The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection

by David Gilchrist

  Aviti was lifted into sitting position again. ‘You should not lie here,’ said Haumea, ‘you might never get up.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asked the Giantess. Haumea glanced at her kin and then turned her head from Aviti.

  Aviti saw then the devastation: the hill with a hole torn in its side, boulders and dark earth lying scattered around the open sore.

  ‘Why?’ asked Aviti pointing to Oinoir. ‘What possessed him?’

  ‘Ah Aviti, he is grieving,’ Haumea said with a sigh that sent a plume of her breath skyward.

  ‘Grieving?’ Aviti echoed through clenched teeth. ‘Are not we all?’

  Haumea shrugged and grinned at her, then she proffered her an arm. ‘Can you stand?’ Aviti grasped it and tried to rise, but her legs buckled.

  ‘Hmm,’ mused the Giantess. ‘Then you shall be carried. Are you strong enough to hold on?’

  Aviti protested, but the Giant repeated, ‘Aviti are you strong enough to hold on or must I carry you like a babe?’ Aviti coloured at the question, but the Giantess’ lop-sided smile broke her resolve.

  ‘I can hold my own weight,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ said Haumea. ‘We need to go.’ She crouched and Aviti threw her arms around the Giantess. Haumea took a few steps and Aviti started to slide, so she set her down and took a layer of clothing off; a thick woollen cloak. Then she stooped once more and urged Aviti to climb back on. Once on, Haumea placed the cloak around herself and Aviti, over one shoulder and under the other. Then she grabbed the ends and tied them in front of her. Held on to Haumea’s back like an ungainly babe, Aviti had to struggle upwards to see over Haumea’s shoulder. As Haumea set off, Aviti whispered, ‘Thank you.’

  Despite Haumea’s jarring steps, Aviti relaxed and concentrated on letting the pain pass through her. It had been the most power she had held freeing herself and the other enslaved humans.

  She placed her face against Haumea’s back and looked from the bleak landscape to the obsidian sky. A smile broke across Aviti’s face as she realised that this was the first time her power had saved them, without it costing lives. When she intervened, someone usually died. Sometimes that was the intended outcome, but most often, it was because she could not find another way. Her father would have been proud of her today.

  As she thought of him, the Giantess began to sing

  My mind is pale, like the moon

  Folded in and overawed

  Life is short, live it out

  Standing in a place alone

  Toiling for something

  that I can never have.

  A place in the hills.

  My space to hide

  The sea, she talks to me

  Breaking waves and building walls

  Felling us, keeping us here

  Who knew love strengthened you?

  Riding away,

  Hiding away,

  And the night, makes no sense at all

  Passing away, away

  Riding away, away

  Passing old time. Passing new.

  It does not hurt, when I bleed

  But time devours me

  I have seen it before,

  But I am no fool

  Passing old time. Passing new.

  Aviti drifted off, back into black space. There was no pain here, just cool relief. But the absence of pain also meant the absence of joy. The dark, cold nothingness began to bleed into her, driving a wedge of fear into her complacency. Then a spark of light appeared before her, banishing the dark. It pulsed and throbbed, sending ripples of love to comfort her.

  She stared at the light, seeing its undulations quicken and deepen. Aspects of other colours appeared at its fringes. A sliver of blue and a streak of red were the first to intrude. Then it burst into a cavalcade of shades. Aviti tried not to listen to the noise that accompanied the light. She was afraid of it, afraid that it would reveal to her what she already knew.

  She jerked awake and realised that she was no longer attached to Haumea, but lay upon a thick bedroll. Sevika stood closest to her, but they were all gathered around her, staring at her.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’

  Decheal spat on the floor and stomped away. Oinoir stared at her open mouthed for a moment then turned to follow Decheal.

  ‘What?’ Aviti asked, growing angry.

  ‘You were talking in your sleep, but it was nonsense,’ Haumea began.

  ‘No!’ screamed Aviti. ‘No.’ Then she stopped herself

  ‘No,’ she repeated in her own tongue.

  Haumea sat beside her and enclosed her in her arms. It was not the embrace that Aviti wanted, but it helped.

  She drew herself together and shrugged off Haumea’s arms. ‘Thank you,’ she said again. The pain was manageable now, only small aftershocks remained in her nerves.

  ‘What happened?’ she was forced to ask the Giantess once more.

  Haumea fingered her staff for a moment and then said, ‘You slept for a long time whilst I carried you, but as we approached this place, you became agitated, so we stopped to rest and I lay you down to allow you to recover. I feared that my movement was increasing your discomfort. For a time, you quietened, but as the Ghria Duh rose, you sat up and started babbling. I tried to wake you, but I could not. Then they appeared.’ Haumea gestured to the Intoli.

  ‘That one,’ she pointed her finger, at the glowing Intoli, ‘Enceladus or Ravan, starts to speak back to you.’

  Aviti shuddered, but Haumea was not finished. ‘When you spoke, Aviti… You spoke with a man’s voice.’

  She would have to face this now.

  ‘What did my father say Sevika?’

  ‘It was me he spoke to,’ said Enceladus.

  ‘Of course it was.’ Aviti sighed and ran her gloved hands over her face. When she looked up, the Ghria Duh was rising into the sky throwing tendrils of darkness across them. Her fingers appeared to writhe as she stared at them.

  ‘What did he say?’ she repeated.

  ‘He asked you to trust us,’ Enceladus said and Sevika nodded her agreement.

  ‘That is convenient,’ said Aviti. ‘Her,’ Aviti pointed a finger at Sevika, ‘I trust. She enslaved me and used me, but she also freed me when she could have slain me.’

  ‘You,’ she pointed at Enceladus. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘He also said that all is not lost and that the Source, the Sun as you call it is not gone. He said that if you give up now we are doomed and he shall never be free.’

  Tears ran down Aviti’s cheeks and she did not care who saw them. ‘I did it. I trapped him here with me.’

  ‘You did what, Aviti?’ said Haumea.

  ‘I forged a bond, a link with Tyla. When the Intoli enslaved me, when they drove that golden bar through my flesh, somehow I reached out for Tyla and found the ends of his broken bond with Faric.’

  ‘Faric?’ asked Haumea.

  ‘His Pair. They were bonded from birth.’ Tyla nodded at this assertion. Aviti did not know if this would make sense to Haumea, but she needed to speak aloud to arrange her thoughts. ‘He died in Tapasya.’ Their bond had been severed before then, but she ploughed on before she became lost in details.

  ‘I found his bond with my Magic and, as the Intoli tethered me to them, I linked myself to him.’

  Haumea’s face crumpled as she bit her lip. Then she said, ‘but what does this have to do with the man’s voice and the Intoli?’

  Aviti cursed. She must have slipped into speaking Intoli when she had addressed Enceladus. ‘The man is... was my father.’

  ‘You told me that your parents are dead.’

  ‘They are,’ said Aviti and she sighed once more. ‘As I forced this bond upon Tyla, I reached for my father as well.’ She could remember that moment. Through the drugged stupor and the intense shock of physical pain, she reached out for her father.

  ‘I have pulled him back from beyond, and now he is trapped here in our bond. Within me.’ She looked at Tyla as she spoke. She exa
mined him for any sign of revulsion, any sign that he abhorred her actions. Tyla shrugged and then nodded. Damn him, thought Aviti, but inside her heart leapt. She laughed through her tears for a second and then, with a hand from Haumea, she got up. Tyla’s concern for her was alive in their bond, and it was as pure as she was tainted.

  ‘The last thing he said was that your destination is true, but your course is not,’ added Enceladus.

  ‘That is helpful,’ said Aviti and this time Haumea laughed.

  After an eternity of silence, the Giantess said, ‘Do you wish me to carry you? Or do you fear that with all these extra burdens you have within you, I shall struggle to bear your weight now?’

  Despite their losses and the darkness surrounding them, they shared a brief laugh. Then Aviti shook her head and declined. ‘I am well rested, thank you Prime Glaine,’ said Aviti. ‘Sevika, lead us on.’

  Aviti expected a protest from the other Intoli, if that was what he was, but Enceladus said nothing, so they walked to the other Giants and set off.

  They were in an overhanging ledge on the western side of a valley. ‘Did we travel East?’ she asked Tyla as she banged her feet and clapped her hands together trying to ward off the cold.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When we left the ruins of the fallen city, our way was blocked by landslips and mountains. This was the only way left open.’

  The crunch of their footsteps was lost in this massive darkness. The Ghria Duh still dominated the sky. Aviti’s layers of clothing protected her from the worst of its insidious touch, but it was still there. Then the moon burst through the clouds and bathed them in argent.

  Then the valley, which had felt enclosed in the black sun’s light, came alive. The ground beneath had a natural depth for once. The ice and snow sparkled as the moonlight danced along the ground.

  Their path swung around and revealed a patch of pine trees. They were encrusted with snow, hiding the sharp, biting needles. Aviti suppressed a shudder as she thought back to the vast forest in southern Pyrite that Sevika had dragged her through. As she looked at the soft lines of these trees, her heart sank. These trees were dead. Maybe they had been hundreds of years old or perhaps mere decades, but they were not designed to endure this.

  As they stepped between the first of the trees, the Giant’s torches leading the way, Aviti’s fears were confirmed. One of the trees was split from head to foot, as if an ice stalagmite had exploded through the ground to slay it. Another had tears of frozen sap adorning its trunk like precious gems.

  The trees stole the moonlight from them, but Enceladus’ light and their torches, let them pick their way through.

  Nothing moved apart from them. Even the wind appeared to have abandoned them.

  ‘What is it Tyla?’ Aviti asked without looking around for the Lyrat.

  ‘The trees,’ said Tyla.

  ‘What about them,’ replied Aviti.

  ‘It is not cold enough for this to occur,’ he said.

  ‘You are an authority on the cold?’ Aviti said with a smile, but as she looked closer at the trees, she understood. The top layer of frost on the bark was rough and random, all sparkling edges and angles. Beneath this was sharp ice. It was as if the trees had been targeted.

  Fingers of ice hung from the branches that they passed. Haumea reached out and plucked one. She threw it at another tree with an accuracy that surprised Aviti.

  Oinoir and Decheal forged a path through the branches before them, scattering pine needles and shards of ice as they went.

  Aviti let Haumea move in front of her so that only her Tyla and the silent Wist were within earshot. ‘What happened with Oinoir? I asked Haumea, but she avoided my question.’

  Tyla walked on beside her, touching Wist’s shoulders from time to time, to ensure he avoided the branches. After a while Tyla said, ‘He carries the guilt of his people and he carries their hope.’ Aviti thought of pressing Tyla further, but the answers lay too close to his own situation.

  The moon disappeared behind a bank of clouds, so they were left with the light from Enceladus and the flickering light from Tyla’s torch to guide them. The trees looked sinister when lit from below. The ice that hung from the branches resembled like teeth.

  Aviti stumbled over a tree root, but kept her balance. Then Haumea did likewise, but she fell flat. Aviti shouted for the other Giants to stop, but she could not see them. She put an arm under Haumea and the Giant stood up.

  ‘Decheal! Oinoir!’ Aviti shouted once more. ‘Damn them, why do they not stop?’

  No-one replied, so they moved on, heading the way the Giants had gone. Indeed, it did not take Tyla’s honed senses to follow the path of destruction. When Aviti lost her footing again in amongst the needles and ice, she looked for Enceladus. He stood only a few feet from her.

  ‘Why is it so difficult to see?’ Aviti asked herself aloud. Tyla looked at his torch and then at Enceladus. As Aviti followed Tyla’s gaze, she saw the light from the Intoli flicker.

  ‘We are assailed,’ said Tyla. He threw his burning brand to the ground where it fizzed, but stay lit. He slipped his sword, his curved Katana, from its sheath. Then he grabbed Wist with his spare hand and pulled him in behind.

  Aviti moved to stand beside the Lyrat, staying away from his sword arm. Then she pulled her sword from her back. Her senses came alive then: listening to the creak of the trees in the breeze, smelling the faint perfume of the pine needles, but what shocked her the most was what her eyes told her.

  Sevika and Enceladus moved in beside them and they formed a circle around Wist. At the periphery of her vision, everything began to dim. The cold of this wood bled into her soul. Enceladus’ inner light flickered once more and then again. Then it dimmed so far it may as well have been extinguished, and the reflected light on the frozen trees started to vanish. One by one, the trees disappeared into darkness, like candles in an open room. Aviti began to shiver as the last of them went out, leaving them alone in the tight circle of light created by Enceladus and a single guttering torch.

  The Waren, thought Aviti. They have come, just like before, when she and Wist had faced them outside her home, Mashesh. Back then, her ignorance and her instinctive reaction had saved them. But the Waren were back, and since the Sun had been lost to the Ghria Duh, they had grown strong, grown bold.

  The darkness growled at Aviti and her company as it crept forward. Its avaricious hunger pressed in on them.

  Wood cracked and split, as the air in Aviti’s lungs began to freeze.

  She had to fight them. The magic waited for Aviti, but so did the darkness inside her. It reached out to join its brethren. The corruption within her did not threaten to devour her. Instead, it whispered of sleep and rest; of an escape from all of this.

  Give in.

  Give up.

  Lie down.

  She would not. She could not abandon them, but the instinctive fear that had kept her alive slumbered within her; subdued, beaten down by the travails of her life since fleeing her home.

  Lie down.

  Give up.

  Give in.

  No, not now. She just needed time to think.

  But it was too late for her. What difference could she hope to make? The Sun was gone, the Lyrats dead, the Cerni taken by the sickness of the Damned. The Intoli were lost and the Giants scattered and broken. What could one little girl from the desert do?

  She could…

  But before she could finish the thought, before the darkness could whisper to her again, the world exploded. Light burst from everywhere at once. Pure, white light scored her eyes and pierced her brain. Even her ears rang with its pitch. At first, it was worse than the darkness. Nothing could hide from the light. No corner of her soul was spared from this inquisition. Everything was laid bare beneath its scrutiny: all of her petty jealousies and base urges were exposed to the light. But she knew all of them and she accepted them, and so they had no power over her, so she let the light wash her soul clean; as clean as it could be.
/>   After a time, the light began to fade and the ground trembled, but then it calmed and the darkness returned. This was a more natural darkness, at least more natural than the Waren’s direct attack.

  With the light gone, the world returned. The trees were still there, but they were broken, split apart by the darkness. All living things that the Waren had touched were dead, but it was worse than that. The Waren had extracted life from them, leaving them frozen out of time; broken, burst and laid to waste.

  The sky was open to them now. As she lay on the ground, she could see stars. At first, her heart leapt, but then she saw the edge of the Ghria Duh. It had not vanished. So, she sat up.

  Her friends were still there, all of them lying flat, apart from Wist, and the Giants who were still absent. Wist stood at the centre of them, staring upwards at the tendrils of blackness that dripped around the edges of the clouds.

  ‘What did you do?’ said Haumea as she rose. ‘The light, it was… it was too much. I thought the darkness had won. I feared it would take us, then the light, Aviti! The light, where… how…’

  Then Tyla went to Wist, but before the Lyrat reached him, the Giants returned. 'Blood and bone! What in the World’s name was that light?’ said Decheal. ‘We moved on to find somewhere to rest. Then, in a heartbeat, it got cold; as cold as midnight in the depth of winter. Something obscured the moon and then my torch went out.’

  ‘Then the light,’ said Oinoir. His voice sounded dry, as if it had lain unused for years. Then it sparked alight once more. ‘It blinded us. Like those damned pools of lava that flow beneath this land.’

  Pools of lava?

  Aviti’s head spun. That light. It had left the inside of her skull feeling scrambled.

  Haumea stood at the same time as Aviti, and she gave Aviti an arm to lean on. Tyla turned from Wist to stare at her as she gained her feet. The look he gave her would have been unreadable if not for their bond. Aviti just shook her head at him and he accepted it with a shrug.