As they stepped out into the full darkness of night, Aviti said, ‘At least we don’t have to suffer the Kalsurja.’
Haumea raised an eyebrow at her and said, ‘Yes, the Ghria Duh, as my people call it. Without it, the cold feels more real... more natural.’
‘Natural,’ said Aviti, holding back a laugh. ‘What is natural about any of this? Fertile ground frozen solid beneath tons of snow, and a city fallen from the side of a mountain. Natural, indeed.’
They were facing south Aviti realised; the way they had come. She could make out a glittering black patch on either side, where the dragons had snatched the buralo.
‘A fallen city,’ said Haumea who stood beside her. ‘Whoever could dream of such a thing? I have only ever been to one city, Athadh, the city in the mountains. That was where Nikka and I convinced our King to rush to a hopeless fight.’
Aviti considered Haumea’s words, but said nothing.
The two other buildings that neighboured their one looked no better than they had when they arrived. Perhaps they could have found a way into the toppled tower, but what could be in there that would be worth the effort? Haumea moved away from Aviti and went towards the side of the structure they had just emerged from. Aviti followed in the Giant’s footsteps, finding it easier to lengthen her stride than to battle through the crusted snow.
As they walked alongside the stone building, the ground emerged from the snow. The black and slippery surface forced Aviti to slow her steps. Tiny motes of light danced along the building’s walls. The elongated specks flickered on the dark, curved wall, made slick by the water that had frozen on its surface. There was no snow here to obscure the speckles of light. Aviti reached out to touch one and it jumped onto her gloved finger. Her heart settled as she realised that they were just reflected starlight. ‘I hate this place,’ she said to the night’s air.
‘Hate? Hate is a strong word Aviti,’ said Haumea. ‘It is but a step from despise and loath. A step that I would not wish to take.’
‘How can I feel anything else for such a dead place? Even the air threatens to steal your life from you? Where is the life in this land? There is nothing, or soon, there will not be.’
Haumea said nothing to disagree with her; she just walked on, leaving the clear path behind. Aviti trudged on with her head down to prevent the frigid air from biting her face. After only a few yards, she was forced to step to the side when Haumea stopped.
Just past the building that their comrades rested in was a large open area. Smooth walls bounded it on their left and rising plateaus on their right and snow was piled up high at the far end, a few hundred yards from where they stood.
The dark walls on their left were comprised of irregular lumps of stone that had been dumped on top of each other. As Aviti’s eyes grew accustomed to the pitiful starlight, she could make out that the walls had semi-circular redans protruding from them. Now, instead of guarding a city high on the side of a mountain, they were partially submerged in the earth, rendering them useless.
The slope of the valley was visible over those walls, penning them in on that side, so Aviti turned her attention to the platforms that enclosed them on the right. Haumea pointed to a set of stairs in the lowest level and they made their way towards them. Atop the levels of stone sat a huge circular tower from which two walls ran out, perpendicular to each other. The one on their left ran off into the darkness, but the one on the right joined to a similar tower that sat further from the plateau’s edge. The only features that Aviti could make out on the walls or towers were regular indents in the black stone.
As Aviti reached the stairs, she could see that another two sets joined the next level and four joined the level above that. The first set that they would have to ascend were broken, but passible. Aviti mounted them without a word to Haumea and the Giantess complained as she struggled with the human sized steps. Ice beneath the top layer of snow made the ascent awkward, but the snow helped. Haumea leaned on her staff as they climbed, which allowed her to keep her torch aloft, whilst Aviti struggled on.
The stone platform at the top of the stairs was narrow and slick with compressed snow, forcing them to lean on each other for stability as they made their way to the next flight.
After repeating this at the next level, they walked to the circular tower. This dwarfed the building in which their comrades were. This tower sat in the corner of a rectangular structure. Aviti could see the other one she had spotted from the ground at what must be the shorter side. There was a series of circular steps up to the tower. The building had sheltered the steps from the snow, and at first, Aviti thought that water had been poured over them, so clear was the reflection of the stars above them. Her eyes caught sight of lines cut into this polished stone. She traced them with her gloved hands, but if they marked out a word or a sign, it was too large to see from so close and in such poor light.
‘Shall we go in?’ asked Haumea indicating the red door at the top of the stairs. It looked an impossibly small entrance for such an imposing building. Aviti shrugged and followed the Giantess.
At the top of the stairs, Haumea lifted her torch to illuminate the door. There were ornate carvings around the arched doorway; the most noticeable of them was cut into the wedge-shaped keystone. There, two undulating, intersecting lines that met at a point just above the top of the door. Perhaps it should mean something to Aviti, but she was just happy to be out of the cold.
Haumea put her shoulder to the painted door and it swung inwards without complaint. The Giantess crouched to step through the doorway and motioned for Aviti to follow. Inside was a spiral staircase leading upwards and another doorway beyond.
Again, Haumea walked through this doorway first with Aviti behind. Then Haumea struck the floor with her staff. The echoes took several seconds to reach them. Aviti moved around to stand beside the Giantess. Haumea’s torchlight revealed to them only a portion of the structure, but its grandeur made Aviti gasp. The floor of polished black marble slabs threw flickering phantoms of reflected light to dance amongst the upper floors.
The building was indeed rectangular, with nothing between them and the roof. Aviti could see at least two levels above them, with black metallic railings ringing them. She drew her eyes back to the ground level. Haumea had left her whilst she gazed upwards. There was a pile of collapsed cabinets along one of the longest walls. Haumea rooted amongst these and, as Aviti approached her, the Giantess held up something in her hand.
‘Books,’ said the Giantess. It was absurdly small in her hand. Haumea dropped it to the floor and Aviti stooped to pick it up.
‘Can you read?’ said Haumea.
Aviti shrugged. ‘A little.’ But when she opened the book the words inside were gibberish and even the letters were not familiar. These looked more like symbols than words. Her mother had owned only a couple of books and she had treasured them. Aviti had learned enough to read to her mother from those tomes, when her mother had grown too weak to do it herself.
She should have dropped it to the floor just as Haumea did, but she just could not bring herself to do so. So, she knelt and placed the book upon the ice-cold marble. Symbols decorated the leather covering, similar to the ones inside it, and none of them meant anything to her. None of them, except the one at the top. There, in the centre, was a small star, with eight delicate points. Aviti touched the necklace once more, the one her mother had worn. She removed her glove and rolled the star between thumb and index finger. It was an exact match for the one on the book.
She stood and went to other books that lay scattered around the floor, thrown from their resting places to lie in disarray. Again and again, she found the star, her mother’s star: on the spines, on the first page, on the fore-edge. Then she found it on the vacant shelves, embossed in silver just as it was on the books.
As she went to ask Haumea about it, light rushed towards Aviti along the lines of the tiled floor, giving her a vertiginous rush. It forced Aviti to shield her eyes, but the light’s inte
nsity diminished after a moment. She blinked several times and grasped Haumea’s arm to steady herself. The Giant had dropped her torch, which now lay guttering on the floor. Then her hand clenched into a fist.
A glowing figure sat at a table in the centre of the room.
‘Please, join me,’ it said, indicating two chairs across the table from it. Haumea did not move. The Giantess’ grip tightened on her staff as if it might provide her with an answer.
Aviti released her hold on Haumea and took a step forwards. Then she took another and another. She could hear Haumea move with her. She could hear the soft shuffling steps and the clack of Haumea’s staff. There was tension in its rhythm; tension and readiness.
A few more steps and Aviti would be there. Only a few more steps to go, but she halted. She knew who this was.
‘Enceladus,’ she said to herself and the figure smiled.
The stripes still ran across the back of his hairless head and he looked the same as he had; same height, same shape, but he had changed. Enceladus jerked an arm to the chairs again, so Aviti sat on the smaller one. Haumea stood alongside her, refusing the seat.
‘Why are you here?’ Aviti asked with a tremor in her voice.
‘Of my Purpose, I cannot speak,’ said Enceladus.
‘I can understand your words,’ said Haumea.
Enceladus nodded. ‘I speak many tongues, brave Giantess.’ said Enceladus. The voice jarred with Aviti’s memories. It was wrong, it was all wrong.
‘Be at peace child,’ he continued. ‘Be at peace.’
Aviti’s head swam with implications, but all she could manage to say was, ‘Why?’
‘I must accompany you for a time. Take me to him.’
She did not have to ask to whom he referred to.
‘Wist,’ she said. Then she laughed and asked, ‘Why not just disappear and appear beside him?’
‘You shall have need of me,’ was all the figure would say.
Aviti shrugged, any questions would have to wait. She stood, but Haumea stopped her. ‘Is this wise?’ To bring it back to the other Giants? It is…’
‘Haumea, have I ever pretended to be wise?’ she asked and Haumea began to speak, but Aviti interrupted her. ‘Not now Haumea, not now. I must think.’
Then she rose and walked away from the pair of them. She pulled her gloves back on, as she strode along the lines of the floor towards the entrance.
She battered out into the darkness once more, not caring who came with her. Then she swore as she stumbled and fell down the steps at the entrance.
As Aviti picked herself up, she saw the lines of the symbol that she had noticed before they had entered. She swore once more and then said to the night. ‘The star, the damned star.’ Even without a torch, she could see it etched into the stone. Then its eight points sparkled as if set alight. A hand slipped under her and she was dragged back to her feet.
Aviti stumbled along with her thoughts cascading around her. Nothing added up. Nothing made sense.
She could not bring herself to look at Enceladus. Why was he here and why now? What had happened to him? In the desert, he had been an untouchable, powerful sentinel. Now he seemed diminished, but her concerns about him faded into insignificance when her mother’s star pressed against her flesh.
Her mother must have been here. Had this place been a part of her life, that she had never told her? She had seen her mother in visions and in them, her mother fought alongside her father. That too, her mother had kept from her.
And her father had spoken to the Intoli Sevika through her. He was dead, and he had spoken through Aviti. Before she could fall any further into her thoughts, they arrived.
Haumea led them back down into the building that they had found refuge from the wolves and the cold in. The light from Enceladus changed this building. It no longer was a dark place of mystery. It was just a building; old, broken and abandoned.
They arrived back at their room, where their comrades awaited them, so Haumea shoved at the door. It gave under the pressure and the Giantess strode forward. Aviti moved in front of Enceladus and left him to walk into the room last.
Wist and Sevika were where she had left them, at either side of the door, but Decheal stood with her blade in her hand. Then she strode towards Aviti.
Decheal’s blade came up, and with her other hand she shoved Haumea and then Aviti aside. Then the blade came down at Enceladus, but Sevika’s sword deflected the blow.
‘Intoli!’ Decheal screamed. ‘Blood and bone Haumea, how could you bring another of these white Demons amongst us?’
‘No,’ said Aviti.
Decheal growled at Sevika and the newcomer, but then she took a step back. Haumea put a hand on Decheal, and Decheal tried to shake her off, but the hand stayed put.
It was too much. It was all too much for Aviti.
Then Sevika knelt before the glowing Enceladus and said, ‘Ravan.’
4 - Not to Touch the Earth
Ravan.
That was the Intoli that had tried to break Aviti. It was the Intoli that Tilden had impersonated to infiltrate them. And Sevika had said Ravan just before she had knelt.
‘No,’ Aviti said again. It was not him. It could not be him.
Her bond came alive then and her eyes darted from Decheal to Tyla who rose and came to stand beside her.
‘Kill it,’ snarled Decheal. ‘Kill it.’
Sevika rose and turned to face the raging Giantess.
‘Blood and bone, I will enjoy killing you too, Demon,’ said Decheal
‘No,’ said Aviti for the third time. ‘It is not Ravan.’ She had penetrated Tilden’s illusion, the glamour that allowed him to infiltrate the Intoli. He had impersonated the Intoli Ravan and used his position to bring about the catastrophic confrontation with Wist.
This was no illusion. This being before them, this Enceladus, he was real. If anything, he was too real. Aviti looked to Tyla, but he only shrugged. There was no anger from Tyla, and neither was there any fear. There was readiness and tension, but no malice or concern.
‘Tyla,’ she said, ‘tell them that this is Enceladus.’
Tyla stood motionless, but his eyes darted across them all.
‘Tell them,’ she said with a desperate urgency in her voice, but it was Enceladus who spoke.
‘I am Enceladus,’ he said. Then he added, ‘and I am Ravan.’
The room span and Aviti’s legs folded under her, but Tyla caught her before she hit the floor. Aviti heard the raised voices in the room, but she ignored them, focussing on a spot on the ground. Then she held her head and stared at the blur until it coalesced into a single point at the end of a shaft of light. She shrugged Tyla’s hands from her.
‘Let me go,’ she snapped at him.
Decheal was still shouting, bellowing at Enceladus, at Tyla and at Wist, so she screamed, ‘Be quiet!’.
A thought flashed through her mind in that instant of silence. She could bring the roof down on them all and end it here. She could end this pointless struggle now, rather than endure another day in this frozen waste.
She stared at the glowing Enceladus, noticing the imperfections on his translucent skin. The massive burden which he carried radiated from him. It poured out like the waves that had washed away that damned Intoli Raktata and his army in the forest.
‘So why now? Why now? Was my suffering part of your plan?’ She fired her words at Enceladus like bolts of theurgy. The figure did not reply to her assault, he only returned her stare.
Sevika moved between them, the tip of her blade oscillating between Aviti and Decheal, unsure of which was the greater threat.
‘Sevika, you have been fooled before,’ said Aviti.
‘She uses the Demons own tongue once more,’ said Decheal turning her anger on Aviti now. Tyla shifted his weight as he readied himself to intervene. ‘What did you say Caillech? Or should I call you Beira, Queen of Winter?’
‘Enough!’ erupted Haumea, battering her staff off the stone floor. H
er voice assumed a graven tone, sounding more like the Giant she should have been, had her frame not been twisted by a misstep of fate at birth.
‘Have I lost less than anyone of you here?’ she asked. ‘Decheal, you will desist now. I am prime Glaine and, whilst Oinoir is incapacitated, I command.’ Duty and the need for revenge fought on Decheal’s mien.
‘Now,’ barked Haumea, and Decheal sheathed her blade and took a step back. Then the Giantess’ voice re-assumed its gentle lilt and lisp. ‘Aviti, you must share with us all that has happened. We know the name Ravan. You told us this Ravan was the Intoli that Wist’s brother impersonated, instigating the war between our people, but who is Enceladus?’
Aviti paused, the flow of her temper stemmed by Haumea’s intervention.
‘We met him in an oasis, hidden in the Great Desert of Tapasya. He bestowed powers upon my...’ her voice faltered for an instant and then she re-asserted herself,’...my friend, Dregan.’
And Enceladus had given visions to her and all of her companions.
Then she glanced at Wist and added, ‘And he unlocked something within Wist, gave him back some of his memories.’ Memories of murder, blood and despair; things better left buried.
‘He...’ She wanted to say that Enceladus had made time stand still, that he had frozen a lake and altered the moon. ‘Enceladus was there. Out in there in the desert.’
‘And he aided you?’ said Haumea.
She nodded, for she could not deny it, although it was not an accusation.
‘You accepted the aid of an Intoli?’ said Decheal, ‘Blood and Bone! I think you have always been in league with them. Enslaved? Pah!’
Aviti’s rage returned then and she tore at herself as she mouthed half-formed obscenities. She pulled off layer after layer of clothes and threw them upon the floor at Tyla’s feet.
‘What do you think this is?’ she screamed at Decheal. Aviti slapped her palm on her bare shoulder above her breast. Remembered pain shot out from the point her flesh had been violated, from where she had melted the Intoli’s enslaving golden bar. With it gone, the magic was there for her to use. And she had mastered her need for the magic. She did not need to destroy to satisfy her urges. Not anymore.
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 62