The encounter with Tilden had changed her. She had felt so powerless when Tilden had trapped her with his magic. Initially, she had struggled against it, seeking to use force to push it back. That had been hopeless. Something dark and powerful, beyond her comprehension, fed Tilden’s magic, something insidious. It was only when she stopped struggling that she had found the way to combat him.
As she had done against the Fire-Snake on the Great Desert, she had pulled the energy into herself. She had not been able to pull all of it though; indeed she had not needed too. All she needed was enough to enable Wist to act. Instinctively, she knew she could not beat Tilden. It was not just the sickening power that he wielded - everything pointed to Wist. From Eliscius’ warning, to Tilden’s attitude, she knew that Wist had to confront him.
The taste of Tilden’s power had sickened her at first. Like an over-spiced drink, or a meat sweetened to hide its rotten flavour, the taste of his magic made her feel like she might rot from the inside. But then the warmth had arrived. The caress of power soothed her senses and ignited her resolve.
Tyla stirred on the far side of the room. His vigil complete, he stood, turned and then left the room, sliding the wooden door closed.
Aviti tried to asses her surroundings, but her need for the magic started to bite at her, gnawing at the edges of her being. She knew she was in trouble, but to whom she could turn to for help? Tyla had watched Faric slain. She was surprised that the Lyrat was still with them.
Aviti knew the party was still together, aboard this ship – and this unsettled her. She could feel Wist. He was several levels above her, possibly on the deck. He burned brightly in her mind now. He was no longer the passive victim that they had accompanied across the deserts. He was a raging torrent of fury; poisonously bitter and unstable. She could not feel Nikka, the Cerni dwarf, but she was certain he would follow Wist to the ends of the earth.
Dregan would be here also. With Wist’s anger consuming him and, she guessed, most of it directed at the mage, he would have forced him to accompany them. Perhaps she could ask Dregan for help?
Aviti moved herself over to sit at the wall beside the door. There was a single circular window in the room, although no light shone through. Not that it mattered. Medicaut; that was where she presumed they were heading. Out across the Mpah Sea to Pyrite and Medicaut. She shivered inwardly at the thought of leaving the desert behind. But thoughts of her future were forced aside, as the hunger for the magic rose again; stronger this time, urgent and compulsive.
Had Tyla known why she had passed out, or had he assumed that she had been overcome, as she had been at Potter’s Field? The truth was she had not been able to release the power. When Tilden had lost control of the magic, she had seized it. She thought that she could control it, but it overwhelmed her. She had been as helpless as she had been when she fell into the Corb.
It was the ecstasy of its power that had finally overcome her. If it had not, she feared what would have become of her.
The Redemption of Wist
Book 2: Pyrite
1 - Self-Inflicted
Grit lined Wist's mouth. Its flavour was different to the desert of Tapasya. Bitter iron and the tang of seawater had usurped the vapid sand.
Sense returned to him.
Nikka.
He remembered the dark Cerni dwarf colliding with him on the ship.
The ship. What happened on the ship? They had been attacked, hadn't they?
An irrefutable hand rolled him over and he opened his eyes. It was Tyla. The Lyrat's dark skin gave Wist the impression of looking into a hole in the pre-dawn gloom; a space where light should be. Nikka stood away from Tyla, cursing and pouring water out of his boots.
A cold certainty sat within Wist, as if something insatiable had fed.
Sunlight broke over the eastern horizon and it pierced Wist's self-containment. 'Get up,' barked Nikka. 'Get up,' he repeated when Wist failed to acknowledge him. 'We must get off the shore. That spectacle last night must have been seen by half of the world.' With his boots returned to his feet, Nikka joined Tyla. Then they each placed a hand under Wist's arms and lifted him to his feet.
'The Cerni speaks truly,' said Tyla. The slavers will be angered by the loss of their vessels.' The final word sounded unnatural when spoken by the Lyrat. The cadences of his voice slurred the word and blurred its edges.
Slavers? Vessels?
'But Aviti,' began Wist. His own voice sounded deeper than he expected it to.
'What of her? What of the Mage? What of the sailors?' snapped Nikka, motioning to the water. 'Dead? Lost? What difference does it make? They are not here, and we cannot help Aviti or Dregan now.'
Wist looked where Nikka pointed. There were bodies on the beach, lots of them. 'We must be gone,' continued Nikka, and Tyla nodded in agreement, but the Lyrat's visage shouted of unspoken grief and compounded loss.
Wist's mismatched companions walked up the greasy, ash coloured beach and away from the coastline. Wist trailed behind them, struggling up the slope of sand.
Was Aviti dead? If she was, he knew where he would lay her death. He may not have been there, but he was behind this all. It all came back to him.
When they crested the first hill, an array of similar ones greeted them. The black, coarse sand of the beach disappeared under blossoming grassland. Unbothered by such beauty, Tyla and Nikka continued to press on. They would not be satisfied until the sea lay a score of miles from them, but Wist took a moment to pause at the crest of the hill.
Where would he hide?
Medicaut would be the obvious answer, but was it too simple a snare? Medicaut: the city in the mountains, the site of Eliscius' transfiguration, or rather his second one. The first had taken place during the leader's attempted execution in the Great Desert.
What a fitting place to finish me off, thought Wist, but it would be Tilden that would meet his end. Oblivion was too good for him.
So he set off and followed Nikka and Tyla again, the last of their kind. Tyla's people, the Lyrats, were definitely lost. Tilden corrupted them, bent them to his will and used them to destroy the city of Mashesh, just to get at Wist. Then Tilden forced them across a continent and they met their doom at the hands of the Volni, the light-skinned antithesis of the Cerni.
And what of the Cerni? The sentinel Enceladus had shown Nikka visions of his kin's fall. Perhaps Nikka misinterpreted the visions, but he was convinced that his people were gone, consumed by the deathless curse that festered in Mashesh. And it had spread along the rift in the world, that massive crack that began at the edge of the desert city and ran through the continent of Tapasya and beyond. It spread and produced soulless Damned to wander the land.
Wist still wasn't sure whether Eliscius' preternaturally long life was linked to the fate of the Damned. Hadn't Eliscius wandered the world, deathless, until Tilden opened his throat?
Yes, it all came back to Tilden. Wist's failure to confront Tilden in Jerel's Tower pierced his heart. His failure had been the last victory of his stasis; the stasis which had hamstrung him on Tapasya.
His suicide in his other world – his real world; the murder of his father; the betrayal of Tilden, his twin brother; even the fragmented memories that still plagued him; none of it mattered. The incandescent emotions that shook Jerel's tower in Tapasya had incinerated his paralysis. It burned away all of Wist's constraints.
Tilden could hide, but Wist would find him and he would kill him.
They marched north through the lush grass of the fields until Tyla brought them to a halt at midday. Then they rested on the side of a small hill. There was no need for a fire. The day held sufficient heat for them, so they ate cold rations that Tyla had salvaged.
He must hate this, thought Wist: the grass underfoot, the unthreatening heat of the sun, the moisture in the air and the overwhelming veracity of life. Even the sound of a small burn, as it babbled through the land, must be foreign to him. But the scars lay flat across the desert man's forehead.
'What happened on the ship?' asked Nikka. The abrupt question caught Wist off-guard, but it was the Cerni's tone that unsettled him. More than a sliver of accusation lay hidden in the question.
'No idea, why don't you tell me,' said Wist.
Nikka looked at him for several moments. Perhaps he waited for Wist to break his silence. Then the Cerni laughed. It started off as a bitter, sharp laugh; a toxic bark. Then it modulated. It softened and deepened, as Nikka pulled back from an internal crisis.
'Only you could sink three ships, send ten score men to their graves, near kill us too and then claim no knowledge. And what is worse, I almost believe you.'
Sink ships?
'I don't … I don't,' began Wist. The ghost of his past stirred in its slumber. Tyla surveyed the horizon, and then he exchanged a look with Nikka.
'I remember shooting arrows at the pirates,' said Wist.
'Pirates?' said Nikka.
'Pirates - slavers, whatever,' said Wist. 'I remember them closing in on us. I remember Tilden's face appearing before me, goading me. Then, they must have... They must have rammed us. I was in the water and a felt an arm around me. Tyla's I think.' The Lyrat nodded.
'You incinerated two of the pursuing ships and then scuttled ours,' said Nikka, his temper gone. 'I thought you were trying to bore a hole in the world.'
Scuttled ours?
'If not for the Cerni, we would have perished.' The finality in Tyla's voice held no relief for Wist.
'No,' said Wist. 'No. I remember the ships. I remember firing the arrows and then we crashed. That was all.'
Nikka began to speak, but Tyla cut across him. This time it was the Lyrat who denied him. 'No. Accept your actions or damn us all.'
'I didn't,' protested Wist. 'I only tried to...' But as he spoke, it came back to him. His mind's fractured walls could protect him no longer.
He'd burned all those people on the ships. When he had lost control, something had blossomed inside of him; something dark and bitter. He recalled it as clearly as his other failures, in this life and the other one. Failures from his real life.
Wist nodded to Nikka; an acceptance of his crimes. 'Oh God, Aviti,' he said. 'I sent her to her death.'
Tyla denied him again. 'No. We have survived. Many of the slavers survived also, but we were forced to travel west to avoid them. Perhaps the slavers have them, or perhaps they too have evaded capture.'
'Aye,' said Nikka as he looked up at the sun. 'Whatever has happened, we cannot hope to find her, or the Mage.' He threw his hands wide apart and gestured to the land that lay before them. Rivers, valleys, hills and plains filled this land.
Nikka was right. Aviti. The girl who had saved him from death; the woman who freed him to deny Tilden, she was gone.
Fuel for the fire.
The Lyrat spoke, rousing Wist from his thoughts. 'If Medicaut is our target, which way do we go? Dregan was our guide.'
'Simple,' said Wist. 'north. Eliscius spoke of heading into the mountains in the north.'
The Cerni replied 'Aye, but where is the mountain he spoke of in the north? If this land is half of the size of Tapasya we may be years searching.'
'Then we'll head north until we find someone to ask.' Did they think Tilden would be content with allowing them to wander aimlessly? Wist felt a strange sense of surety as he made these decisions. This was his time to strike back. An urgent need moiled inside him. It twisted in his guts like a serpent.
'And what if it happens again?' asked Nikka, his dark features tight with implications. Wist blinked. 'What if you repeat your performance on the ship? I cannot drag you into the water here.'
'It won't,' said Wist as details of what had occurred dripped through the damaged barriers of his mind. 'I just...lost control, for a time.' It was a lie so blatant that the Cerni should have laughed in his face, but Nikka nodded.
Tyla stood up and left them to rest while he scouted out the area.
-*-
Wist rested for an hour, whilst he waited for the Lyrats return, but the Cerni was never idle. He started by checking his hammer for flaws. He ran his truncated digits over the metal, checking for weakness or any pre-disposition for failure. Then he moved to the leather-wrapped, wooden shaft and applied a touch of oil.
After he had completed his ministrations to the weapon, he looked over the rest of his equipment, humming all the time. His tune did not end, but neither did it repeat. It twisted and reformed, adapting to whatever the dark dwarf did.
'Thanks,' said Wist. Nikka stopped humming and reassembled his pack.
'Thanks? For what?' asked the Cerni, with more than a touch of mischief in his dark eyes.
'You know what for,' said Wist. '…on the boat.' Nikka nodded, but said nothing else. As the silence deepened, Tyla appeared over the hilltop, accompanied by a fresh wind.
Wist jumped to his feet and went to confront Tyla. 'What then? Did you find anything? What did you see?'
'I cannot be sure,' said Tyla.
'What?'
The Lyrat shrugged. 'I cannot tell.' Tyla paused, as if he sought the correct phrase. 'But we are amongst the Giants.'
'Giants, Christ,' said Wist. Dregan had mentioned the Giants, but he had planned to take them through the human inhabited lands to the east. They must be much further west than they should be.
'What does Tilden want with Giants?' asked Wist. He had experience at the hands of the Gorgoth. One of those brutes had lead Tilden's forces when he had first tried to destroy Mashesh.
'The question you should be asking,' said Nikka, 'is how we get to Medicaut, once we determine where it is.'
'Indeed,' said someone from behind Wist. 'You are hardly likely to be mistaken for a brother of mine.’ Tyla blinked and loosed his Katana. Nikka tensed as Wist whirled around, but his hammer stayed on its familiar place on his shoulder.
Wist expected to see the green malevolent eyes of Tilden. The eyes he saw were gentle and blue, set in a face that resembled the side of a mountain. This Giant was unarmed, unless there were weapons concealed in his earthen apparel.
'Who are you?' asked Wist, as if knowing the name of his adversary would provide him with a course of action.
'This is my land,' said the Giant, with a voice as gentle as the hills which surrounded them, 'and these are troubled times. So perhaps I should be asking the questions?'
Nikka inclined his head to the newcomer. 'I am Nikka,' said the dwarf to prevent Wist from issuing a sharp reply, 'Cerni by birth and free by choice. This is Tyla, last of the desert Nomads. And our pale companion -' the dwarf faltered for an instant. 'He is Wist.'
The Giant showed no hint of reaction at any of their names. Instead, he bowed to each of them in turn. The inflection of his head had a comical air as if all it lacked were a motley cap and bells. 'Then,' he said, 'having received a gift as valuable as your true names I shall return the gesture, returning the honour upon the giver. I am Haumea the slight, third Glaine and least in the sight of Ionracas. But Giant I am, nonetheless.'
'You will forgive my eavesdropping.' said Haumea.
'I would settle for finding out how you did it,' said Nikka with a grin.
The Giant returned the dwarf's smile. 'Ah, even a mountain may go unnoticed if it remains unmoving for a time. You seek Medicaut, do you not?'
Wist nodded and earned a glance from Tyla.
'Why? What would you hope to find there?'
'That is our business,' replied Wist. 'We have no interest in you or your people. Just point us in the right direction and we'll give you no trouble.'
As Haumea's smile broadened, Wist noticed for the first time how lopsided it was. 'Your mystery deepens my friends. But before I answer your enquiries, tell me of the light in the sky last night. What do know you of that?'
'We saw the light,' said Tyla in Wist's place.
Haumea did not react to the evasion, but asked another question. 'How did you get here? There are no deserts in Pyrite - no dark dwarfs and no men left this far east in th
e middle of a war.'
'War?' said Wist. 'What war?'
The Giant coloured, but refused to answer the question and continued to stare at them.
Nikka was the first to speak. 'I have seen war. I have even been the cause of war. Being the wrong shape, colour or species in the middle of a war is no place to be.'
'We came ashore last night,' said Wist, determined to keep control of the situation, 'under the cover of darkness.'
The Giant exhaled. The rattling breath reminded Wist of N'tini, Aviti's father. 'You claim no knowledge of this land. This I believe. But you arrive amidst a fire storm and the sinking of ships. That your coming is a coincidence is too much for me to countenance.'
'You leave me with a decision to make, do you not?' Haumea said, shifting from one foot to another. 'I have neither the strength, nor the aptitude to subdue you all. In truth, I suspect I would have trouble capturing any of you - although you,' Haumea pointed at Wist, 'would be my preferred option.' The Giant chuckled and then held his hands up in a placating gesture.
'So what is your course of action,' asked Nikka, 'now that you have eschewed violence?' The Cerni's face mirrored the humour implied in the Giant's words.
The Giant threw its hands wide and with a lurid flourish it pirouetted. As it came back around, it laughed. 'Ah, my friends, I must ask you to accompany me for a time. I must take you to those better suited for matters of import, for I am only a humble servant, a mere... scullery maid. Of sorts'
Wist looked again at the Giant, and there it was - a softness around the eyes, a subtle curvature around the hips and breasts.
'Yes,' said Wist, then he turned to his companions. 'What choice do we have?' Nikka and Tyla exchanged a glance and then the Cerni nodded.
'Perhaps,' said Wist, 'we will find Aviti too.'
Nikka looked doubtful, but he added. 'Aye, and the Mage.' Then Haumea walked away and urged them to follow. At every other step, she scanned the terrain as she shifted her weight. The Giantess' lopsided gait did not seem to hinder her progress,
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 31