‘Aviti, we can’t defeat them,’ he shouted over the sounds of killing. ‘Not this way.’ Aviti did not acknowledge his words, she just kept swinging away. ‘Aviti, no.’
His words battered towards her through the flow of Damned Hylobs. As he moved, the sounds of Hylobs dying filled his ears. Breaking bones and ripping flesh, punctuated his footsteps. He pushed Hylobs out the way, battering the living and dead aside with impunity. Four Hylobs assailed him at once. They were all alive, for now.
‘Help us!’ they screamed
‘Damn you,’ cried another. He battered all of them away, using his hands as cudgels. He could only help them if he could reach Aviti, and if he could reason with her.
‘Aviti, stop.’ he shouted at her as he approached. ‘We can’t win this way.’ He grabbed her arm and the Masheshi girl turned on him, raising the magically formed weapon.
‘Aviti,’ Wist said as he stood ready to accept the blow.
Aviti began to swing the weapon, but as she did, it reformed once more into a bracelet and her arm flailed wildly, robbed of its target.
‘What?’ she screamed at him. Then she blinked once, then twice and her eyes regained their focus.
Wist looked again at the tear in the wall. It was like the wild cascade of magic and violence that had translated him from his world to this one. Within it he could see the fabric of time and space, the flux and flow and time itself, and he could see what was needed, but he could not do it.
‘You must seal the rift,’ said Wist.
‘But who will fight the Waren? I cannot leave them to die. How can I seal it? And if we do, how do we reach the Dhuma?’
‘I don’t have time to explain,’ he said. ‘Just trust me. We need Haumea and Sevika too.’
Without Aviti to fight, the chamber started to empty, as the Waren went deeper into the Hylobs’ lands. Only a constant flow of Damned Hylobs kept them from being alone.
‘Get Sevika,’ Wist said to Aviti. The Intoli had ceased her attacks on the Waren and stood inert once more. Aviti nodded, so Wist turned his attention to Haumea.
The Giantess stood over a loan Hylob. No Waren assaulted her, but she stood determined and ready. When Wist reached her, he pushed her staff aside and said, ‘Haumea, she is gone.’
Confusion wrinkled the Giantess’ face. Then Wist pointed to the crumpled figure behind Haumea. The Hylob lay motionless at her feet, a mask of terror on her face. At least Haumea had spared this Hylob the fate of the Damned.
‘We must try to seal the damage,’ he said. Then he watched the raw grief on Haumea’s face shift to bitter resolve.
‘Yes,’ she said with a grim sigh. As she stood up straight, she placed a hand on the fallen Hylob and muttered a benediction. Then they joined Aviti and Sevika at the mouth of the breach.
As they stood a few yards from the void, the Waren continued to slip by them, making Wist’s skin tingle. He could see Aviti’s fingers twitching. Then the band on her wrist rippled, ready to respond to her anger.
‘What now?’ said Haumea, breaking the Waren’s burgeoning hold over him.
‘We must seal the breach to keep the Waren at bay, but,’ he continued before Aviti could interrupt, ‘we must do so in such a way that the way to the Dhuma remains open. I can see how to do it, but I cannot do it.’
‘What…why?’ said Aviti.
‘We don’t have time Aviti. Every second we waste, damns another Hylob. Just do as I say.’
Then he added, ‘Trust me.’
Either she agreed to do so or she was too tired to resist. She shrugged and said, ‘What now?’
‘Take my hand,’ he said to her. She did so without a pause and as she did so, he grasped Haumea’s staff just below the Giantess’ hand. ‘Now take Sevika’s.’
Aviti whispered a few words to the Intoli and Wist held his breath. This had to work. It must, for he had nothing else.
Sevika extended her overlong digits to Aviti and the Masheshi girl clutched her hand. Wist gasped when the connection was made.
‘Give everything you can to Aviti,’ Wist said to Haumea and Sevika, hoping that the Intoli would guess their intention.
‘Aviti, reach out and feel the tear you have created.’ Wist could almost see the damage she had done. Time, space and reality hung in tatters around the opening to the void, severed from their proper place.
‘I…’ she stammered. ‘I cannot. Do not make me.’ She tried to free herself, but he grasped her hand. Wist could see Sevika doing likewise.
The quartet had drawn the attention of the Waren now. Either they sensed danger to themselves or the power that the four of them contained drew them. They threw themselves at Aviti, but Haumea’s power flared through her staff, beating them back.
‘You can, and you must,’ Wist said. Now was not the time for subtlety, he decided. ‘Reach out and feel the fabric of time and space, it is right there.’ It was the same as the damage he had done with his original exit from this place, back to his own world.
Then he took a step forward and dragged Aviti and the others with him. ‘Do it now,’ he said and took another few steps.
He stopped talking when a fresh attack from the Waren tried to force them back, but Wist drove them on. ‘Now Aviti, now.’
Then Aviti drew on Wist’s strength and he gave it freely to her. Through that link, he felt her reach out to the void. At first, she recoiled from it. Then Aviti redoubled her efforts, probing the edges of the tear.
Wist drew them a final step forward, until they were only an arm’s length from the darkness. It called to him, but its pull was slight and immaterial. Like the doubts that he had carried throughout his life, when he was needed, when he had to be there, he could silence them and carry on.
Then the Waren changed their tactics. A sudden wave of pressure behind them threatened to take them into the darkness. Rather than try to stop them from achieving their ends, the Waren now attempted to force them into the infinite, never to return.
Wist felt, rather than saw, Sevika’s passion soaring in their defence. The Intoli’s action was like ice in his consciousness. It brought a peculiar clarity to his mind, allowing him to ignore the whisperings of the Waren and still the hatred in his heart.
‘Can you feel it there?’ Wist asked Aviti.
She nodded, but he felt her trembling.
The Waren roared behind them, snapping and biting. Their subtle, insidious weapons sheathed, they now sought to inspire despair, but Wist could feel the Waren’s own fear now. They were terrified.
‘Now, connect the edges together Aviti. Bend the material, just like you did with the metal on Decheal’s star. Make it flow and then form it as you wish.’
Fresh screams came from behind them. The Waren had found more life to extinguish and the temptation was too much for them, or perhaps their outrage at all things living could not be contained. Whatever the reason, it bought them a few seconds.
Wist witnessed Aviti attempt to mend the tear she had created. As she did, several Hylob damned stumbled into them. Wist glanced at them, but did not let go of his grip on his companions. Then one of the Damned slipped around their cordon and Wist saw her face. It was pale-skinned Kloss. Her face was slack, but that was only a small detail in the devastation visited upon her flesh. One arm was missing, and a massive gouge exposed most of her innards.
‘No,’ he whispered as Kloss lunged towards the darkness. He had to stop himself reaching out to the lost Hylob as Brach bundled into her and cast them both into oblivion.
‘Wist,’ cried Aviti as her grip slipped. The path that she forged for them could snap back, and if she lost it now, it may tear the mountain down around them.
‘Hold it together for fuck’s sake,’ Wist snapped. ‘Do not lose it now.’ He spoke to her like one of his troops. It wasn’t fair, but it was his only option. ‘Do your part and don’t let us down.’ Wist focused all his energy into Aviti and the others did the same.
Wist heard the desperate cries of the Hylobs mixed with the screams o
f the Waren. He saw reality shift around them, as Aviti melded time and space. Visions of his past, both from his own world and this one, flooded his mind. Visions of Aviti and Tyla, Faric and Nikka mixed with those of his mother and father and his lover. Then a vision of Enceladus merged with a vision of himself, but through all the visions and people he saw, one person was missing. It was as if he had been cut from his mind, and all memories of his brother expunged.
‘Tilden,’ he said as Aviti let go of his hand.
‘It is done,’ said Haumea as she placed her arm around Aviti who sagged.
Wist blinked and readjusted his sight to the dim glow in the chamber. The columns of light were now all a dull ochre, providing barely enough light to make the others’ faces out. As Wist looked around, casting his gaze over his companions and then at the slain Hylobs, he was glad that he couldn’t make out any details of the Hylob’s fate. Piles of them lay in the darkness and he guessed that they had either been killed in a crush, or not enough of them remained for them to suffer the fate of the Damned.
The Waren were gone; either banished or fled. Their opportunity had gone or the threat to their existence had passed.
A scuffling noise behind them caught Wist’s attention. He whirled to see a shape moving in the gloom. A Hylob shuffled up to them and dragged itself past. It entered the path that Aviti had created, stumbling past the spherical opening that extended out as far as the dim light would let them see.
Haumea scooped up Aviti and held her in her outstretched arms. Aviti looked as though she were asleep. Wist put his hand on her head, but his numb fingers could tell nothing about her fate.
‘You did well,’ said Haumea, ‘but do not push the girl beyond her limits. If she breaks…’
‘I know,’ he snapped back at Haumea. ‘Do you think I enjoyed that?’
‘I did not mean to chastise you Wist, only to offer a word of counsel.’
‘I know,’ he repeated, but his voice had mellowed. ‘And I thank you for it.’
The Damned Hylobs began to stream past them now. Four and five at a time walked into the opening and then vanished into the shade.
‘Where are they going?’ asked Haumea.
‘The same place as us, I guess,’ Wist replied.
‘To the Dhuma?’
‘Yes. Makes as much sense as anything else right now.
‘We have nothing to take with us,’ said Haumea as the tide of the Damned buffeted her. ‘I have some water, but no food.’
‘Then water shall have to do. Can you carry her?’ he said, nodding at the prostrate Aviti in her arms.
‘I am a Giant,’ said Haumea, laughing. ‘I could do no less.’ The Giantess manoeuvred her way to the wall at the side of the circular hole. There, she lay Aviti down for a moment and pulled a brand from her pack, and then she set about lighting it.
‘Sevika,’ Wist shouted across the tide of lost souls, ‘come with us.’ The Intoli nodded so he hoped that she had understood his intentions.
‘Move,’ shouted Wist. ‘Move.’
Haumea managed to light her torch and then she scooped up Aviti in one arm. And on they marched, over the threshold. The ground changed from the dark volcanic stone to smooth amber sandstone – not that any of the Damned took any notice - they just plodded on.
Wist was forced to march along with the legions of the Damned. The Hylobs were all stooped over, their elongated arms bashed their legs and their knuckles dragged along the ground.
‘Their fate is no worse than any of the other People of this land, or all of the other lands,’ said Haumea.
Wist didn’t have an answer for her, not that it was a question. He was more interested in Sevika. The Intoli’s stretched facial features were so difficult to read, but he thought he saw something in her expression. It could be determination, or it could just be hate, but there was a new intensity to the Intoli, and that gave Wist hope.
The jostling of the Damned settled down after a while. The more intact Damned pushed their way past them and those closer to dissolution fell behind. Wist laughed as he determined their place in the pecking order of the dead.
The straight tunnel went on forever. It did not vary in width or direction, nor did the colour change, nor the pitch differ. The march of the dead just went on.
As the first of Haumea’s torches burned out, Aviti woke. Haumea placed her on the ground and she sat up.
‘This is what I… created?’ asked Aviti as she glanced around.
‘Were you hoping for something more – palatial?’ Wist said with a broad smile.
Aviti gave him a weak grin, but she looked at Sevika. Then she talked for a few moments with the Intoli. Wist was sure that if he concentrated enough he could have understood the Intoli language, but each time he pushed at it, it slipped away from him.
‘She says we are going the right way.’
‘Good,’ Wist replied.
‘She can see our end there. If we go to the Dhuma, we will not emerge.’
‘Tell her not to come then. Set her free.’
Aviti glanced between the Intoli and Wist, and then back and forth between them again. ‘I cannot let her go,’ she said and then buried her head into her hands. Then she lifted her head and added, ‘and she will not let me continue without her.’
‘Wist,’ she began again. ‘What are we heading to? I cannot… I cannot do that again.’
‘I don’t know what we will find. Perhaps you should all wait here and hope I can deal with it myself?’ said Wist.
Haumea roared with laughter.
‘God-dammit Haumea, I’m not joking. How many more deaths do I need to carry? Do I need to add you to my tally as well?’
‘Who said this was your choice Wist?’ Haumea asked. ‘Do not presume that you have the right to take the only thing that I have left from me.’
‘He is only trying to take everything onto himself,’ Aviti interjected. Then she paused for a moment when one of the Damned, who continued to file past them, tripped over her outstretched foot. Then the Hylob continued along on its hands and knees.
‘Wist. I nearly failed back there,’ she continued.
‘No,’ Wist began, but Aviti shouted over him.
‘No. Without you, without Sevika, without Haumea, I would have been lost. I do not even remember what happened after the Damned appeared. All I could think of was my family and how much I have lost.’
‘But you did it,’ said Wist. ‘I just wish I could spare some of you.’
‘Very noble,’ said Haumea, some of her earlier humour returning. ‘Can you walk?’ Haumea asked Aviti.
Aviti nodded and got to her feet. Then she accepted the arm that Haumea offered her.
Then they continued on, the four of them, stretched across the tunnel. The Damned that accompanied them strode off into the distance, their pace being far slower now that Aviti walked with them. No new Damned passed them, but they could still here the scraping of their bones on the stone in the distance.
‘I miss my parents,’ said Aviti to no-one in particular.
‘I miss my father,’ Wist replied, ‘and I barely knew him.’
‘There are many people that I miss,’ said Haumea joining in. ‘Some of them I still hope to see again. I know it is a vain hope, but when all else is gone, and the world is dark, what else do we have to cling to, but hope? I will hold my hope close to my heart.’
‘Sing something for me Haumea,’ said Wist.
The Giantess drew a breath and then said, ‘I do not find the surroundings inspiring.’
‘Then think of your home Haumea. Sing us a song that will take us there.’
Silence fell between them for a few moments before Haumea said. ‘This is all I can recall just now. Then she started to sing.
A fond kiss, and then we sever!
A farewell, and then forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope, she leaves him?
Me, not cheerful twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.
I never blame my partial fancy:
Nothing could resist her I see!
But to see her was to love her
Love but her and love for ever.
Had we never loved so kindly.
Had we never loved so blindly,
Never met - or never parted
We had never been broken-hearted.
Fare thee well, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee well, thou best and dearest!
Thine be both, joy and treasure.
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!
A fond kiss, and then we sever!
A farewell, alas, forever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I pledge thee.
Warring sighs and groans I wage thee.
Wist clapped at the conclusion of the song. ‘That too is from my home. It’s almost exactly the same. If I could just think of the poet’s name.’ But then he heard Haumea sobbing. ‘Why are you crying Haumea?’
‘No reason,’ said Haumea, ‘but, all this talk of home upsets me.’
Wist withheld his next question and contented himself in listening to the tap, tap, tapping of Haumea’s staff.
After a few more hours of silent walking, they stopped to let Haumea light her final torch. As she did, the pitch on it flared, throwing light twice as far as the old, dying brand had. Wist gasped when he saw that the sandstone tunnel came to an abrupt halt about a hundred yards from them. At first, he thought it was another black hole cut into reality, but then he saw the torchlight reflecting back to him; specs of yellow light dancing in the distance.
22 - Forget the Night Ahead
The light from Haumea’s torch sparkled all around them as they walked on. Aviti marvelled as the spots appeared and then vanished before her eyes. A bitter wind howled down the broken corridor that led away from the tunnel they had just emerged from. It had been neither warm nor cold in there.
Aviti had felt so little in there. Everything had been so distant, but the chill in the air brought everything back to her.
She had no cloak to help her hide from the wind. All of her winter clothes were in the Hylob’s lands. Discarded in Kloss’ chambers, she thought. Aviti might not have seen Kloss die, but all of the Hylobs who had been near her when she had broken the wall suffered the same fate. Her and all her kin. Another race decimated: the Lyrats, the proud independent desert people; the Cerni, the dark dwarves that lived atop the mountain; the Giants, Haumea’s race, those who had not died, were freezing to death in the now barren land of Pyrite; and the Intoli, they were left leaderless and broken.
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