Vulture

by Rhiannon Paille

  The woman’s pain was worse. Krishani held her hand, his chest burning. She was dying from the inside out, having inhaled mouthfuls of smoke before making it outside. Krishani felt like he would pass out before he could say the words.

  An icy tendril whipped across his sweaty face. He forgot there were still things on fire, and if it weren’t for the trees at the edge of the yard he would have raced into the village to fight off the Horsemen. He couldn’t do that now that Vultures surrounded him, cooling his insides with their inky black frostbite. He welcomed the cold because it took away the woman’s pain and made it easier for him to drop his head to her ear and whisper the incantation.

  She sucked in a surprised gasp as her soul forcefully broke away from her body. It wasn’t until the Vultures lifted into the air that he realized why she was unwilling to go. There was a huddle of children near the porch steps. Their bodies were molded together, hands and limbs melting into each other as though they were holding on for dear life. Krishani counted four of them as he dropped to his knees and tried to grasp one of the liquid-like limbs. He cast the words over the four of them and tried not to think about their contorted forms. They were dead already. There was nothing he could do. Elwen was right; he didn’t have time to save them, not when fire devoured everything in its path.

  He stood, sick from grief, and hung his head as he paced towards Tyr. Thick streaks of the Horsemen’s tread painted the yellowing grass. They broke through the trees, their reign of destruction far from over. If Krishani ever expected to see Kaliel again, he would have to end them. He glanced into the black gray sky, so full of smoke he couldn’t make out the shapes of the Vultures. He swung onto Tyr, preparing to ride after the Horsemen when he caught something out of the corner of his eye–white smoke, rising from the body of another. His stomach lurched as he stumbled off Tyr and awkwardly lunged towards the corner of the yard. A black shape blocked his view as a Vulture flew right in front of him, hissing, its tendrils reaching for him. Krishani stopped short, his eyes wide as another one dived for the white smoke, sucking it up into its dark storm cloud. A web of icy blackness struck Krishani’s cheek as though the Vulture was telling him something. Before Krishani could react it fled, leaving Krishani stunned.

  When he found his feet, he realized the fire was still pressing in on him. He closed the distance between himself and the body. The Vultures had taken a boy, no more than four years old. A numb feeling of regret washed over him as he glanced at his right hand, the black scar deepening and expanding.

  The boy wasn’t just gone. He was gone forever.

  • • •

  Pux wasn’t there in the morning.

  Kaliel woke to the sound of scratching against the roof. Branches. She would never get used to that, the rough edges of Terra, a land hard and unforgiving. She stretched, feeling stiffness in her limbs. It was getting worse, not better. She rolled her shoulder in an attempt to work out the kinks, getting only a bit more fluidity. She slid on her slippers and went to rummage around in the bag for one of her familiar ivory dresses when a knock on the door interrupted her. She briefly caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her black hair in knots. There were some things she needed to ask Elwen for if she was going to be comfortable living in the village.

  Kaliel moved to the door and opened it but nobody was on the porch. She frowned and went outside, noticing the overcast sky. A brisk chill colored the morning air, and she rubbed the tops of her arms, leaning over the railing. A dark figure in a full black robe waited at the bottom of the stairs. Her stomach curdled as she recognized Klavotesi, The Obsidian Flame and her self-appointed mentor. She clambered down the steps as he began taking long strides across the grass. He didn’t stop and she didn’t catch up until he was at the steps of the hall. She followed him inside only to be hit with the smell of fresh bread. The scent made her stomach slosh in a sea of restlessness, wanting to savor the taste.

  Klavotesi swept towards the table and sat on the bench. She curiously followed, sitting across from him and grabbed a hot bun off the tray. There weren’t many, only enough for the serving staff and the guards. She broke it open and steam oozed out, bringing prickling feelings to the tips of her fingers. She didn’t care about the heat. She sank her teeth into it before Klavotesi had a chance to speak and chewed until it was soft enough to swallow. It still didn’t taste anything like the food on Avristar, but it was fresh and warm and that made up for most of it.

  “You were late for our lesson,” Klavotesi said.

  Kaliel grabbed another bun and began stuffing it into her mouth. A sheepish expression crossed her face, her cheeks turning pinkish. She set the bun on the table. Self-consciously, she ran her hands along her dress and coughed a little to get the sticky bread out of her throat. It was an odd thing to say; she was always tardy for lessons, but she had never been three moons tardy.

  “I’m sorry,” she squeaked, hiccupping and bringing a hand to her mouth. His face was a mask of nothingness.

  “I meant this morning. I understand you had unfinished business on Avristar,” Klavotesi said smoothly.

  Kaliel looked down the length of the table, half searching for water and half avoiding him. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Of course not,” Klavotesi agreed. The tips of his fingers were almost visible under the cloth of his cloak. Kaliel could tell his hands were pressed against the table, fingers spread, but other than shadows, she couldn’t see his hands clearly. “I wanted to begin with theory.”

  She gave him a wary look as though he was going to start talking about herbs she couldn’t remember or something else she hadn’t learned altogether.

  “Relax, you should know these things already.” He presented a piece of parchment from his cloak. His hands were exposed, and they weren’t just pale white. They were bone white with bright red fingernails outlined by blood red cuticles. His hands were like polished stone, unchipped and seamless. He spread the parchment flat on the table and pulled out a piece of charcoal. Kaliel watched him draw a circle and then split it into four quadrants.

  “Can you name the four corners of the lands?” he asked.

  Kaliel nodded; she learned this as a child in Avristar. Everyone knew the names. Klavotesi positioned the paper so the lines formed an X in front of her. She pointed to the quadrant on the right side first. “This is the Avristar quadrant.” She moved her finger to the left side of the circle. “Avrigard,” she said, moving her finger to the southern quadrant. “Avristyr,” she breathed, tracing her finger through the middle of the X so it rested on the north quadrant. She gulped. “Avrigost,” she whispered. She stared at her finger placed on the place where the Valtanyana were locked away. Klavotesi tugged at the edge of the parchment and she was pulled out of her stupor. She lifted her hand and buried it in her lap.

  “Very good,” Klavotesi said. He went on explaining the things she knew about Avristar looking after the seven Lands of Men. Similarly, Avrigard looked after the eleven Lands of Immortals, and Avristyr looked after the five Lands of Beasts. Avrigost looked after nothing because it was a place of chaos. “Do you know where Avristar is on Terra?” Klavotesi asked.

  Kaliel sat straighter and stared at him blankly. She didn’t understand the question. Avristar was its own island. She frowned. “Across the lake?”

  Klavotesi didn’t emote at all but he hummed, and it was enough to make Kaliel feel queasy. She didn’t want to be wrong when it came to him. The way Clamose treated her like she was a sovereign was confusing enough without Klavotesi spending three moons waiting for her return. He could have gone back to Amaltheia in light of her absence and adolescent longings but he didn’t. He brought out the parchment again and began drawing a circle, then formed land masses across it. There were squiggly lines all over the place and she cocked her head to the side, staring at it. He put the tip of the charcoal on a very tiny island to the north. “We are here,” he explained, moving the charcoal to a place in the middle of the waters where there were
no squiggly land masses. “Avristar is here, physically.”

  “Physically?”

  His hood shook with laughter. “You don’t remember anything from the First Era do you?”

  Kaliel looked down at her hands. Clamose had assumed the same. “No,” she muttered, but images of the sky full of fire and smoke hit the back of her mind.

  “You need to stop thinking in straight lines and think in spirals. Avristar is hidden, so physically the island is here, but humans can’t see it.”

  “Is Terra really that big?” she asked, nudging the map with her fingernail.

  Klavotesi sighed. “It’s thousands of times larger than Avristar.”

  “Where is Avrigost on this map?” she asked suddenly, taking a closer look at the land masses and trying to match them to the quadrant map she had been shown earlier.

  “It isn’t,” Klavotesi said slowly. He let out another sigh and buried his hand in his hooded face as though he were pinching the bridge of his nose. Kaliel straightened her spine, noticing her body was aching again, this time in the backs of her legs. “This is a map of Terra, a land as big as a star, but not as hot as a star. If you look at the sky, lands like these are scattered across them, but they’re invisible. Only the stars shine.”

  Kaliel frowned. This wasn’t common knowledge on Avristar. Talking about the Lands Across the Stars was a romantic idea most kinfolk never bothered to explain. She looked at the ceiling, forgetting they were inside, and immediately felt foolish for doing it. “So Avristar is on Terra?” she said slowly, trying to comprehend.

  “And it is on Amaltheia.” Klavotesi quickly drew another smaller circle with more squiggly-lined land masses and pointed to the spot where Avristar was. He drew five more circles and pointed to five more places. “And on Arathia, Seventia, Matakasha, Nimphalls and Ronannon,” he explained.

  Kaliel’s head was spinning. “Avristar is in seven different places at the same time?”

  Klavotesi pulled himself taut and laced his fingers together. She could tell he was beaming. “That is correct.”

  “How is that even possible?”

  “I think the lands prefer to keep some things a mystery.”

  Kaliel nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. She stared at the little images on the page and didn’t know what she wanted to know next. There were Lands of Beasts and Lands of Immortals. She’d never heard of those places before, so they seemed like part of a dream.

  Klavotesi flipped the parchment over and drew a big circle on the other side. “Forget that for now; it will sink in later. You need to know what exists on Terra,” he explained, drawing the squiggly lines again. She watched as he carved out the map and began pointing out different things. The first was a small island north of a larger land mass. “This is where Tavesin Castle is,” he began. Above the island was a network of smaller islands, and then it tapered off against the edge of the circle. He smiled. “I could tell you what these places are called now or what they will be called thousands of years from now.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “Because Terra isn’t fully formed yet, and because it’s bound to be almost completely wiped out before it begins again. They don’t even tell time right now; the people here are primitive.”

  “What about the villagers?”

  “They’re not from Terra; most of them are refugees from Arathia. People are warring over land, and these people lost theirs.”

  Kaliel looked sick again. “How did they get here?”

  “Vortex.”

  Kaliel thought for a moment, she stared at the land masses, her mind a complete blank. “Why do you know so much?”

  Klavotesi pulled his hands back into his cloak and left the charcoal on the table. He glanced behind him but there was nobody else in the hall. He turned back. “I see many things. That’s how I know.”

  Kaliel drew a sharp breath. There were things she could ask him about her life on Avristar before the catastrophe but she held her tongue and instead nodded at the circle on the parchment. “Tell me what you want me to know.”

  Klavotesi got to work explaining the names of the various land masses from Babylon to Africa–Rome, Persia, Celt Iberia, Scotland, Norway, China, Mexico, and so many others she couldn’t remember. Klavotesi indicated Scotland as the same place Tavesin Castle was. She thought it was safe to assume the villagers didn’t call it that now. After awhile she wanted to lay her head on the table and let the monotonous sound of his voice put her to sleep. Her head drooped, her eyelids fell shut, and there was a smack on the table. Kaliel jumped only to see Elwen hunched over the nearly empty platter of bread. He inspected the remaining pieces and picked one for himself, breaking it up into little pieces and folding it into his mouth. He chewed like a horse and swallowed, crushing a cup of mead to his lips.

  “Entertaining yourselves with a game?” he asked, glancing at the sketches of maps. Klavotesi hastily shuffled the parchment, rolling it up and tucking it into his cloak.

  “We were finished. I was educating Kaliel on the state of the lands.”

  Elwen stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You mean how Terra has become a dumping ground for the other Lands of Men? Before long the land will be starving?” He glared at Kaliel for no reason and took another sip of mead. Her mouth watered; she was so thirsty and nobody had appeared with a pitcher of water or that disgusting honey smelling stuff. Kaliel didn’t want to say anything about his political argument. There were cramps in her gut that made her feel like she was going to pass out. The thing she wanted to say to Elwen was that the land was already starving; it was lifeless.

  Klavotesi pushed up from the table and passed in front of Elwen in a menacing way, as though challenging him. “You’re lucky no one knows this village is here. What you have is a testament to what this land could become one day.”

  “Aye, we keep the savages out.” He smiled like he had said something funny, but Kaliel was slipping. Her body dipped towards the bench, and she straightened her arm to keep herself from falling. Klavotesi turned to meet her worried expression.

  “I think I need a healer,” she whispered before things went dark.

  * * *

  20 - Barren

  Kaliel woke in a room filled with the scent of vanilla. She breathed it in, the first new smell on Terra she actually liked, and smiled as a face came into view. The woman had a comfort to her that made her feel like home. Maybe it was her soft, smooth skin or her elongated ears or her bright hazel eyes. She set a teacup on the nightstand, and Kaliel immediately recognized the chamomile. She fought to sit, pushing plushy pillows and blankets out of the way. It was like she was drowning in clouds. Her body slumped into the big, beige pillow at her back and she felt lightheaded again. The woman sat on the edge of the bed, jostling everything slightly, and handed Kaliel the tea. She blew on it while tracing the outlines of the woman’s elongated ears. The woman was clad in a long-sleeved rose dress. It looked like it was meant for everyday use, tapering at the wrists like the black one Kaliel had been wearing since last night.

  “You have some concerns,” she began, scanning the other girl’s face.

  Kaliel nodded and took a long sip of the tea. It was the first thing that tasted good and she exhaled with relief. “I don’t know why I fainted.”

  The woman’s face was a mask of calm. “That body is part man, part immortal. It’s natural for you to feel some discomfort.”

  “Part immortal?”

  “Some call it elven, but it has longevity. That’s all immortality is. I’m sorry, I’m confusing you aren’t I?”

  Kaliel nodded and took another sip of tea. She heard someone mention Talina before, during the dancing, but she hadn’t met her. The woman must have been her, and she was enchanting, making Kaliel feel both awkward and peaceful.

  “Why don’t you explain your symptoms?” Talina suggested, folding her hands in her lap. She kept her gaze steady on Kaliel.

  Kaliel went over the shooting pains in her limbs, the cramps
, and the lightheaded feeling. She didn’t think it was bad until she passed out in the hall. She didn’t mention that she used to be really clumsy and she was used to pain but not pain like this.

  “The body was damaged when you possessed it,” Talina explained calmly. She paced around the bed. Kaliel watched her through the veneer as she reached the dark mahogany bureau and opened it, fiddling with sachets of strong smelling herbs. Talina pulled something out, moved back to the bed, and dropped it in the tea. “The body isn’t accustomed to your energy.”

  “Is that a bad sign?”

  Talina gave her a wan smile and prompted her to finish the tea. Kaliel tasted it but the pleasant taste evaporated and was replaced by a salty, tangy flavor. She took three big gulps and emptied the cup, more dizziness soaking her bones. She was glad she was in a bed and not standing. “You’ll have limitations. Here, lie down please,” Talina instructed, moving the covers aside. Kaliel slid off the pillows until she was as flat as a board on the bed. Talina began at her legs, worrying away at the skin with her delicate fingers. Sometimes she pushed hard on spots and other times she was gentle. When she pushed on Kaliel’s stomach she winced at the cramping pain.

  “You’re barren, so you won’t bear children,” she mumbled almost incomprehensibly, but Kaliel caught every word and almost shot off the bed.

  “Children?” she gasped, propping herself up on her elbows, her eyes wild. She hadn’t thought of it before, of what she and Krishani had done in the cabin, because it seemed so natural. She never knew the Children of Avristar to have children, only the tribes in Nandaro did, but she hadn’t been one of them; she had been born of the land.

  Talina looked grave. “I’m sorry.” She gestured for Kaliel to lie down again, and she obeyed while Talina continued poking and prodding her.

  “Children of Avristar don’t have children,” she said, staring at the ceiling of the four poster bed. She pressed her hands flat and sighed.

  “That’s what you were before,” Talina guessed. She finished with the inspection and let Kaliel sit. She searched her eyes briefly. “You need to get stronger.” Kaliel wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “I’ll tell Klavotesi what is needed and he can add it to your lessons.”