The Tessellation Saga. Book Two. 'The One'

by D. J. Ridgway

  ‘Somewhere up there Blue, is yet another hole in the barrier!’ He said softly, acknowledging the single candle of pure light in the desolation surrounding them, he felt ill knowing that as the moonbeam penetrated the broken barrier, so was the void sucking the life in from outside the dome, eventually it would suck everything through and leave the whole planet as desolate and dead as this place was.

  Finally, the book reached the silver patch of moonlight and Sonal stared as the wolf leaned even closer and began to breathe over it, soft snuffling and sharp short barks, the soft whuff of each breath accompanied a gentle howl, each conveying something to the inanimate object. The book suddenly began to change colour, from its bland undistinguishing dirty leather to a brilliant green and gold, the intricacy of the pattern on the cover now a recognisable gateway and with a huge number of the brilliant hexagons almost at the point of tessellation, almost ready to open. Immediately the wolf began to wag his tail high, his tongue lolled from the side of his mouth and he drooled.

  ‘What is it boy?’ A bemused Sonal asked, the colours of the book reminding him again of the vision he had witnessed back in his home beside the Green Home Forest. He knew without looking that if he picked up the book now and opened it would at last be full of writing, he still would not be able to read it, but the writing would be there. With the glorious book still green, gold and shining brightly in the centre of the pale silvery moon beam, the wolf began to frolic like a puppy and gambol playfully, madly. Finally, it slowed and bowed low placing the front of its body down to the ground, while holding its rear high, its tail still wagging furiously whilst its brilliant blue eyes shone with pleasure. He’s smiling! The thought crossed Sonal’s mind as suddenly Blue stopped, his ears alert and erect, his fur suddenly bristling, Sonal watched, his own fear mounting as the wolf he had known for years curled his lips back and snarled, a long low sound that sent shivers down his spine. The wolf before him seemed to double in size, as the hairs on the animals back seemed to puff out and expand, his tail pointed straight out behind him giving him length, its muscles taut and quivering, it was ready to fight.

  ‘Come on Blue, we have outstayed our welcome I fear.’ Sonal said quietly as picked up the book, absently noting the beauteous colours vanishing before his eyes, he replaced it deep inside his jerkin pocket and began to move away, back the way they had come. He moved awkwardly now, the lack of air making him slow. Through the thick fog he moved, exertion making his heart rate quicken and his breathing labour even more as he staggered back toward the opening in the wall. It seemed so far away, the wall has expanded so far, Sonal thought remembering how as a young man, he and the other guardians had had to walk almost half a day past their house to reach it. It has expanded a day’s walk since I was young, how is this possible? His thoughts continued as he strove to keep ahead of the wolf. Now and then, his heavy body protested and he had to stop for breath but the wolf pushed him on relentlessly, Sonal had the feeling something was following them but did not want to stop to find out what.

  The eerie silence surrounded them, broken only by the inescapable hiss that seemed to be everywhere; a soft gentle sound that caressed the eardrums belying the danger it represented. If the earth was a balloon in the hands of the void, then the air was escaping at an alarming rate and all too soon, the balloon would be flat, earth, like the balloon, would die.

  At last, the wall was in sight and both Sonal and Blue quickened their pace with Blue, as ever taking the rear. Standing just inside the rent in the fabric of the wall Sonal suddenly felt the full force of the void’s pull. With his body pushing against the current of air he struggled to step through the tear until a tremendous push at his back had him over and on the dead earth outside the hole once more with Blue standing over him. Tired but free from the pull of the valley he immediately stood and stared back the way he had come.

  ‘If I can do nothing else I can do this…,’ he said to the wolf as he prepared himself to perform a spell he had not spoken in what seemed a lifetime. The wolf paced back and forth giving off soft breathy whuff’s and sharp clicks as his teeth ground together, it was impatient to be off and letting Sonal know it. Sonal attempted to concentrate until irritated by the constant movement in his peripheral vision he turned to the wolf and hissed.

  ‘Will you stay still, it’s hard enough without you fidgeting…’ turning back to the wall, he smiled to himself hearing his father in his words, as he attempted to teach an unwilling boy the correct intonations.

  ‘Father, I’m ready now,’ he whispered softly to himself before looking at the wolf and adding, ‘you know I was born for this Blue.’ Then placing his fingertips together to aid his concentration he began to sing, a low melodious hum began building slowly, each note pure and clear as his fingers began to weave patterns in the air. Blue could see the fabric being created before his eyes as Sonal sang, each note adding strength to the weft and the weave of the threads as if they were on an invisible loom. As a wolf, he could see in colour but not well, so the silver and gold threads before him that glowed softly as Sonal wove the delicate lace like fabrics, he knew, would be dazzling to behold in his human form.

  The music swirled around them and swept into the hole, it grew in volume and power as it entered the valley, resonating from within, echoing the new notes that Sonal sang, each chord adding its own power and beauty. The wall itself responded as each sound melded and formed new lines, shimmering iridescent strands adding power to the old broken threads weaving strength, healing and repair. The power seemed to double and treble as the song stimulated the tired and faded threads of the original spell structure. Then, finally, the gossamer fabric, like fine silk cobwebs overlay the tear in the fabric of the dome, Blue could see the strain on Sonal’s face as he struggled to make the bindings stay, the intense pull from the void making the melding of the repair almost impossible.

  Still Sonal sang and gently lowering himself to the floor pushed his fingers into the dusty dead ground. He felt something changing, pulling on him, draining him slightly, the balance… he thought as he sank further onto his knees in the struggle. Suddenly he felt lifted as another voice joined his and the task before him began to fall into place as each thread joined and combined, fusing together blending the old with the new. The light from the moon caught the pearlescent fabric and the whole section of wall glowed with a lustre unseen for many years. Blue continued to whuff and bark softly in time with Sonal’s music of strength and love, finally and with a tremendous bang, the hole sealed closed, just as if a door had slammed shut before them. Still on his knees, Sonal looked at the wolf and a slow smile spread over his face.

  ‘My father would have been proud to know you Thaddrick,’ he said, as the wolf moved toward him and lay on the ground, sphinx like with exhaustion, his tongue lolling long and wet out of the side of his mouth. Sonal rubbed the wolf between the ears and made no attempt to rise, he just stared at the shining wonder before him glowing pale and shimmering like silver.

  ‘Looks solid, as if nothing could ever pass through it, eh boy?’ He said softly, knowing the lie of the words, knowing from experience the wall and the hard-earned repair would not last long. Time is running out for us and for the world, maybe for both worlds. What happened here father? Where did the Guardians go, did they give up and run away? Just as I once ran away…’ A single tear ran down his face reflecting the light from the iridescent wall before him and he pondered guiltily about his family and other ‘guardian’ families he had grown up alongside; they had all vanished, broken up and dispersed just as the wall they had once given their lives to protect was doing. Finally, as Blue licked his hand and he looked into the animal’s deep blue eyes he understood. ‘It’s ‘Journeys Will’ Blue, that’s it isn’t it, the Guardians were not meant to continually struggle to mend a failing wall, I was meant to leave, meant to find ‘the one,’ meant to find Gideon to help guard him as he grew so he can fulfil the prophecy, he can close the gateways forever.’

  Blue lowe
red his heavy head and licked Sonal’s hand once again. ‘It’s alright now Blue, I really do understand.’ Sonal said and stared at the dome once again wishing his peace and blessings for a swift journey to the people he had once loved and left.

  At last, the wolf stood and urged Sonal to move by placing his nose under the arm of the tired man and pushing hard.

  ‘Blue, I’m grateful you pushed me out of the hole but I can walk unaided …,’ Sonal said as he stood and walked away from the wall, even now slightly duller than it had been during the making of the spell. Smiling weakly, moving slowly and clearly exhausted, Sonal began to follow the wolf as it made its way back along the narrow path. Abruptly Blue stopped, turned and padded quietly to a rocky outcrop near the edge of the track, his gaze out over the base of the mountain and on to the pass so far below, his ears alert and forward. Sonal moved on unaware the wolf had stopped until a gentle, whuff drew his attention. Sonal turned and gasped, he looked at the silhouette of the wolf standing firm and solid with the great barrier softly glowing behind him. Blue’s outline wavered and shimmered and somehow Sonal could see the human man underneath the body of the magnificent wolf. He again remembered his vision of so long ago, he and another person standing before the Bleak watching the great wall as it shimmered and shone, beautiful and deadly in the moonlight.

  ‘It was you in my vision wasn’t it boy, it was you!’ He said as he moved slowly toward the wolf, still tired from his run to the wall and the exertion of the song, as he neared the mound and stood beside the wolf, Blue jumped at him forcing him to the ground.

  ‘Hey!’ Sonal called as he fell heavily onto the hard rocks at the base of the rise, Blue returned to his previous position and once more looked down the mountain and into the pass now illuminated fully by the moonlight. Sonal leaned forward to join him. ‘Can you see a rabb...?’ Sonal began in jest, rubbing his sore backside and he stopped abruptly as he realised below him and encamped on the plains before the pass was a huge army; flags flew above tents that gleamed white in the moonlight, ‘Gath,’ he said unnecessarily. As they watched, small figures began to move around the camp and lights began to glow from tiny fires as one by one they were put to flame, then the figures began to swarm toward the mountain itself and slowly they began to climb.

  ‘Maybe they heard the song, felt the magic…’ Sonal began as both he and the wolf moved quickly off the mound and back along the path that led to the hidden gateway.

  As before, Sonal watched in wonder as the gateway opened, he thought he would never see anything as beautiful as the moment the shiny black hexagons amid their rivers of molten gold finally tessellated and snapped shut becoming the solid but liquid surface. Again, both Blue and Sonal passed through to the valley and as a man once more, Thaddrick closed the portal, forgetting in his excitement over his newly found book to conceal the evidence of the gateway’s existence in the ether.

  ‘It has begun,’ Thaddrick said as he turned to the man he thought of as a nephew, noticing for the first time shots of silvery white running through his normally thick dark blonde hair, the balance, he used himself for the balance, he thought, sadly remembering the passion of Sonal’s song as he repaired the damaged section of the dome. Solemnly, Sonal withdrew the book from his jerkin and passed it to the old man.

  ‘I truly forgot I had it until I heard you mention it this evening. I wasn’t even sure it was the book you spoke of, because the pages are all blank,’ he said and he stared at Thaddrick’s hands as they caressed the cover, watching in amazement as at once the book seemed to take on a life of its own, with the colours returning and glowing vibrantly. Thaddrick smiled and flicked through the leaves, writing appeared page by page as his fingers touched them and disappeared again as his fingers passed on.

  ‘With this once more, we may yet succeed…, we must succeed,’ Thaddrick answered as he put his arm around Sonal’s shoulders and drew him back toward the whitewashed buildings and the still rising sun.

  Chapter 33

  The Crystal Rages

  Deep inside the domed basin, within a stone chamber carved from the living rock of the mountain, a crystal sat on a stone plinth, its silver cap black with tarnish and dirt. Once it was clear and clean, its silver bright and shining in the radiant sunshine, once it was full of pure energy used for the good of all. The evil soul it now held imprisoned within its confines had existed for many, many years and over time had learned to use the crystals magic for itself. It used the remaining power little by little to dominate the weak-minded creatures that eked out an existence in the almost toxic atmosphere within the dome that surrounded the once green and fertile valley.

  The crystal was aging as the power it held lessened and the spelled barrier broke down, becoming less of a prison than it had always been and as the spell waned, the once solid crystal was becoming more and more like pretty glass, fragile and brittle. The entity had waited; it had waited patiently for many, many years and now knew that it would soon be free to begin its spree of revenge. The magic of the crystal had done more than just imprison it, it had enabled it to absorb the souls of those who touched it, absorb the energies of the weak. Already the entity was more powerful than it had been as it had emerged from the void into the dead lands of the Bleak and found its host. It had travelled the void for an eternity seeking a way home, a way to exact its revenge on the mortal men it hated most.

  Across the void, it had felt the call, felt the life flowing through the small hole in the fabric of the void like a ribbon of brilliance, lighting up the darkness, full of emotion and exuberance. The world itself had called to it and the entity had swum up the stream following its call remembering emotions it had long forgotten, feeling life in the thousands of memories and feelings from souls lost on their journey. Memories of a life it had once lived began to resurface, the call of a crow, the flowing of blood as a knife slit a vein, the sound of a woman screaming in agony as it cut away her unborn child. All things it remembered and the memories became a mercy to it, cast out as it was into the void for all time and time meant nothing, a minute, an hour, a century, in the void, time did not exist.

  The memories grew greater as it neared the source of the stream it followed, the love of its mother as she held her first-born, the feel of her arms as they caressed the infant it had been. The curiosity at the mother’s swollen belly that was to be its sibling, then the new baby, the one that had taken its mother’s life and its sadness and confusion at its mother’s disappearance and the disdain of its father when it had looked for love and comfort. The pain it had felt for the ever neglected children, its loneliness, the hate that grew for her; the sibling who had caused its pain. Then it tasted greed and envy, loving the feel of the dark emotions caressing its being, it tasted the lust it had felt for that human sibling as she had grown more and more like the mother who had died birthing her and it remembered taking her... Then rage filled it as it recalled its separation, its immortal soul, torn from his mortal body and the pure malevolence it felt toward the twelve who had cheated it of life. It remembered Dèvin, Théoden’s son, willing his own death to trap it in his own human form.

  Then it remembered waiting

  For the entity, time had begun once again when Thaddrick had cast it into the crystal.

  ***

  The soul of Théoden’s son had been silent for a millennium. At first, it had fought to be free, free to begin its pathetic journey, such sacrifice and noble indeed, the entity thought, deeply sarcastic. It had not really believed such sacrifice could exist, it vaguely remembered as a mortal being taught about balance and sacrifice, the act of giving something up for someone else but it could not comprehend the why of it, Dèvin for example, why would you knowingly trap your own soul?

  It fought through its vast vocabulary for the right word to describe what it was, as, such as, as… I. That’s it, I…I… I. Am. Medim. I, I will soon be free and I will take my place amongst my own kind once more. It glorified in remembering its once human name.

>   The soul that was Dèvin stayed silent and hidden in the depths of the crystal. It would have sacrificed its body again and again to keep the monster away from other people. While still human himself he had been the vessel that the entity had used long ago in its attempt to kill his uncle Thaddrick. It constantly lived the thoughts of the evil one as it coerced and planned the death of its captives and they were captives, these poor deranged folk left behind when the Guardians finally abandoned the wall and the lake had gone, dried up like the life that leeched away into the void.

  Dèvin’s soul knew regret and sorrow, lamenting his heady youth that had almost caused the barrier spell to fail. Yes, the vanity was mine, mine was the fault, I allowed my body to be vulnerable to it as I attempted to close the gateway, using a magic I was never strong enough to undertake. Dèvin’s soul mourned for every other spirit that perished, every soul absorbed by the evil of Medim, knowing he must share the blame and knowing that soon the crystal would shatter, no longer able to withstand the constant barraging from Medim’s spirit. Slowly the evil had eroded the crystal’s timeless surface

  Soon, soon now… It, Medim, began to laugh gleefully, even as it felt the disturbance in the roots of magic as Sonal sang and cast his spell.

  A resounding boom and suddenly the barrier felt strengthened, Medim’s soul felt the wards surrounding the crystal tighten and toughen, it screamed in rage and fury as the soul of Dèvin quietly smiled.

  The crystal turned purple and black, the colours swirling sickeningly fast inside the twelve-sided stone sending shadows with an almost palpable intensity of pure hate the like of which had not been felt before.