‘You think that I threaten you?’ N’tini chuckled as he retook his seat. ‘I can barely stand, never mind wield a weapon. I could call Cairn though. He could snap you with his bare hands.’ Wist shuddered. He had caught a glimpse of the violence trapped in Cairn.
‘Please forgive my jesting. I fear that years of living in this remote place have left their mark upon me.’ N’tini lowered his head in apology.
Looking back up at Wist, fire caught in the old man’s eyes again. An unveiled passion burned there now. ‘I know that you are Wist. I know this as surely as I know myself. For I have seen you. At least, I have seen some of your past.’
Wist sat up in anticipation.
‘Before we speak of that, you should know what has passed since you were last here. I can see that you suffer. Your mind and body have been sorely beaten. Listen to me, and perhaps it will aid you.’ N’tini took a deep draught from his cup, clearing the crackle from his voice.
‘A cataclysmic event, which ruptured the Earth, marked your Passing from this world. This was named the Sundering. So violent was the Sundering that this continent - Tapasya - was split from here to Lothria in the South, and to Bohba in the North. I have heard that no land in the world was unaffected. Mountains raised and vast forests felled in Pyrite. It is said that the ice of Prasad was divided.
‘The damage to Mashesh was extensive, but not as complete as it should have been. Some buildings were left unaffected - others rent completely from the earth. But the changes to the city had just begun. The survivors sought someone to blame for the destruction and death, and the ruling council were foremost in their minds. Eliscius, the head of the council, was forced to take the long walk out into the desert. The rest of the councillors were hanged for treason.’
Eliscius. The name brought an image to Wist’s mind, an image of an old, dark-skinned man, with close-cropped grey hair and a stern face. Eliscius had aided him and had given him a chance. To hear that he’d been murdered - it stunned him, but he knew that he was to blame. The details were lost to him, floating in the fragments of his memory, but the guilt remained.
‘This city could not be left leaderless for long,’ continued the old farmer. ‘No city is without its share of contenders for power. Into the vacuum stepped the Church, and quickly it consolidated its position. Magic was outlawed and any vestige of it was cleansed from the city. The Church could not contain it and they could not use it, therefore they opted to remove the threat. The Purge was bloody and thorough. I suspect many more died during this than the Sundering.’
N’tini sipped from the mug to moisten his lips, while the light of the fire flickered in his dark eyes. After a further drink, he continued. ‘When the Purge was complete, the Church required a focal point: a martyr for their cause. And who better to fill that role than the person who had delivered the city into their hands? Wist the humble, Wist the merciful.
‘Wist sacrificed himself for the people of Mashesh, they now say. I know not the truth of what happened, but I have never been a spiritual man. When I was younger, I burned with a passion to change things; those times are long past. I may not agree with the Church, but I no longer try to change what I cannot control.’
Wist sat aghast as N’tini described how the Church had built the image of his death into their scripture.
‘Can you see why you will not be welcomed in this city? Should you tell people that you are Wist, at best it will be thought that you have lost your mind. At worst, you will be declared a heretic and torn to pieces. Or perhaps you would be given to the Damned.
‘Nearly four hundred years have not loosened the Church’s grip on the city. In truth, the recent division of the Church has stopped people from questioning. They have a common enemy now, each other.’ N’tini’s voice faltered for a moment as if his frustration had overcome him.
The random shifts in the tale only served to increase Wist’s disorientation. Seeing the confusion on his face, N’tini adjusted tack once more.
‘But I speak of the past; you have more pressing concerns. I do not know why you have come back, but you have not returned alone.’
A name rose up from his past; a caustic name full of hatred and pain.
‘Tilden,’ said Wist. Images of cruel torture and torment assaulted him. ‘No, please, not him,’ he pleaded softly to himself.
‘Ah, Son, I am afraid you are correct. Tilden. I have foreseen his reappearance also. But who would listen to a half-mad, half-dead farmer from the poorest outskirts of the city? Even my children will not heed my words.’
N’tini rose stiffly and shuffled along to the chair beside Wist. As the old farmer sat, he lay his hand on Wist’s leg, in an attempt to comfort him. ‘I fear that Tilden shall no longer be content to seize control of this city this time. I have seen visions of far off places: oceans of ice broken, mountains split with furious magma, trees and woods burned and blackened, never to return to life.
‘And I have seen dragons.’ N’tini’s eyes widened as he spoke of the winged creatures. ‘Dragons, Wist. No-one in living memory has seen one. So long have they been from this world that they have commenced their journey to legend.’
Wist looked pleadingly to the desert man. ‘None of this helps me,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do or what any of this means.’
‘I cannot be your guide here, Wist,’ answered N’tini. ‘I am older than I ever feared I would become. I yearn for the day I can be with Mabon. I love my children, but this is their time, not mine.’
N’tini broke into a violent coughing fit, bloody froth fringing the edge of his mouth. Wist sat helpless as the old man convulsed beside him and the room span as his thoughts and fears collided.
Aviti swept into the room at the sound of her father’s continuing distress. Grabbing the mug from the table, she held it to N’tini’s lips and forced a little into his mouth. The dark liquid spilled around the edges of the cup, dribbling down his neck. Slowly, his coughing abated.
‘Why did you not help him?’ she snapped, her dark eyes ablaze. ‘You may be weak, but surely you could lift a cup to his mouth.’ .
‘Is he to blame for my condition, my daughter?’ N’tini’s words were short and clipped as he fought to suppress his coughing. ‘Did he make me old and frail?’
‘You will go and get some rest now, Father. I will have no argument about this!’
He acquiesced with a smile. After a few moments, Aviti helped her father to stand and guided him around the table to the door. He stopped her there and turned to Wist. ‘The statue in the courtyard is “Wist’s Sacrifice”. It is there to remind us all of the selfless act that saved the city.’
Then the old farmer shuffled out the door, his daughter holding his arm. Wist sat at the table collecting his thoughts. The more he learned, the more complex the situation became. These people thought he had been a saviour; no-one would believe who he was - who he had been - but even that was a lie. If anyone had been saved, it was not because of him; it was despite him. Wist knew that he had failed, but why wouldn’t it come back to him? Other thoughts nagged at the edges of his mind. Eliscius had aided him and had paid the price for it. The whole of the council had been exterminated in his name. What other burdens would await him?
The door to the outside swung open and Cairn stepped over the threshold into the room, bringing with him the cold night air and the pungent scent of the farm animals. He stepped over to the basin without speaking and began to wash the evening’s toil from his hands and face.
‘I know who my father thinks you are,’ he said, his voice filling the room. ‘And I will not argue with him; he has been unwell for some time. I will not hasten his passing’.
Without turning to face him, Cairn continued, ‘Aviti has told me that you agree with him. I shall assume that your mind has been damaged in some way by your plight.’
Cairn doused his face in the bowl. Straightening up, he let the water run over the prematurely weathered features of his face, dripping on to his clothes
and the floor. Then he dried his hands and face on the rag beside the bowl.
‘Once you have recovered, we shall speak of where you shall go,’ he said. Then he strode across the room, breezing past Wist as he moved into the house. Left alone in the silence of the room, Wist’s mind raced. Who am I? The future was as impenetrable as the past.
3 - The Warning
Wist’s body recuperated faster than he had expected, but it had been far more painful than he could ever have imagined. Every day he suffered as his muscles regenerated the mass that had wasted away, and every night his mind flayed him with glimpses of the past. By the time dawn arrived, he was left alone and aching.
Since the night he’d regained consciousness, some four weeks ago now, Cairn hadn’t spoken another word to him; he simply went about his work as if Wist didn’t exist. Aviti stoically accepted his presence. N’tini’s failing health had left him isolated. He hadn’t seen the old farmer at all in the past week. There were so many questions he needed to ask. And so he’d filled his days with gruelling physical exercise, focusing on rebuilding his body. This had given him a target, but the monotony of the menial tasks threatened to give him too much time to think. The pain in his body provided the necessary distraction from that.
When his fifth week on N’tini’s farm began, Wist knew he had to decide what his next step should be. Fit enough to work all day in the blistering heat of the sun, he was running out of excuses. Currently, he was sheltered by the stable roof, but the smell of drying faeces made him wish he was back out in the fields. As he lifted another load into the barrow, the door of the house burst open and out charged Aviti.
‘Wist!’ yelled Aviti as she ran. ‘Wist, damn you, where are you!’ Wist jumped as he heard her say his name.
He spilled his full barrow in his haste to turn. Ignoring the scattered pile, he ran out of the stable and shouted over to her. ‘Get in the house now,’ she said, growling through her clenched teeth. ‘Father must speak to you. Not his only son, but you. Go in quickly and I shall find Cairn. He will be at Navan’s farm trading for new stock.’ Despite her anger, the fear was obvious on her gentle face.
‘Move!’ she shouted as she sped past him, running to the western edge of the farm. Clouds of dust marked her passage.
Wist ascended the couple of steps into the house and passed through the kitchen to N’tini’s bedroom, where he paused at the door. There could be only one reason he’d been summoned. He thought briefly of fleeing the house, taking the mule and passing back out of the city, back into the desert where the sun could finish the job it had left incomplete. He pondered that monumental act of cowardice for only a heartbeat before he heard N’tini’s voice through the door.
‘Wist, come in.’ The voice was thin and brittle, but Wist heard it clearly. It pulled him onwards, all thoughts of flight abandoned. He stepped through the door, and what he saw appalled him. N’tini had lost what little strength he had possessed. The prostrate, emaciated form crackled as it struggled for breath. Dark red stains marked the white sheets like communion wine spilled from the chalice.
He started as N’tini spoke again. ‘Wist come close. I have much to say, and no time.’ Wist sat mechanically on the stool at N’tini’s side, as if drawn there by a compulsion.
‘I had a vision last night. My last it would seem.’ A smile spread over N’tini’s lips and Wist said nothing to contradict him.
‘A storm gathers. Outside the city, Wist. A violent storm.
‘Not the storm, which marked your coming.’ N’tini spoke in uneven fragments, punctuated with gasps and ragged breaths.
‘Tilden gathers the Lyrat tribes. Even now, they descend on the city. Hunting for you.’
Lyrats. The word summoned images of proud desert dwellers to Wist’s mind: fighters, survivors.
‘Why?’ Wist asked. ‘Why me? I don’t pose any threat to him. I have no idea why I am here.’
‘No threat?’ N’tini tried to laugh, but it ended with bloody spittle running down his cheek and over his ear, coming to rest in the old man’s matted hair. ‘You stopped him before.’
‘Stopped him from doing what?’ Wist asked. ‘How did I stop him?’ The panic grew in him once more; a towering wave of fear that threatened to render him immobile. ‘God damn it, N’tini, why me?’
N’tini smiled paternally. ‘You may well have known my ancestors, but in many ways, you remain an infant.’ The farmer closed his eyes as he spoke. ‘You must flee this place. Please, take my children and flee. Only death awaits those that stay.’ His chest rose and fell with his erratic breaths.
‘Tell Aviti to trust in herself. There is strength in her that she has never tapped. Cairn, well...,’ N’tini paused as a single tear rolled over the streaks of blood on his cheek, ‘he shall make his own choices, as I have made mine.’
‘Where, N’tini? Where can I go? I can only remember the desert and a few places in the city. They must be long gone by now.’
Many seconds passed before N’tini replied. ‘Go into the desert, Wist. Find Eliscius. He may help you find yourself.’
‘But -’ stuttered Wist. ‘You aren’t making any sense.’
‘The Twins, Wist,’ N’tini’s eyelids fluttered as he spoke. ‘The Twins are ... key.’
Wist wanted to protest, but N’tini could no longer answer. Powerless to halt the end, and with no way to lessen the dying man’s suffering, paralysis gripped Wist. He watched, as the old farmer’s life slowly ebbed away.
The panic and nausea, which had plagued Wist’s recovery at every step, was there, waiting for its chance to grasp at his weakness. But this time he fought it; he battled against it with every ounce of his fortitude. He wouldn’t let this man pass from the world without a solitary witness. And so he pushed down the revulsion he felt at his own impotence. He had to cling to something in this place.
But his will alone could not keep N’tini alive. The old farmer’s breathing became less distinct until eventually his chest ceased its futile efforts. Peace settled over the room. Left alone with only his thoughts to torment him, Wist knew that N’tini’s struggle was over, but that his had only begun.
--*--
The anguished scream confirmed Cairn’s fears. Aviti had stormed back into the house, leaving him in her wake and now he stood alone, poised at the entrance to his home, letting the tears roll over his cheeks. Shame burned alongside his grief: shame for his weakness, and for his selfishness, shame for his lack of faith. For all the promises he had been given of the life beyond, for all the sermons he had dutifully listened too, he could feel only loss.
The hollow ache inside him seeped into the marrow of his bones and a numbness settled over him. It dulled his pain’s sharp edge, allowed him to focus and raw feelings could be smothered beneath its surface. The moment he had both dreaded and anticipated had arrived. His father’s death left him as the head of the house. This land was now his, and with it the responsibility. He had shouldered this burden for many years already, but now it felt like the last knot that bound him to his yoke had been tied. And he hated himself for his selfish thoughts. Taking a final deep breath, he crossed the threshold of his house and left his old life behind.
He walked past Wist, who stood in the short hallway at the entrance to N’tini’s room. Cairn could see that the outsider shook visibly. He looked straight at him, but neither of them spoke. He could spare no thoughts for this intruder on their grief.
By the time he reached Aviti at their father’s bedside, her wails had quietened to racking sobs; her face was buried in her father’s lap, calling to him as she wept. So Cairn moved to stand beside her and placed his hands upon her shoulders. This would be far harder on her, he knew. He brushed his hand across her glistening cheek. Losing her mother so young in life, Aviti had clung tightly to their father.
‘I will always be here for you,’ Cairn said, the tender words felt awkward in his mouth. Her weeping continued, but her breathing evened out.
‘I should have been here,
’ she said between sobs.
He stroked his sister’s hair as he spoke, trying to calm her. ‘It would not have stopped his death, Aviti. And he was not alone at the end. Our father was his own man, even in death.’
She returned to her tears as he moved to crouch beside her.
‘Aviti, I must …’ his voice faltered uncharacteristically. ‘I must prepare the body for Passing. It must be done before the dawn.’
Tears ran across her face. She managed a brief nod and lay her head back down on her dead father’s lap. Aviti’s resemblance to his mother at that moment stunned Cairn. It had been many years since Mabon had Passed, but her face was clearly etched in his mind. Aviti had her mother’s beauty in abundance.
‘I will see to the pyre. You may have some time alone with Father now – then I must take him, Aviti.’ He could not allow her see his weakness at this moment.
She stared at Cairn and her tears continued to flow.
--*--
Cairn spent the rest of the day making the preparations for his father’s Passing. The sun had begun to set, as he finished piling the wood and straw on to the pyre. He had helped when it had been his mother’s time, but N’tini had insisted on doing the majority of the work, despite his health. Mechanically, he followed those steps again. This time he was alone, with only the ghosts of his parents for company. Beneath this pyre lay the remains of his mother.
Sweat poured over his face, a testament to the effort he had exerted. It ran over his forehead and through the channels on his face that earlier had carried his tears, and it washed them clean – baptising him in his own sweat and grief. Now he would prepare his father for cremation. Prepare his father’s body, he corrected himself. His father was gone.
He walked back to the house, feeling the cool evening air caress his face. The day had been intensely hot yet again, but he would have worked on, regardless of the conditions, to fulfil his duty. Years of labour on this farm, and his tall broad frame, enabled him to complete this arduous task. As he broached the door, Cairn shut himself off from the pain.
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 3