by Dan O'Brien
“It is in you. That blood is potent,” replied Daniel, a reverence now in his eyes.
E’Malkai scoffed and stood away from the fire.
“E’Malkai sien,” pressured Elcites.
The youth would hear none of it. Shaking his hand back at his guardian, he waved him away as thoughts coursed through his mind. “I cannot accept this,” he whispered to himself.
Elcites was already at his side. The giant crept so much like a mouse; it was uncanny. “You mustn’t worry about these things now. Survival on the tundra is foremost.”
E’Malkai longed for the embrace of the darkness then, the cold end to his thoughts. There would be no reprieve, and he knew that. The path that he was now on was the same one on which he had always been. The first Armen began the journey, and it would not end until they were no more. It was his legacy. “I will do this. But, I hope that no one will be disappointed when I do not turn out to be this messiah that you all hope for.”
“We can ask no more of you than what you are willing to give, my sien.”
E’Malkai laughed, not one of happiness, but of spite. The guardian’s words were philosophy, no more an answer than anyone else had been able to give him. “We leave at first light?”
The guardian nodded.
“I wish to rest until then.”
He was gone before his guardian could answer, escaping into the darkness around Linar. Leaving Elcites alone with his thoughts, E’Malkai thought of the two soldiers of the northern gate: the guardians of the gate to the prison of the tundra.
ⱷ
Fe’rein
The halls of the Intelligence were aflame as Fe’rein stalked down them. His anger was twice whatever the Intelligence was capable of. Their method of contacting him was one that was mind-numbing at the very least, like a thousand voices screaming at once.
T’elen had fled from Culouth.
He wished to pursue her, but the damnable tribunal of the Intelligence had summoned him before he could. Instead, he walked down the sullen, grotesque halls. The white-washed brilliance he had witnessed before now ran with rivers of blood and shadow flame, much like the power that possessed him.
Their chambers had changed as well.
The great pit that had separated them was now a fiery maze. He stalked through it, ignoring the writhing, whining tones of whatever show the Intelligence wished to create. He had neither the time nor the patience for such endeavors. His mind had a singular purpose, to lay waste to the harlot general.
They came into view abruptly.
Their forms were no longer the suspended replication of faces, but instead three figures. One was a child, a small girl. Her flower dress dragged on the ground. She could not have been more than ten years old, had she been a human. The next was a man of average height. He wore the clothes of a peasant. His grizzled gray features made him look like a grandfather. The last was a creature bathed in shadow, a cloaked figure. Red eyes stared out as Fe’rein approached.
“Our instrument, Fe’rein,” began the grandfather.
Fe’rein sliced his hand through the air in anger, his voice razor sharp. “I have no time for games. The woman has fled the city.”
“You have greater concerns,” giggled the child. Fe’rein eyed her harshly; however, she did not waver beneath his cruel stare.
“Kyien conspires against you,” growled the shadowed form.
“Kyien, that fool,” whispered Fe’rein.
“The woman general has been hurt. She will take long to heal,” called the grandfather.
“The child is of consequence,” snapped the shadow.
“What child?” asked Fe’rein, confusion buzzing in his mind.
“The child of Armen,” answered the girl.
Fe’rein wished to strangle the giggle out of her, but he knew they were only guises. “E’Malkai,” replied Fe’rein uncertainly.
“Yes. The one born to inherit the power you stole. He is the key. He is the determinant.”
Fe’rein’s power fluxed. The aura of his shadow energy filled the room, and he seethed within it. “I stole no power.”
“It matters not; from that source is the child. He will awaken the power of Terra. He will bind you to the shadow and cast Light over this world again,” conceded the grandfather, his eyes an eerie yellow.
“She said that he was dead,” retorted Fe’rein, the arc of his power fading.
“Did you believe her?” chided the child.
“Never. She has a sharp tongue,” snapped Fe’rein.
“Are you too blind to see his power, the small glimmer that it is?” challenged the shadow, his anger transparent.
Fe’rein stumbled.
His mind had been so consumed by T’elen that he had forgotten all about E’Malkai. He had witnessed the birth of the true tsang in the boy and he had ignored it as nothing more than a passing event.
“We see inside you, child of shadow. We know that you have forgotten, that you have seen his awakening and have done nothing about it––except battle like a barbarian,” scolded the grandfather.
Fe’rein held his tongue.
He knew that he had been played for a fool.
“Restraint, the first that you have shown in some time,” commented the shadow.
“You must find the boy. He travels as we speak beyond the bounds of our power, of our influence,” interjected the child.
“The tundra,” whispered Fe’rein.
“To the birthplace of the power he seeks.” They did not speak in turn as they did before, no synchronicity in their words.
“The mother knows much. She hides it well,” spoke the grandfather.
“As does the guardian,” added the child.
“You must destroy this boy before he unravels our existence. Destroy him and the Fallen,” articulated the shadow.
“I cannot find the Fallen,” responded Fe’rein, for the first time feeling like a servant to the Intelligence.
“You were born there. Surely you can find your way home,” mocked the child.
He restrained himself again.
Twice in one day, quite a record.
“For the safety of the tribe only one man was given the location of the tunnel into the Fallen each generation. When that man died than another would learn it.”
The Intelligence understood.
“The one you stole from knows its location….”
“Yes.” Fe’rein bit back the anger he felt boiling in his chest.
The howl of a thousand voices echoed, and a great weight struck Fe’rein. He closed his eyes against the darkness that had embraced him. When he opened them, the Intelligence had vanished. He hung in the air just above the shaft that led deep into their keep.
ⱷ
E’Malkai
The northern marker was nothing more than a twenty-five foot pole that stuck out through the snow. It was black with a faded yellow stripe running its length and a windy sail at its top. The sail was a black cloth with a red splotch at its center.
It was truly a curious thing.
Elcites plowed ahead as before, but now the trench he carved was not as great. The tides of the snow had begun to rise and made for a miserable and slow trek toward the marker.
The guardian grabbed a hold of the pole, putting in stark relief the sheer size of the tubular structure. His grizzled features surveyed it, and he turned back to E’Malkai. The youth seemed much smaller on the tundra. Huddled and hunched from the pack, his features were hidden from the cold.
“This is the northern marker,” he called.
The boy’s eyes were sullen.
“This is where you leave me.”
The response was hollow.
The guardian nodded, noting that the temperature had dropped considerably since they had begun to skirt the tundra. The difference was evident even through his layers of fur. “You have to travel much farther before you reach the Fallen.”
The youth nodded.
He did not have the right w
ords.
“There is a tribe about three day’s journey northeast of here alongside what they call the Hall of Spines, a canyon whose jagged cliffs cut through the land. Their entrance, like most of the tribes on the tundra, is hidden. They will find you.”
“Why would they help me?” queried E’Malkai, having to scream to be heard.
“Show them your father’s knife; that will grant you passage. You may have to pass trials, or some sort of ritual of strength. Just remember the trials of Tal’marath, the techniques I have shown you. They will aid you there.”
“Are you certain they will help me?”
“I cannot be certain of anything. This was your mother’s idea. She has wished this since you were very young, that you return to the Fallen,” he conceded with a shrug of his mighty shoulders. He unlatched his pack and began to stuff supplies into the smaller pack that he intended to give to E’Malkai.
The youth watched in horror.
This was the end of their journey together.
Had it not been so cold, E’Malkai would have wept.
The tears were inevitable.
He accepted the pack numbly.
Letting Elcites attach it, E’Malkai faced his guardian once more. “If you spot overhangs and caves along your way, use them for shelter. Do not press on unless you have to, and take it slow. The tundra is a foul place.”
The words were muddled over the driving winds, but the youth nodded all the same. He lunged forward and hugged his guardian. This was his last act as a boy, finding comfort from his protector.
As he pulled away, E’Malkai would later swear that he saw emotion in the giant’s eyes. He lowered his head into the wind and stepped slowly at first before he found a steady pace. Looking back only once more at the dark, fading form of his guardian, he embraced his journey.
ⱷ
Arile
The Hall of Spines was a fitting name. There were hundreds of thousands of spikes, some thin and some bulbous. The opening itself was littered with snow banks and patches of blackened ice.
A shadow passed across the walls of ice, reflecting images large and small like in a house of mirrors. Serpentine features stared out: pale white skin and ravenous dark eyes of a tribal warrior, breath reeking of the death that he consumed.
His brown hair was long and ragged.
His light beard touched his chest as he leaned down. He wore a dull gray suit beneath a black coat. He carried a long, thin spear, much like an Umordoc’s. The spear point was tied tight by a black strip of fabric, stiffened from the cold. Animal skulls adorned it, clacking against one another as he leapt and moved.
Rolling beneath the spines he came up again and struck his spear against a jagged outcropping, which receded into the wall. He disappeared within. A warm cavern greeted him as the wall of ice fell back into place behind him.
Torches illuminated the cavern at intervals of several feet, creating pockets of light and dark. He moved forward in and out of the shadow, the thoughtful look on his face remaining throughout.
He walked for a short time before the tunnel emerged into a larger room and then into another. Each contained only skulls of fallen prey and huddled people, their blankets and coats drawn around them. The humidity caused condensation to build up on the walls. Puddles of mud were rampant throughout.
The veritable maze of tunnels came to an abrupt end as the last room shrank down like the initial entrance. Fabric lay across an even smaller opening, one that led into a deeper darkness.
The room was constructed with the same rock as all the others, except that heat poured from the walls. He hesitated only long enough to bend his spear down and push aside the fabric. As he did so, he ducked his head, making his height more apparent.
He was an anomaly as E’Malkai was.
The room he entered was bathed in a crimson glow. Pale smoke danced at the edge of the ceiling, and a fire burned at its center. Behind the fire sat a quiet man, his black skin marred with white lines of tattoos. Dark braided hair lay across his face. His hands rested on his crossed legs; the sand around his body was agitated.
“Huntsman Arile, you have returned,” spoke the man to the hunter, lifting his head. His gray pupils looked eerie behind the veil of flame. He shuffled bones that he held in his hands and tossed them on the earth, cracking them together. He regarded them quickly before scooping them back up. “What did you see on the tundra, White One?”
Arile paused and placed his spear beside him as he sat down, cross-legged. “Reverent S’rean, there are whispers on the winds.”
S’rean was the leader of the Utiakth tribe, a brethren tribe of the Fallen. The majority of the Utiakth were strong hunters. Whereas the Fallen rarely sent more than one warrior onto the tundra, the Utiakth were known to send many.
Arile was an outcast from a long dead, far northern tribe, a nomad congregation that had been called the Re’klu’hereun in the old tongue. They were called the listeners of the winds by the other villages and tribes.
S’rean rolled his bones again.
“What do they whisper of?”
“They whisper of strangers on the tundra.”
The old man picked up his bones with a quick swipe of his hand and regarded Arile with a hard eye. He was old for his kind. The white hunters did not last long. He was the only one among the Utiakth who was so pale despite his constant hunts in the snow.
It was said that Arile had been beyond the end of the world. They whispered that he had reached the black marker of the underworld to the south.
“Did you see tracks?”
The white hunter shook his head. “I went beyond the Hall of Spines into the southern regions. There are no tracks, yet the winds told me that soon someone would walk on the tundra.” The man looked around in a sudden panic and then spoke again. “The Ti’ere’yuernen spoke of a Creator walking the snow once more, of the return of the Believer to the Fallen.”
This development was interesting to S’rean, and he eyed Arile circumspectly. The hunter was spooked. His wide eyes betrayed his strong stature. “The winds spoke of the Shaman?”
The man shook his head.
The myths of the Re’klu’hereun were tied very closely to the beginnings of things. Some say the Shaman himself walked among that tribe many eons ago, among them the Elders of Utiakth. However, the listeners of the winds still used the old language. They believed that the Shaman was not the same thing, that he was only the vessel of the true Ti’ere’yuernen.
“Then what did they speak of?”
“The winds spoke in the old tongues. They said that the dark spirit of men, Gagnion’Fe’rein, had risen; that the Ti’ere’yuernen had summoned the first Creator. The Believer is to walk amongst us again,” replied the man, visibly shaken.
And the strangeness continues, thought S’rean.
“I am not familiar with the Gagnion’Fe’rein.”
The man sighed, an act that seemed only to increase his horror. “When Terra entrusted her energies to the Ti’ere’yuernen, it was with the knowledge that evil could take it as well. Though in taking, evil would limit itself. As eons passed and Creators came and went, making what they wished of the world, the lessons of the Ti’ere’yuernen faltered. The uses of the essence of Terra became darker and darker.”
Arile continued. “When the Umordoc came to Terra, there was a great upheaval. The Ti’ere’yuernen was buried and with him the crystal rooms of the Shaman, where the power was stored. When my tribe fell, the ancient texts were buried––texts that foretold the coming of the Gagnion’Fe’rein and the final battle between the Light and the Darkness, between the Tomorrow and the Shadow.”
S’rean situated himself against the wall, drawing his legs against his chest. He knew that this was a prophecy that required much conversation.
“The texts say that the essence would be waiting for the first Creator after the planet had been ravaged by a war with those who were not meant to control Terra. That war has already come to pass; the Umo
rdoc were not of this world, and they defeated men. The time of the First has returned, and that is what the winds speak of. They say that he comes at this very moment––his feet walk on the ice and snow.”
S’rean looked at the bones in his hand and realized what he had discerned, what the sudden shift in so much of their lives had been. The world was not in balance. This Gagnion’Fe’rein was perhaps the source of it, using the energy of the earth for its will. “We must send out more to search. If he walks, then he must come here.”
“The Creator walks where he wishes, Reverent S’rean. You cannot bend the will of a Believer to what he does not wish,” vocalized Arile. He did not wish to offend the hierarchy of the Utiakth, but the beliefs of his people could not be ignored.
“No man can survive out there. He will need shelter,” reasoned S’rean, feeling distrust of the hunter for the first time. His beliefs had not interfered with the will of the Utiakth before.
“Perhaps, before the pilgrimage they are just men,” acquiesced Arile.
“Arrange to have more men…”
The hunched figure of S’rean was interrupted as an ebony warrior burst in from behind the fabrics. His words moved his mouth before the reverent S’rean could silence him. “Someone is approaching the Hall of Spines, Reverent S’rean,” spoke the man.
S’rean stood up, his frustration at the warrior’s rude entrance already forgotten. “A man….” He looked down at Arile. They were out the entrance and moving through the tunnels before another word could be spoken.
ⱷ
Duirin
T’elen looked less like a punching bag as she emerged from the closed door within Dean’s residence. Almost two days after she had crawled her way through the snow and found her way to Duirin, she still wore scores of wrapped bandages concealed nicely by her garb. The sheath of her blade was back in its proper place.
“Not bad. I feel a little worn, but I should be able to move well enough for what I need to do,” she spoke, brushing past Dean and Leane.