She looked around as Tilden, or Ravan as he appeared to everyone, dragged her on. This was an imposing structure. The stone walls towered over even the Giants. They encircled a sloping courtyard, which was large enough to house a village. No one lived here now that the Intoli had appropriated this place for their war.
The sight of the stone keep had dismayed Aviti when she and Sevika had approached it. The building itself was daunting, but it was the masses of Intoli that surrounded it and poured in and out of its gaping stone maw that had crushed her spirit.
She had hoped that most of the Intoli's force was lost when the bank of the river swept them away. But she was wrong and gravely so.
They drew close to one of the Giants, whose shackles clanked as he shuffled his burden through the mobbed courtyard. His face was blank. It was not the vacuousness of the undead Damned that marked his visage. It was the haunted face of those without hope she had seen countless times on this journey. But he displayed no sorrow for himself, just an unassuaged grief for the fate that would befall his people.
Ravan pulled her on toward the back of the courtyard where a great hall stood beside a long, narrow building. It resembled the city guards' barracks back in her dead home city of Mashesh. Then a troop of Intoli marched in two ranks through the doors into the building and confirmed her guess.
Sevika re-joined them as Aviti kicked the first step that lead up the hall. Ravan was focussed on his destination, so failed to notice her stumble. When Aviti looked at Sevika, she could see the strain of the past few weeks there. Aviti saw in Sevika everything that Tilden's projection of Ravan lacked.
The three of them walked through the unguarded doors of the chamber. It felt like passing through the portal to another world. The serene calm of the entrance hall, lit by the sun through a stained-glass window, was anathema to her. The silent air of contemplation in this place was as false as Tilden's trickery.
Coloured light drenched them as they walked toward the doors to the main hall and Sevika's once white robes were transformed. Aviti laughed aloud when she looked at Ravan. His crystal white robes reflected pure white light, in defiance of nature or reality. Sevika flicked her eyes towards her when she laughed, but before Aviti could say anything Ravan crippled her with a lance of pain.
They passed through another set of doors into an enormous hall. At the far end of the room was a chair, which sat on the raised platform. A figure, bathed in perfect white light, sat on an undersized throne.
The room looked recently vacated. Along one side of the rectangular room ran a line of benches. On these were the accoutrements of the old rulers: candelabras and plates, goblets and cutlery, napkins and clothes. Decayed food remained that even the vermin feared to touch.
Ravan dragged Aviti to the platform before the wooden throne, went to one knee and forced her face down onto the floor. She grunted as she went down and caught a glimpse of something beside the throne. It looked like a poorly carved statue.
From the ground, Aviti glimpsed Sevika. She too abased herself.
Aviti lay there as tendrils of pain coursed around her body. Small barbs of agony emanated from the bar and crawled around her body, through her nerves, along her blood. Sevika had never done anything like this to her. She should have expected this from Tilden, but the vicious delight implied in its depths brought shivers of fear from Aviti.
'Rise,' said the Queen of the Intoli. The voice was female, but it lacked anything else that Aviti could get a grip on. Aviti felt the pain recede from her body, so she rose. As she stood, she realised what was beside the Intolis' Queen, and she gasped in horror.
What she had assumed to be a statue reacted to the noise. It turned towards her and showed Aviti the full depth of the Intoli's madness. It was a man, with the lower half of his body encased in jagged lumps of stone. Aviti could hardly bare to look at the abomination that was his top half.
The partially flayed olive skin of the man revealed weeping sores and pink flesh, but that was just the beginning of his torment. His eye sockets were a blackened mess that stared into Aviti's soul.
'Dregan,' she cried and his head turned to her and the figure moaned mutely. His mouth was sealed somehow; his lips fused together. Ravan silenced her with a knife of pain and she fell to the ground once more, gritting her teeth against the assault.
'This is her?' said the Queen.
'Yes,' said Ravan.
'Kill her.'
Aviti shuddered as her death was pronounced.
'Kill her!' The shout echoed off the bare stone walls
'No,' said Sevika. Aviti looked up at her from the ground. The Intoli who had dragged her through this land looked terrified. Even when they had looked upon the Kalsurja for the first time, Sevika had not displayed such fear. Aviti struggled to her feet.
'Ravan…Ravan why does this Gau disobey me? How can we hope to restore order to the world when my simplest of wishes go unfulfilled? Oh Vigopa, why were you taken from us? Why must I remain here to see the world lost? The light has diminished in world when you went, Vigopa. Thank the Source that you returned to us Ravan.'
Aviti looked to Sevika, but her courage had foundered. Dregan issued an impotent groan.
'Krura,' said Ravan. 'Lone Sakti of our kind, we all feel your pain. We all know your loss. Your grief for Vigopa is boundless and rightly so. We are all only Intoli. We are part of the whole, but you are blessed by the light. Where we may see glimmers of light, you see The Source. So remember the vision beloved Sakti.'
The Queen moved in her chair. She turned towards Dregan and then back to Ravan. 'But she has killed our kin. She has extinguished the light that burned within the children of the Source. If Vigopa had seen what I have beheld, her wrath would have shaken the world.
'And rightly so Sakti,' said Ravan, 'and rightly so. But as she was the fire of the Source, so you are the light it provides. And with the fire gone, then the light must guide us. For are we not all a part of the light? Are we not all abourne from the Source?'
The hypnotic undertone in Ravan's voice, disguised a gentle glistening betrayal. It reminded Aviti of the shows that were frowned upon by the Heirn and Lothrian priests for their supposed use of magic. Everyone in Mashesh knew what they were; sleight of hand tricks, but the allusion to magic unsettled the Churches.
'Remember Vigopa's prophecy,' repeated Ravan. 'This is her Sakti, this is her. I myself have channelled her power.'
'It is everything you have seen. With her, we need not spend our existence as mere guardians. With her, we can free the Source of the darkness forever. With her, we can free ourselves from this life of servitude.'
The Queen of the Intoli stared out of the window towards the west, over trees now shrouded in clouds and driving rain.
'Kill her,' she repeated, but the force had fled from her voice.
Ravan spoke to the Queen once more, but Aviti looked at Sevika. The Intoli looked even more unsettled now. Aviti could not understand why Sevika did not speak. Sevika had defied her Queen, so why did she falter now. She must be able to see the falseness of Ravan's words. Aviti could taste their poison.
Aviti spoke before Ravan could cut her off. 'Yes kill me,' she said looking at what remained of Dregan, the man who had helped her escape across Tapasya. They were never close and, until the shipwreck, they had barely spoken, but his fate was abhorrent. 'I would rather be dead than be the tool of our destruction.'
Her blood sparkled with pain then, but the agony vanished an instant later. The Queen of the Intoli had intervened, but only to bring her gaze onto Aviti.
What a wonder it was to behold; both beautiful and horrific. She wanted to tear her eyes from the Queen, for they scoured Aviti's soul. She feared that she might never see anything else again, but she could not look away. It was like gazing upon creation. How could Tilden …. Ravan … endure those eyes and speak untruths?
'He is not,' gasped Aviti, 'he is not who you...' Aviti expected to burn with pain once more. Pain was nothing compared to the
miracle behind those bottomless eyes.
'You address the Sakti?' The voice of the Queen was brittle, and on the edge of molten fury.
'He is false,' she replied. 'He is false.' But now she was spent. Until the Queen released her or she was put to death, she would stay here and bathe in the light from her eyes.
'Sakti, take the human,' said Ravan. He proffered the bar to his Queen.
Take it, take it, take it. Anything to be away from him. Take it and she could kill her.
The Queen never took her eyes from Aviti, but the offer had stirred something in the Intoli.
If she just took the damned bar.
Dregan began to thrash from side to side, as much as his ruined body would allow; as much as the Intolis' Queen would allow.
'If I doubt you Ravan, I doubt myself. And the Intoli can know no doubt. There can be no room for doubt.' Ravan removed his hand, and Aviti thought that Sevika might say something, but the passive mask that she wore had returned, though it was neither complete nor unbroken.
'We must have the Arkasona, Ravan, we must have it. With it, this Human can achieve a wonder. And so, we must accept the price that she has extracted from us.'
'You must see to it that the cost is settled,' said the Queen, but she addressed Sevika now. 'I know that the failure that took so many of the Source's children was not yours. It was Raktata's and it was mine. I should not have sent him. He was too like Vigopa.' The Queen fell silent for a moment, lost in time and memories.
'Yes Ravan. Sevika must be the one to carry the burden for us all and not you.' Ravan held his hands up as if to accede to his Sakti's wishes. 'She is too powerful and while I doubt not you, I now see what she is, and I see why Raktata failed.'
The Queen's rambling words lost Aviti. Why could Sevika not see what was there? The Queen, or Sakti as Ravan addressed her, was incredible, but she was flawed. And even if the force of her Queen's presence overwrought Sevika, she must see the lie that was Ravan. She must see the incandescent illusion that cloaked him, if not the figure that lurked within it.
The Queen waved a languorous hand and Ravan passed the brass bar controlling Aviti to Sevika. The sudden release of pressure left her disorientated and then she felt her feet move once more. Sevika used coercion rather than agony to move her. It was still a violation, and she hated it, but she felt for Sevika. She too was trapped. Ravan, or Tilden as she knew him to be, was the hammer that beat upon Sevika, and Aviti was the anvil.
She managed one last look at Dregan before she left the presence of Sevika. His fate shamed her. So she offered a silent prayer on his behalf to whoever might be listening as they walked back to her cell. More words passed between Sevika and Ravan, but Aviti did not listen. Instead, she looked at the Kalsurja. It had gained on the Sun again. She saw Sevika flinch and turn away from its face, but she caught Ravan's grin.
He left them as they approached the stairs that led to Aviti's cell. She and Sevika descended into the gloom of the stone building in silence. With the sun now overhead, only a little light came through the gaps in the walls in her cell, so when they arrived, Aviti went to stand by them once more and gaze.
She knew that Sevika remained in the room, in the same way she could sense Tyla.
'Why does she torture Dregan?' asked Aviti. 'The mage I was found with. Why does she not kill him?'
Sevika took a few moments before she answered and when she did her voice sounded hollow. 'She does not torture him. He is a source for her. He provides his energy for her. It is … an honour.' The last words fell lifeless to the stone.
An honour? She should have laughed, but she was so lost now. If it was an honour, why the desecration of his flesh? But she did not need to ask that question.
She needed Tyla right now and as she thought of him, his presence was with her: through the bond. As the Intoli had forced a tether on her, she had leashed the Lyrat and she could feel him now. But it was different this time. She felt no reassurance from the connection. Only fear and worry.
17 - From Heroes to Dust
The orange line that marked the boundary between the bare bedrock of the chamber and the black crusted magma pulsed. Light burned from that ever-renewing seam and the vaporous stench that arose made Wist's eyes sting.
Breathing was still possible, if uncomfortable. The holes in the ceiling acted as chimneys, pulling the toxic fumes out and no doubt ruining the land above. His sense of unease about those openings remained, but he pushed it to one side. It could wait. Without an obvious way across the lake of lava, they were trapped.
So he sat beside Tyla and Brathoir as the rest of the Giants argued and remonstrated with each other about the best course of action. The discussion revolved around whose fault it was that they had ended up here.
The overcrowding was fuelling the tension and the arguing grew more and more heated to the point where Brathoir went to intervene. Some of the Giant's started to shove each other, then Oinoir's shout cut across the tumult and the hiss of lava, and brought silence to chamber. As he began to speak, he turned his head to see one of his kind sprinting towards the pool of magma. It was one of the younger Giants, one that had frolicked in the water above them.
Wist and Oinoir yelled together, but the Giant was committed now. He seemed determined to sacrifice himself by throwing himself into the lava, but he ran straight out onto its blackened skin and the surface held. The Giant cut across the lava and headed in a diagonal line for the wall on the far side. The footprints he left behind glowed. He moved fast enough to keep his contact with the surface minimal, so as not break the delicate skin.
An opening on the far wall was his target – a cave of sorts - and he could make it. But as soon as the thought entered his head, Wist could see he was doomed. A bubble formed in the surface of the lava in front of the Giant. Oinoir screamed his name, but Wist knew that he could not slow down, for if he did - he was lost.
The bubble inflated before the Giant and, realising his danger, he tried to veer around it. But it grew too fast. Patches of amber light broke through the black, encrusted lump. The expanding bubble resembled a poisonous sore.
Then it burst, throwing fibrous tendrils over the Giant. He screamed and clawed at his face as it burned and ate into his body. He flailed, over-balanced and span as he fell. Then the chamber fell quiet and only noise was the hiss as the lava devoured the Giant's corpse.
But the light cast from the exposed molten rock revealed something to Tyla. He signalled to Wist and Oinoir. Tyla led them on and behind him the Giant's followed in silence along the shoreline towards the far wall. Some of them glanced to the now unmarked area where their comrade had fallen. There were no songs of valour for him and no time for grief. The lava lake grew more active and it shed tears of molten rock in their stead.
Wist joined Tyla at the front and Brathoir trailed behind them, talking to Oinoir and a group of more senior looking Giants. Then Tyla thrust his torch aloft and revealed what he had seen, and the scope of the task. Out above the lava was the start of a rock shelf. The beginning of it was narrow, so narrow that Wist doubted even Tyla would be able to stand on it. Wist saw that it snaked around the chamber, but the light from the torches didn't reveal its destination.
They gathered before the wall and the lava continued to spit at them with growing regularity. Bubbles of gas appeared in twos and threes now, clustered together, intensifying the effect of their dull detonations.
The Lyrat called for a rope and the Giants produced one. He discarded this and accepted a second, bigger, thicker rope. He wound it over his shoulder, fed it around his body and back under his other arm. Then he repeated this until it made his torso appear twice as thick as normal.
Wist knew what the Lyrat would do now and that he could not dissuade him. And what right did he have to prevent him from risking his life?
Brathoir and Oinoir stood with Wist as the Lyrat approach the wall. Wist snorted at the disbelief on the faces of the Giants. He had seen what Lyrat's were capable of
. Faric, Tyla's dead Lyrat Pair, had saved his and Aviti's lives' with impossible acts.
Tyla reached the wall and then summoned a Giant to join him. He pointed to the spot that he wanted the Giant to stand on, and placed his hands upon the rock. Then he moved his arms wider apart to accommodate the length of rope he carried over the jagged rock-face. Closer to the magma, where the heat had deformed the stone, the edges had been wiped from it.
Moving one hand above his head, the Lyrat pulled himself up on the wall. He pushed with his feet and moved further up the wall, slipping his shoulder to reposition the rope.
He ascended straight up the wall. Some of the Giants gasped as they watched the desert man. Wist knew that Tyla would not fall. Being trapped below ground had put the Lyrat off-kilter, but his new purpose made him as solid as the blackened rock that he grasped.
Tyla proceeded on until he was past the height of the ledge. Then he stopped rising and looked for a place to secure the rope. In seconds, it was looped around a protruding rock, providing an anchor point. Then he dropped half of the rope down to the Giant and without a pause, he was off, crawling across the wall, spinning the single strand of his web as he went.
As he crossed the boundary where the shoreline met the viscous lava, he stopped. Without warning or sound, he became motionless
'What is he doing?' asked Oinoir. 'What does he wait for? A sign from his God? By the World get him moving.'
Wist shook his head. He was not checking for a better handhold or making sure of his footing, he just stopped. But the Lyrat was not still, not completely. Tyla's shoulder trembled. Just one of them, it shook ever so slightly. On anyone else this would have been an easy thing to overlook, but not on the sun-tempered Lyrat. Wist could recall a few times where the stone hard façade of the Lyrat had slipped, but those had been times of crisis: the loss of Tyla's link to Faric - his Pair – and, later, Faric's death.
There was no way Wist could reach him from here. If he fell, the anchor point he had left in the wall would not save him. He would either plunge into the lava or be smashed on the hard stone.
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 49