‘Neither am I,’ laughed Haumea.
‘I was going to say, as if she were not present,’ she lied.
‘Oh,’ said Wist, looking shamefaced.
Aviti ducked her head and turned her gaze back to the Intoli.
‘Sevika,’ she said, ‘Wist says you seem... you seem changed.’
Sevika shifted her weight from one foot to the other, making her tattered robes cascade around her legs. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘changed.’
‘You said you know the way, but are you sure that you are not...?’
‘No,’ replied Sevika before Aviti had finished her question. ‘I know the way.’
The certainty in Sevika’s voice did not assuage all of Aviti’s doubts. ‘But you have been misled before.’
‘You think I am unaware?’ said Sevika. ‘I remember your words. I remember your warnings. They are seared into me as if the Source itself has left their inscription on my flesh. This is no glamour.’
‘And what about Enceladus?’
‘He is no longer with us.’
‘I know that Sevika, but was he...Was he who he claimed to be?’
‘I believe so,’ said Sevika.
‘You believe?’
Sevika nodded. The movement was so strange and alien that Aviti gasped, drawing a concerned look from Wist.
‘Before, everything was so leaden. It was as though I was passing through a veil. Even the memory of it feels like something imprinted upon me, rather than recalled.’
Clouds of steam billowed from Sevika’s elongated nostrils. ‘We must go,’ she said.
‘Must?’ said Aviti
‘Must what?’ Wist asked.
Aviti shook her head. ‘Must go. Sevika said we must go.’
‘Well she is right, isn’t she?’
‘Must,’ Aviti said again and rolled the word around her mind. As she mulled over its connotations, a sliver of power reflected around her body. It emanated from the band on her wrist, shooting out from there seeking release. It touched every nerve in her body before it finally found its path; the link to Tyla. When it left her, it gave her heart such a jolt she thought it had stopped, but a second later, her heart beat so hard she thought it might burst.
‘Are you ok?’ said Wist. He was beside her, holding her up.
‘Yes, yes,’ she said.
‘I thought you were…’
‘Leave me alone,’ Aviti snapped.
‘I just thought,’ said Wist.
‘Easy,’ said Haumea, placing a hand on both of their shoulders.
‘Are you hale?’ said Haumea to Aviti. Aviti nodded, drawing a sigh from Wist.
‘That was all I asked her,’ he grumbled.
‘Shall we go?’ Haumea said and Aviti nodded once more.
‘Sevika,’ Aviti said. ‘Lead us on.’
The Intoli snapped to attention as if her queen had commanded her. She strode into the black without looking to see if they followed.
All of them, bar the Intoli, held torches, to light their way. They tramped into the gentle darkness in single file. The path that led out of the cave and carried them down was wide, wide enough to accommodate them walking beside each other. The shadows that the torches cast here contained no malice. No nightmare lurked within their depths.
Aviti could not sense the dreaded Ghria Duh here, not directly anyway. She knew it had not vanished, but here she could pretend that it was a memory; a grim and deadly shade. Here she could deny its power over her.
After a few hours of walking, the path flattened out and continued to bend to the left. Aviti felt as if they walked on a massive spiral that drew them inexorably down to the centre of the world. As they went, the temperature began to creep up. At first, she was just glad to be out of the interminable wind. By the time the path flattened out, she needed to pull down her hood.
Haumea gave Aviti water, but Wist refused the offer. Aviti was glad of the drink. It quenched her thirst, but it made her stomach growl. How long had it been since they had eaten? Hunger did not touch Sevika and even Wist seemed to have left that part of his humanity behind, but she could see that Haumea also struggled with this journey’s physical demands.
After another hour of walking, they rested for thirty minutes. They had no food to eat, so they drank and tried to sleep. Then they got up and repeated the pattern: walking for an hour, resting for half an hour; walking for an hour, resting for a half. Aviti was not sure how many times they repeated this pattern, maybe a dozen or so, before she collapsed. Wist caught her as she went down.
The last thing she heard before she passed out was, ‘Aviti, I’m sorry.’
She drifted above herself for a time. There, she looked at all her companions. Sevika: the last Intoli; child of the Sun and the Moon. Aviti could see her radiance as if she shone with an inner purpose. Sevika looked so pure and innocent, even her clothes looked restored to their perfect brilliance. Aviti found it hard to look at her, as if the Intoli’s purity would burn away all of Aviti’s defences, so she looked at Haumea.
The Giantess stood straight and proud. Nikka’s staff remained in her grip, but now her hand fastened over the top of it. She smiled and laughed, spreading her benevolent love. Aviti looked upon at the Giantess as she might have been, if misfortune not intervened.
Then she saw Wist. At least she saw where he should have been. Every time she tried to focus, he slipped away. It was as if one person stood just out of focus whilst another sought to distract her from seeing something. For a while, she chased the blurred images around, and then she gave up and let them drift away.
‘It is nearly time,’ said a voice.
Aviti had yearned to hear that voice for so long. She feared to turn her gaze in case he too should flee from her.
‘Father,’ she whispered.
‘My daughter. My sweetness in the desert.’
He was there for her. The others had gone and he remained.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘We have a short while.’
Without movement or thought, Aviti translated to a point beside him. Then the cave and the walls began to fade, and with it, the darkness evaporated. Sunlight, bright and true, replaced it. Then sand was between her toes and knew where she was.
‘Tapasya,’ she said and her father nodded. After taking in the vista of rolling dunes and brilliant sun high in the sky, she said. ‘This is not real.’ There was no heat from the sun or the sand and no taste of burnt silica on her tongue.
‘What is reality, Aviti my child?’ her father replied as he let a handful of sand drain through his fingers.
She laughed. ‘Am I not a little old for your riddles?’
He laughed too. ‘It seems that you are finally catching up on me.’
‘Oh Father, what am I doing?’ She felt like weeping, like pouring her heart out to these illusionary sands.
‘Aviti, you are doing the only thing that you can.’
‘But am I? I have made so many mistakes.’ Her father began to comfort her, but she cut him off. ‘Father I have killed, not just out of necessity or to survive. I have killed out of anger. I have slain, because I could think of no better alternative.’
The answer came flat and emotionless, but it shook her all the same. ‘As have I, Aviti.’
‘You...?’ Aviti said, but her voice failed her before she could finish her question.
‘Yes Aviti. I am not proud of some of the things I have had to do in my life, and less so some of the things I chose to do. Without Mabon... without your mother to guide me, I would not have survived to become your father. But that does not matter now. You stopped yourself when you had the chance to commit fathomless evil.’
‘The Intoli,’ she breathed. She had freed the human slaves of the Intoli when she could have obliterated them or their masters.
‘I would have forgiven you even that, my daughter, but I fear that you would never have been able to forgive yourself.’
‘Forgive myself?’ she asked, but her father hushed her.
‘Our time grows short,’ he said. Aviti watched in amazement as the sun began to fall from its high perch above them.
‘Beware of the power you have stumbled upon.’
When Aviti did not speak, he added. ‘The bracelet hungers for release. It has tasted power and it has tasted blood. With it you are capable of great wonders and horrors beyond imagining.’
Darkness rose from the ground, as if to meet the darkening sky. Aviti’s father’s face began to recede from her.
‘No,’ she cried, but her father shook his head.
‘Aviti, tell Wist I was wrong.’ Then just before he disappeared, he whispered, ‘Trust yourself.’
The darkness rushed at her, but it was not alone. Tiny points of light appeared. Or maybe they were visible now that the Sun had gone. The points pulsated with an eternal rhythm, like the stars that burned in the night’s sky.
Their energy began to seep into her body. At first it was a gentle warmth on her skin and the hairs on her arm stood to greet this welcome heat. Then it began to soak into her core. She was absorbing it, as if she were a rag placed on a wet surface. Her body drank it in. The pulsing grew faster and the energy flow increased, and so did her appetite for it. The stars that had come to her in the swamp somewhere in Pyrite remained silent as they imparted their gift. Just when she thought she would burst, the pulsing stopped. Her heart thumped then she opened her eyes.
The motes of light were there inside the cave, along with her companions, Wist, Haumea and Sevika. Then they fled. One after another, they streamed away, down the tunnel, heading in the direction that they must go. Aviti jumped to her feet and shook off Wist’s hands.
‘Let us go,’ she proclaimed.
‘Whoa,’ said Wist. ‘You only just collapsed. You are exhausted. We have to rest.’
‘Do I look exhausted?’ she asked.
Wist looked at her as if he expected her to vanish any second.
‘No, but,’ he started to say, but she cut across him.
‘We do not have time.’
‘They spoke to Sevika,’ said Haumea.
‘What?’ said Aviti.
‘The apparitions. The lights. What did they say?’
Wist tilted his head and opened his eyes wider.
‘What?’ said Aviti.
‘They spoke in her language.’
‘And.’
‘We can’t speak Intoli! Ask Sevika. God’s sake Aviti, did they scramble your brain.’
She blinked several times before it hit her. Of course.
‘Sevika,’ Aviti said, ‘what did they say?’
‘Aviti,’ said Wist. ‘I understood that.’
She swore and then repeated her question in the Intoli’s sibilant language.
Aviti waited and waited for Sevika to reply, but then she lost her patience and repeated her question for a third time.
‘They confirmed my purpose,’ Sevika said.
‘Your purpose?’ Aviti asked, but the Intoli would not say anything else. Aviti tried to bully and cajole more information out of Sevika, but she refused to speak. So, Aviti told the others what she had heard.
‘Are we able to go?’ Aviti asked the others desperately. The band on Aviti’s wrist throbbed with a desperate need. It vibrated in counter-point to the energy the lights bestowed upon her. Were they fighting for control of her?
Haumea shrugged and lifted her pack. ‘At least there is not much left to carry,’ she said. Her joke was met with stony silence.
Wist moved beside Haumea. ‘If you are sure,’ he asked Aviti.
She nodded.
‘Then let’s move,’ Wist commanded.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Move.’
Again, Sevika was the first to move, leading them off into the dark. There was only one way to go, the same way as the points of light. There, the stone tunnel ran on and on before them, as if a huge worm had burrowed its way down into the earth, forever turning against the sun.
Their torches would last them for several days, if it came to it. The one Aviti carried only served to distract her from her course; onward, onward and down. The path straightened out after a further few hours of marching. Her feet were aching, but the ethereal energy supplied by the wraiths kept her moving.
Her mind buzzed with possibilities. Her father had finally spoken to her, but why now? Her father asked her to tell Wist that he had been wrong, but what about? She would tell him when they stopped, but that would not be for a long time yet. She had no interest in talking to anyone right now. She pushed all her energy into moving forward.
Aviti needed to be deaf to the demands of her body and the questions that flitted around her mind. The hypnotic process of walking along a never-ending tunnel soothed her. Even the slight missteps and natural variance of Sevika’s stride unsettled Aviti. She was glad she was not outside just now. The thought of all those things moving and changing and shifting made her shudder.
A stray rock caused her to stumble, breaking her concentration. She caught herself before she went down flat, but she scraped her knees on the rough floor. Wist tried to speak to her, but she stood and started out again, noting that Sevika had not stopped.
As she started moving, Aviti caught sight of Sevika as she turned a corner. It was the first sharp bend they had come across since leaving the cave behind miles above. She rushed forward to try and catch the Intoli, but she must have increased her pace.
The shape of the tunnel changed beyond the bend. The regular shape was gone as was the straight, endless corridor. The new path weaved backwards and forwards, and the floor undulated under their feet. Above them, a high ceiling, peppered with Giant-sized holes, replaced the circular roof, and just below this, spokes, about the thickness of Aviti’s arm, connected the walls.
The random patterns that those irregular lines made shattered Aviti’s concentration. It took Wist walking into her to get her moving forward. So, she tried to focus on the ground, but it did not work. The surface here was less smooth than before and, at times, small fragments would break under her boots.
She wanted to scream. The path flickered under the torchlight, but even that felt insubstantial. It was as if the Ghria Duh had appeared, deep underground, and it leeched the essence from their light.
Wist called her name, but she trudged on, wiping sweat from her brow and out of her eyes. When she did so for the fourth or fifth time, Wist shouted her name.
Irritated, she spun around to face him, as the whole cavern plunged into darkness. The torch remained in her hand. She could hear it crackling as it burned, could feel the heat on her hand, but she could not make out even the slightest light from it.
‘Wist!’ she screamed. ‘What is happening?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t see a thing. Are you OK?’
She dropped the useless brand onto the floor with a clatter. ‘Yes.’
Then she heard a grinding noise, like two stone slabs forced together. When it stopped, the floor vanished beneath her and she fell. She only dropped for a second, but the impact when she hit the ground caused her to cry out. After the shock wore off she called out to her companions, but there was no answer.
‘Sevika,’ she shouted into the total darkness. Had the Intoli betrayed them, leading them into a trap? What was this purpose she had spoken of? Did it include them or were they disposable now that she had found her path?
‘Sevika, damn you.’
Aviti huffed and sat, finding a wall at her back. The initial rush of the energy that the ethereal beings bestowed upon her had worn off, but her body was renewed. She ran her hands over herself, checking for cuts or anything more serious, but found nothing.
The total darkness made her head spin, but she found she could control it if she concentrated on something, so she decided to get her bearings. This was just darkness, not the blind hatred of the Waren. Running her hands around the floor, she found walls on three sides. The fourth was open. So, she pushed her arms out to brace herself on either side and lifted he
rself to her feet. Once there, she ran her hands over the bracelet on her left wrist.
With a thought, Aviti could form this into anything she wanted, but what use was that in the pitch black?
She could almost hear her father laugh and say, ‘And is that not always the problem with power? It is never enough, or never the right kind, or never available at the right time.’
So, she laughed and smiled, despite the fact there was no-one to smile for. The darkness itself did not scare her. When she was a child, her mother had helped her overcome her fear of the dark, telling her to use all her senses.
Use your ears to hear what is real.
With her sight taken from her, Aviti used her other senses to determine the truth of the situation. She could hear a drip. It was in the distance and she could hear it echoing off stone.
Tap, tap, tap…
Tap, tap, tap…
The triplets went on and on, drumming their beat into her skull, but they helped her to slow her heart, forcing her to stay still and think.
Three walls around her; one behind and one to either side. There was no light from above or from anywhere else, but she already knew that. She thought about climbing back to where she had fallen, but she was sure that path was gone. Her companions – her friends – had been taken from her.
Even if Sevika had led them into this trap, there was only one way out. Aviti considered forming the bracelet into a weapon, but what if she ran into one of her friends in the darkness and hurt them? So she left it where it was on her wrist.
Aviti touched her bond with Tyla, as if she sought to reassure him that she was ok. He was still there, but he was impossibly distant now. She turned and touched a point on the wall on her left. That must be south. Knowing that did not help her much right now, but she knew so little else that she clung to this information.
Tap, tap, tap…
Then Aviti drew in one breath and took a step forwards. She placed a hand on either wall and stepped forward again, pressing her foot to the ground before committing her weight. The floor held and gave her no reason to doubt it, but neither had the one above before it collapsed.
Tap, tap, tap…
She took a few more steps before she came to the end of the walls at her side. She reached out forwards and her hands met stone.
The Redemption of Wist Boxed Set: Books 1 - 3: The complete collection Page 82