Seamus waited for the shadows to return, but they remained strangely distant.
Iliana drummed her fingers on the window pane, eyes scouring the horizon for a familiar galloping horseman. She had spent the day mainly indoors, working on her meditation and reading more passages on the history of the Otherworld.
Zoe showed her how to use a compass and a neat trick on how to use her magick to ‘sense’ the land’s layout. To Iliana, it felt like she was ‘seeing’ a 3D map of it, observing not just above ground, but also under it. She could feel hundreds of tiny worms squiggling in the earth and hibernating wildlife, whose tiny heartbeats echoed deafening in her ears. Her magick had opened her up to seeing the world from a higher state of awareness and she was in awe, realising how asleep she had been before to the life teeming around her.
One particular reason for needing this skill, Zoe told her, was to detect holes that slavers used to entrap oblivious travellers.
For Iliana, there wasn’t enough closure to ever move on from Zelda’s death, but there was enough for her to function and survive.
Right on cue, Zelda’s image appeared once more in the window. Iliana once again couldn’t tell if it was her from beyond the grave trying to contact her, or a sign of psychological dysfunction as a result of her death. Zelda’s eyes were sad and endearing, a portrait of perfection in a young woman with a hard life.
Iliana stopped drumming and put her fingers to her face, to her surprise; she blinked slowly and smiled sadly. She stroked gently until the image wavered like water and was gone.
Iliana let her hand fall and sighed. Zelda’s ring glinted at her from her index finger.
Beyond her window, she could see Branson was finally returning for the day from his patrol. She hopped up from her bed and pulled out a chest from underneath.
Inside, was an item she was planning to take to Clio, it was a giant ball of wool that she hoped wouldn’t offend him.
But he has to be bored, she thought, as she placed it on the floor.
Zoe called her from downstairs, and Iliana grabbed her backpack and dashed past the wallpapered walls depicting the Steppes and a variety of animals.
When she and Branson reached the cave, Iliana stopped short.
‘He’s not there...’ she trailed. She turned her horse in a circle, and he snorted in protest.
Branson leaned forward in his saddle, arms resting on the horn.
‘The aul guy likes to take off randomly sometimes.’
Iliana looked at him peculiarly. ‘Take off where?’
‘I don’t know the blasted creature’s mind.’
Her eyes turned up to the dark heavens. Where could he be?
‘Can we take a look around? Perhaps he didn’t go too far.’
Branson’s eyes twinkled against the pale light of the moons. ‘You’re not afraid of him, are you?’
‘We’re all afraid of something, but for me it’s not him.’
Branson studied her. ‘Y’know I didn’t think much of you when I saw you.’
‘Thanks, I know most people think that anyway,’ she snapped.
Branson continued, ignoring her. ‘But looks can be deceiving; you’re not half as stupid as I thought you were. Believe me, that’s a compliment coming from me.’
Iliana considered. ‘Thanks.’
Branson sat back up. ‘Now, how do we find a Roarax in a land that’s got a few hundred acres to cover?’
‘I could try and sense him.’
‘You do that kid.’
Iliana closed her eyes and tried to shut out the eastern breeze caressing her face, along with her horse’s rhythmic breathing and the scattering of a desert mouse. Eventually she picked up on something huge coming toward them at high speed.
‘I think he’s coming back,’ she said, then added, ‘I think he’s knows we’re here.’
‘Of course, he does. Those big bastards didn’t survive in the desert with just their impressive claws and muscle. However, those attributes helped I’m sure.’
Iliana dismounted, anticipating another struggle with her horse. She thought she could hear a distant muffled pounding, and a thin wisp of stirred sand was settling on a far-off dune.
Over the final dune sprang the Roarax. It moved like smooth steel, its muscles working cleanly over the bones like it’s body was machine-built for crossing uneven ground. He jumped to stop directly in front of Iliana, taking no notice of Branson.
Iliana’s horse reared and it took several attempts to pat him down, Clio watching patiently all the while.
Stroking the horse’s face, where a white diamond of hair stood out from its brown coat, she started self-consciously, ‘I came to see you.’
Clio began to circle again.
Branson eyed him warily.
‘If you’ll have me. I...brought some things.’
Clio padded forward like a cat prowling.
Iliana’s horse couldn’t resolve where it was no longer and she had to hastily give Branson the reins.
Iliana forced herself to stand her ground as he sniffed her hair and face, leaving trails of mucus on her. She wiped her face. ‘Gross.’
Clio sneezed.
‘You sick?’
‘He can get like that at times, he’s old now. System is failing.’
Clio growled.
‘Do you understand us?’ she asked.
Clio lay down on the sand and turned his boulder head to the side several times.
Iliana shook her head confusedly.
Clio sighed, causing sand to swirl.
‘I think he means for you to get on him.’
‘Oh, ok.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’
Iliana immediately climbedon top of him.
She grabbed a handful of his mane as he crouched, ready to spring.
‘Iliana, Zoe will have my head on a platter if—’
Clio let out a ferocious roar and suddenly Iliana felt the full blast of the decision she had just made. She held on for dear life, trying to mould her body with Clio’s.
Has anyone ever taken a ride on a Roarax?
He sprinted off at full speed and Iliana was thrown back. The cave and the horses shrunk behind for an endless landscape of desert under the open night sky.
After a couple of minutes of adjusting and reassuring herself repeatedly that she wasn’t going to die, she became exhilarated. A smile came to her and she couldn’t remember the last time it had come to her so naturally. She laughed and squealed when Clio took a sharp turn, heading north.
The wind her hair wild. Clio’s body ran like silk over the land, crossing with such ease swept and grace that Iliana barely felt when he touched the ground. Blissful she was able to leave everything behind her, at least for a while. Now there was simplicity, there was just her and nature with the wondrous creature that existed only in myths where she came from. And she was riding on his back!
Clio slowed down to a well-paced trot and stopped at an oasis. He lowered himself down and she slid off drunkenly.
He walked away and began to drink.
She sat by the waterside and looked around, taking the in Arabic setting. For once she felt like Alice in the true Wonderland, where good magick was real and there were no scary monsters, just fun and adventure. She looked back to see Clio watching her with interest.
He prowled over to her, a mammoth of a beast walking towards a girl sitting down with her legs crossed. Anyone watching would have panicked at the sheer size of him, but Iliana felt so comfortable with him it was like being with family. The wind rustled his mane and tickled her face.
In the far distance, was the screech of an owl. For all Iliana could have known, it was just her and him in this world of endless desert.
He did something that surprised her - he licked her face.
She revolted and moved away, wiping herself with her sleeve. ‘What did you do that for? You’re not a pet.’
‘Not funny,’ she huffed.
He lowered his head and she laid her hand between his black almond eyes that shimmered, reflecting the moon’s light.
The background rushed around her, as though someone had thrown her into a wormhole, and she gasped as the air sucked out of her lungs.
Iliana saw she was still in the desert, but not the one before. The sand here was deep, as though each step was a breathless effort through mud and unlike Zoe’s shallower alternative. Cactuses stood like scarecrows in the vast landscape.
Nearby, a pride of Roaraxes lounged near a cave much larger than Clio’s. Cubs bounced playfully and atop the cave and overlooking the scene - Iliana instinctively knew - was Clio.
Sand floated like dust mites on the horizon of an oncoming object. Clio stood and unfolded his great wings. He took flight in the direction of the disturbance, gaining height with each stroke of his wings while the pride lazed around.
Iliana waited until a minute later Clio bounded back, blood soaked in patches on his white fur. He roared and the pride snapped into action. The young were ushered into the cave while the adults assembled into a fanned-out circle, guarding the entrance.
Hooded men came on wheeled envoys, vehicles the likes Iliana had never seen before. They reminded her of locomotives from the Industrial Revolution. They hung to the sides of the machines with large nets swinging in their hands. When they dismounted, the fighting was instantaneous and explosive. The desert was immersed in the sharp sounds of several Roaraxes snarls, as they fought the poachers by tearing limbs, and soon the sounds of men’s screams could be heard amidst the ripping.
Clio fought in the thick of it, he was a burst of action fighting ferociously to defend his pride. He swiped at a man holding an odd contraption where his paw got stuck; he roared and when he yanked it back, he was missing a nail. Poachers stationed at the vehicles shot at them and after a few seconds, a few Roaraxes became drowsy and fell down. Men shot out from behind and discreetly pulled their unconscious bodies to the side.
Clio went down last. They shot three tranquilizers into him but he still stood, though unsteadily, ripping off the head of the nearest man to him. The fourth dart sent him down and the poachers warily approached to tie him onto the back of a cart.
Iliana watched in pain, knowing all too well what that was like. It took the effort of at least ten men to move him.
He laid tied down on the cart, defeated and broken. His maimed wing twitched, never to be whole again, and a stream of blood from a head wound poured into his eye. The cries of the cubs could be heard from the cave as the men in hoods handled them into cages; one escaped outside and tried to fly but couldn’t take off. He squealed when he was grabbed by the legs and thrown roughly into a cage with his siblings.
Clio snarled and raged but couldn’t move as he slipped into unconsciousness.
Iliana blinked and she was back where she was in the oasis with Clio. His eyes turned to her and the trauma and fear she saw there mirrored her own. She realised tears were coursing down her face and threw her arms around him, wanting to protect him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry that happened.’
Clio let out a strange howling noise. It was some time before she could let him go.
They bounded further on into the desert, two lonesome figures moving as one in the westwind. Night critters let out squeals of surprise and hid. This was where Clio ruled, where he was king.
No, that was before the poachers came, she thought sadly. Now he was alone, saved from the crypt of slavery to be suckled in a cot until he died. Iliana knew he hated it, knew he carried guilt despite what was the most impressive show of defiance and bravery she had ever witnessed.
At one stage, he jumped over a large chasm and out sprung his wings to allow for a soft landing. Iliana squealed in delight as they glided to back to the sand. Clio growled in response and he turned around, loping back south.
Iliana embraced the rest of the ride, letting the vigour of the night sprint run through her veins, as she knew it did through Clios.
When they reached his cave, Iliana went to her large backpack and out rolled the ball of wool.
Branson laughed so hard he nearly fell off his horse. Iliana glared at him.
Clio stared at it, puzzled.
She picked it up and threw it at him. It hit the sand softly and bounced.
‘You can play with it when you’re bored.’
Clio picked up one massive paw, and pressed it down on top. The wool sponged under his weight and he tried it again, testing its limits. When it rolled to the side he tried it once more and the ball moved away. He continued until he was chasing it around the mouth of the cave, completely fixated.
This time Branson did fall off his horse. He scrambled back on when Clio let out an audacious roar, his whiskers raised in the scowl of a large cat.
‘Time to go, Iliana,’ he said hurriedly.
She didn’t move but looked at him with a huge smile. ‘You’re not afraid of cats, are you Branson?’
‘That thing ain’t a cat, let’s go.’
Iliana reached up and Clio bent down to her, his intelligent eye nearly as big as her face.
‘I have to go.’ She hugged him around his mane and buried her face in it.
The connection she had with Clio was profound, mystical and as mysterious as the carvings of an ancient civilisation. Inexplicable but beautiful. His presence was a reassurance to her that the Otherworld was not as dangerous as a place she assumed it to be, and she drew strength from him, a comfort knowing he was simply there.
She realised that perhaps there was more to the Otherworld than just dangerous entities, murderers, slavers and armed faeries. All of whom very much disliked her.
Before she could untangle her fingers from his fur, that condensed, thick heat from before rose within her, Clio must have felt it too because he backed away. Turning in circles, he was clearly stressed and let out low, gruff growls.
Iliana glanced at Branson, who just shrugged.
She watched in amazement as the claw on his paw grew back, and his faulty wing suddenly snapped out, sending out a ‘whoosh’ sound. Places where his white fur was patchy shot out like tufts of grass, giving his coat a healthy fullness. Clio roared with such an intensity that Iliana and Branson jumped away from the deafening thunder that escaped his massive jaws.
He crouched, wings arched in anticipation and in one swoop, immediately took to the sky victoriously. He flew strong, each stroke of his wings gaining him higher altitude.
Iliana cried out in delight.
‘What the hell?’ Branson exclaimed.
Iliana watched in awe as Clio soared in circles, his roars echoing for miles around. She craned her head to follow his pattern of flight.
‘Iliana, whatever you did, Zoe is going to have a canary.’ Branson’s tone was urgent.
She turned to him, frowning. ‘What did I do?’
‘He didn’t heal himself,’ he said, turning his horse with haste. ‘Let’s go.’
She saw Clio was nowhere near to coming back down, and reluctantly mounted her horse.
She kept looking back as they left and a final glance before she disappeared behind the last dune awarded her with the sight of Clio. He landed clumsily on a small rise near his cave, trying to get the hang of it all again. The wind gushed her ball of wool around like a stray mouse near the mouth of his cave. His opaque eyes watched her with a dancing, twinkled vigour that wasn’t there before.
Zoe didn’t have a canary, as it turned out. She seemed pleased but not surprised, almost like it was her plan for Iliana to heal Clio all along. To plop her in front of him and see what would happen.
Iliana later found her favourite swing chair on the front porch, and poured over more books on the Otherworld. Besides the hi
stories she looked over the laws that governed the land.
A book from her pile fell onto the wooden deck and Iliana picked it up. It was titled, ‘An Account of the Order of the Second Dawn.’
Curious, she flipped through it until she landed on a page that had inked into it an intricate illustration of a burning phoenix. The book detailed into the early development of The Order, a cult that believed in a just god beyond their world and were obsessed with the holy Phoenix, the symbol they associated with their god. She wrapped herself up in blankets and read for a while by candlelight, while crickets and other nocturnal insects hummed in the flora that bloomed around the manse.
Zoe called her in to help her with peeling spuds for a late dinner.
‘Those Muckleberry can be a stubborn lot,’ she grumbled as she pushed the edge of a knife into the flesh of a potato, ‘one of their younglings was injured and do you think I could treat the poor devil? They’ve been acting more aggressively the past while. Ah but they sense the wind that has picked up I suppose, I can feel it in my bones like pneumonia. Strange tides draw near.’
‘What do you mean?’
Zoe glanced up at her. ‘Last time I felt like this was when King Seamus was elected. I sniff the changes that stir in the air; even the animals are beginning to feel it too.’
Iliana continued peeling. ‘What kind of change?’
Zoe shrugged. ‘You’ve got me child. I saw a flock of geese heading south and you don’t normally see that kind of thing for at least another couple of months. Whatever is happening in the north, it isn’t good.’
She glanced sneakily at Iliana. ‘I expected Clio to be gone now that you managed to heal him. But he lingers for some reason.’
‘He’s clearly taken a liking to you. Could never really establish any kind of relationship with him myself, when I brought him here he was content in staying but no more. You’ve achieved something that I’ve been trying for the last decade. He’s intelligent enough to choose the timing of his aggression and when to show compassion, and I see more of the former than the latter. After what those damned poachers did to his pride, it broke him y’know.’
She sighed and wiped her hands with a dishcloth. ‘But I’ve done my best. I’m glad you have a connection with him. But what happened, well, it sounds…’
Return of the Starchild (The Divine Inheritance Series Book 1) Page 19