by Paul Kelly
“Elijah, wake up,” a voice said, intruding on his dreams. Elijah opened his eyes slowly and almost burnt his face off. Lying just beside his head was a pile of hot coals. He swore, scrambling back from the burning rocks. He looked up, searching for the source of the voice which had woken him. Truth stood before him, her long black hair framing a face which looked at him gravely.
“Eat and drink, Elijah. You can’t go on like this.”
Elijah blinked dumbly. On top of the coals was a small cake of bread and beside it a tin cup of water. Elijah stared at the meal and then back at Truth. His lips curled upwards in a desperate smile.
“I knew you couldn’t be dead,” he gasped. “I knew it. She was lying wasn’t she? They are all such liars.”
“I’m sorry Elijah,” Truth said, her eyes sad.
Elijah ignored her and stepped forwards, his feet suddenly made of lead. He reached out to hug her, to hold her, to know that she was there and that she really was safe. But his hands passed through her.
He moaned, an animalistic cry that sounded strange and foreign to his ears.
“I’m hallucinating aren’t I?” he asked to no one in particular.
“Elijah, I don’t have much time,” insisted Truth, as lifelike as ever. “Drink the water, eat the bread. I’ll be back soon.”
“Is it really you?” asked Elijah. “Or am I just imagining all of this?”
“The Voice sent me,” his sister replied, which didn’t really answer the question. Then she vanished.
Obediently, Elijah ate and drank, his thoughts whirring. He turned the pendant over and over in his hands, the silver glittering in the sunlight. He knew she was gone, there couldn’t be any doubt. Whether her reappearance was real or not, you don’t turn up in the middle of the desert to guide your brother to a mysterious deity if you’re still alive. He sighed, worn out by tragedy. All around him, the desert stretched for miles and miles. He didn’t know which way Ekriam was and he could only hope that the food he’d eaten hadn’t been a hallucination. As night gradually fell around him, he got up from the tree and began to walk. He didn’t know where he was supposed to be going, but he hoped the action would prompt Truth’s reappearance. It was easier going at night, given that there was no sun to mercilessly burn his skin. But as the hours passed it got colder and colder. He walked for about an hour, before Truth reappeared.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she said.
Elijah smiled. “Good to know.” And then he talked as quickly as he could. “Truth, I’m sorry I left you back in Prazna. I’m sorry you got sent to the mines because of me. I’m sorry they killed-” he choked on the words, unable to force them out.
Truth shrugged, as if her death was of no consequence. “I never blamed you Elijah. What were you supposed to do, fight off all the Guardians on your own?”
“I should have done something. I shouldn’t have left you and Dad there on your own.”
Truth crossed the short distance that separated them and put her hand on his. It passed straight through him, but it was the thought that counted.
“I’m glad you did what you did, Elijah. So is Dad. We’re both really proud of you.”
Elijah sniffed, a horrible slurping sound that was unaccompanied by tears only because they were already spent.
“Really?”
“Really. Now follow me, I have to lead you to the Voice.”
Elijah nodded and walked after her, emotions swirling through him. Despite what Truth said, he wasn’t ready to forgive himself. He had failed her, from start to finish. He had abandoned her when she needed him the most and he had failed to save her from the mines. It was his fault she was here, sent on some errand by an unknown Voice instead of safe at home in Prazna. Which raised an interesting point.
“Where are we going?” he asked Truth. She didn’t reply, but pointed one hand in the direction they were walking. In the distance, a mountain loomed. It was huge and seemed to have come out of nowhere. Which is unusual for large geographic features.
“The Voice wants me to climb a mountain?” he asked.
Truth nodded.
“Why doesn’t it come down and just talk to me here?”
“I don’t know,” replied Truth. Her voice rang with the weight of the ages, as if death had aged her prematurely. She had always been a serious child, but now there was a gravity behind her words, as if every syllable was precious to her.
“Elijah, I have to leave you again soon,” she said, turning towards him. Her voice was tinged with melancholy and her eyes shone with tears. “My place isn’t here anymore and I’ve stayed too long already. I just wanted to stay with you, for as long as possible. You’re really important to the Voice and life isn’t easy for people who are important. We miss you, we really do, but please stay safe. We don’t want to see you again too soon, if you know what I mean.” She smiled half-heartedly.
The words spilled from her in a torrent, it was the most Elijah had ever heard her say in one breath. She was different, he realised, from the sister he had left back in Prazna. She had always been brave but now there was a confidence in her eyes that he had never seen before. He wished that she’d had a chance to show that confidence to the world.
“I love you Truth,” he said.
Tears stung his eyes and he blinked them away. And then she was gone.
Dawn had just begun to creep over the horizon when Elijah reached the foot of the mountain. Before him, the dark rock towered, a strange foreign object which looked like it had erupted from the desert sands. The setting sun made a dark silhouette of it, the sky behind it a glorious pink. It was all very pretty. It was such a shame Elijah had to climb the thing. Well, Truth had asked him to climb it and he wasn’t going to let her down again.
He placed his right hand on a narrow ledge, then found another one for his left hand and began levering himself on to the rock. His feet scrambled on the smooth stone, his sandals flapping uselessly as they tried to get purchase. He jumped down and untied them, leaving them on the ground. Anyone who was willing to be out here was welcome to steal them. He lifted himself back up on to the rock and began climbing. The cliff face was smooth, making it difficult, but there was always a crevice or piece of rock jutting out to use as a handhold. He progressed steadily, letting the climb consume all his energies and distract him from his own thoughts. It was still dark and he climbed more by touch then by anything else. It wasn’t long before his muscles began to ache from the strain, but Elijah ignored the pain. He was going to beat this mountain if it killed him, and preferably if it didn’t. He gritted his teeth resolutely and moved his arm upwards, grabbing on to a ledge. The rock crumbled underneath his hand and suddenly his whole body seemed to shift out until he was swinging madly from the cliff face, with only one hand to support him. It wasn’t a particularly strong hand either. Elijah shouted desperately, as if the mountain might listen and move a little closer to his flailing limbs. He twisted his arm, forcing his body flat against the rock. His feet scrambled to find the last footholds he had used. He breathed again as they found them, feeling sweat flow down his whole body. His throat ached with thirst and exhaustion. He hated this mountain more than it was right to hate any geographic feature. He eased his hand upwards, weighing up the strength of any potential handholds. He found what he hoped was a stable one and began moving again.
His every muscle was in agonising, piercing pain when he at last managed to lever himself onto a stable ledge. He felt like he’d been climbing for years, but it wasn’t even evening yet. He looked around himself. He wasn’t anywhere near the top of the mountain, but inset into the cliff face was a cave which looked more inviting than a cave generally had any right to look. He crawled into it and leaned back against a dry wall, pulling in air with great wheezing breaths. He tried to get his energy back, but he was pretty sure it felt too abused to ever return. He gingerly examined his feet with his hands. They were scratched and felt like they had about a thousand
iron splinters embedded in them, but other than that they were fine. He gasped in relief. He’d made it. He’d climbed the giant mountain of death. Now maybe someone would tell him what he was doing here.
“Seek the Voice, Elijah,” Truth said, as if on cue, her voice an echo before it had even reached his ears. Elijah whipped his head leftwards and almost smashed it into the rock. But there was nothing there, just the strange echo, as if she had opened a door to this world, yelled through it and then abruptly slammed it in his face. Elijah stood up and turned in a slow circle, wondering if this Voice was maybe a metaphorical thing. Suddenly, a shrieking hollowing wind tore through the cave, which answered that question fairly conclusively. The wind came out of nowhere, pressing Elijah’s whole body back against the rocky wall. The tornado was deafening, the sound screaming in his ears and threatening to rip his clothes off. Elijah clung to the cave wall, feeling the wind howl around him, threatening to pry him loose and send him spinning outside.
“Seek the Voice, Elijah,” came Truth’s voice, the echo audible, even amidst the tempest.
“What Voice?” screamed Elijah, but he couldn’t even hear his own words. The wind was everywhere, pushing and pulling at every part of his body and behind him the wall began to split as whole chunks of rock were ripped out of it by the force of the gale. Stones and earth pummelled his body. His vision was blurred and unsteady, the wind watering his eyes. He could hear nothing but the scream of the storm. Then suddenly it was gone. Elijah sank back against the cave’s crumbling wall and sighed in relief.
“Listen for it, Elijah,” Truth commanded, her voice taking on far more power than an echo had any right to have.
“I don’t hear anything!” shouted Elijah in frustration. He tried to stand up, but immediately fell back down as the ground began to shake. Above him, dust and debris began to fall from the roof, clogging the air. Elijah breathed it in and began choking. He tried to stay still, but the shaking was too violent and he felt himself get tossed around the cave, crashing into the hard rock. When the earthquake at last stopped he stayed still on the ground, tucked into a foetal position, trying to breathe, but not daring to say anything.
“Listen, Elijah,” Truth said. And Elijah did. He strained his ears, trying desperately to make out even the faintest sound. But there was nothing. And then there was fire. It was suddenly everywhere. It roared through the cave, scorching his skin and covering everything. Elijah hacked and coughed as it consumed all the air, becoming all it was. He felt his throat seize up. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to move, tried to stagger outside, but his entire body screamed in refusal. He could barely crawl. He was scratched and cut all over from the wind and the earthquake and now the fire seemed to be out to finish the job. Everywhere he looked, the flames blazed. He couldn’t see anything else. They didn’t move like normal flames. They didn’t catch on anything, nothing they touched caught fire. They moved too quickly for that. They flowed like water around the cave, lightly scorching everything they touched. The heat was intense and Elijah fell back against the ground, trying desperately to shield himself against it. Amongst it all, the sound of Truth’s voice rang, worry and desperation now tinging it.
“Find the Voice, Elijah!” she shouted her words echoing amongst the inferno. Elijah didn’t reply, he couldn’t. There was nothing but the blaze. And then it was gone.
Elijah lay on the ground and groaned in pain. Every inch of his body felt scratched or torn or burned. He didn’t even want to know what came next. He began to crawl out of the cave, inch by inch, dragging his mutilated body behind him. The ground was rough and uneven, but he barely even felt it. His skin was numb to pain now. Outside, the sun was setting, casting a dull glow across the desert. Elijah fell back against the side of the mountain, gasping for breath. To his left he could see the Burninglands, stretching away to the north. Even from this distance he could see the smoke and sulphur hanging over them, the occasional spurt of volcanic ash emanating from them. Above them, the Island of Otor loomed. He leaned heavily against the mountain, his eyes watering. What was all this for? Truth appeared beside him, just for a moment, her face strained with worry and fear.
“You must seek it, Elijah,” she begged. Elijah groaned. He was so sick of all of this, he was in so much pain. No Voice was worth this. Nothing could possibly be worth this. But still he tried, harder than ever before, his every sense trying to make out some sort of noise. He tried to touch it with his hands and tried to taste it with his tongue. His burnt and flayed ears strained to make out even the faintest sound over the wind. Then slowly and ever so quietly, a whisper reached him. It was not fierce like the wind, or powerful like the earthquake or hot like the fire. It was soft, yet confident as if it required nothing more than being what it was.
“Elijah, what are you doing here?” the Voice asked.
Elijah almost wept in relief, but now that the question had been asked he found he didn’t have an answer for it. When he’d left Ekriam, he’d been so angry and so hurt. But the thing about emotional pain is that after a while, it just fades into the background, as it becomes part of you. And next to the pain he’d gone through to get to the Voice, it seemed almost petty.
“I want my family back,” he said, the words seeming tired and trite, the words of every orphaned child, as if they didn’t belong to him.
“That is not the path you walk,” the Voice whispered. “Not for you have I prepared a life of joy, but one of sorrow. For through you I shall make your people a great nation once again. What was shall be, what is shall be no more.”
“But why do I have to do it alone?” replied Elijah miserably. “Why do you have to take everyone away from me?”
“You are not alone,” replied the Voice and for one awful moment Elijah was afraid it was going to tell him that really his family were always in his heart. “I have delivered the Sky into your hands. She shall protect you. She shall guide you. She shall save my people.”
“Sybil? She lied to me!” protested Elijah. “She doesn’t care about the Earthlands. She cares only for the Skylands and her own people!”
“You are all my people,” the Voice boomed, the sound of it echoing through Elijah’s mind. “I will return those who are lost. Have faith Elijah, she shall return, for her role in the new world is a great one.”
“But I don’t want her back!” shouted Elijah, aware of the petulance of his own words but desperate to have his say. “Please, I want my family back: my mum, my dad and Truth. The Skylands have taken everything from me, who else can I turn to?”
“Cling not to the past Elijah,” replied the Voice. “There only sorrow lies. Your family need you no more. You do not fight for them, but for the changing of the world.”
“But it’s my fault!” wailed Elijah, the guilt erupting from his mouth. “Everyone dies because of me! I have to bring them back, I have to make this right! Please, give me the chance to make this right!”
“There is no fault of yours in their death, Elijah,” replied the Voice gently. “They were murdered by those who had gone astray. Even now the vessel of my justice is working to avenge them. But that is not your role, you are to bring peace to the land, a peace that shall be paid for not in blood, but in equity.”
“But I let it happen!” screamed Elijah, all the guilt and sorrow he had so carefully stored up spilling out. “I failed them!”
“Do not be so foolish,” replied the Voice, its presence suddenly seeming to loom over Elijah, forcing him to his knees. The Voice had not become any louder, but it seemed closer, as if it stood inches from him if he could only perceive it. “Do you control the actions of man? I have given to every human creature the gift of choice and you may not take this from them.”
The words struck Elijah like blows, shattering weeks of guilt and shame. Elijah knew in his heart that no matter what Truth may have said, he would always have blamed himself for what had happened to them. But now he understood the arrogance of that. He couldn’t fix every
thing. Some things could not be undone. He stood alone on the mountain, surrounded by the glory of the Voice of Time and looked out across the world of EarthSky, a world forever divided by something far more fundamental than poverty or war. And he realised that the death of his family had always been inevitable. They had died because of this division and they had died to protect him from it. He needed to stop trying to bring them back and start trying to honour their memory. And there was only one way to do that. There was only one way to ensure that their deaths had not been for nothing.
“How do I make the Sky fall?” he asked.
Chapter 23 – Orock
17 Hours Earlier.
It had been a long, long time since life had made this much sense. Sybil rode on Xanthius’ back, bent low on the smooth crystal, watching the Earthlands recede below her. She was going home and she was going to fix things. The wind whipped around her and Sybil could feel her heart beat. The weight of lies that had burdened her for so long had been lifted. She hoped Elijah was safe but she knew that there was nothing more she could do for him. Her loyalty was to her people, not to him and it was for them that she flew. Let the Future Storm dabble in politics and war if they wanted. She was going to the source of the problem.
They flew across the Earthlands quickly, Xanthius’ great crystal wings apparently tireless. What had taken them days on foot took only hours atop the Wyvern. Sybil clung to Xanthius tightly, her arms wrapped around his long neck. It was strange riding without a saddle, but it only added to her feelings of equilibrium. They were equal now, her and Xanthius. What she had done to his people in the past… that could be forgiven. She could make amends. Soon, she would expose Tommen’s lies before her whole people, she would strike him down and the Skylands would be whole again. They would end this war and they would reclaim their unquestioned leadership of EarthSky. They did not need to rule with the sword as Tommen did. Once his grip on the Hall fell, they would be a model for the Earthlands. They would see the benefits of their democracy; steadily the Earthlanders would become more and more like a people should be. The Future Storm would crumble as need for their attacks collapsed and then this war would end. Perhaps it was idealistic, naïve even. But as Sybil rode through the sky, intent on killing a man who was centuries old, she needed to cling to a dream. She needed to know that she could change things.