoved by the tumult.
“Please,” Dom cried, eyes wild, “Please. Help me!”
Serapen looked down at him impassively. Enraged by her indifference, Dom staggered to his feet and cast Ava’s mantle aside, splashing into the shallow basin that was now all that remained of the fountainhead. He seized a small boulder and grappled with it, the callouses on his hands shredding, the muscles beneath his sodden tunic tearing, until at last he cast the stone away. He reached down and took another between his hands.
“The way is shut,” said Serapen, her voice ringing out over the groans of the earthquake.
“No!” he grunted, straining with all his might to lift the rock, “I must follow her.”
Serapen watched his futile struggle for a moment before saying,
“Then you must go by another way.”
Dom slowly released the stone from his hands and straightened up unsteadily, struggling to keep his balance as the ground tipped beneath him.
“Show me,” Dom cried, desperation driving all caution from him.
Serapen’s eyes flashed.
“Consider your words carefully,” she said, “Are you certain you wish to ask this of one who speaks with the voice of the Oracle?”
The memory of the darkness that had swallowed Ava coalesced into an icy knot of fear in Dom’s chest.
“Yes,” he growled at last, his voice merging with the rumble of the earth, “This I ask of the Oracle: What must I do to follow her?”
The ground fell still, and in that moment of calm, Serapen’s eyes locked on his, luminous in the darkness, twin pools of green and gold flecked with red and black.
“You will have your answer, Dom Artifex. But first,” her voice rose, filling the warm night air, surrounding him, “you must build a temple to the mystery of enduring beauty. A fitting dwelling place for the Oracle.”