The magnitude of the waterfall that lay across a gaping wound in the floor shocked him. There was an ocean of water pouring down into the belly of the earth. But it lay out of reach. The only water on this side lay in the mud at their feet. A delicate trickle of the spray reached him, so he rubbed his hands over his face and felt the encrusted dirt and dragon blood there.
'How do we get there?' Wist asked Tyla, pointing at the bountiful water that fell past them, but Tyla had turned his back on him and faced the wall. The Lyrat tore a strip from a blanket in his pack. Then he tore another and another.
'Don't be stupid. You can't possibly hope to climb over there,' said Wist. The gap was too wide. But Tyla concentrated on his task and tore the blanket into equal strips. Then he removed all of his empty water skins and bottles and set them in a line. He gave the first one to Wist.
'Hold this. Stand there,' he said and pointed to the smooth black wall at the back of the cavern. Wist wanted to ask a question, but he knew Tyla would ignore him. So Wist followed the Lyrat to the wall. Then Tyla put all of the strips over his shoulder beside his pack except one. That one he placed flat out against the wall.
After a moment, he removed it and wrung it out into the water skin. It was a trickle, but it was clear, pure water and Wist grimaced with relief.
It took another three times of gathering the moisture and wringing it out before the water skin overflowed. Wist pushed the stopper into the skin and turned to run back to the Giants when they appeared. They were a bedraggled lot now. And at the rear came Oinoir dragging Brathoir.
The Giant's eyes were closed and his feet dragged behind him, making troughs in the mud.
Wist went to him as Oinoir's strength gave out and the two Giant's collapsed on to the ground. Wist tried to lift Brathoir's head, but it slumped forward. He lifted the water to the Giant's lips and poured out some. It ran over the Giant's face and soaked his tunic. There was no response from Brathoir. Wist slapped the Giant in the face, but still nothing. When he raised the water to pour some on Brathoir's face an insistent hand grasped Wist's arm. It was Tyla's fingers around his wrist.
'He is gone,' pronounce the Lyrat. 'Waste no water on him.'
'No,' shouted Wist, but he knew it was true. 'Waste?' he barked. 'Waste?' Tyla uncurled Wist's fingers from the container and took it from him. Then he gave Wist a strip of blanket and Tyla helped Oinoir to drink some of it. Wist walked back to the wall and held up the material to the wall. His hand shook against the stone.
They rushed all this way and he had still died. He had severed the Giant's leg to spare him from dying in isolated agony, but it had all been in vain. Brathoir was dead. Perhaps all of the Giant's would die.
Tyla appeared beside him and he held out the water skin once more. Wist choked every drop out of the cloth, and then he returned it to the wall. Just as Tyla had done, he repeated the operation, trying to use the task to numb his frustration and outrage. When Tyla replaced the stopper and went back to Oinoir, Wist found that, whilst the feelings were still there, still as raw and as dangerous, he could suffocate them; preserve them. There was no use in spending his energy railing against the world down here.
When Tyla returned again, Oinoir came with him. The Giant hovered on the point of exhaustion, but pride and responsibility gave him the fortitude to do what was needed. He took a few of the strips of cloth that Tyla had prepared and, copying Wist and Tyla, he held them against the wall. Tyla told Wist to wait, and when Oinoir finished, he passed the sodden material to Wist. Wist drained the cloth into a container and then he went to another of the Giants.
One by one, the Giant's began to recover and join in the water harvest. The others were young and their recovery was more pronounced than Oinoir's. Then they all took their fill of water, and Tyla replenished every container he had. Once he was done, they gathered around Brathoir's corpse.
They stood in silence, watching, waiting, until Oinoir went to lift his fallen comrade, but Tyla stopped him. 'My friend, would you carry a corpse to a battlefield, for that is where we go.' Oinoir wanted to argue, but knew that the Lyrat was right.
'I cannot leave him here,' said Oinoir and several of the other Giant's concurred.
'Then throw him in the water,' said Wist. He regretted the bitterness in his voice, but Oinoir erupted in laughter.
'Dionach, you cut to the core of the matter. And indeed, I think Brathoir would see the humour in your thoughts, even if you do not.'
'Forgive me Dionach,' said the Prime Glaine of the Giants when Wist stared at him. 'Brathoir's kin came from the sea, from the vast ocean that lies to the west over the mountains.'
Oinoir walked over to the abyss where the water continued to drop into the darkness. He watched the waterfall for a moment and then he continued, 'Is it not true that all water makes its way to the great Oceans?' Then he nodded to himself. 'Yes, this will be apt.'
He walked back to the dead Giant. Then he stripped the makeshift wooden leg from Brathoir then he and his brethren lifted Brathoir. They moved him over in solemn silence to the water. Oinoir kissed Brathoir's bandaged hands then he released him and took a step back, leaving his dead friend to be held by his comrades.
Wist and Tyla moved up to stand beside the leader of the Giant's party. Wist expected the Giant to sing or tell a tale of Brathoir's past, but the Prime Glaine recited a poem. Despite the cacophony of the waterfall, Oinoir made himself heard.
By the season of the storms,
The cleansing,
Except eccentric faith,
March on the Glaines,
Distress fragments and moments,
Lips unable to hear the talk,
No tangible tomorrow,
We have seen the change,
The cleansing,
With all our lives at stake,
March on the Glaines,
By the season of the storms,
The cleansing,
Accept eccentric faith,
March on the Glaines.
When the Prime Glaine of the Giants had finished speaking, he lifted his hands and Brathoir was cast into the roar of the water. Tyla moved away at once and walked off into the darkness to find where they would go next. The moon moved on, slipping away over the rock face above them, forcing the Giants to relight their torches. As soon as they had them alight, Tyla returned.
'Prime Glaine,' he said. 'I have found a staircase. Cut from the rock, but the steps are narrow.'
'Where does it lead?' asked Oinoir.
Tyla shrugged, 'Upwards,' he said.
Oinoir smiled, looked back at the now darkened waterfall, saluted and then led them onwards
-*-
The climb went on without end. Wist soon tired of the company of the Giant's and even Tyla's unspoken presence grated on him so he pushed himself ahead of them all. Just him and the torch and the wooden staff he had received from Nikka. The staff that had once been a hammer, with which he tried, and failed, to murder his brother.
The Giant's struggled with the ascent for it was narrow and steep, but now that they had water, their bluster and bravado returned and it turned Wist's stomach. There was a single trail that led upwards. Sometimes it was a sloping path, sometimes stairs created from fallen stones and misplaced boulders and sometimes he had to crawl, but there was never any danger of getting lost.
He could have laughed when he thought about their predicament. They were crawling over piles of stones and through mud, and water, trying to reach the sun. Trying to reach a hopeless battle. But Wist had a different target. He cared nothing for the sun, nothing for this war, this land or even these people.
His torch slipped from his grip as he moved from a flat section to a steep rise. Wist reached down to pick up the still burning brand, but he stopped and stared at his arms.
Streaks of dark black ran across his skin, cutting across muscle and veins. Lumps interrupted the flow of the lines, sitting like waypoints in the path of his life's blood. But this wasn't his blood. When he had
released his life from the prison of his body, the water had carried it away. This was dragon's blood. He had thought that the water in the chamber far beneath them would have cleansed him.
Bloody Red man Brathoir had called him, and so he was. The patterns on his upper arms looked like tribal tattoos. He rolled back his sleeve and followed them upwards, along his arms and under his clothes. There, on his shoulder, was a bare patch of skin and below it a clot of blackened dragon's blood. He scratched at himself, at the congealed lump that sat beneath the empty area and it came away.
It revealed a pattern; a series of lines. But these lines were not straight. In the middle of the lines, those three short, parallel lines, they bent to points. All of them pointed downwards.
Three lines, three chevrons; like the claw marks of the Dragon. And within them were part of his life – his later life. He clawed at them, raked his fingers over them, but he could not remove them. He could not remove what was absent.
But it was all so... unimportant. His past life was gone. It had died when he had. So he rolled his sleeve back down. Then he lifted his torch and continued on. As he moved away, Tyla appeared behind him. The Lyrat nodded to him and followed in Wist's footsteps.
21 - Addicted To Pain
In the dirt, amongst the ruin of another castle, sat Aviti. Ghosa, she heard some of the human slaves call it. This castle had been taken by force, but the Intoli had to overcoming severe resistance here. The northern and eastern curtain walls were destroyed. Most of the keep was either gone or damaged beyond use.
Ghosa had been a more functional place than her last prison. Here, there was a single square, a keep and a hall. There had also been kitchens and a byre for sheltering animals, but these were now piles of stones and the outlines of walls. The most obvious difference was the size. Everything here was twice the size it should be: entrance ways, stairs, paths.
Two of the keep's walls still stood, leaning together, pointing into the sky. Aviti saw wooden teeth sticking out from those walls, now exposed to the rain.
The moon sat high above them now. It had felt like an eternity since she had seen it, but, until now, she had avoided looking up. The Kalsurja was now so close to the natural Sun that the night-time was free from its presence, barring a few moments after sunset.
She ran her hands over her head again then looked at them. With them, she had committed murder. She could dress it any way she liked, but murder is what it was. Death was what Dregan had deserved. If he had a mouth, he would have begged for it, if he had eyes, he would have pleaded for it. Yes, death was the only gift that Aviti could give to her friend, but she refused to absolve herself completely of her guilt. Neither did she shrink from the necessity of the act.
Would she have fought on in his position? Or would she have gratefully accepted the release from a prison of flesh: a suicide, of sorts.
She reached out through her bond for comfort, not the enforced bond to her Intoli captor, but to her link with Tyla the Lyrat. Again, she had to confront the stark truth about this link - this bond – with him. But she felt little guilt for the crime that gave it life. It was a crime born of instinct and panic.
Aviti could feel him much more strongly now. His presence was much more defined in her mind now. She could feel the subtleties in his moods, instead of the vague impressions she had garnered.
Fear had kept her from the bond. Fear that she would reveal its existence. And she had been ignorant of what she could do with it, but now she was desperate for the contact, so the Intoli be damned.
The bond was nearer – rather he was nearer now, as near to her now as when she had flooded the valley. She had feared that she had drowned him and Wist. And brave Nikka.
She could sense Tyla's respiration, as if it was the first time she had ever tasted air. She pushed her consciousness deeper into the bond, trying to reach him with all of her senses, but when she pushed too hard, she came up against a barrier. In her mind, the barrier was as ethereal as smoke, but as impenetrable as iron. So she retreated from it and began to probe.
A touch here and a caress there, she moved around the barrier, but each time she made contact with the barrier it tensed against her.
Then her world convulsed and the bond flooded with poison. A familiar oily, insidious touch caressed her soul and it was all she could do to stop herself from screaming.
Tilden was inside with her. He had the bar. Aviti tried to return her attention to the physical world around her and she caught a small glimpse of Tilden in his guise as Ravan the Intoli, before she fell back into herself.
He forced her mind to the barrier, compelling Aviti to carry him along. As if it was insubstantial, Tilden forced it aside and together they fell into Tyla's mind.
Aviti tumbled through fragments of memories of the Great Desert of Tapasya. These were cut at random with emotions: joy, hope, despair. At the centre of the tumult stood Faric, like an immense statue melded from stone. And the sights and sounds, the smells and tastes of Tyla's past revolved around it. Each one chipped a tiny part from the figure as it passed, defacing the monument.
The cycle of emotions and memories gathered speed now. Then the statue lost its inherent stability to this sustained assault. Aviti screamed as the head toppled and fell towards her, but the fragments of Tyla's life devoured it. Then she was swept up by them as the statue fell. It passed through her and as she went, she received a blizzard of images.
Blood on his hands - blood on her hands. Sand at his feet – sand over her head. His love for Faric. His love for her.
The spiral grew faster, tighter, until it felt that she would choke.
Then nothing but a heartbeat.
Instant and regular it beat. It beat against the darkness. It beat inside her head. It beat. And it beat.
Then she blinked. She stood in a cavern and at least one Giant stood beside her.
Then she looked into a huge mouth. A dragon. Coming for her.
Then it vanished and she hacked through a mound of flesh. The dead dragon was in front her and she was cutting through it. Trying to reach…
She blinked and Wist lay before her on the ground. He was soaked in blood, covered in the red malaise. And she thumped on his chest, pounded it, with arms that ached.
Once more, she blinked and Wist stood before her, blood dripping from him in chunks and clots, steaming as it hit the rock floor. But she did not fear the blood. It was the fire within Wist that made her tremble. She saw it now, that limitless blaze in his heart. It could burn the heart out of the world. Just as it had sunk the boat that had carried them to Pyrite. He must be stopped.
Then she felt herself being torn from the cavern, fleeing from Tyla's mind. In an instant, or an age, it was done.
Ravan stood over her, but she saw Tilden hiding in the shadows of his illusion.
'Please, just forgive him,' she said. 'Forgive him.'
'Forgive?' Tilden laughed. 'I forgive nothing. Not the sun for shining, nor the face of the moon for glowering, nor the stars in the sky. The snares that are in place cannot now be slipped. My brother is damned and you are the instrument of our triumph.'
The glee on Ravan's face distorted Tilden's illusion to breaking point. 'Forgive? No, I shall not forgive.'
'Sevika,' Ravan shouted and after a few moments, the Intoli appeared. Aviti stayed crouched on the ground gasping for breath as the bar was slipped back into Sevika's long fingers. Then Ravan turned and walked away casting shards of moonlight across the packed courtyard.
She needed to find Wist before Tilden.
The cold rain continued to fall while Aviti caught her breath. Sevika replaced a blanket over Aviti shoulders with a fresh one. The Intoli robe that she still wore no longer offered her protection from the elements.
'Thank you,' said Aviti. Water streamed over the Intoli's face. It sparkled on Sevika's skin.
'It is good that you look after the human,' said a voice from behind Aviti. 'We shall need her tomorrow.' It was Krura, the Sakti of the Into
li. She stood alone in the rain and the mud, her effervescent robe now filthy and ruined. 'If only Vigopa could be here, so see the triumph of the light. To see the darkness burned away.'
Aviti heard one beat behind the words that the Intoli's queen spoke and then a second pulse joined it. At first she thought both emanated from her, but the intonations of the second were out of step with the Sakti's. It was as if she listened to one musician play whilst a second one sang to a different tune. Aviti's head span.
Just as before, when the Intoli had become enraged or confused, some of her internal song, her soul's music leaked along the bond to Aviti. This time there was no words, only the beat, like a heart that was gently losing its time.
The Sakti continued to speak, but Aviti ignored the words. All she could hear were the pulses. Sevika's fought to stay with the Sakti's, and when Aviti looked at Sevika, the strain was evident on her face. The longer the Sakti spoke, the louder, the more instant the beats became, and the more dissonant they grew. Sevika trembled as the Sakti stopped to look up, through the drizzle, at the moon. Water sprayed from her fingers in time with the thumping Aviti's head.
'Our brother of light,' said the queen of the Intoli, holding her hands aloft in supplication. 'Guide us through this darkest of nights. Guide our hand as we seek to strike the darkness from the land for eternity; that we may return to the embrace of the pure and unafflicted brilliance of the Source. Hear us child of the true Mother and Father. Born of time and space. Before chaos and order. Before the world and the stars, the light was there.'
Around the Sakti, Intoli appeared. They came alone at first and then in pairs. Then they came in their droves. They surrounded Aviti, Sevika and Krura, with the Sakti at the centre of the circle. As they gathered, the light from the moon coalesced into a beam. Then it shone down upon the Queen with fierce brilliance.
She stood with her arms upraised, receiving the benison from the sky. Then it erupted from her; an array of resplendent light. The Sakti had become a prism. She was the source of light that her children bathed in. An individual shaft of coloured light hit all of those in the front row in their chests. It hit all of them apart from Sevika. She stood alone, apart from her kin, and shook in the rain.
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 54