‘Let me guide you onwards,’ said her brother.
‘I always admired you,’ said Aviti as they began to walk down a sloping dune. There had never been dunes this close to her farm back in Mashesh.
‘Why?’ asked Cairn.
Aviti laughed. ‘Why? You were so strong, so sure of your life.’
‘It is easy to be sure when your life is already laid out before you. I am proud of you, my little sister. Do what you can, and do not be afraid to fail.’
They walked in silence through the deepening sand. She could have walked forever with her brother beside her, but he stopped when a stone path emerged from the desert. It was unlike any she had ever seen. It looked like polished granite. Small, perfect white flecks were the only markings on the smooth black surface.
Aviti’s brother stood at the start of the path like a sentinel holding back the darkness.
‘Can you not come with me, just for a while?’ Aviti pleaded.
‘No, Aviti,’ said Cairn. ‘You must leave here alone.’
She thought for an instant of using her magic to force him to accompany her. Then she shook her head and forced down the tears that threatened to break through her defences.
‘Goodbye, my brother. I love you.’
Then without waiting for his reply, Aviti walked onto the path and left him behind forever. She was surprised when her footsteps clattered on the smooth path, but she walked as fast as she could, hoping that she would emerge from this place without any further encounters.
As the path swung to the left, it dropped beneath the level of the sand. It should have been submerged by the shifting dune, but in this place, nothing made sense. Then the path levelled out a couple of yards below the sand. It pressed around her as she walked.
Then another sound joined her footsteps. At first, she thought it might be a snake, slithering around her feet. She looked for it, but there was nothing there. The noise grew and grew as she went. For a second, she thought of the Krowen that had attacked them in the desert. It had summoned a great fiery serpent to attack them, or rather to defend itself.
But this was no attack from a Krowen. Instead, figures started to emerge all around her. On one side, tall, thin white shapes coalesced into Intoli, and on the other huge lumps formed themselves into Giants. All of them were unique. All of these Giants and Intoli, Aviti had sent to their graves.
A figure stepped out on each side to stand at the front of the forces. She did not know the one on the Giants’ side, but she knew the Intoli. It was Raktata. The Intoli had tried to break her, but Aviti had killed him.
The Giants roared as she passed their leader. Then the Intoli joined in. It was in a higher range than the Giants, but it was every bit as fierce.
As Aviti walked between them, accepting their salute, a few motes of fire appeared in the air before her. Then silver lines shot out from each of them connecting them in a symmetrical pattern.
She touched the star at her neck as she recognised the shape. Then the silver lines flared, cutting the centre from the huge eight-pointed star and Aviti could not stop herself walking through the hole that it made.
Part 2 - Anger
13 - Long Way Back from Hell
Wist watched them all emerge from the white gap in the rocks. Sevika had been the first, only a few seconds after Wist had climbed to the top of this rise. The Ghria Duh had risen over the eastern horizon, whilst they waited for the others.
When Haumea emerged, her laughter had preceded the Giantess. She had stomped her way up the hill, clacking her stick off the black rock, talking to herself as she went.
Decheal and Oinoir had appeared next, emerging nearly together. They had not spoken since they arrived. Oinoir stood away from Wist, but Decheal stood at his right hand, and when Haumea joined them, she stood at his left.
Tyla strode out about an hour later. Wist had been sure that he had entered the tunnel just behind him. The Lyrat nodded to Wist, and then walked past them without another glance. Off to scout the area, thought Wist. You could take the Lyrat out of the Desert, but you couldn’t take the sand out of his soul.
It was a further hour before Aviti and Enceladus emerged. The sentinel looked unchanged, but Aviti struggled up the hill, pausing several times on her way. When she reached them, she said, ‘Let us leave this place.’
And so onward they went, guided by Sevika. She led them along a path of broken slate for hours. From time to time she stopped, scanning the horizon as if trying to get her bearings.
Clouds came and went, but the poisoned light of the Ghria Duh bathed them relentlessly, for there was no cover. They had rested and eaten a few times on this march without end. After one such break, the Ghria Duh finally set and the moon appeared. Either the moonlight revealed details that the Ghria Duh had hidden from them or their hearts had been too heavy to see.
Its light was as pure as the sunshine that Wist’s heart craved, but he knew he would never see again.
Then the path dropped once more into a sunken valley, but this one had natural contours rather than the flat planes that were composed of ice.
Scattered copses of trees broke up the skyline now and the high cliff that bounded their north-western side showed ragged edges and rounded boulders at its top. When the light of the moon caught the wall’s surface, it glittered and sparkled.
With the Ghria Duh gone, Haumea began to sing once more, just as she had whilst they waited for the others to emerge from their trial with the dead. Her melody was bright and brisk as if she sought to re-energise them. It was a simple couple of verses that she repeated a few times, then she stopped singing and hummed the tune instead.
Gold for the peasantry in Riochars
Silver of the fallen light
Bronze god’s head on the blackened throne
Blood there left to be
There on fire in the centre of the world
There in gallantry
There on fire in the bright moonlight
Left for you to see
Poisonous father of their fallen race
Gird my precious blood
Bitterness creeping up the spine of the world
Taking on the pride of us
There on fire in the veins of youth
There in mastery
There on fire in the veins of you
Left for whom to see
Haumea continued to hum to herself as they walked. Decheal tried to join in, but she lost the asymmetric rhythm after a few bars.
‘Singing is not my strong suit, Dionach,’ Decheal said to Wist and laughed.
‘So, what is?’ Wist asked her.
‘What is, he asks? Blood and bone! War, Dionach. I excelled at that. What else was I good at? Brathoir did say I was good at making love, but I never was able to provide him with children.’
‘I met him in there,’ said Decheal. Wist did not need to ask who or where.
Decheal turned her head to look at the black cliff walls that they passed. The moon reflected from the daggers of frozen midnight that stabbed down from the heights making a curtain of ice.
‘What did he say to you?’ asked Wist with only a slight catch in his voice.
‘We spoke for hours, and yet it was not long enough. I could have stayed there forever, Dionach.’
‘I know what you mean,’ said Wist.
‘No, you do not,’ said Decheal grimly. ‘He offered me the chance to stay with him. To live forever in our home in the hills, away from all this darkness and strife.’
‘You should have taken it. At least one of us would be happy.’
‘Dionach, do not shame me!’ she shouted. ‘This was the one thing that could tempt me from duty. The one offer I could not refuse.’
Wist kicked at a loose stone, which ricocheted off Decheal’s worn boots. ‘But you didn’t accept.’
‘I could not,’ Decheal roared once more causing Haumea to turn her head. Decheal waved her away and she resumed her ambling gait.
Rather than a
sking for an explanation, Wist decided to wait seeing that his questions only antagonised the Giantess.
As he waited for her to continue, they walked around the bend of the fractured cliff on their left. With the Ghria Duh absent, the clear sky allowed them to see their next problem. Mountains as big as the Rathou back on Tapasya, spread out before them. The moonlight revealed their gleaming white coats and piercing black teeth.
Decheal fumbled in her pocket and brought out a few tiny white objects.
‘At least you didn’t lose them on the ship,’ said Wist. ‘What is it you do with them Decheal?’
The Giantess did not answer and just as Wist was about to swear, Decheal said, ‘I could not stay Dionach. I could not stay, for he told me the fate of us all should I not return. I have work to do, he said,’ then her tears broke free and she laughed as they streamed down her face. ‘I told him to do his own work the bloody lazy oaf. How he laughed when I told him that. As usual, my husband made excuses as to why he could not do the task he wishes me to do.’
Decheal rattled the bones in her hand and then added, ‘Being dead is the best one I think he as ever come up with, and it is also the worst, all the more so for being true.’
The further they walked, the more the mountains grew. They lanced into the night sky, like a dark maw, eager to take its first bite.
‘Did he mention me?’ Wist asked.
Decheal gave him a wry look. ‘If you mean, did he mention the fact that you severed his leg then, yes, he did speak of it. It was difficult to avoid. As he only had one to stand on.’
Wist laughed despite himself. He was going to say that he had two when Wist had spoken to him, but instead he asked, ‘So, he does not blame me for his death?’
‘No Dionach, and neither do I. He, and I, blame his own stupidity.’
‘I met him also. In there, I mean. It appears he is my dead as well as yours.’ said Wist.
They fell silent for a while as they tramped toward the mountains. The sheer scale of them humbled the majesty of the frozen waterfall they passed. Wist looked at the others, but they were too busy pushing themselves on to notice.
‘We have travelled an immense distance Dionach,’ said Decheal.
‘Yes, you are a long way from home, Decheal.’
‘No. I mean, yes we have, but we are not where we were.’
‘Where we were?’ asked Wist. ‘You aren’t making sense.’
‘Before we entered that place. At first, I thought I was merely disorientated. It took me a while for me to regain my centre. Now I am sure, for I can see the stars. They do not lie.’
‘How long were we in there, Dionach?’ Decheal asked. ‘The moon is much closer than it should be for this time of year, and it should not be so high in the sky. If I could only think, I could figure it out.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Dionach?’
‘As long as we still head in the right direction, I don’t much care,’ said Wist.
Decheal laughed again and clapped Wist on the shoulder. ‘Yes, I suppose you are right.’
As Wist looked at the moon, he realised that he had never taken the time to just look at it, to learn the patterns on its skin. But this was not even his moon, for this was not his world.
‘The bones are for telling the future Dionach,’ said Decheal as she opened her fist to glance at them before thrusting them deep in to her pockets once more.
‘The future?’
‘Do not ask what they say Dionach, for I do not believe them myself anymore.’
Then they walked on, leaving the waterfall behind, leaving it stuck in the moment. It was just another thing that he would never see again.
They stopped a few miles further on. Travelling under the Ghria Duh was not only arduous, but there was far more chance of injury. So, they ate their rations quickly and tried to shelter from the cold, but Aviti was unable to light the fire. Wist hadn’t been able to get a word out of her since the tunnel with the lights, but she looked exhausted. But which one of them didn’t? Even Sevika displayed the signs of this journey. The imperious Intoli, laid low.
Only Oinoir and Enceladus hadn’t joined them. Oinoir stood with his back to the group and the Intoli, or whatever he was, was out of sight. They lifted their packs and started out again. A couple of hours remained to them before the moon sank below the horizon. Then Oinoir set out at a brutal pace.
‘Does he think he can batter this land into submission,’ said Wist to Decheal, finding himself alongside the Giantess once more.
Decheal did not reply, but her forehead creased beneath her hood.
The wind gathered pace and blew straight into their faces. Wist staggered back as the assault gathered momentum. Every time he tried to take a step forward he was shoved further back. The others adjusted their movements and kept going, slipping through the gaps in the blustery wind.
Then the wind started lifting bits of ice and small rocks and throwing it at the companions. Wist turned his face from the shower of shrapnel and closed his eyes for an instant. He rubbed a numb hand over his face to remove the fragments from his beard. Then he blinked, but found that he couldn’t focus on anything through the black and silver maelstrom that surrounded around him. He threw up his hood and spun around, spitting out a mouthful of grit and ice.
Wist kept his head down as he stumbled forwards. This was just like the sandstorm that had greeted him on his return to Mashesh, he thought. That one had pushed him to the edge of his endurance. This one seemed… gentler somehow. He spun back around and walked backwards into the wind. That way he could open his eyes fully.
It was like the inverse of a snowstorm. Tiny, shining white specs shot darts of light at him through the suffocating darkness. They danced in a mad, random cacophony. Some of them drifted through the whirlwind, landing on his upturned face whilst the rest blasted overhead. Shapes appeared in the speckles, appearing and vanishing before he could focus on them. He could lose himself again in that infinitely changing vortex.
He tasted blood in his mouth, but was it real or just the memory?
Colour blossomed in his vision. Purple and green trails followed the dust. Then they exploded into myriad colours in his mind. Reds, oranges and yellows flowed all around him in every imaginable hue, but deep within the heart of each stripe was a speck of black. It was as deep as his fear and as unquenchable as his anger. And it was as undeniable as his guilt.
Wist ignored it and tried to re-impose reality with the sheer strength of will, and for a while, it worked. The hellish ice-storm returned and he saw it clearly. He needed to find shelter, to find the others. He needed help.
But the strobing lights returned. This time they persisted even when he closed his eyes. Voices faded in and out. He couldn’t make out any words or identify whom was speaking, but he knew all of them.
He stumbled and spun around taking the full force of the wind in the face. The shock of it knocked him back a step and forced him to bow his head. He slapped himself twice and said, ‘Focus, damnit Wist. Focus.’ He shook himself and stood up straight.
The voices were still there. They were real. He caught a snatch of Haumea calling to him, but the frayed wind stole it from him before he could get a fix on its direction. So Wist took a guess and stamped his feet into the ice, breaking the crust. He cursed and swore with each forced step. He cursed his father for abandoning him and his mother for blaming him. He cursed himself for blaming his problems on others.
A figure loomed at him through the swirling maelstrom, but as he shouted at it, it dissolved back into the chaos. As he pushed himself on, the ferocity of the sudden storm mounted. Now, small rocks were lifted and hurled at him, joining the rain of detritus.
‘All I need is a cross,’ he thought to himself, and then laughed aloud. He was rewarded with a fresh load of frozen grit for his stupidity.
The wind twisted around, causing his cloak to flap up. He pushed it down, but his fingers were wet and the material was frozen. He just coul
dn’t get a grip on the cloak. It wrapped itself around him, and the more he struggled, the tighter it became. Then he slipped and fell onto his back. Unable to use his arms to break his fall, he bashed his shoulder as he went down.
Wist swore at the pain. Then he drew one long, slow breath, and then another. Then he took one more and he let his body relax. The coat was not fighting him. He had panicked, and now that the tension was gone in him, he freed himself from the self-imposed constraints. Then he sat up and everything stopped.
There was no wind, no ice, no pain, but there was no light. So he pulled his knees up to protect himself, like a child waiting for the return of his father. The darkness pushed in on him again, as it had so many times before. Darkness was no friend to him. It was a brutal master that had no time for his weakness. He must hide from it or it would devour him. It surrounded him, seeking to push the air out of his lungs. It wanted to incapacitate him, drain every bit of his resolve and leave him there on the tundra. After all, what bloody difference did it make what he did?
No.
It started as a small, indistinct vibration within his consciousness. The sensation of weary loss threatened to snuff it out at any second, but his heart battered its rhythm.
No, no.
No, no.
“Fuck it,” he said aloud and stood. The wind had one last half-hearted attempt to shove him over, but he let it pass him by. Then light of a sort returned. The Ghria Duh had risen and the moon was obscured by clouds or it had set. As he straightened to his full height, he almost collided with the figure beside him.
For a second, he thought it was Tyla, come to save him from himself again, but then the black light of the Ghria Duh slid off the smooth surface of Enceladus’ skin. On it, Wist saw dark reflections of himself, and a million tiny fractures. These were small echoes of the stripes that marked the back of the Intoli’s bald head.
‘Wist,’ shouted Aviti as she ran to him. Her embrace was as sudden as it was unexpected.
‘I’m alright Aviti. I’m alright.’ Wist hugged her for a second and then moved away from the contact. ‘I’m fine.’
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 74